Joe Rogan Experience #2560 - David Grusch

Grusch was hired by Rep. Eric Burlison as a professional staff member of Congress after his 2023 testimony, worked there about a year and a half, left around Labor Day 2026, and says he is now a private citizen; he calls himself the first whistleblower to testify and then be hired by Congress.

had this crazy idea to hire me as a professional staff member for Congress working for him

Our check Rep. Burlison's office announced on 27 March 2025 that Grusch was appointed Special Advisor to work on UAP and the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets (NewsNation described the role as senior adviser, initially for four months, approved by House Ethics). March 2025 to Labor Day 2026 is about 18 months, which matches his 'year and a half'; in the episode he also says he left the office 'recently'. Not independently confirmed: the exact departure date, the title 'professional staff member' (the record says Special Advisor), and 'first whistleblower to testify and then be hired by Congress', which is his own characterisation and which I found no source for either way.

Sources burlison.house.gov, newsnationnow.com

A former CIA officer named David Rush was arrested after an FBI raid in May with about $40 million in gold bars (roughly 303 one-kilogram bars) and a fake continuity-of-government special access program that nobody at the CIA questioned.

he made a fake continuity of government special access program that nobody was briefed into

Our check The case is real and public. FBI agents searched the Virginia home of David J. Rush, a CIA officer of about 17 years, on 18 May 2026 and found 303 one-kilogram gold bars (over $40 million), about $2 million in cash and some 35 luxury watches; he was arrested 19 May and charged with theft of public money and false statements. The New York Times and others report, citing people familiar with the probe, that he built a sham special access program described on paper as continuity-of-government and read in two colleagues, one of whom moved millions through a fraudulent contract. Grusch's details match; 'nobody at the CIA questioned it' is his gloss, and the fake-program detail rests on anonymous-source reporting rather than a charging document I could read. Nothing public links the case to UAP, as Grusch himself says.

Sources en.wikipedia.org, aljazeera.com, adn.com

While investigating UAP, Grusch ran into a criminal enterprise run out of one agency that raised money through the 'most unspeakable' crimes, including child trafficking by government officers, under the cover of national security programs; he briefed members of Congress in a classified setting and worked with the Department of Justice.

I briefed members in a classified setting all the details.

Our check I found no public DOJ case, indictment or congressional record describing a criminal enterprise run out of an intelligence agency that funds itself through child trafficking by government officers under national security cover. The one adjacent public case, David Rush, is a theft and false-statements prosecution with no trafficking charge and no stated UAP link. Grusch gives no agency, case or date, says an ongoing DOJ matter limits him, and relays the Kash Patel brief secondhand ('I wasn't in the briefing'). A DOJ or FBI statement, a sealed-case unsealing or a congressional transcript naming the matter would settle it; it is a very serious allegation with no checkable record behind it so far.

Sources en.wikipedia.org, aljazeera.com

In October 2020, about a year and a half after he joined the UAP Task Force, Grusch was 'administratively nuked': his NRO boss was walked out of NRO headquarters in Chantilly on what he calls fabricated personal-conduct grounds, and colleagues including his former NGA chief of staff were targeted.

I immediately got administratively nuked in October 2020 and basically they went after everybody around me.

Our check The public record shows only that Grusch filed a reprisal complaint (a July 2021 DoD IG disclosure, then an ICIG complaint through Compass Rose from February 2022) alleging that his compartmented accesses at other agencies were cancelled, delayed or obstructed, and that the ICIG found it 'credible and urgent' in July 2022, a procedural threshold, not a finding that the underlying claims are true. The October 2020 date, the NRO boss being walked out of Chantilly on fabricated conduct grounds, and the targeting of his former NGA chief of staff appear in no public document I could find; the boss and colleague details are in any case secondhand. NRO and NGA personnel records or the non-public ICIG file would settle it.

Sources metabunk.org, thedebrief.org

When officials raised his mental-health history (Afghanistan PTSD), Grusch says he had already reported it, was cleared with no problems, kept his top secret clearance, and still holds it.

I reported it. I was cleared of, you know, no problems. Kept my top secret clearance, and I still have my top secret clearance

Our check Part of this is corroborated: The Intercept (Aug 2023, from Virginia FOIA police records) reports he kept his security clearance despite a 2014 suicide threat and an involuntary psychiatric commitment on 1 October 2018, and Grusch has attributed these to PTSD, grief and depression. What the record does not support is the framing that he 'reported it, was cleared, no problems': no adjudication record is public, the same reporting documents alcohol-related trouble, and in June 2023 he answered 'no' to a question about mental illness. Whether he 'still has' a top secret clearance now that he has left Burlison's office is unconfirmed. Retention of the clearance is consistent with the record; the benign interpretation is his own and unproven.

Sources theintercept.com, en.wikipedia.org

In early 2022 Grusch received a message, delivered the same day to other people in a geographically coordinated way, that 'they' could touch him and his wife and knew where they were; he reported it to federal law-enforcement counterintelligence.

I was sent a message that they can touch me and my wife

Our check No public report, filing or news item describes an early-2022 message telling Grusch that 'they' could touch him and his wife, or a counterintelligence report about it. The timing fits his ICIG complaint, filed through Compass Rose from February 2022, but the archived complaint text I could reach does not mention it. Grusch gives no sender, medium or date and says he does not know what 'trip wire' he crossed. The federal law-enforcement or counterintelligence report he says he filed, or the sender's identity, would settle it.

Sources metabunk.org, thedebrief.org

In early 2021 people who were helping Grusch began to show Havana-syndrome (anomalous health incident) symptoms; he thinks microwave directed energy was most likely, from tradecraft used to detect it that he will not describe, and he declines to tie it to the UAP topic.

certain people that were helping me and I was talking to started to experience Havana syndrome symptoms

In early 2022, at an off-books meeting in a Senate intelligence SCIF with a dozen or more senior staff (he names those for Senators Rubio and Warner), named individuals were said to have wanted to kill Grusch; he says the plan was called off ('kibashed'), and a senior staffer fetched whiskey for the room afterwards.

they wanted to kill you

Our check Nothing public confirms an off-books Senate intelligence SCIF meeting in early 2022 at which staff for Rubio and Warner said named people wanted to kill Grusch; only the staff present could confirm it, and Grusch was told secondhand. The nearest outside item is Luis Elizondo's account on Hang Out with Sean Hannity (Fox News, 30 June 2026) that an 'inebriated' congressional staffer phoned him after a classified Capitol Hill briefing saying 'there was a plan to eliminate you', and that another staffer warned of discussions about both men. That is a similar uncorroborated relay from the same advocacy circle, not an independent confirmation, and it mentions no SCIF meeting. No official or staff has gone on record.

Sources foxnews.com

A Department of Justice investigation into the people who threatened Grusch is ongoing, and he will say no more so as not to interfere.

I hope these people are you know brought to justice and that's you know my wish and dream and hopefully Department of Justice does what's needed.

Our check I found no DOJ statement, court filing or news report of an investigation into people who threatened Grusch. DOJ does not normally confirm open investigations, so silence is uninformative either way. Grusch names no case or agency and declines to say more. The only DOJ-adjacent 2026 item found, the Rush prosecution, is a theft case and says nothing about threats to Grusch.

Sources en.wikipedia.org

President Trump has ordered the government to release everything it knows about UAP (Grusch dates the declassification order to February 2026), which Grusch calls courageous and expects to trigger ontological shock and, afterwards, national unity.

ordering the government to release everything we know about this topic

Our check On 19 February 2026 Trump posted on Truth Social that he was directing Secretary of War Hegseth and 'other relevant departments and agencies' to begin identifying and releasing files on UFOs, UAP and extraterrestrial life (Bloomberg, Newsweek and others); the PURSUE portal at war.gov/UFO then released six tranches from 8 May to 18 September 2026. So the directive and its February date are established, though it was a social-media directive rather than a published order text, and what was released (about 450 files, many previously public, none showing non-human technology per the workbench's PURSUE reading) falls well short of 'everything we know'. The predicted ontological shock and national unity afterwards is a forecast, not something a record can settle.

Sources bloomberg.com, newsweek.com

Disclosure would be uniting, like post-9/11 America after the towers fell, despite the 'ontological shock' and outrage at the history coming out.

I think it'll be uniting sort of like in post 911 America after the towers fell

Grusch restates his core claims: the US has studied UAP for a long time, has recovered material and intact or semi-intact craft, has recovered the anomalous intelligence piloting them, and is reverse engineering them.

we've been studying this for a while. We've recovered material aka intact semi-intact craft.

Our check The record shows Grusch repeating, as in his 2023 NewsNation interview and sworn House testimony, that the US has recovered craft and non-human intelligence and is reverse engineering them; nothing new was produced in this episode and the basis remains what unnamed colleagues told him (rung 6, secondhand). It is contradicted or unsupported by the official record: AARO's Historical Record Report Vol. 1 (March 2024) found no evidence that any US government investigation confirmed extraterrestrial technology, and a Pentagon spokeswoman said in July 2023 there was 'no verifiable information' of such programs. I searched the OCR text of all 270 PURSUE PDFs for crash, recovery, wreckage, bodies, non-human and reverse-engineering language: no file describes a recovered craft or bodies (the only 'reverse engineer' hits are two AAWSAP physics papers), and a 1947 AAF memo in the release lists the 'lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits' as a consideration. Absence from a curated release does not disprove classified holdings, so this is unresolved rather than refuted.

Sources aaro.mil

Disclosure will come before Trump's term ends and everything Grusch testified about will come out; before Trump leaves office 'we're going to be in a new paradigm'.

I believe before Trump's term ends that it's all going to come out.

Most technology derived from recovered craft came as inspiration rather than one-to-one copying; his example is a material with a 'frequency selective surface property' that suggested an aerospace application.

a lot of it was garnered via inspiration, not one to one

The Vatican has studied the subject for a long time and has stayed quiet about what it knows.

I certainly appreciate uh the Vatican's long study on this subject and they just stayed quiet on what they know.

Government think tanks wrote assessments for earlier presidents warning that revealing certain things might trigger a response from the non-human entities (Grusch's 'Ghostbusters moment'); he says he does not necessarily believe it.

that has been written up uh government think tanks wrote that up in reports to previous presidents

Our check Grusch names no think tank, president or year, and no such assessment has been released. The closest public document is the 1960 Brookings Institution study for NASA (Donald Michael), whose short section on discovering extraterrestrial life weighs a 'greater unity of men' against the discovery becoming 'simply one of the facts of life', and calls for study of how cultures would react; it does not warn that revealing anything might provoke a response from non-human entities, and it was not written for a sitting president. A classified assessment with the warning he describes may exist but nothing on the public record shows it; he himself hedges that he does not necessarily believe it.

Sources brookings.edu, en.wikipedia.org

Stephen Miller told Rep. Tim Burchett that he is being physically blocked from access to much of the UAP material (relayed by Grusch from Burchett's appearance on Benny Johnson's podcast).

Hey, I'm getting blocked like physically blocked from access to a lot of this stuff.

Our check Burchett has publicly said the same thing in substance: on the Ask a Pol UAP interview (23 July 2026) he said Stephen Miller is 'running into problems' because the 'deep state' is blocking material the President is trying to get to, and posts attributed to Burchett say Miller called him from the White House to say 'bad people in the deep state are blocking the release of UFO files'; Grusch's citation of the Benny Johnson appearance could not be checked against a transcript. The words 'physically blocked' did not appear in the July interview, so that phrasing may be a paraphrase or from the other show. This is Burchett's uncorroborated account of a phone call, with no confirmation or denial from Miller or the White House, so what is established is that Burchett said it, not that Miller is being blocked.

Sources askapoluaps.com, threads.com, ibtimes.co.uk

Stephen Miller told Rogan, briefly, at the UFC event at the White House that 'the UFO thing is going to come out'.

I met him very briefly at the UFC event at the White House and he told me that it's going to come out.

The Principal Deputy DNI (transcribed 'Aaron Lucas', probably Aaron Lukas) signed broad NDA waivers, including waivers covering telling the president, which Grusch reads as the chessboard being set for disclosure.

sign these big NDA waiverss

Our check Principal Deputy DNI Aaron Lukas (confirmed as the DNI's deputy; the transcript's 'Aaron Lucas') sent a memo on 31 July 2026 to 18 intelligence chiefs saying any NDAs 'prohibiting disclosure to the President, or designees like PURSUE, are no longer in force', and gave agencies 30 days to set up procedures; Burlison's 29 July statement and a Department of War waiver of 14 September 2026 are related. So the waiver, the signer and the 'tell the president' scope exist as Grusch describes. The scope is narrow: it protects reports to the President or PURSUE, not disclosure to Congress, the press or the public, and the DoW waiver does not cover the intelligence community where alleged legacy programs reportedly sit. That it shows a 'chessboard being set for disclosure' is his interpretation.

Sources burlison.house.gov, ibtimes.co.uk

A Southwest US test and training range is seeing orbs that cannot be explained, including some that 'accost' helicopters; the executive branch has not acknowledged which range.

They're seeing crazy orbs that they can't explain this acost helicopters

Our check PURSUE does contain matching accounts, though none names the range. ODNI-UAP-D001 (released 22 May 2026) is a first-person narrative by an unnamed senior US intelligence officer of a late-2025 helicopter mission on a weapons test range in which ground teams radioed that an object rose, came within about ten feet of the helicopter and split in two, and the crew later saw orange orbs flare near the helicopter and above fighter jets. DOW-UAP-D077 (AARO memo of 5 June 2026) covers six federal agents reporting 'orbs launching orbs' near a sensitive western site in October 2023, with no video or instrument data. These are testimony, not measurements; AARO's own memo says about 40 percent of the reported phenomena lack a plausible explanation after first-stage analysis and that military flares are a partially plausible match for the rest. 'Cannot be explained' is therefore overstated for the whole, and 'Southwest' versus the documents' 'western' range is not resolved.

George H. W. Bush, as CIA director, was fully briefed on UAP, and Dick Cheney was for many years 'the mob boss', the head of this activity.

Cheney, like I've talked about, fully in this. He was the mob boss for many years.

Some classified programs ('waived programs') are kept from Congress because officials fear political appointees and members will leak or mishandle them, and the UAP program sits in that category.

that's why some classified programs are kept from Congress. It's called waved programs.

Our check The category is real in law but narrower than he says. Under 10 USC 119, the Secretary of Defense can waive the normal reporting of a special access program on national-security grounds, and then must inform only the chairs and ranking members of the defense committees; so such programs are kept from most members of Congress, not from Congress entirely. The 'fear that appointees will leak' rationale is plausible but undocumented. No record shows that any UAP-related program is a waived SAP; that would need the Defense Department's or the committees' own confirmation, and AARO and DoD say no such program exists. This repeats his 2023 claim that the program sits 'above congressional oversight'.

Sources law.cornell.edu

Past government think tanks wrote classified assessments for earlier presidents calling for a slow 'anesthetization and acclimatization' of the public; Grusch does not know the current plan and says a roll-out would need at least 12 months.

it's like an anestization and climatization process

Our check No assessment calling for 'anesthetization and acclimatization' of the public has been released or named, and Grusch says he does not know the current plan. The public Brookings 1960 study for NASA discusses how a discovery of extraterrestrial life might affect society and recommends further study, but does not prescribe a staged roll-out and was not a presidential briefing. The 12-month roll-out time is his own estimate. Same unnamed reports as his 'Ghostbusters' claim; the documents would have to be produced to settle it.

Sources brookings.edu, en.wikipedia.org

China publicly acknowledged a UAP analysis task force, reported in a June 2020 South China Morning Post article, and says it uses AI to analyze encounters.

you can find a news article from June 2020 in the South China Morning Post where they talk about they're analyzing these encounters

Our check The SCMP article exists but is from June 2021, not June 2020, and is weaker than 'China publicly acknowledged a task force'. Stephen Chen's piece (headlined that China's military uses AI to track rapidly increasing UFOs, written as the Pentagon prepared its UAP report) cites Chen Li of the Air Force Early Warning Academy, Wuhan, in a researcher's report, saying the PLA's task force for unknown objects increasingly relies on AI and that human analysts are overwhelmed by sighting reports; The Debrief repackaged it on 4 June 2021 as 'China confirms it has its own UFO task force'. That is a PLA-affiliated researcher's published account, not a government announcement, and I could not read the full SCMP text (paywall/403), so the exact wording of 'task force' rests on summaries.

Sources scmp.com, thedebrief.org

China runs a parallel crash-retrieval program (asked whether China has crashed vehicles too, he says 'There's parallel programs').

There's parallel programs.

Some historical retrievals were of craft that had landed intact rather than crashed, which fits the idea, used by Pasulka and Nolan, of craft left as 'donations'; Grusch never saw the assessment of why.

I am aware of certain historical retrieval rules where they were like perfectly landed and it wasn't like a crash

Speculation: donated technology could be a Trojan horse that gets humans 'addicted' to a technology and creates a control loop in which the intelligence handles us.

is this a Trojan horse? Do you want us to figure things out and then get then get addicted to certain type of technology

Article 3 of the 1971 US-USSR Accident Measures Agreement covers unidentified objects near nuclear or critical communications facilities, and its classified annex, declassified in 2013 and held at the George Washington University National Security Archive, gives the nuclear-flash codes for such reports.

you'll see article three of the treaty talks about UAP

Our check The documents exist. Article 3 of the 30 September 1971 US-USSR Accidents Measures Agreement obliges each side to notify the other immediately on 'detection by missile warning systems of unidentified objects', or signs of interference with such systems, if this could create a risk of nuclear war. The National Security Archive (GWU) holds the 1976 Protocol on Immediate Notifications, secret at the time and possibly not declassified until 2013 (Carter Library release), which sets message formats for six NUCFLASH situations including that one; I did not find the 'Adam 222/333' code names on the page I could read. The reading as 'UAP' is Grusch's: the treaty concerns radar-warning false alarms that could trigger war, and neither the treaty nor the archive page mentions UFOs.

Sources avalon.law.yale.edu, nsarchive.gwu.edu

In March 2019 India shot down one of its own defunct satellites without telling the US, while Grusch was backup director of intelligence in the NRO operations center and ran up to the director's office about the debris.

there was an unexpected Indian uh missile test that hit one of their satellites in 2019

Our check The event is public: India's Mission Shakti anti-satellite test was on 27 March 2019 and announced by Modi the same day. Two details differ from Grusch's account: the target, Microsat-R, was launched on 24 January 2019 and built for the test, so it was not a 'defunct' satellite; and reporting (citing a US government source) says India gave the US a vague notice in early February of an 'experimental weapon test', after a failed attempt that US intelligence detected, and the Pentagon said it was aware of the operation. So 'without telling the US' is at best an overstatement of what the NRO ops floor knew in the moment. Whether he was backup director of intelligence in the NRO operations center that day, and what he did, cannot be checked publicly.

Sources en.wikipedia.org, theweek.in

Grusch says he has no experience of the phenomenon himself, as a child or in his career: he has never had a sighting or 'woo' experience.

I, as far as I can remember, I have no experience with the phenomenon.

Around 2009 Grusch read the AAWSAP Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs) on topics such as magnetohydrodynamic propulsion and cloaking and did not know they were UAP-related.

I remember reading the OSAP the Defense Intelligence reference documents, the DIDs, and at the time I had no idea what they were doing

Our check The documents he names exist and are in PURSUE release 6: DOW-UAP-D117 and D118 (the earliest DIRDs) are dated 14 December 2009, the cloaking DIRD (D122) is 2 March 2010 and the MHD air-breathing propulsion DIRD (D149) is 21 November 2010. Their titles and text are about aerospace technology and do not mention UAP, which fits his not knowing the link at the time, but his 'like 2009' is early for the two he names and nothing records that he read them. What would settle it: DIA or NRO distribution lists for the DIRDs, which were circulated as intelligence reference documents. This is personal recollection about reading unclassified-topic reports, with no sign of any claim that depends on it.

The crash-retrieval program hid inside conventional national-security collection architecture, and a top-secret program Grusch himself worked on was in fact looking for UAP without his knowing.

they used a lot of conventional national security intelligence collection architecture to basically facilitate this crash retrieval program

About ten years into his career, imagery analysts told Grusch they had been told to airbrush some round objects out of photos.

they told us to airbrush some stuff out of photos and stuff and it was round

Earlier in his career Grusch went through a year-long 'smoking man' recruitment toward bizarre accesses adjacent to the program but was never recruited.

I went through this whole like smoking man recruitment thing for a year and you know was told I was going to get these kind of bizarre accesses

In spring 2017, while Grusch briefed the CIA deputy director's staff, the chief of a very sensitive CIA office asked him what he knew about a UFO program at the Pentagon; he says he knew nothing then.

Dave, what do you know about UFOs? Like I hear there's like a program at the Pentagon and all that.

A disclosure scenario exercise took place in November 2004 at a federally funded research and development center in Northern Virginia, sponsored by National Security Advisor Steve Hadley; AARO's Volume 1 report concedes the meeting happened but calls it hypothetical, and Grusch believes Hadley denies it.

that it took place, but it was just a hypothetical scenario at a fedally funded research and development center in Northern Virginia

Our check AARO's Historical Record Report Vol. 1 (8 March 2024) does confirm that a study of the societal impact of disclosing extraterrestrial evidence was run by an organization in Northern Virginia between 2004 and 2007 (about a dozen participants rating 64 societal dimensions in one day), under the heading 'Extraterrestrial Disclosure Study Confirmed; Not White House-Sponsored'. AARO says two former White House senior officials told it the White House did not request the study and were not aware of it; it does not name Hadley, a November 2004 date or MITRE in the pages read, and the word 'hypothetical' is Grusch's. So the event is supported, but the Hadley sponsorship that gives it weight is secondhand, is denied by the officials AARO interviewed, and Grusch himself says Hadley denies it.

Sources en.wikisource.org, en.wikisource.org, metabunk.org

The 2004 exercise concluded against disclosure mainly because of contractor liability (sole-source J&A contracts, Defense acquisition-regulation violations, possibly billions owed), not because of fears the public could not cope.

they were afraid that you would see legal challenges going to the Supreme Court in violation of what they call the DEFARS

Grusch supports amnesty for program participants modeled on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (use immunity for testimony), but not for the criminal acts he alleges.

I believe in amnesty, but I think we need to do it like a truth and reconciliation commission

Orbs might be a 'sentient plasmoid', plasma-based life or a probe from another intelligence on the other side of a wormhole; Grusch calls it a theoretical framework from papers on the open internet and says he has no PhD in it.

So, for example, the orbs, could that be sentient plasmoid? Possibly

Orbs could be physical craft wrapped in a plasma sheath produced as a by-product of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion, which steers plasma with the Lorentz force; he points to a DIA Defense Intelligence Reference Document on MHD propulsion.

one of the byproducts of an air breathing MHD system is plasma around it

Grusch prefers the Penrose-Hameroff Orch OR model (quantum collapse in neuronal microtubules without an observer), partly because in his view it explains telepathy and why remote viewing works, through quantum entanglement.

does explain spooky action and like telepathy because oh well if it's just a quantum system then I'm like quantumly entangled.

Recovered or observed craft come in several shapes (tic tacs, eggs, several types of discs, boot heels, 'sunfish', boomerangs, crescent moons) that overlap like car models, which he reads as a sign of different origins or builders.

the tic tacs are real. There's eggs. There's different types of discs.

Assessments of where the craft and beings come from exist, but Grusch never got access to them, and he says even a stated origin would be hard to trust given denial and deception.

there is but I never got access to that

Because the beings look so like humans, Grusch asks, without answering, whether they are bioengineered, a branch off the human tree, or using 'chameleon-type technology'; he adds that a lot of it seems to have been here for a while.

is this bio-engineered? Is this a break from our tree? Is this some sort of other technology?

Under duress Grusch resigned his Air Force commission without retiring, has asked the Air Force board to fix it so he can retire with benefits, and missed promotion to lieutenant colonel.

I had to even resign my Air Force Commission. Didn't even fully retire

Our check No public record of his resignation of commission, a petition to the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records, or a missed promotion to lieutenant colonel was found; the searches returned only unrelated BCMR cases, and his House biography and the dossier give only his rank as Major and 14 years of service. BCMR decisions are published on boards.law.af.mil once decided, so a ruling would settle the status; a pending petition would not be public. Whether the resignation was under duress is his own account.

Sources boards.law.af.mil, en.wikipedia.org

Work was done to compare the genomes of biological samples from the recovered bodies, although Grusch does not know the results.

Oh, 100%.

Grusch says he watched unreleased video of dead non-human bodies on the ground at a retrieval operation; in 2023 he described photos and reports and said he had not witnessed craft or non-human intelligence.

I got to see the audio visual on that side.

The footage is contemporary (clear, not black-and-white 1950s film), but Grusch declines to date it because that would identify the operation and the person who helped him.

I don't want to reveal a particular operation because it narrows it down.

Grusch held the video and documents for years and confirmed the event independently ('other sources and methods') to rule out a limited hangout or an AI-style fabrication before he believed it.

I sat on that stuff for like years until I felt comfortable with that not being some sort of limited hangout or deception activity.

The bodies looked human and 'very beautiful', with bluish-white, pale skin, long grayish hair and a form-fitting garment; three or four were visible and sex was not discernible, and the shots were not close-ups.

like a pale sort of albino

General McCasland repeatedly told Tom DeLonge to 'think of the Greek gods' when picturing the beings, and Grusch says that after what he saw he now understands what McCasland meant.

think of the Greek gods

Retired General McCasland disappeared within a week of Trump's February 2026 declassification order: Grusch says he left home, one firearm was missing, he had bought a medical kit at REI the day before a trip with about 18 friends, his phone was left, his wife did not think he would kill himself, and nobody knows what happened.

General McCaslin, who disappeared within a week of Trump giving the declassification order on UAP in February 2026

Our check The disappearance is documented: retired Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, 68, left his Albuquerque home on 27 February 2026 and has not been found (the sheriff's office had no update as of 4 August 2026). Reports confirm his phone, glasses and watch were left, a .38 revolver, wallet and hiking boots were missing, and a surveillance photo from 26 February shows him at an REI-type store carrying a first-aid-kit-like packet. Trump's Truth Social order to release UAP files was on 19 February, so the gap is eight days, not 'within a week'; the 'trip with 18 friends' and 'wife did not think he would kill himself' details are unconfirmed, and her reported 911 call says he 'must have planned not to be found'. No source links the disappearance to UAP; his documented tie is an unpaid post-retirement consulting contact with Tom DeLonge, which his wife says is no reason for abduction.

Sources kob.com, thedebrief.org, aol.com, poynter.org

Grusch judges the claimed pattern of missing or dead UAP-linked scientists overblown, with little correlation.

I don't think there was a ton of correlation

Grusch's Air Force friend and source Matthew Sullivan (callsign Quake), who was on the program, died mysteriously about two years ago, in an open investigation: either self-harm 'or it was something else'.

my friend his name's Matthew Sullivan calls sign quake in the air force him and I were on active duty together he was on the program and he was one of my sources

Our check Matthew James Sullivan (call sign Quake), an Air Force intelligence officer and close friend of Grusch, died on 12 May 2024 at his home in Falls Church, Virginia, and Rep. Burlison's office said he had been due to be interviewed by Congress and contacted the FBI because of the timing. NewsNation reports the medical examiner's records give an accidental overdose of multiple medications (Xanax, cyclobenzaprine) with alcohol, which fits neither 'mysterious' nor 'something else' as Grusch frames it. I could not confirm that an investigation is still open, and nothing public shows that his death relates to UAP; that he was a source is Grusch's statement.

Sources newsnationnow.com, dignitymemorial.com

Grusch expects the video of the bodies to be part of disclosure, but says physical evidence will have to be shown as well because trust in government is so low.

probably so there's a there's a lot audiovisisual stuff

Recovered bodies are kept for analysis in some sort of preservation status, probably frozen; Grusch does not know the process.

they do put it in some sort of preservation status

Grusch entertains that some of the beings may come from a 'breakaway human civilization' or be bioengineered, since a human lookalike evolving independently off-planet makes no sense to him.

I have questions about some sort of breakaway human civilization and that explains some of this or it's bio-engineered

Some of Grusch's colleagues who were on retrievals saw the beings in person, some of them alive as well as dead; he compared their descriptions with each other and says they vary.

some of my colleagues saw them alive as well

Reptilian-looking and gray beings, 'the pop culture' ones, are real, and the 1994 Ariel School mass sighting in Zimbabwe, which he places near a uranium mine, is a very well documented case of small gray beings leaving a lenticular craft.

the grays yes as well those are real once again the aerial school phenomenon in 1994 very well documented mass sighting

Our check The Ariel School event is real as a report: on 16 September 1994 about 62 children aged 6 to 12 at a school near Ruwa, Zimbabwe, said they saw silver disc-like objects land and one to four beings, and they were interviewed by Cynthia Hind (BBC journalist Tim Leach also visited) and by John Mack in November 1994. But the children described beings with big eyes dressed in black, not typical grays, no photograph, trace or independent adult observation exists, and skeptics point to suggestion and misidentification; I found no source for the 'near a uranium mine' detail. 'Very well documented' holds only for the children's accounts and drawings (rung 6), and the claim that reptilians and grays are real rests on colleagues' accounts he does not claim to have verified.

Sources en.wikipedia.org

Grusch says he met some of the most senior people in government to confirm his information 'at the highest level'.

I met with some of the most senior people in government to confirm all this, you know, at the highest highest highest level.

Some craft crashes result from conflict between non-human groups ('NHI versus NHI'), which Grusch says was documented in collection and 'looks like conflict, smells like conflict', though it may be something else.

So some of it is NHI versus NHI.

The craft linked to the 'Greek god' beings are boomerangs or crescent moons, and the reptilians' craft are tic-tac shaped, though not always; he likens it to people preferring the Porsche 911.

that one is tic tac looking.

Reptilian beings are described to Grusch as 7 feet or more, with scaly, gorilla-like skin, in several types including more humanoid ones; he has never seen one in person.

it's like very almost like 7 foot tall plus sort of gorilla looking skin

A tic-tac craft carrying reptilian-type beings crashed, wedged into the ground, with dead grays at the site; Grusch knows the people who were there and says there are a couple of unique retrievals like this.

I don't remember exactly what happened in that regard, but it did crash.

There have been at least a dozen or two adversarial-conflict crashes (his estimate); he does not know the total.

it seems to be at least a dozen or two

Grusch calls Villarroel's archival-plate work great original scholarship but says it is hard to conclude the transients are UAP; he recalls clusters over nuclear facilities and a temporal correlation with nuclear tests.

it's hard to make an exact conclusion if it's UAP, but it's really great original scholarship

Our check Grusch's recollection matches the published work in its main points. Bruehl and Villarroel (Scientific Reports, October 2025) found transients 45 percent more likely within one day of an atmospheric nuclear test, peaking at about 68 percent the day after, and the authors say this does not show what the transients are or that the link is causal; I found no report of clustering over nuclear facilities in their paper, only a temporal correlation, so that part of his memory is unverified. The underlying transient detections are disputed (Hambly and Blair 2024 on plate defects; Watters et al. 2026 argue the nuclear correlation is dominated by the Palomar observing schedule, which Villarroel and colleagues rebut with a restricted-nights reanalysis at p = 0.046). His view that the UAP reading is hard to conclude is the more cautious one the authors share.

Sources pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, sci.news, arxiv.org

Unidentified lights in archival astronomy images were 68 percent more likely to be imaged within 24 hours after a nuclear weapons test.

unidentified lights in archival astronomy images were 68% more likely to be imaged 24 hours after a nuclear weapons test

Our check The figure is real: Bruehl and Villarroel (Scientific Reports, 20 October 2025; 2,718 days from 1949 to 1957) report transients 45 percent more likely within one day of a nuclear test, with the effect strongest the day after (about 68 percent), and they say the work does not establish causation or what the transients are. The paper does not claim craft appear after tests, as Rogan then says. Its meaning is contested: Watters et al. (2026) argue the association comes from the observing schedule and normalisation, and Villarroel and colleagues answer with a reanalysis restricted to 370 confirmed observation nights (84.2 vs 72.8 percent of nights with a transient, one-tailed p = 0.046).

Sources sci.news, sciencealert.com, arxiv.org

Ground-penetrating radar and radio tomography show a flooded labyrinth under Hawara, Egypt, with a 40 m long metallic object of apparently unknown metal in a large chamber.

It's a 40 m long metallic object and the metal apparently is of unknown origin.

Our check The claim traces to private-survey and satellite-radar assertions, not to excavation: Merlin Burrows (Timothy Akers) describes a gallery of at least 40 by 100 m and a metallic object of about 40 m, Filippo Biondi and Corrado Malanga have published SAR-tomography claims about Giza, and Mark Carlotto's 2023 Sentinel-1 work only shows shallow structures. Archaeologists such as Flint Dibble call the metallic-object claim unsupported, Zahi Hawass rejected the related Khafre claims as having no scientific basis, and radar specialists doubt the claimed depths. Egypt's ministry announced new work at Hawara on 7 May 2026, but I found no published result confirming a flooded labyrinth or any metal object.

Sources focus.it, wealthness42.substack.com, cairoscene.com

Some ancient civilizations were 'cargo cults' for these visitors; he calls that 'most likely true in many cases, not all', and notes that it touches theology.

I won't be surprised if some ancient civilizations were essentially cargo cults, you know, for these visitors.

Grusch knows people who paid a guard to lie in the King's Chamber sarcophagus of the Great Pyramid off hours and had 'a weird transcendental experience'.

they just have like a weird transcendental experience

Exorcists who say UAP are demonic deception are describing a certain class of non-human or anomalous intelligence, but the whole ecosystem is not demonic.

what you perceive as a demon is a certain class of non-human or anomalous intelligence

The sanitation rules in Leviticus and Deuteronomy anticipate modern germ-based hygiene, which shows some higher intelligence influenced the Bible's authorship.

it does show that there was some sort of higher intelligence kind of influencing the authorship

Much ancient tradition (Ezekiel, the Sumerian Anunnaki, petroglyphs at Capitol Reef) is 'literally what they saw' rather than allegory or fable.

I feel like a lot of the stuff in ancient tradition is literally what they saw.

Robert Bigelow met President Trump in February 2026, before the announcement, and urged him to admit that there is NHI and that things have been recovered, in a semiformal announcement meant to begin acclimatizing the public.

Bob Bigalow met with the president as well in February 26 before he made an announcement

Our check George Knapp's KLAS (8 News Now) interview with Bigelow, published around August 2026, reports Bigelow saying he met Trump in the Oval Office in February 2026 for over an hour and gave him wording confirming 'a non-human, intelligent presence' on Earth; he also spoke of disclosing crashes, bodies and reverse engineering. This is Bigelow's own account: I found no White House confirmation, the exact date and its order relative to Trump's 19 February post are not stated, and Trump has not used Bigelow's wording. 'Semiformal announcement to acclimatize the public' is Grusch's reading.

Sources 8newsnow.com, ibtimes.co.uk

Burlison's letters led to the declassification of a 1952 'Lincoln Labs' film, released in the most recent PURSUE tranche.

That's how we got that Lincoln Labs formally classified 1952 film outs in the last trunch that just came out.

Our check The substance holds with one wrong noun. Burlison wrote to MIT Lincoln Laboratory on 7 May 2026 about a reel-to-reel recording labeled 'AF-ATIC-FILM, 03/52' from the Beacon Hill Study, 'flying saucer talk', with Ruppelt as briefer, asking it be preserved, digitized and sent to the National Archives; his office announced on 21 September 2026 that the recording and transcript were released in PURSUE release 6 (18 September), which is DOW-UAP-PR160 and D154. The item is an audio tape, not a film (the word 'FILM' is part of its label), and the Tremonton film (PR159, D102, D103, D098) is a separate 1952 item that Burlison is not credited with. Whether it was formally classified, and whether his letters caused the release, rests on his office's account.

Sources burlison.house.gov, quiverquant.com

Rep. Burlison's office sent legal interrogatories, questions requiring affidavit-format answers, to the MITRE Corporation in summer 2026; MITRE's corporate counsel is working on a response.

it's public that we sent one this summer to the MITER Corporation which is a fedally funded research and development center headquartered in Northern Virginia

Our check Burlison's letter to MITRE's CEO and its SVP and General Counsel, dated 22 May 2026 (his office's release is dated 26 May), transmitted legislative interrogatories and production requests on UAP records, crash-retrieval or reverse-engineering programs and FFRDC custody, with deadlines of 30 days for written answers and 45 days for unclassified records, and it asks for a certified response signed by a responsible MITRE officer and counsel. Grusch's 'summer 2026' is off (it was late spring) and 'affidavit-format' is closer to 'certified'. MITRE's public response was a spokesperson saying it is reviewing its archives; I found no public statement that its counsel is drafting a response, and the letter does not mention the 2004 exercise or Hadley.

Sources burlison.house.gov, defensescoop.com, burlison.house.gov

Grusch says there is some sort of 'consciousness communication', 'call it telepathy', between the beings and humans; sober, high-ranking people he served with, who were on retrievals, told him it happened on occasion or that a feeling came over them.

There is some sort of consciousness communication. Call it telepathy.

Hypothesis: the comfort retrieval personnel report may be a psychotronic countermeasure on the craft, like chaff and flares on jets, that calms potential aggressors; he notes it sometimes occurs with no occupant present.

I wonder if some of that is psychotronic technology.

There are three or four subtypes of the gray-type beings of varying stature; the small ones may be androids ('discussed within the program'), and the tall ones seem to run things.

There's like three or four different subtypes and they all kind of have various statures

Artificial super intelligence could disclose the facts before the government does, by correlating medical, genomic and optical data and spotting gaps in the historical record that were cover for crash retrievals.

I bet artificial super intelligence could disclose before the federal government if we're not careful.

The elongated skulls found in Peru lack the sagittal line and have 20 to 30 percent more brain capacity, so they are not simply the product of head-binding.

their brain capacity is far larger than us. 20 to 30% larger.

Our check Artificial cranial deformation by binding is well documented for Paracas and other Andean peoples (Julio Tello's 1928 excavation of over 300 elongated skulls; two shapes, tabular erect and bilobate, depicted on Paracas ceramics), and it changes skull shape without adding volume. The claims of 20 to 30 percent more capacity, no sagittal suture and non-human DNA come from tour-industry and Ancient Aliens figures (Brien Foerster, L. A. Marzulli) and Facebook announcements, with an unnamed geneticist and no peer-reviewed measurement; a 2016 test reported European and Middle Eastern ancestry. I did not find a study that directly measures the volume figure, so this rests on the standard bioarchaeology plus the absence of any supporting study.

Sources en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, doi.org, snopes.com

The phenomenon is too old to be Cold War or modern human technology, and Grusch would know because he held the clearances; there have been 'oops' where people saw US stuff, but there is a genuine presence.

We've been seeing the same objects for so long it rules out any kind of, you know, modern cold war technology.

A 1952 recording, still classified until the latest PURSUE tranche, has Edward Ruppelt briefing a study team at MIT Lincoln Laboratory (Grusch: the 'Beacon Hill study team'): the Air Force has ruled out mass hysteria, and in the Holloman and White Sands area it caught multiple objects traveling an estimated 3,500 miles an hour.

we caught multiple objects traveling an estimated 3,500 miles an hour

Our check The recording exists and says close to what he describes. PURSUE DOW-UAP-D154 (transcript) and PR160 (audio) are Ruppelt's briefing in Boston on 26 March 1952, released 18 September 2026. In it Ruppelt says the mass-hysteria factor 'has gone out' because newspapers stopped playing it up, and that cinetheodolite crews at Holloman and White Sands tracked five or six objects at about 3,500 mph, but the Air Force 'won't back that up' because the stations may not have tracked the same object, and it could have been a daylight meteor. He also says about 20 percent of 800 to 900 reports cannot be explained and 'we've got no real proof that anything even exists'. On 'Lincoln Labs' and 'Beacon Hill': this is not a confusion with Lincoln LaPaz (the University of New Mexico meteor expert Ruppelt mentions in the transcript). The tape was held by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and Burlison's 7 May 2026 letter reports its label as from the 'Beacon Hill Study', which matches the briefing of the Beacon Hill Group in Boston that day, though the transcript itself names neither. His interpretation that this shows the Air Force knew more is not supported by what Ruppelt says in the file.

Sources burlison.house.gov, devoutlier.substack.com

Edward Ruppelt eventually left Blue Book because he realized it was a cover-up.

Edward Rubelt who eventually defected from Blue Book because he realized it was a cover up

A task force spanning ODNI and the Department of War is investigating, right now, the orbs 'accosting the federal government'.

orbs that are accosting the federal government as we speak and there's a whole task force looking at it right now

Our check I found no public record of a joint ODNI and Department of War task force on the orbs. The nearest documents are DOW-UAP-D077 (5 June 2026, signed by AARO Director Jon T. Kosloski), which says the October 2023 'orbs launching orbs' case stays unresolved with about 40 percent unexplained and that AARO will bring in scientific modeling from partner agencies, and ODNI-UAP-D001, a senior official's narrative of the late-2025 helicopter encounter; neither names a task force. A record that would settle it: an ODNI or AARO charter or announcement, or the Oversight task-force correspondence naming one.

Sources oversight.house.gov

Once UAP are accepted as real and interacting with humans, the US government would have tried to recover craft for 'material exploitation and acquisition', and recovered biologics follow from that.

we're doing for material exploitation and acquisition

Project Blue Book was a facade: a 1971 secret Australian Joint Intelligence Organization document by Harry Turner, the JIO nuclear branch chief, says the Air Force was seriously concerned, wanted to use the technology, and, after the 1953 Robertson panel, ran a plan of ridicule and disinformation partly for fear the Soviets would use UFO reports as a false flag.

a formally classified Australian Joint Intelligence Organization document that was classified secret in 1971 written by a gentleman called Harry Turner

Our check The document exists: it is the Australian Department of Defence 1971 paper in National Archives of Australia file A13693, 3092/2/000, republished as PURSUE CIA-UAP-019, and secondary sources attribute it to Harry Turner of the Joint Intelligence Organisation (the PURSUE copy's text names no author). Its text does say Project Grudge tried to destroy acceptance of UFOs, that the Robertson panel agreed with CIA concern that enemy actors could exploit UFO reporting and recommended a 'training and debunking' program, and that a covert effort (almost certainly CIA) kept studying UFOs while Blue Book shrank the unknown count. It is one analyst's inference from mostly public US material, not evidence of what the Air Force intended; 'facade', 'wanted to use the technology' and 'false flag' are Grusch's words, and the same file gives unknown rates that rise with report reliability (16.6 vs 33.3 percent), which the workbench summary notes cuts against a pure facade.

Sources recordsearch.naa.gov.au, en.wikipedia.org

An assessment prepared for President Nixon concluded that disclosure would cause 'absolute chaos', and Watergate followed soon after, which he finds 'very convenient'; the Emenegger film promise was routed through the MacArthur Foundation.

I know of an assessment that was done for Nixon basically saying it's going to cause absolute [ __ ] chaos.

Before the 2016 election Hillary Clinton said publicly that if elected she would release the UFO files.

Hillary talked publicly and this is public record that if elected she would release the UFO files.

Our check On Jimmy Kimmel Live in March 2016 Clinton said that if elected she would open government files on Area 51 and other UFO matters, and she corrected Kimmel's wording to 'unexplained aerial phenomenon'; her campaign chairman John Podesta said he helped her file a FOIA request about a possible UFO incident. The pledge was to look into and open files as far as possible, so 'release the UFO files' is a fair summary but overstates a promise of full release.

Sources bostonglobe.com, techcrunch.com, nbcnews.com

John Podesta green-lit an acclimatization effort ahead of a Clinton disclosure; that is why McCasland, Lockheed's Robert Weiss and others advised Tom DeLonge's To The Stars, with James Clapper providing top cover, and the effort collapsed when Clinton lost; he says it is all in WikiLeaks.

they were given top cover to see Tom as a public figure who had the touch of the youth

Grusch has only heard 'water cooler talk' of insectoid beings and has no knowledge of any; he never saw an organizational chart or a count of the types.

I'll call it water cooler talk within those channels of like you said some sort of insectoid.

The surviving reptilian-type being was shot dead by US personnel after it 'posed a threat' and US personnel began 'getting hurt and dying'; Grusch does not know how many.

it just posed a threat and you know US personnel started you know getting hurt and dying

Credible military witnesses have reported encounters at nuclear sites, including Mario Woods and Michael Johnson at Ellsworth Air Force Base in the 1970s (who, he says, claim a gray pushed a probe into them), and Robert Hastings's 'UFOs and Nukes' collects such cases.

you even look at the Mario Woods and Michael Johnson case up at Ellsworth Air Force Base in the 70s

Our check Reports of this kind exist and AARO's Volume 1 interviewed five former Air Force members from Malmstrom, Ellsworth, Vandenberg and Minot (1966 to 1977), and Hastings's UFOs and Nukes does collect more than 150 witness accounts of encounters at nuclear sites. Mario Woods, a security-response team member at Ellsworth, reports a 1977 night encounter with a team leader, Michael Johnson, and later told AARO about it; the secondary reporting has Woods describing a tall, pale blue-gray being, not a typical gray, and I found nothing about a probe, so that detail may be Grusch's paraphrase. All of it is uncorroborated witness testimony (rung 6), with no sensor or maintenance record cited, and AARO reports it is still researching these cases without confirming any UAP involvement.

Sources en.wikisource.org, journalnews.com.ph, rpginc.com

Many credible people, in and out of government, have privately told Grusch of personal experiences, and more people have had experiences than polling shows because of the stigma.

I think a lot a bigger part of the populace I think has had experiences than statistics would tell you just because of the stigmatization of the topic

Records of secret programs survive only through leaks, as MKUltra became known through Seymour Hersh's New York Times story, the Church Committee and financial records that were not destroyed; this is why the White House cannot just 'break down the door'.

the only reason why we know of MK Ultra is Seymour Hirs, right? The New York Times story, there was a leak to the Times.

Following Vallee, the beings use concealment and 'signature management' and a show-and-display 'control system' as a stimulus rather than overt contact; whether it is a Star Trek prime directive or something else, he does not know.

as Jacqu Valet will say, there's some sort of control system.

Interaction was more overt in antiquity and something changed at some point in human history, perhaps a different group of intelligences or a changed 'force presentation'.

I think the nature of the interaction was more overt antiquity.

There is a large non-human base of operations on the ocean floor, 'multiple city blocks' in size, with traffic coming and going and an indeterminate origin; sensitive Navy underwater detail is withheld.

there's clearly some sort of base of operations in certain locations.

Grusch denies that he tricked Matthew Brown into revealing classified information or made a fake briefing: he first spoke to Brown in 2024, after he left the intelligence community, has never seen the briefing Brown describes, and made only joke Star Trek briefs for his airmen.

I didn't even know Matt Brown until right before the 2024 hearing.

Our check Grusch's denial cannot be checked against any public record: no document shows who wrote the briefing Matthew Brown describes (his Immaculate Constellation report), and skeptics have only speculated that it could come from the 2018 Schriever Wargame, which Grusch's CV is said to mention. In the interview itself Grusch says the allegation comes from other people online, not from Brown, and I found no statement by Brown accusing him of tricking him. Brown and Grusch later joined the group asking Trump to waive NDAs, which fits Grusch's account of supportive contact after 2024. A record that would settle it: the file's creation metadata and the Brown allegation itself.

Sources metabunk.org, anomalyarchives.org, irishstar.com

Grusch thinks there is 'something to synchronicities' and a 'hidden hand' part of the phenomenon, while allowing that people ascribe meaning to statistically random coincidences.

I think there's something to synchronicities and I don't have an answer why that happens.

The Stargate remote-viewing effort ('Grill Flame' and its other names) was adjacent to the program, and the US ran the 'psychic spying program' because a consciousness-based organic-to-technology interface may be a key unlock for some of the technology.

That's the key unlock to some of the technology potentially if you could figure out how to it's a it's what like they call it like BCI brain computer interface

For some classes of vehicle control is 'clearly consciousness based', an organic-to-technology interface with no obvious instruments, as Bob Lazar also said.

clearly there's some sort of organic to tech interface and it's clearly consciousness based

Egg-shaped craft are usually unmanned, perhaps probes, with no obvious control surfaces; Jake Barber has publicly described recovering them.

you just have like the eggs and stuff. They're like usually unmanned

Grusch would have the disclosure at least six months before an election, so there is a recovery period, and says it has to happen before Trump leaves office because he does not trust another president to follow through.

I would do it at least 6 months before the election just so there's some sort of recovery period

A plan existed under George H. W. Bush for a government audiovisual companion to a disclosure announcement; Grusch does not know the later details.

there was going to be this like audiovisisual kind of a companion to some sort of announcement

There has been a 'cohabitation' or homeostasis between the phenomenon and humans, nothing crazy has happened, and people should not be too fearful.

there's been this called cohabitation, for the lack of a better way to describe it.

Silicon-based AI may be the infrastructure humans need in order to communicate with this organic intelligence, because it can learn modalities of communication.

is that the infrastructure that we need to communicate to some of this organic intelligence