Who Is David Grusch?

Term: Whistleblower: a person inside an organization who reports misconduct or hidden activity through official channels or to the public.

Term: Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG): the watchdog office that receives complaints from intelligence agency employees, including those involving classified information.

Term: Non-human biologics: the phrase Grusch used for biological remains he said were recovered from crashed craft.

Who Is David Grusch?

David Grusch is a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer who testified under oath to Congress on July 26, 2023. He said the U.S. government has run a decades-long program to retrieve and reverse-engineer craft of non-human origin, and that it has recovered non-human biologics. He said he had not seen any of it himself. The Pentagon says it has found no verifiable information supporting his claims.

His background

Grusch served 14 years in the Air Force and reached the rank of major. He did a combat tour in Afghanistan. He then worked as a senior intelligence officer at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office. From 2019 to 2021 he represented the reconnaissance office on the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force. From late 2021 to July 2022 he co-led UAP analysis at the geospatial agency.

The complaint

In May 2022, Grusch filed a disclosure of urgent concern and a complaint of reprisal with the Intelligence Community Inspector General. He says he had begun giving information to that office as early as July 2021, and that he faced retaliation afterward. He says the inspector general found his complaint credible and urgent in July 2022.

That wording is often misread. In the whistleblower process, credible means the inspector general judged the complaint worth sending to Congress. It is not a finding that the claims are true. Some retellings treat the phrase as a finding that his claims are true.

The 2023 reports and hearing

In June 2023, journalists Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal published Grusch’s claims in The Debrief, and NewsNation aired an interview with him. On July 26, 2023, he testified before a House Oversight subcommittee alongside two former Navy pilots, David Fravor and Ryan Graves.

Grusch said the United States has a secret crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering program, that it has recovered non-human biologics, and that elements of the government hid it from Congress. He said the U.S. has likely been aware of non-human activity since the 1930s. He said he learned all this from interviews, more than 40 witnesses over four years, and not from firsthand observation. He gave few specifics in public, saying he could discuss more only in a secure facility. He also said he knew of people who had been harmed.

The response

A Pentagon spokesperson said the Defense Department had found no verifiable information that programs for the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials exist or ever existed. AARO’s director at the time, Sean Kirkpatrick, said the central source of the allegations had refused to speak with his office. AARO’s 2024 historical report found no evidence for the reverse-engineering claims it examined. It described the belief that the government is hiding such programs as mostly the result of circular reporting among a small group of believers.

Grusch’s supporters say the secrecy of these programs explains the lack of evidence, and that only a limited number of officials can see it. Congress took the claims seriously enough to add UAP records provisions to the FY2024 defense bill. In March 2025, Representative Eric Burlison announced Grusch as a special advisor to a House task force on declassification.

Where it stands

As far as public records show, as of September 2026 no physical evidence, program documents, or imagery supporting Grusch’s central claims has been released to the public. The Pentagon’s 2026 file releases have not confirmed extraterrestrial life or technology. His account rests on his own testimony and on what he says others told him.

Grusch changed how Congress treats the subject. He also gave the public a serious, credentialed account that could be tested if the government released what he says exists. Until that happens, it is best described as a claim, and not as a fact.

How I use his testimony

In Disclosure: They Are Not Extraterrestrials, I describe Grusch as a whistleblower and report what he alleged. I also note that the Pentagon disputes his claims. I do not treat his account as proof. Disclosure is available on Amazon. You can find more of my work at ckqbooks.com.

Sources

House Oversight Committee hearing, July 26, 2023. NPR, July 27, 2023. NBC News, July 26, 2023. Fortune, July 29, 2023, on Kirkpatrick’s letter. The Debrief, June 2023. AARO Historical Record Report, Volume 1 (March 2024). Representative Burlison press release, March 2025.