A former US military intelligence officer-turned-whistleblower told the Congress that the US government secretly possesses "intact and partially intact" spacecraft of non-human origin and is withholding information from the public, a claim that the Pentagon has refuted.
David Grusch, who served 14 years as an intelligence officer in the Air Force and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, appeared before a panel alongside two former fighter pilots who reportedly had firsthand experience with mysterious objects. He alleged that the US government conducted a "multi-decade" programme which collected and reverse-engineered crashed UFOs.
Grusch, who headed an analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency until earlier this year, claimed that during the course of his work examining classified programmes, he was denied access to them. US government officially refers to UFOs as UAPs.
"I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access," he said. He also accused the military of misappropriating funds to shield these operations from congressional scrutiny, according to CBS News.
He revealed that he has faced "very brutal" retaliation, which prompted him to become a whistleblower. "It was very brutal and very unfortunate, some of the tactics they used to hurt me both professionally and personally," Grusch said.
Grusch added the government apparently had knowledge of “non-human” activity since the 1930s and went on to claim that bodies of extraterrestrial origin were recovered from crashed alien spacecraft.
When asked whom the panel should talk to next, Grusch said he could submit a list of "cooperative and hostile" individuals.
In a statement, a defense department spokesperson denied Grusch's claims of a cover-up, saying investigators have 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".
"We're going to uncover the cover-up, and I hope this is just the beginning of many more hearings and many more people coming forward about this," CBS quoted Tim Burchett, a Republican lawmaker from Tennessee, as saying.
– With inputs from agencies
