David Grusch

David Charles Grusch served as a decorated intelligence officer with the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, holding top-secret clearances and serving as the NRO's representative to the UAP Task Force from 2019 to 2021. In 2022 he filed a complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General alleging that the US government had been running a covert programme to retrieve and reverse-engineer non-human craft, and that he had been denied access to these programmes despite having the appropriate clearances.

The ICIG found his complaint "credible and urgent" and forwarded it to the congressional intelligence committees. In June 2023, The Debrief published the first public interview with Grusch, in which he stated that the US government possessed "intact and partially intact" vehicles of non-human origin, along with recovered biologics. He also alleged that people had been harmed to protect the secrecy of these programmes.

Grusch testified under oath before the House Oversight Committee on 26 July 2023, in what became the most-watched congressional hearing on UAPs in history. He stated that he could provide classified details in a SCIF but confirmed publicly that a multi-decade retrieval programme existed and that Congress had been illegally denied oversight.

His testimony accelerated the legislative push that produced the UAP Disclosure Act (introduced by Senator Schumer) and shifted the Overton window on government UFO secrecy. Grusch received the Intelligence Community Inspector General's protection as a whistleblower.