The Story That Started the Modern Fight
On June 5, 2023, two veteran reporters published a former intelligence officer's claim that the United States holds craft of non-human origin. Everything since has been argument about that sentence.
The Debrief published it on June 5, 2023, under the byline of Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal — the reporters who had broken the Pentagon's secret UFO program story in the New York Times six years earlier. The claim: that the U.S. government, its allies and defence contractors have recovered craft of non-human origin. 1
The source was David Charles Grusch, a decorated combat veteran of Afghanistan, an officer of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office. From 2019 to 2021 he was the NRO's representative to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. From late 2021 to July 2022 he co-led UAP analysis for the NGA. 15
He said colleagues had begun confiding in him about a covert retrieval program while he held those posts, that analysis of recovered material had indicated it was exotic and not of human origin, and that when he raised the matter with superiors he faced reprisal. 15 He had filed a whistleblower complaint through the Intelligence Community Inspector General, who found it urgent and credible. 2
Within days he sat for television interviews with Ross Coulthart. 23
What the credentials do and do not establish
Grusch's positions were real and verifiable, and that is the reason the story could not be dismissed the way similar claims had been for fifty years. He had held roles that would plausibly bring him into contact with the programs he described.
What his credentials cannot do is convert secondhand testimony into evidence. He was explicit that he had not personally seen recovered craft; he was relaying what others told him and what he assessed from documents. 4
The Department of Defense said it had found no verifiable information to substantiate the claims. 4
An inspector general found the complaint urgent and credible. That is a finding about the complaint's seriousness and the complainant's standing. It is not a finding that the underlying allegation is true, and it has been misreported as one continuously since 2023.
The corroboration that mattered
The most consequential response was not from Grusch. Senator Marco Rubio, then vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said multiple people with high clearances and senior positions had brought similar accounts to the committee, and that if true it would be the biggest story in human history. 67
Rubio did not endorse the claims. He confirmed that credible people were making them to Congress, in a secure setting, more than one of them. Seven weeks later Grusch testified under oath. 1
SOURCES
This report was written by UFONN from the reporting and primary documents below. Numbers in the text correspond to this list. Every link goes to the original publisher.
- 1Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Craft of Non-Human OriginThe Debrief
- 2Military whistleblower claims US has UFO retrieval programNewsNation
- 3We are not alone: The UFO whistleblower speaksNewsNation
- 4UFO whistleblower makes explosive claims, but wary of divulging detailsYahoo News
- 5Crashed UFOs? Bold claims from a former intelligence officerEarthSky
- 6Marco Rubio Claims Top U.S. Officials Coming Forward With UFO ClaimsNewsweek
- 7UFO whistleblower deserve serious investigation, Rubio saysNewsNation
