Whistleblower claims US government hiding 'multi-decade' UFO retrieval programme
Three whistleblowers were questioned before Congress on claims that the US government is concealing a UFO programme, as ITV News US Correspondent Dan Rivers reports
A whistleblower has claimed that the United States government is concealing a programme which deals with the retrieval and reverse engineering of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
The Pentagon has denied all of the allegations.
Major David Grusch, a retired Air Force intelligence officer, said he was asked in 2019 by the head of a government task force on UFOs - or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) - to identify all highly classified programmes relating to the task force's mission.
At the time, Major Grusch was detailed to the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that operates US spy satellites.
"I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering programme to which I was denied access," he said.
Asked whether the US government had information about extraterrestrial life, Major Grusch said it had likely been aware of "non-human" activity since the 1930s.
Major Grusch's evidence is based off of interviews with more than 40 witnesses over the past four years.
When asked to expand on what he knew about extraterrestrial bodies, Major Grusch said that "biologics came with some of these recoveries".
Pressed further on whether these were human or not, he responded: "Non-human, and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the programme I talked to."
In a statement, Defence Department spokeswoman Sue Gough rubbished Major Grusch's claims, saying investigators have not discovered "any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programmes regarding the possession or reverse engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently".
The statement did not address UAPs which are not suspected of being extraterrestrial objects.
Major Grusch said he became a government whistleblower after his discovery and has faced backlash for coming forward.
He declined to be more specific about the retaliatory tactics, citing an ongoing investigation.
"It was very brutal and very unfortunate, some of the tactics they used to hurt me both professionally and personally," he said.
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During a session of the House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee, Major Grusch was questioned by both Democrats and Republicans.
He appeared alongside two other witnesses: retired navy commander David Fravor and Ryan Graves, a former Navy pilot.
Some lawmakers criticised the Pentagon for not providing more details in a classified briefing or releasing images that could be shown to the public.
In December, Pentagon officials said they had received "several hundreds" of new reports, since launching a renewed effort to investigate reports of UAPs.