Whistleblower Alleges U.S. Government Is Covering Up Alien Life at UFO Hearing

A former intelligence official testified Wednesday that the United States government has found—and covered up—evidence of extraterrestrial life for decades. The witness, David Grusch, alleged at a House of Representatives hearing about UFOs that the Pentagon has recovered crashed vehicles and biological remains believed to be of “non-human” origin.

“I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP [unidentified anomalous phenomena] crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access,” he said at the hearing. “My testimony is based on information I have been given by individuals with a longstanding track record of legitimacy and service to this country—many of whom also shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation and classified oral testimony.”

At the hearing, two other witnesses, both formerly in the Navy, testified they had personal experiences with UFOs while on the job, including a 2004 incident that was caught on video. UFOs or UAPs are defined as any object that are detected but "cannot be immediately explained," CBS's Stefan Becket writes. "Many end up having innocent explanations—they turn out to be weather balloons, drones or small aircraft—while others remain shrouded in mystery."

House holds hearing on UFOs, government transparency | full video

Watch on

The idea of extraterrestrial life has been receiving a lot of hype recently, reports Marina Koren for the Atlantic. A Gallup poll from 2019 found that 68 percent of Americans believe the U.S. government knows more about UFOs than it is sharing with the public. Meanwhile, 33 percent of polled U.S. adults believed that some of the UFO sightings have, in fact, been extraterrestrial spacecraft visiting Earth.

“I think people are just ready or at least excited about the possibilities of alien contact, maybe more than ever,” Jacob Haqq Misra, an astrobiologist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, tells the Atlantic.

Adding to this interest, Congress has held two hearings on UFOs in the last two years, after a nearly 60-year hiatus from the subject. The last such proceedings were in 1966, when then-Congressman Gerald Ford convened a pair of hearings to discuss UFO sightings in southern Michigan and other parts of the country.

Yet, no hearing has revealed definitive evidence of life beyond Earth. Grusch said he hasn’t personally witnessed any UFOs, and he refused to publicly give specifics on some of the details of his claims, citing security concerns. Still, he said he would be more forthcoming behind closed doors. 

“As a former intelligence officer, I go to jail for revealing classified information,” he said at the hearing.

When asked whether anyone had been harmed or injured to cover up information about extraterrestrial technology, Grusch answered yes. But when asked if anyone had been murdered, he said he had to be careful and had “directed people with that knowledge to the appropriate authorities.” Grusch also alleged that the military had misused funds allocated for other programs to try to reverse-engineer some of the supposedly non-human technology. 

Sue Gough, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, tells NBC News’ Michael Mitsanas that Grusch’s claims are false. Grusch first went public with his remarks last month. 

The Department of Defense is “committed to timely and thorough reporting to Congress,” about UFOs, Gough tells NBC News. It “has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.”

Others are skeptical of Grusch’s comments. Representative Eric Burlison of Missouri said at the hearing he found it “far-fetched” that an extraterrestrial species was technologically advanced enough to travel to Earth yet is “somehow incompetent enough to not survive Earth and crashes.” 

But others say the subject is worthy of investigation based on the sheer number of UAP reports, whistleblowers and stories. Lawmakers from both parties are pushing to declassify documents related to UFOs. “The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence and unexplainable phenomena,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is among those spearheading the legislation, says in a statement. 

Though scientists have been searching for signs of life in our universe for years, they have so far come up short. NASA describes this search as one of its “key goals.” The space agency’s missions have studied water on Mars, explored the “ocean worlds” Titan and Europa, and looked for molecules that could be signatures of life in the atmospheres of alien planets. Yet our understanding of “life” is still a bit fuzzy and ever-changing. Even some Earth-dwelling extremophiles—organisms that live in exceptionally harsh conditions—are poorly understood. 

Still, with billions of trillions of planets and moons in the universe, it is “very unlikely that Earth is the only home to intelligent life,” per the Planetary Society. Whether we will find evidence in our lifetimes is a question that remains to be answered.

Margaret Osborne | | READ MORE

Margaret Osborne is a freelance journalist based in the southwestern U.S. Her work has appeared in the Sag Harbor Express and has aired on WSHU Public Radio.