David Grusch: The UAP Whistleblower

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In the summer of 2023, a career intelligence officer sat before Congress and made claims that, if true, would represent the most significant secret in human history. David Grusch did not say he had seen alien spacecraft. He did not claim to have touched non-human technology. He said that people he trusted, people with long records of government service, had told him these programs exist, and that the government was hiding them from the very committees authorized to oversee them. The hearing that followed was watched by millions. The evidence that would prove or disprove his claims remains classified. What follows is a factual account of what Grusch alleged, what the government has said in response, and what has happened since.

TL;DR: David Charles Grusch, a decorated Afghanistan combat veteran and former senior intelligence officer at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), filed a whistleblower complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General in May 2022 alleging that the U.S. government was improperly withholding information about unidentified aerial phenomena from Congress. The ICIG found elements of the complaint “credible and urgent.” In July 2023, Grusch testified under oath before a House subcommittee that the U.S. government has operated a “multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program” and that “non-human biologics” have been recovered from crash sites. He clarified that his testimony was based on interviews with approximately 40 current and former officials, not personal observation. Both the Pentagon and NASA have denied his claims. Grusch was appointed as a Special Advisor to Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) in March 2025 and filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Defense in the Eastern District of Virginia in March 2026. Sources linked below.

Timeline

Pre-2017 David Charles Grusch serves as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force, including a combat deployment to Afghanistan. He holds the rank of Major and works in intelligence. He holds an active Top Secret/SCI clearance with Counterintelligence and Lifestyle Polygraph, according to his congressional biography.

2017 to 2021 Grusch transitions to civilian intelligence roles at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). From 2019 to 2021, he serves as the NRO’s representative to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), the Pentagon office established to investigate military UAP encounters. He also serves as the NGA’s Senior Technical Advisor for UAP analysis and trans-medium issues, according to Rep. Burlison’s office.

2019 to 2022 While working with the UAPTF, Grusch later says he interviewed approximately 40 current and former military and intelligence officials who described classified programs involving the retrieval and analysis of materials from unidentified aerial phenomena. He states he attempted to gain direct access to these programs and was denied. He says his security clearance was revoked and that he faced professional retaliation, according to The Debrief.

May 2022 Attorney Andrew McCullough, of the law firm Compass Rose Legal Group, files a “Disclosure of Urgent Concern(s); Complaint of Reprisal” on Grusch’s behalf with the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG). The complaint alleges that elements of the Intelligence Community improperly withheld or concealed classified information from Congress regarding UAP programs, according to Grusch’s written statement.

July 2022 The ICIG reviews the complaint and finds elements of it “credible and urgent.” A summary is submitted to the Director of National Intelligence and the congressional intelligence committees (HPSCI and SSCI), according to The Hill. Worth noting: the “credible and urgent” determination relates to the allegation that information was improperly withheld from Congress, not to the underlying claims about alien technology.

June 5, 2023 The Debrief publishes an article by journalists Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean revealing Grusch’s identity and his claims. The article reports that Grusch alleges the U.S. government possesses “intact and partially intact” vehicles of non-human origin, according to The Debrief.

June 2023 Compass Rose Legal Group issues a statement clarifying the scope of its representation: “Compass Rose Legal Group has successfully concluded its representation of former client David Grusch on matters limited to his reasonable belief that elements of the Intelligence Community improperly withheld or concealed alleged classified information from the U.S. Congress.” The statement notes the firm’s filing was narrowly scoped and does not address Grusch’s public claims about non-human technology, according to Metabunk.

July 26, 2023 Grusch testifies under oath before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability’s Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs. He is accompanied by two former Navy fighter pilots: Commander David Fravor, who described the 2004 Nimitz encounter (see our coverage), and Lieutenant Commander Ryan Graves, who described routine UAP encounters by Navy pilots on the East Coast, according to CBS News.

July 26, 2023 During the hearing, Grusch makes several specific claims under oath. He states he “was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program to which I was denied access.” When asked whether the government possesses “non-human biologics,” he responds, “biologics were recovered from some of these crash sites.” He clarifies he has never personally seen an alien body and that his testimony is based on information from “individuals with a longstanding track record of legitimacy and service to this country,” according to NPR.

July 26, 2023 Grusch also claims under oath that he “knows the exact location” of UAP materials in the government’s possession and that this information has been provided to the ICIG. He further alleges that the U.S. has been in possession of non-human technology since the 1930s, referencing documents he says described a spacecraft recovered by Benito Mussolini’s government in 1933 and procured by the U.S. with the assistance of the Vatican, according to The Guardian.

September 2023 NASA Administrator Bill Nelson is asked about Grusch’s claims. Nelson responds: “Where’s the evidence?” He says NASA has found no evidence of extraterrestrial life and that Grusch’s claims would require physical proof, according to C-SPAN.

2023 to 2024 The Pentagon denies Grusch’s claims through multiple spokesperson statements, saying the Department of Defense has found no verifiable information to substantiate claims of recovered alien craft or reverse-engineering programs. AARO, the Pentagon’s current UAP investigation office, states it has found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology, according to Wikipedia.

March 21, 2025 Representative Eric Burlison (R-MO-07) announces Grusch as a Special Advisor to his office. Burlison says Grusch “will contribute his expertise” to the congressman’s work on the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets. Grusch’s role is limited to advising Burlison, who is a member of both the UAP Task Force and the relevant committee, according to Rep. Burlison’s office.

March 2026 Grusch files a federal lawsuit against the United States Department of Defense in the Eastern District of Virginia. The details of the suit are limited, but it was filed the same week AARO held a publicly reported activity, according to UFO News.

March 26, 2026 NASA Administrator Bill Nelson again publicly challenges Grusch’s claims, telling C-SPAN that he has seen no evidence to support the allegations about non-human spacecraft or biologics, according to C-SPAN.

Who Is David Grusch

Grusch’s professional background is the foundation of both his credibility and the debate around his claims. He served 14 years as an intelligence officer, first in the U.S. Air Force during the war in Afghanistan, where he was a decorated combat officer, and later as a civilian at the GS-15 level (equivalent to a full Colonel) at the NGA and NRO, according to his congressional biography.

At the NRO, his role involved overseeing satellite operations and interpreting data collected from space-based assets. His position as the NRO representative to the UAPTF gave him access to classified briefings and interviews with officials across the intelligence community, according to Vetted.

Grusch speaks German at a business level and holds an active Top Secret/SCI clearance with Counterintelligence and Lifestyle Polygraph. His supporters point to this background as evidence that his claims deserve serious consideration. His critics note that he has never personally witnessed any of the phenomena he describes.

The ICIG Complaint

The legal mechanism Grusch used was a PPD-19 Urgent Concern filing with the Intelligence Community Inspector General. This is a formal whistleblower channel designed for intelligence community employees who believe classified information has been improperly withheld from Congress.

The ICIG’s “credible and urgent” determination has been widely cited as validation of Grusch’s claims. However, the determination has a narrower scope than often reported. As Compass Rose Legal Group clarified in June 2023, the firm’s filing was limited to Grusch’s “reasonable belief that elements of the Intelligence Community improperly withheld or concealed alleged classified information from the U.S. Congress.” The ICIG’s finding addressed whether the withholding of information was credible and urgent, not whether the underlying claims about alien technology are true, according to Metabunk.

Grusch has said he provided classified evidence to the ICIG and to congressional intelligence committees through secure channels. This evidence has not been made public.

What Grusch Said Under Oath

Grusch’s July 26, 2023 testimony was given under oath, meaning he was subject to perjury charges if he knowingly made false statements. His key claims, as stated in the hearing and in his written submission:

He testified that the U.S. government has operated a “multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program” to which he was denied access when he requested it through official channels. He said he “knows the exact location” of UAP materials and that this information was provided to the ICIG and to congressional intelligence committees. When asked about biological materials, he stated that “non-human biologics were recovered from some of these crash sites,” but clarified he had “never personally observed” alien bodies. He said his testimony was based on interviews with approximately 40 current and former officials, according to his opening statement.

Grusch also claimed that the U.S. has been in possession of non-human technology since the 1930s, specifically referencing a document he said he viewed describing a spacecraft recovered by Mussolini’s government in 1933 and later obtained by the U.S. with the help of the Vatican, according to The Guardian.

The Government’s Response

The Pentagon and NASA have both publicly denied Grusch’s claims. Pentagon spokespersons have said the Department of Defense has found no verifiable information to substantiate claims that the U.S. possesses materials of extraterrestrial origin or operates crash retrieval programs for alien technology. NASA has stated that no evidence of extraterrestrial life has been found, according to Wikipedia.

Senior military officials, including members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said they have not encountered evidence to verify Grusch’s assertions. AARO, the Pentagon’s current UAP investigation office, has said its reviews have not found evidence of extraterrestrial technology, according to Factually.

Opposing Perspectives on David Grusch

Grusch’s claims have drawn sharp criticism from scientists, skeptics, and some government officials. The core criticism centers on one point: Grusch has never personally observed any of the phenomena he describes. His testimony is based on secondhand accounts from approximately 40 individuals he interviewed while serving on the UAPTF.

Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, has said that “from the standpoint of science, there’s still no good evidence [that extraterrestrials are visiting the Earth], only an ‘argument from authority,'” according to Wikipedia.

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, said of the July 2023 hearing that “it’s astonishing it’s come this far without any real evidence, without anybody in the scientific community making an appearance” and “we are still seeing not a shred of physical evidence.”

Physicist and cosmologist Sean M. Carroll said of Grusch’s claims about alien visitors: “The evidence is laughable.”

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has repeatedly challenged the claims publicly, most recently on March 26, 2026, when he told C-SPAN: “Where’s the evidence?” Nelson emphasized that NASA operates on empirical evidence and that Grusch’s assertions have not been supported by physical proof.

The Compass Rose Legal Group’s June 2023 clarification also complicates the picture. While the firm represented Grusch on his ICIG filing, its public statement carefully limited the scope of that representation to the question of whether information was withheld from Congress, not to the substance of what Grusch says was withheld.

Grusch’s supporters counter that the ICIG’s “credible and urgent” finding, combined with his sworn testimony under penalty of perjury, warrants serious investigation rather than dismissal. They argue that the absence of publicly available physical evidence is a feature of the classification system, not a refutation of the claims. Some members of Congress who have reviewed classified briefings related to UAP have said their concerns were heightened, not reduced, by what they saw.

The debate remains unresolved. No physical evidence has been made public. No second whistleblower with direct observation has come forward to corroborate Grusch’s specific claims. The classified materials Grusch says he provided to the ICIG and to congressional committees remain behind closed doors.

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