David Grusch

The former U.S. intelligence officer turned Pentagon UAP whistleblower

Name	David Grusch
Age	38
Born	Year 1987
Famous for	Filed the whistleblower complaint regarding the retrieval of non-human intelligence technology

On June 5, 2023, The Debrief published a news article that dropped a shocking revelation about the U.S. government’s actions regarding UAPs. The news article, Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Craft of Non-Human Origin, is the first of many to cover this topic and the man who revealed it: retired Major David Grusch.

Two years later, on April 3, 2025, a NewsNation documentary featured an exclusive interview with the said intelligence officer.

In both news stories, Grusch made several allegations regarding the U.S. government and alien life (or non-human intelligence, as they prefer to call it in the UAP Task Force).

His Background and Credibility

David Grusch served as an intelligence officer for 14 years, including becoming…

• A senior intelligence officer for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
• A senior intelligence capabilities integration officer for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

He became involved in UAPs when he served as NRO’s representative to the UAP Task Force, now renamed the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), from 2019 to 2021. Later, he co-led the task force’s UAP portfolio for the NGA from late 2021 to July 2022.

His CV alone tells the curious and skeptics that this man isn’t just a random person who makes up UFO/UAP stories. Rather, he has genuine insider information that backs up the allegations he made.

He has since voluntarily left his position on April 7, 2023, as a way to show public leadership on the issues he had uncovered.

His Allegations and the Issues He Uncovered

To be fair, David Grusch is honest enough to confess that he has never personally seen non-human intelligences (NHIs) nor has official confirmation of his claims. 

However, he had spoken with many credible people, whose stories and experiences were hard to believe, to be convinced that everything is real. Some of them also had given him sensitive foreign intelligence to read and sensitive program documents and photographs to evaluate.

So, what are his allegations based on what he saw and heard during his time on the task force?

• There’s an unnamed crash retrieval program responsible for retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles (aka spacecraft) that have either landed or crashed onto Earth.
• There’s an intentional disinformation campaign by the U.S. government to conceal the existence of NHIs.

Let’s discuss these one by one.

The Unnamed UAP Crash Retrieval Program

According to David Grusch, through the unnamed UAP crash retrieval program, the U.S. government has recovered intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin. These craft (or objects) have “exotic origin based on the vehicle morphologies and material science testing and the possession of unique atomic arrangements and radiological signatures.”

This program has been ongoing for decades and involves the U.S. government, its allies, and defense contractors. They’ve been exerting effort to reverse-engineer these craft for insights for military use. 

Grusch said that “it’s nuts how it’s been protected” because humanity could benefit from its broad research if the academia, the private sector, and the general populace could access it.

The Intentional Disinformation Campaign

David Grusch claimed that the U.S. government’s promise of transparency is a fallacy.

• It made deliberate efforts to avoid oversight and misinform Congress.
• It suppresses information across a qualified industrial base and academia.

In other words, what the public sees and knows is exactly what the U.S. government wants them to see and know. 

He found these concerning from a transparency perspective, because “there are videos that are totally fair to release through the declassification process.” 

His Reason for Coming Out to the Public

In his NewNation interview with Ross Coulthart, David Grusch filed the whistleblower complaint because he had “endured reprisals and retaliation from above.”

But what happened prior that led him to that situation? The Disclosure of Urgent Concern(s); Complaint of Reprisal³ that Grusch’s camp submitted in May 2022 has the answer.

To summarize (and in verbatim):

• Grusch has direct knowledge that certain intelligence community (IC) elements have purposely and intentionally withheld and/or concealed UAP-related classified information from the U.S. Congress to thwart legitimate Congressional oversight of the UAP program.
• In July 2021, he confidentially provided the said UAP-related classified information to Sean O’Donnell, the Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD IG) at the time.
• He believed that his identity and communication with the DoD IG had been disclosed to individuals and/or entities outside the DoD IG, and that he suffered retaliation and reprisals related to this.
• Since his protected disclosure(s) to the DoD IG, he had been subjected to numerous adverse security clearance actions, including being canceled, delayed, denied, and/or obstructed without a plausible explanation.
• He had reason to believe that many of his recent issues with his accesses are directly correlated to his previous UAP-related protected communication(s) with the DoD IG.

Basically, Grusch found extensive classified information about the unnamed UAP crash retrieval program, and that this information had been withheld from Congress. He submitted this information confidentially to the DoD IG. However, since then, he suffered unjust retaliation from what should have been a confidential disclosure—no one outside the DoD IG should’ve known about it.

This unjustified and unfair treatment seemed to attack his integrity, character, and professionalism when he was only doing his job as an intelligence officer of the UAP Task Force.

The Experts’ Response to His Allegations

Several UFO/UAP experts have come out to address David Grusch’s allegations.

Joshua Semeter

One of those experts was Joshua Semeter, the director of Boston University’s Center for Space Physics and a contributor to NASA’s 2022 UAP Independent Study Team. He and his team are working with AARO to investigate Grusch’s claims scientifically. 

Semeter said that Grusch hasn’t shared any verifiable evidence, such as photographs, artefacts, or any other data, and hasn’t personally seen or touched any of the objects he referenced. Without these, they’re “at an impasse on evaluating these claims.”

Adam Frank

Astrophysicist Adam Frank, a leading expert on star evolution and extraterrestrial life, shares Semeter’s sentiment. He said that Grusch’s whistleblower story is just hearsay, where “he knows a guy who knows another guy who heard from a guy that the government has alien spaceships.”

Frank said that Grusch has no evidence that a scientist like him could use. He also doesn’t find Grusch’s claims exciting, especially compared to the studies presented at the SETI Symposium.

Avi Loeb

It seems, however,  that Grusch has at least one ally in Avi Loeb, the head of the Galileo Project. In Loeb’s The Debrief article, he mentioned, “Any related findings [from the crash retrieval and reverse engineering of alien spacecraft] would save him time and effort in retrieving the evidence myself within the coming decades.”

Loeb added that he and Grusch hope that “such evidence will eventually be shared with scientists who can make sense of what it means.”

FAQ

What action(s) did the U.S. Government take regarding his allegations?

The U.S. government, through the House Oversight Committee, led a closed-door hearing session, which started on July 26, 2023. Due to the sensitivity and confidentiality of some information, there’s a limit to what can be shared with the public.

Do his colleagues support him?

Yes. In fact, several of them vouched for David Grusch’s credibility and for the accuracy of his claims. Some of these individuals were officials who knew of the unnamed UAP program, which corroborated with the information he had, both on and off the record.