Last Updated September 19, 2026. v104.
David Grusch is a former U.S. intelligence officer who served at the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. While assigned to the UAP Task Force in 2021, he investigated alleged undisclosed UAP crash retrieval programs and filed a whistleblower complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General. This complaint was deemed "credible and urgent" by the ICIG. He testified before Congress in July 2023.
See "Witness biography..." in references for his cleared resume placed on the congressional record.
David Grusch spent fourteen years as a U.S. intelligence officer, rising to the National Reconnaissance Office and then the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, before his assignment to the UAP Task Force put him in a position to investigate what he alleges are undisclosed crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering programs (1.5.3). That investigation, conducted under authority he traces to a classified annex of the FY19 defense and intelligence authorization acts (1.5.2), led him to file a whistleblower complaint that the Intelligence Community Inspector General deemed "credible and urgent" — a finding that, in his account, was itself only extracted from a reluctant, fearful oversight apparatus (1.5.1).
The claims themselves rest on four years of quiet spadework rather than a single disclosure. Grusch describes building a network of roughly forty sources — from mid-level personnel who says they touched the material to multi-star generals and cabinet-level officials — and cross-checking their oral testimony against documents, photographs, and audiovisual evidence they supplied him (1.5.3, 1.4.3), including footage he says came from retrieval-program personnel showing recovered craft and the bodies of their occupants (1.2.1). He says he personally reviewed satellite and other overhead imagery he couldn't explain conventionally (1.4.5), and that radar data on the Task Force showed objects executing maneuvers inconsistent with any known technology (1.4.4). Separately, he says foreign intelligence on adversary nations' own UAP efforts — material he says has been withheld from Congress by the DIA despite formal requests (1.2.2) — independently corroborated what his U.S. sources were telling him (1.8.3).
Grusch's account traces the program's institutional lineage back to the Truman and Eisenhower-era National Security Council and the CIA's Office of Policy/Strategy, drawing in the Atomic Energy Commission for financing along the way (1.8.1) — a lineage he says explains why the government modeled the program's secrecy apparatus on Manhattan Project nuclear-secrecy law, right down to the "transclassified foreign nuclear information" language he reads into the Schumer Amendment (1.8.4, 1.8.8). He names Dick Cheney as the last official to exercise real central authority over the program before it fragmented after 2009 (1.8.5), and says former DNI James Clapper was considerably more aware of and involved in managing the issue than his public remarks suggest (1.8.6). As for how it's funded outside congressional appropriations, Grusch — drawing on his earlier career tracking terrorist financing — points to budget "haircuts" diverted from other black programs and self-funding cutout companies (1.8.10), and contractors increasingly self-funding through internal R&D once direct government money dried up post-9/11 (1.8.9).
Going public cost him his career path rather than advancing it, by his telling. He resigned his Air Force commission to head off a court-martial after the service unsuccessfully pursued an Espionage Act case against him (1.9.3), and he says he has direct knowledge of ongoing "administrative terrorism" — his term for career-ending reprisals — aimed at himself and colleagues by senior leadership at his former agencies (1.9.4). He frames the decision itself as a last resort: having briefed the congressional intelligence committees in 2022 with no sign they could force the issue open on their own (1.7), he says he judged himself the one person in his small circle positioned to apply public pressure instead (1.9.2).
Grusch describes his own exposure, sourced from retrieval-program personnel who exfiltrated audiovisual evidence of recovered craft and cadavers. Significantly, Grusch suggests that some of his sources were "from the retrieval program".
"So in terms of what my you know exposure was, I had folks from the retrieval program, I'll call it exfiltrates, audiovisual evidence for me to see both video and photos and that was you know audiovisual evidence of the retrieved craft, some of the dead cadavers that were recovered, you know, call it the pilots as I said in my interview with Nancy Mace and of course I interviewed a ton of subjects all the way up to the cabinet White House level that had closed personal participation in this subject and of course because I was at hands-on so to speak and saw this in person, I brought a lot of those people to the intelligence community inspector general under the Biden administration, you know, so they can hear from the horse's mouth, they can get information on the location so where this is being hold, where the archives facilities are, where they hold all the program records, etc." (Dr. Phil Podcast 2026, 25:24)
"But eventually, as I started pulsing my networks, digging into archives, where we'll just say certain programs forgot to fully clean out safe drawers, and finding both audio visual documentation and then interviewing over 40 people all the way up to, I'll just say, the cabinet level over the course of four years. So a combination of oral testimony, audio visual evidence, and documentation, I became convinced at a high confidence level that the US has engaged in a crash retrieval and reverse of engineering operation of, like the trailer you displayed said, non human crafts, and recovering the biologics as well. And I say high confidence as somebody who's written assessments for the President of the United States, I take that assessment very seriously and that confidence level very seriously." (Megyn Kelly Show 2026, 1:06:15)
Grusch says foreign intelligence formally published and analyzed within the intelligence community (including by NASIC) still hasn't been provided to Congress despite lawful requests to the DIA.
"This is a serious national security issue. In my official duties I was exposed to human and signals intelligence information concerning foreign adversary UAP crash retrieval, exploitation and study efforts, adversary views on U.S.legacy program reverse engineering efforts, and U.S. held audiovisual information related to crash retrieval matters such as the recovered vehicles and the associated biological material. One must always be concerned about adversarial disinformation when you're getting foreign intelligence, but I was able to cross verify this information internally to back up the foreign government assertions. Many of the president's team has been kept in the dark by high ego, politically appointed actors both because of incompetence and malicious intent has subverted the president's order on this issue. Furthermore, some of this foreign intelligence has not been provided to Congress despite lawful requests to the Defense Intelligence Agency last summer and also having formally been published across the IC and analyzed by such analytical centers such as NASIC. These records belong under congressional oversight and I believe DIA should stop obstructing Chairman Luna's task force and provide those documents to Congress and enter it through mandatory declassification review so the American public can see some of the foreign intelligence I had access to." (NewsNation 2026, 20:19)
Grusch says he only brought someone to the Inspector General if they personally claimed firsthand physical contact with the program or craft, and that roughly a dozen such firsthand witnesses, not just himself, have come forward.
"....unless that person told me 'I had close personal', ‘I touched it’ - whatever, like cool, well your coming to the inspector general or I’m going to at least give them your name because that’s what you told me. And obviously I did that. So those people who physically were there - were on the program - did the thing - I brought to the inspector general.” (Rogan 2023, 1:30:25)
"But in terms of how many have come to the intelligence community inspector general, I'd say about a dozen or so. Some of the whistleblowers I don't personally know, so I don't know who in addition they may have brought forward as well, either to back up their claims or to file independent complaints. But it's certainly not just me, I just was the one that took it for the team and went public. But there's certainly, you know, at least a dozen or so people behind the scenes, like me, but also those that actually worked on the program firsthand that, you know, touched the craft, if you will." (ICER 2023, 10:17)
Grusch says he was given access to crash-retrieval photos of recovered vehicles, calling it the most transformative moment of his career, and describes a range of recovered craft shapes.
"I did get access to crash retrieval photos and everything so I've seen the recovered vehicles and everything so I would say that's probably the the most dependest thing earth shattering thing that you know changed my worldview when I got access to some of that years ago and I do hope the administration and I think they will release that information in a further drop." (Fox News 2026, 2:25)
"A lot of them looked like what we saw some of the reporting dropped on Friday there was a 1948 memo from the Chief of Naval Operations that discussed the flying disc pandemic intelligence service. A lot of it was lenticular discs some was crescent moon shapes I call it the flattened sunfish. There's a bunch of different morphologies that the U.S. government has recovered from eggs to discs to you know crescent moon boomerang type vehicles and and I got a small smattering sample of that of ones that have you know landed or crashed on the service of the United States." (Fox News 2026, 3:00)
Grusch says he could take go on a "field trip" to see a craft in person, since some recovered material is too large to move and likely remains untouched at its original location.
Interviewer: "...you have the ability to take me to where we could see a craft and it could ever somewhere somehow, you believe you could?"
"oh yeah we could take a little field trip uh out west we'll say yeah and we we could we could certainly go to those facilities." (Dr. Phil Podcast 2026, 46:43)
Interviewer: "...and you believe there'd be still be something at one of these places that we would be able to actually see, knock on something three-dimensional?"
"Yeah. Yeah sometimes the certain things are hard to move you know when they're uh particular size it's a little bit laborious to move so i think there's some locations that um likely are untouched because i'll be very vague on that - not to spooky the herd." (Dr. Phil Podcast 2026, 46:55)
Rep Mace: "Based on your experience and extensive conversations with experts do believe our government has made contact with intelligent extraterrestrials?"
"Something I can't discuss in a public setting."
Rep Mace: "If you belive we have crashed craft, do we have the bodies of the pilots?"
"As I've stated publicly already in my newsnation interview biologics came with some of these recoveries."
Rep Mace: "Were they human or non-human biologics?"
“Non-human, and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program.”
Rep Mace: “And was this documented or evidenced as video, photos, eyewitness? How would that be determined?
"The specific documentation I would have to talk to you in a SCIF about.” (House Oversight 2023, 2:07:31)
Question: "There are actual reports that we have biological remains?"
"Yes, oh yes, yes." (Rogan 2023, 1:28:55)
Grusch describes bringing program personnel who had worked on recovered NHI biologics to brief congressional staff on Capitol Hill, whose reaction he compares to shock once they heard the details.
"I was in the room when ah - I’ve got to be careful, I don’t wanna - I was in Washington DC with a very, ah, number of senior people, that work for members of congress - put it that way - when I was still in government and, I brought the people who worked on that stuff (NHI biologics) to the Hill. This is why the members were so confident to put out the Schumer amendment and stuff….’I was like, please explain’ (indicating the people from the program should explain what they know). And they went into all those details and stuff. And I remember some of the professional staff members were like…whoa. They were like in g-lock right - their world bubble got burst right there for a lot of people.” (Rogan 2023, 1:24:17)
Grusch claims to have reviewed classified intelligence reports, photographs, program documents, and satellite imagery provided by sources which he assessed as authentic and collectively as corroborating the existence of concealed non-human craft retrieval programs. Below are some of the numerous times he mentions this.
"My testimony is based on information I've been given by individuals with a long-standing track record of legitimacy and service to this country many of whom also have shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation, and classified oral testimony to myself and many my various colleagues. I have taken every step I can to collaborate this evidence over a period of four years while I was with the UAP taskforce and do my due diligence on the individuals sharing it." (House Oversight 2023, 48:04)
"Yeah, I was very sensitive of that fact. Was this some kind of ruse against me? Am I being used in any kind of way? And I took about four years being very methodical before I filed my whistle blower complaint to be absolutely certain of these basic facts." "Based on the credentialed people that came to me, some of these subjects provided me sensitive foreign intelligence to read, sensitive program documents and photographs to evaluate, and then described in very specific detail how all this worked. And they were telling me the exact, extremely specific details that it all checked out." (NewsNation 2023, 35:30)
Question: "David, finally, are you aware of the existence of other original documents, be they of Italian, American or German origin connected to the Italian 1933 UFO crash?"
"I would surmise that there's probably records in the FDR classified presidential records in America, but that was research I was never able to conduct myself. So besides that, I'm not aware of any other documentation besides internal US legacy crash retrieval documents and other stuff that some of my interview subjects had personal access to in their US government duties. Now, there were other foreign events that they actually provided the intelligence reports to me, and I personally read the reports myself and laid eyes on those documents, but those are different events, not in Western Europe." (ICER 2023, 18:44)
"I read some intelligence reports that were provided to me in that regard, I went to the agencies that wrote those reports and asked for access. And when they denied your access you know it’s a thing - and that’s what happened to me time after time over a couple of years." (Michels 2023, 9:00).
"I think about the people, the journey I had, and the most random people that I've known that were placed in my life like 14 years ago, shut the door in my office at the NGA, and they're like, "Look, dude." And they started telling me all this stuff that I was, and they brought these crazy intel reports." (Michels 2023, 1:44:37)
“The people we talked to are not lying. The documents I meticulously went through, they were not forgeries, they were not deception material.“ (Rogan 2023, 2:29:14)
"...and we ultimately interviewed about 40 people or so: all the way up to multi star generals, directors of agencies, mid level guys that literally touched it, worked inside of it, all the stuff, they brought intel reports for me to look at, you know documents, and a lot of that I could cross that vet, verify with other oral sources that my high level colleagues or I talked to and it checked out." (Rogan 2023, 12:57)
“I saw the staff meeting slides (on AAWSAP), I saw the paperwork like there's a paperwork trail I've seen on this shit. And I talked to the people involved in this program.” (Rogan 2023, 31:40).
"Hundred percent...I mean the people I talked to certainly did and they had close personal knowledge and the intel reports I read, you know, literally indicated that as well…" (Rogan 2023, 1:17:05)
"I have plenty of current and former senior intelligence officers that came to me, many of which I knew almost my whole career, that confided in me they were a part of a program. They named the program. I've never heard of it. They told me, based on their oral testimony, and they provided me documents and other proof that there was, in fact, a program that the UAP taskforce was not read into." (NewsNation 2025, 7:06)
“I've seen some interesting photos and I've read some very interesting reports.” (NewsNation 2025, 10:56)
Grusch says radar data he reviewed while on the UAP Task Force showed objects making turns inconsistent with any known technology.
"...and I'm like, whoa, if this is true, and the oral testimony, and you know, crazy radar data that I saw when I was on the taskforce, you know, stuff making turns, that didn't make any sense." (Rogan 2023, 6:20)
Responding to Rep. Moskowitz, Grusch confirms he personally reviewed both satellite and other strategic/tactical imagery of these events, but declines to say in open session whether that imagery includes crash sites.
Rep. Moskowitz: “Mr. Grusch, are you aware, do you have direct knowledge, or have you talked to people with direct knowledge that there are satellite imagery of these events?”
“That was one of my primary tasks at NGA. Since we process, exploit and disseminate that kind of information. I've seen multiple cases, some of which, to my understanding, and of course, I left NGA in April, so that's my information cutoff date. But I personally reviewed both what we call overhead collection and from other strategic and tactical platforms. That were... I could not even explain prosaically."
Rep. Moskowitz: “Do you have direct knowledge or you had spoken to people with direct knowledge, that this imagery applies to crash sites? Crash imagery?”
“I can't discuss that in an open session.” (House Oversight 2023, 1:27:16)
Grusch's law firm states that the Intelligence Community Inspector General deemed his allegation, that information was improperly concealed from Congress, to be urgent and credible.
Grusch's law firm: "The ICIG found Mr. Grusch's assertion that information was inappropriately concealed from Congress to be urgent and credible in response to the filed disclosure." ddeanjohnson on X. Jun 10, 2023. https://x.com/ddeanjohnson/status/1667498499712204801/photo/1
"And of course this complaint was you know considered credible and urgent, Avril Hanes was forced to send it to the Senate and House intelligence committees in summer 2022 and then I subsequently provided 11 half hours of classified testimony to the Senate and House intelligence committees. Unfortunately from what I understand there was a little bit of fear in those in those committees especially in the Senate and they did open up some fulfilled investigation. I think Mark Warner and Marco Rubio were a little nervous to really up the ante with the deep state that they were tackling that's probably a longer discussion." (Dr. Phil Podcast 2026, 26:06)
"and then of course the ICIG investigated it and from what I understand back channel to me unofficially is Jake Sullivan and White House general counsel office basically told Tom Monheim who was the inspector general for the intelligence community under Biden and his staff to stop and and they realized they were bumping into White House classified programs something called special access programs and eventually they were told to stop from what I understand and I would love for Mr. Monheim and and Jake Sullivan who's been in many interesting meetings about the subject so I'd be curious what Mr. Sullivan has to say for himself when he was a national security advisor in his history on this topic." (Dr. Phil Podcast 2026, 26:53)
Grusch cites the legal basis for the UAPTF investigation - a classified annex to the FY19 NDAA and Intelligence Authorization Act - and describes the UAP Task Force's transition from a Navy effort to a DoD Task Force under Deputy Secretary of Defense Dave Norquist.
Question: "What was the sort of the predicate or what was the, what was the authorizing foundation for your ability to go out and conduct this investigation?
"Yeah, there was, and I have to be careful because some of the authorization documents are so classified, but it was embedded in the fiscal year 19 National Defense Authorization Act in the Intelligence Authorization Act and an annex that is, what to say, non-public. And that was the basis of my investigation. And of course, oral briefings to Congress, and we got some of those, uh, a cohort upwards, you know, from the members themselves. And that was the legal basis. Eventually, um, the UAP Task Force, which started as a Navy Task Force in 2019, became a DOD Task Force because we went to Trump's Deputy Secretary of Defense, Dave Norquist, and he provided additional guidance that it's still classified. So I won't get into the specificity of it - to do that." (Judicial Watch 2026, 16:09)
Grusch recounts how, beginning in fall 2019, he and colleagues built a network of roughly 40 sources, who provided corroborating testimony and documents about non-human craft recovery programs, and that when he attempted to gain formal read-in access through official channels, he was flatly denied.
"That was like fall of 2019. I don't take a guy's word for it. I'm like, you know what, myself and my trusted colleagues that had a lot of lot of special accesses like me, we cultivated our network, and we ultimately interviewed about 40 people or so: all the way up to multi star generals, directors of agencies, mid level guys that literally touched it, worked inside of it, all the stuff, they brought intel reports for me to look at, you know documents, and a lot of that I could cross that vet, verify with other oral sources that my high level colleagues or I talked to. And it checked out, especially when I had enough information on and I know who specifically to ask like, Hey, well, I want read into this. I'm on the UAP task force…and we went to those, I'll call them gatekeepers, for the lack of a better term. And they basically said, fuck you to me and my colleagues." (Rogan 2023, 12:41)
JM: “Did you ever at any point try to suss out whether you were being lied to?”
“Oh, 100%”
JM: “Because all these people are coming from the same programs. And so presumably there's some level of coordination between them.”
“Oh...yeah.“
JM: “So how do you kind of get through and just make sure that they're not, you know, meeting in some back room saying 'you say this to Dave', 'I'll say this to Dave’."
“You know, you know, for sure. So like I thought maybe it was like a joke or something. Maybe it was like a psyop on me or something. I don't even know. And then, but the near 40 people we talked to...a lot of the guys, I've know my entire career and like they wouldn't lie to me. I have a friendship with them. And for them to disclose to me that kind of stuff and it ended up being a false would have totally torpedoed the friendship. And I also went out of my way to find people who don't know each other either. And I had other high ranking colleagues of mine go talk to other people that I didn't even personally talk to. That group of course, we took all that, and all the people who conducted those interviews, I made them get interview by the Inspector General because we’re crossing-our-Ts here because this shit is crazy. You can never be perfect but - I was so frickin careful to make sure I wasn't getting fed some bullshit.” (Michels 2023, 10:37)
Grusch says he first learned more about the U.S. retrieval and reverse-engineering effort from a peer adversary's own intelligence reporting than from his own government, before being cleared into a program that taught him how the U.S. tracks and hides UAP signatures within the intelligence architecture, and says the DIA has refused to release related documents to Congress (see DIA above).
"I got tipped off initially I got access...I have to be careful because some of this is still classified...to a peer adversaries intelligence reporting about what they thought was going on in the US and I learned more from a particular peer adversary about what the US was doing in terms of retrieval and reverse engineering of UAP then I learned from my own government officially until I started spelunking in different archives, talking to people that were able to provide me program documentation etc, and then I had an individual that you know clear me into a program so that I could I could learn some of the signatures that we've learned these craft amit and how the US tracks it and how they they hide the tracking of UAP within the national intelligence architecture in plain sight kind of like what you were talking about in ports where you would never know that that was what it was actually designed to do because everything was buried and certain hardware and certain software processing was on the back end and you would never know the certain things were were designed to do so and once again that for an intelligence reporting the defense intelligence agency has refused to release those classified documents to Congress and I know Representative Burleson is likely gonna pulse DIA leadership to get that once again where are those documents in the tranches." (Dr. Phil Podcast 2026, 30:15)
Grusch says he was cleared into some of the results of the reverse-engineering effort and believed the American taxpayer was being defrauded by a sequestered "carve-out" of technology hidden outside normal congressional appropriations, some of which has civil applications that could benefit society.
"I was cleared into some of the fruits of our labor so to speak and there was a lot of programs that once again I thought we were defrauding the american taxpayer because you have a certain schmorgas board of classified programs reported to congress and then congress authorizes and appropriates funds and funds said programs, but then you have this carved out base of technology that is sequestered and a lot of it has civil application that would you know help humanity and I have to be careful not to infer certain technologies that are unacknowledged by the federal governments but there's a lot of things that I see civil application and that could be responsibly introduced into society to help us and also fuel different economies and whatnot." (Dr. Phil Podcast 2026, 41:25)
In 2023, Grusch told Joe Rogan he did, in fact, have firsthand experience but had not received clearance to talk about it at the time.
"I took those people, a lot of them and they brought them to the intelligence community inspector general when I filed my complaint, because I don't want people to, you know, hear it from a second hand source, you know, people call it hearsay, whatever, though I have some firsthand knowledge, I eventually talk about someday I'm trying to get it cleared, but through security processes. So they could hear it and hear the details like, you know, who, what, when, where, why, where the shit is, who's in control of it, what are the cover programs, etc, etc, etc." (Rogan 2023, 14:35)
Pressed by his critics' argument that he has no firsthand knowledge, Grusch says he couldn't be upfront about it until recently clearing the pre-publication security review process, though he says the deeper description of that knowledge has since been redacted, leaving him only able to confirm he was read into a UAP-related program directly by the U.S. government.
Interviewer: "People who saw your big interview that aired here on News Nation and who watched your congressional testimony — people who might not buy everything you're saying, who are skeptics — have said over and over again, he has no firsthand knowledge. He is just telling what someone else told him or telling what he read. How do you respond to people who say, because you don't have any firsthand knowledge, maybe we shouldn't believe you?"
"Well, I couldn't be very upfront about my firsthand knowledge until recently — I got some other security approvals through the pre-publication and security review process. And I did have some firsthand knowledge of some specific parts of the program. I'm currently drafting an op-ed that I'm going to release in a few weeks, and I will be discussing what I actually do know firsthand. I just could not overtly discuss it at the time, including at the hearing, because, you know, the Pentagon and the IC were sitting on some of my pre-publication and review paperwork at the time, so I could not acknowledge that." (The Hill 2023, 1:17)
Interviewer: "When you say you have firsthand knowledge, you actually saw something yourself?"
"Well, the deeper description of what I know has been redacted. They proposed a redaction in a pre-publication and security review response a few days ago, and they are telling me to withhold legally some of the firsthand knowledge I have, but I'm allowed to generally discuss that I was read into a UAP-related program directly by the U.S. government. " (The Hill 2023, 2:20)
Grusch recounts that his whistleblower complaint, deemed credible and urgent, was forwarded to the Director of National Intelligence and congressional intelligence committees in July 2022, leading to roughly 11-12 hours of classified testimony to House and Senate staff that December.
"But my it was my congressional oversight, UAP crash retrieval allegations that was deemed credible and urgent, it was sent to the Director of National Intelligence, and then it was sent to the congressional intelligence committees around that time, July of 2022. And I eventually went to Congress in December 2022. I provided total about 11 and a half to 12 hours of, you know, classified testimony to the congressional staffers and their lawyers for both the House and the Senate." (Rogan 2023, 15:25)
Grusch says the recovery program's custodianship has shifted across agencies since its Truman/Eisenhower-era origins in the National Security Council and the CIA's Office of Policy/Strategy, later drawing in the Atomic Energy Commission and other agencies to help fund it.
"Yeah, certainly more than one and less than 100 (craft in possession). I agree. And the cognizance of who was kind of leading the program changed over time epochs. The genesis was in the Truman and Eisenhower National Security Council and the CIA Office of Policy Strategy back when that was the old name for the director of operations that I believe is what they call the CIA. But you know, the Atomic Energy Commission was involved in the Department of Defense at the time, service elements, the CIA at the time, and other capital level agencies you would not think, but helped with the illicit financing." (Judicial Watch 2026, 23:30)
Grusch recounts that sources described a cleared defense contractor transferring non-human crash retrieval material to DIA via AAWSAP, and that former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid personally confirmed to him that the U.S. possessed non-human material and that he himself had been denied access to it for decades.
“I asked people that both worked on that program (AAWSAP), but also people that were tangential to it that worked in certain intelligence agencies. So what was, what was this about? Well, you know, a certain cleared defense contractor wanted to transfer some of their material holdings to DIA for our program. It was all crash retrieval material. And this was a way to horizontally protect, as we call it, that information and that physical material from a certain other government program and custodian that lent that contractor material in the past. And I was like, wait, are you saying we have UFO material? That's crazy. Are you sure it's UFO material? Like this isn't like we, we went and got a wreckage of a Russian bomber and it just happened to be weird or something like that. And no, they were dead serious.” (Carlson 2023, 12:02)
"So I'm sitting there in Harry Reid's living room you know right next to him with some other witnesses that were there with me and he straight up says he's like yeah I knew we had UFO material I was denied access for decades I tried to get access and then he explained some of his efforts during AAWSAP and I was like holy shit did the former majority leader just say that he just confirmed this to me as well you know I was already talking to these amazing high level people but I have Harry Reid literally saying yes we have material and you know he knew it was non-human." (Rogan 2023, 27:37)
"What he (Harry Reid) was telling me about AAWSAP...I was like holy shit I have 20 other people that told me this." (Rogan 2023, 28:34)
Grusch describes that within the AAWSAP archives there are foreign intelligence reports.
"There was sensitive human derived foreign intelligence that I read. 'cause I had access to the AAWSAP classified archive and I was like thumbing through everything and there's some other people were bringing me documents to evaluate. And I'll never forget, I had a, I’ll just say, ‘stolen by the US’, an intelligence assessment from a certain foreign adversary, discussing the US reverse engineering program. And so I had an adversary also confirmed this program literally because of exhilarated intelligence. So they certainly had a limited knowledge, at least 'fact-of', that the US had a program like this.” (Rogan 2023, 41:05).
Grusch claims the U.S. government modeled this program's secrecy structure on the Manhattan Project's nuclear-secrecy apparatus, reflected in the Schumer Amendment's references to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.
"The U.S. government overlaid the Manhattan Project secrecy, personnel, generally what elements were involved corporately and governmentally in that too...Atomic Energy Commission, which morphed into Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission later. And that is why you see in the Schumer Amendment .... they cite the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and other provisions within the unclassified Schumer Amendment. That's because they understand that the secrecy justification ran along the lines of U.S. nuclear secrets." (ICER 2023, 05:03)
Grusch describes the crash-retrieval program as an unaccountable "self-licking ice cream cone" whose last real central authority was the late Vice President Dick Cheney, until he left office in 2009.
"I found it deeply disgusting and shocking that even I was not fully accessed into these activities. And I did have a congressionally mandated need to know I investigated this on behalf of the first Trump administration and some of Trump's cabinet members. And Senator Rubio, when he was Senator, now Secretary Rubio, and providing my findings up the chain, I was just very disturbed to find how this was controlled, the self-licking ice cream cone, unaccountable. Everybody owns a piece. Nobody owns the outcome. And there's not really a mob boss. The closest person we got that I was aware of was unfortunately now deceased Vice President Dick Cheney, Darth Vader himself, not shocking that he was involved in this. And essentially, when he left in 2009, that was the last time that these activities really had central leadership." (Megyn Kelly Show 2026, 1:10:56)
Grusch says former DNI James Clapper was in fact well aware of and helped manage the crash-retrieval issue during his time as DNI and DIA director, placing people in key roles both publicly and non-publicly, and says he shouldn't be the only official being fully candid about what he knows.
"And I did want to point out General Clapper, the former DNI in the documentary. I certainly applaud him for at least speaking out in general. He goes on, I believe, I've only seen clips of age of disclosure, not the whole thing, where there was a program when he was the director of national intelligence, where they were tracking these vehicles over area 51, of course, the famed classified test location. And I'm a little bit disappointed as a fellow Air Force officer and certainly General Clapper rose to the ranks as three star general. That's all he said in the documentary that that was a program he was aware of. In fact, without being inappropriate, I will say that General Clapper was well aware of the crash retrieval issue, managed the crash retrieval issue. And when he was the DNI, DIA director, he placed people in critical roles to manage this issue both publicly and I'll just say non publicly as well. And I'll allow the audience to distill what I'm saying at the at the risk of being inappropriate or going too far with my discussion. So General Clapper, Stephanie Sullivan, other folks in the IC that are well aware of this issue that were in rooms discussing this issue. I asked you to be greater leaders on this. I should not be the only former military officer and intelligence official that is being completely candid with the information that they were exposed to. So perhaps once again, James Clapper understates what he knows and what he's done, not wouldingly." (Megyn Kelly Show 2026, 1:19:00)
Grusch explains that the president's declassification authority is constrained under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, requiring concurrence from the Energy Secretary and the Information Security Oversight Office, though unitary executive theory could arguably override that.
"The president has original classification authority over what they call classified national security information, Trump under executive board or 13 526. The issue with some of this is under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, and the president does not have unilateral declassification authority. Now, he could argue that under unitary executive theory, the Supreme Court, he certainly does. But if you read the statute, it's the president in conjunction with the Energy Secretary in an obscure office in the National Archives called the Information and Security Oversight Office, the ISO, makes that tie break decision. But certainly under UET, as they say, in legal terms, Trump can make that, can make that declassification decision. And certainly, I think the public needs a formal disclosure plan, not the JFK file dump. I mean, we all applaud the president for releasing things, but you know, thousands upon thousands of documents was dumped on the NARA website and wasn't curated. And I think for this, the expectation publicly is for Trump to do that." (Judicial Watch 2026, 28:40)
Grusch explains the Schumer Amendment's reference to "transclassified foreign nuclear information" (TFNI) as the legal mechanism for converting a stolen foreign nuclear secret into a U.S.-protected classified capability, tying the program's secrecy justification to nuclear-secrets law.
"They talk about transclassified foreign nuclear information, TFNI, in the Schumer Amendment. And that is not by accident because you can imagine. What that means is, say the U.S. through intelligence operations stole a foreign nuclear secret. Well, the U.S. liked that foreign nuclear secret and wanted to make it their own. So they transclassified it into a U.S. protected nuclear capability. And that's what the Schumer Amendment was trying to expouse if you read it between the lines. That they justified it through these nuclear secrecy provisions." (ICER 2023, 05:58)
Grusch says post-9/11 Global War on Terror funding was diverted to move crash-retrieval activity into defense contractors' hands, exempting it from FOIA and oversight, with contractors increasingly self-funding through internal R&D (IRAD) as direct government funding dried up.
"Obviously there's cover providers, as we say in the business, for activities, so you'd be very surprised how that rolled out. But essentially, as the Global War and Terror initiated in early 2000, a lot of that stuff got moved to the big defense contractors and certain subsidiaries to exempt it from FOIA, but also congressional early sites. So around the 2004 timeframe, based on individuals I know that have first-in knowledge, a lot of the funding that they were siphoning, and I can't name the pot of money because that's classified. A lot of it got diverted for overseas contingency operations for the Global War and Terror, and so more creative financing mechanisms ensued, and it really became a more contractor-operated and conducted activity with very little government oversight. There's certainly people still briefed to those programs. I certainly know who currently is in access in the government, at least partial access, but the contractors kind of have the cons, so to speak, in the modern epoch, and that was done to essentially eye things and also allow contractors to do an IRAD, right, internal research and development, and then use private capital to fund a lot of those activities since the gravy train was drying up during the W. Bush administration, as far as I understand." (Judicial Watch 2026, 25:10)
Grusch, drawing on his earlier career as a counter-threat-finance analyst investigating arms trafficking and terrorist funding, says crash-retrieval programs have been funded off-books through budget "haircuts" diverted from other programs and self-funding cutout companies, one of which he says overlapped with a criminal enterprise he reported to the Department of Justice.
"Yeah certainly earlier in my career I was a counter threat finance analyst I actually worked in a special cell looking at arms trafficking and terrorist funding so I have that background in counter finance and what I found was there were haircuts taken to classified black programs to fund this there was also self-funding cutout companies if you're familiar and you don't know about it. You know it's a really interesting thing about self-funding some of the arms purchases for the countries but also criminal enterprises unfortunately is kind of the third way I saw laundering money and I actually bumped into a very serious criminal enterprise and all that information was actually reported to department of justice and it led to some federal investigations and things like that. So I'm just going to say siphoning money for this topic as well to pay for kind of the crash retrieval operations off books." (Fox News 2026, 4:14)
Grusch says he helped author the UAP Task Force's 2019 security classification guide, but calls the government's posture toward declassifying UAP video a "lazy attitude,".
Rep Biggs: “Do you believe that the 2019 classification guidelines for UAPs interferes with the federal government's ability to be transparent with the American people? And do you think we need to be more transparent with the American people?”
"I'm familiar with at least the UAP taskforce 2019 security classification guide. I think it's fair. I did actually help author that with the director."
Rep Biggs: "Oh, you've got a bias that way then."
"Yeah, but I will say, I'll call it a lazy attitude about declassifying videos. I've seen some of the videos of the recent shootdown, and I saw no reason that couldn't have been released as long as they mask some data." (House Oversight 2023, 1:50:54)
Grusch describes the FMAFME program as hidden in plain sight via cover "placemat chart" descriptions, with real off-books activities never briefed to the DNI.
"The FMAFME foreign material exploitation acquisition program as relates to the UAP subject was essentially hidden in plain sight, which is a trade craft technique. And so you'll get a placemat chart on a certain black program. Oh, it does this. Well, that's the day job. And there's other off books, activities that it does. And I was on programs where we had off books activities. We were not briefing the OD and I when I worked for particularly intelligence agency, I can't acknowledge, you know, my relationship with. And I thought that was, you know, immoral. But once again, I'm just the peon. But even normal day to day stuff, whether it be covert actions and other things that I've seen in my career of we've hidden off books, activities from leadership, let alone in the subject of my infamy." (Judicial Watch 2026, 10:35)
Grusch says hiding programs from congressional oversight, including from the DNI's own staff, is a common intelligence-community practice, and that current administration officials have described being told different stories about the same classified program depending on which agency briefed them.
"Exactly. And this is a common practice. I mean, when I was back in the intelligence community, there were sensitive programs I worked on that we purposely hid from the director of national intelligence, oversight staff, stuff we only briefed the White House and, you know, kept it away from Congress through a unique shell game of not reporting programs. And, you know, I've had sensitive meetings with senior officials of this administration and they've also encountered that where they're briefed by one thing, by CIA, in their one hat at the White House and then when they, you know, go to another agency and sit in a briefing for that same program, they're telling another cabinet member a totally different story about what this classified program is doing." (Dr. Phil Podcast 2026, 8:08)
Grusch describes Rep. Nancy Mace's public utterance of the code word "Immaculate Constellation," and explains a legal loophole letting "White House Special Access Programs" avoid the congressional-reporting requirements that apply to covert-action programs.
Chris Farrell: "So like you just said, I'm sure the minute she uttered the words immaculate constellation, you know, the shredders, you could probably hear them down the hall. You know, they fired up and they were feeding stuff into shredders or burn bags. Are you going to tell us what immaculate constellation is?"
"Well, I would imagine that some burn bags and shredders may have happened. And I think a nuke went off on that. I have to be very careful about discussing that code word." (Judicial Watch 2026, 55:58)
"But like I said, it was an old NSC activity. Right. And I know how it was controlled, but you have to remember. So here's one of the loopholes they use. Right. So there's there's white house special access programs. There was something called covert access programs 50 us code 3093. Those are the programs reported to gang of aid gang of four. You know, that's like assassination stuff, etc. You know, other things the government doesn't acknowledge. But there's a, you know, a way to develop a white house that is non covert action. You know, white house special access program. If you look in the law, there are no reporting carve outs or requirements to tell like the speaker or the majority leader or anything like that. And so that was one of the tricks of the trade bearing it over in the Department of Energy, but also keeping it these non covert action programs that like, you know, five people on the NSC know about in the president at one time. And then, you know, it has custodianship over across the batonica McLean. And it's very hard. What I noticed because of the presidential records act and having seen the transitions of my career is the new Intel director on the National Security Council walk in. There's nothing there. There's no records. The computers are white. All the safes have been shredded." (Judicial Watch 2026, 56:13)
"I've discussed on my interview in judicial watch. That was a national security council program. And the secrecy started in 1954 through an Eisenhower executive order that created that infrastructure." (NewsNation 2026, 25:00)
Grusch states that none of his 40 primary whistleblower witnesses went to AARO due to distrust, and that AARO lacked the expertise and access to properly evaluate the limited second-hand testimony it did receive.
"I am not aware of any of the 40 primary interview subjects that formed the basis of my ICIG whistleblower complaint having gone to AARO to be interviewed. [The witnesses] conveyed to me [a] lack of trust in AARO and the ‘command climate.’ I am only aware of three individuals with mostly second-hand knowledge that were interviewed by AARO that I also spoke with some years back during my research process. Those individuals did produce some interesting leads I followed, but it appears AARO did not have the expertise to distill the information they were given, as it should have provided them access to a large body of foreign intelligence and other U.S. program information I had access to that is not reflected in the AARO Historical Report Vol. 1. Sen. Gillibrand does not have access to my witness list, so I am unaware how the Senator allegedly has made any assessment in that regard."
MvonRen on X. (Jun 8, 2024.) Statement from Grusch https://x.com/mvonren/status/1799254981440340445
Grusch describes the decision to go public as very difficult, made after facing retaliation at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and a long discussion with his wife, a former CIA medical officer familiar with the intelligence community's tactics.
"Yeah, it was a very hard decision. And after I fought off some of the administrative terrorism I faced and, you know, maintain my top secret clearance, you know, I went back at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. And I saw the writing on the wall, I saw that they were not going to allow me to do my job, I saw the minefield that they were creating for me. And I had a long discussion with my wife. And, you know, my wife was a former CIA medical officer and Air Force officer. So she had, you know, a top secret clearance at one point and understood a lot of the background of my investigation and the terrorism that I faced and knew the intelligence communities tricks. And I realized I wasn't going to be able to continue my career at this point, because the venom was out to get me and I saw others being affected as well." (Dr. Phil Podcast 2026, 13:47)
Grusch says he decided to go public partly because he saw no realistic path for the intelligence committees alone to force change, and that he was the only one among his small group of colleagues positioned to use public pressure to hold the government accountable.
"I provided the Intelligence Committees information in late 2022, but I saw the writing on the wall where I wasn't going to be able to affect change and, you know, kind of pressure the investigation that would have been necessary to break open these programs for further study within the government. So I took it upon myself, I looked around and I was the only one out of my small contingent of colleagues that had kind of the right opportunity to go public. And I decided that that made the most sense so I could use the levers of public pressure to hold the legislative branch and the executive branch accountable in the U.S. I saw internally there was no way that this issue was going to be self-policed within the U.S. government." (ICER 2023, 01:21)
Grusch says the Air Force unsuccessfully tried to pursue an Espionage Act unauthorized-disclosure case against him after he went public, so he resigned his commission to avoid prosecution under military justice, and describes his FOIA lawsuit seeking records on that complaint.
"And that mostly worked. What I talked about in the June 9th presser is the Air Force did unsuccessfully try the file, an Espionage Act, unauthorized disclosure complaint against me when I did go public, which is kind of hilarious. And unfortunately, I had to resign my Air Force officer commission, because I foresaw an attack of that nature. If I stayed in the Air Force on the reserve side, I really thought that the Air Force was probably going to come after me using, you know, the uniform code of military justice. And I was mostly correct that that was, you know, going to be one of the things that they were going to try." (Dr. Phil Podcast 2026, 15:15)
"Virginia law is silent on records release policy, which I could get into. But the main one is I have a FOIA lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia because it's come to my attention that when I went public in June 2023, the Department of the Air Force filed an unauthorized disclosure espionage act, complained against me, went to a particular office in the Pentagon that's in the pleadings that are public record. And I'd like to see that paper trail, that evidentiary trail, to see why they felt compelled to come after me because all my comments about UAP and even the comments I'm talking about here, I still have a top-secret clearance. I've maintained a clearance for 21 years. I went through the DOD pre-publication and security review process and everything I said about UAPs and crash retrievals and on news nation and in the debrief, I did get pre-clearance. But regardless of that, the Air Force seemingly thought that I did something incorrect and went after me. And luckily, that complaint was denied because of the legal preparatory work that I did. But I find that very curious, like you mentioned, Susan Goff and other folks, it was nothing to see here. Why was an espionage act complaint filed against me? And there's other things I'm aware of that I will talk about that the Biden administration was doing behind the scenes key officials in the White House. But that's a fear base kind of knee-jerk reaction, silhouetting themselves coming after me as a whistleblower. And I'm not doing anything unlawful." (Judicial Watch 2026, 35:35)
Grusch says senior officials at agencies he previously worked for were unhappy about his public disclosures, and that he has knowledge of active, planned reprisal activity against himself and colleagues from that senior leadership, which he calls "administrative terrorism."
"There were some high-level officials in some former agencies I worked for who were very unhappy to see my face on television and some of the pushback I got after I went public is I have told Congress that behind closed doors and the Department of Defense Inspector General are looking at some of the reprisal aspects after I went public as well because there are some things that Congress may disclose in the future about certain elements of the U.S. government that were unhappy with me going public." (ICER 2023, 2:41)
“I do have knowledge of active planned reprisal activity against myself and other colleagues. And it's very upsetting to me.”
Rep Raskin: “Coming from where?”
“Certain senior leadership at previous agencies I was associated with. And that's all I'll say publicly, but I can provide more details in a closed environment." "There were certain colleagues of mine that were brutally administratively attacked. And it actually makes me very upset as a leader to see that happen to other coworkers and actually superiors of mine over the last three years." "I call it administrative terrorism. That's their quiver, their tool in the toolbox to silence people, especially the career government service cares about their career, cares about their clearance, their reputation to climb the ladder. And when you threaten that flow, career path, a lot of people back off. But I'm here to represent those people." (House Oversight 2023, 1:16:11)
A DoD Inspector General FOIA release shows that, before AARO's creation, Grusch and colleagues had developed and pitched (including personally to Sen. Harry Reid in April 2021) a proposal for a "National Space Lab" to receive and federate UAP records and material out to academia and other partners.
"The DoD IG FOIA release to BlackVault today highlights an organization proposal to succeed UAPTF that myself and my colleagues developed on our own time before the AARO office was created. Not only did I brief DoD IG Evaluations team on this proposal, but I also presented the same chart deck to Sen Harry Reid in April 2021 in a personal capacity for his guidance.
He was very enthusiastic on the idea of a National Space Lab to receive records and UAP material from executive branch agencies who would then federate it out to academia and other partners in a whole of government approach. He was going to use the OSAR proposal as a basis of his next discussion with President Biden." - David Grusch
MikeColangelo on X. Jan 16, 2024. NEW STATEMENT FROM DAVID GRUSCH https://x.com/MikeColangelo/status/1746943452644835464
Carlson, Tucker. (12.13.23) Tucker Carlson video interview with Dave Grusch, tweeted on December 13, 2023. https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1735083523050975277 Alternate: https://archive.org/details/tucker-carlson-dave-grusch-12.13.23
ddeanjohnson on X. (Jun 10, 2023.) X post citing the ICIG's "urgent and credible" finding on Grusch's whistleblower complaint. https://x.com/ddeanjohnson/status/1667498499712204801/photo/1
Dr. Phil Podcast. (2026) David Grusch: The Whistleblower Who Told Congress We're Not Alone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBXmqvFs0Ec
Fox News. (2026) "I'm seeing 'good signs' in the Trump administration's UFO file initiative," whistleblower says, The Big Weekend Show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4pSVnCt_bw
Grusch, David C. (July 26, 2023) Witness Biography, submitted to the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability for the "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency" hearing. https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116282/witnesses/HHRG-118-GO06-Bio-GruschD-20230726.pdf
House Oversight. (July 26, 2023) Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency. Hearing video: https://youtu.be/KQ7Dw-739VY — Official record: https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-implications-on-national-security-public-safety-and-government-transparency/
ICER NETWORK. (2023) Whistleblower David Grusch: More Revelations | ICER - YouTube. https://youtu.be/2a2iNW5AZjw
Judicial Watch. (2026) UAP Whistleblower David Grusch on "Non human" Biologics & Craft, On Watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3BpTZXmDns
Megyn Kelly Show. (2026) Cea Weaver Meltdown and Crying Dokoupil, with Halperin, and Truth About UFOs, w/ Grusch & Rep. Luna. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y96myyma5XA
Michels, Jesse. (13 Nov. 2023) UFO Whistleblower David Grusch Tells Me Everything. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRO5jOa06Qw
MikeColangelo on X. (Jan 16, 2024.) NEW STATEMENT FROM DAVID GRUSCH. https://x.com/MikeColangelo/status/1746943452644835464
MvonRen on X. (Jun 8, 2024.) Statement from Grusch. https://x.com/mvonren/status/1799254981440340445
NewsNation. (Jun 12, 2023.) "We are not alone" - David Grusch Interview - NewsNation (via Lucid). https://youtu.be/JLZzDhDYMcw
NewsNation. (Apr 2, 2025.) UFO whistleblower David Grusch: 'We are not alone' | Official Ross Coulthart NewsNation interview. https://youtu.be/RBAISwCZ2v0
NewsNation. (2026) David Grusch Returns to Congress - UFO whistleblower, lawmakers aim to declassify UAP files. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_emZmzkTtM
Rogan, Joe. (2023) Joe Rogan Experience #2065 - David Grusch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8TqBrrqL4U