The Pentagon undermined a whistleblower's claim about a secret government program that he said has been recovering crashed UFOs and reverse engineering their technology.
David Charles Grusch, a decorated Air Force veteran, told NewsNation, they are "retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles, call it spacecraft if you will, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed.
"Well, naturally, when you recover something that’s either landed or crashed … sometimes you encounter dead pilots and believe it or not, as fantastical as that sounds, it’s true," Grusch said.
Susan Gough, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense, told Fox News Digital in an email on Tuesday that there is no "verifiable information to substantiate the claims."
Gough is the mouthpiece for the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a section of the DOD tasked with investigating and identifying Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), a government-created phrase used instead of UFOs.
"To date, AARO 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," Gough said.
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Gough also said the AARO, working with the Office of the General Counsel and Air Force Office of Special investigations, has established "a safe and secure process" for people to come forward with information.
"AARO welcomes the opportunity to speak with any former or current government employee or contractor who believes they have information relevant to the historical review," Gough said.
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During NASA's public hearing on UFO's last week, AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick said his office is investigating over 800 cases, but only 2-5% of the cases are "truly anomalous."
That revelation pales in comparison to Grusch's jarring statements about the ongoing, decades-long secret UFO retrieval program, which was first reported by The Debrief.
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Grusch, 36, is a former combat officer in Afghanistan who served the National Reconnaissance Office as their representative to Congress’ Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force from 2019-2021.
On Monday, he filed a whistleblower complaint to Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) on classified information that he insists proves the recoveries of partial fragments and intact vehicles by the U.S. government, its allies and defense contractors, according to The Debrief's report.
The recoveries have been determined through analysis to be "of exotic origin (non-human intelligence, whether extraterrestrial or unknown origin) based on the vehicle morphologies and material science testing and the possession of unique atomic arrangements and radiological signatures," Grusch said.
"We are not talking about prosaic origins or identities," Grusch said of the information he submitted to Congress and the ICIG. "The material includes intact and partially intact vehicles."
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Many senior and former intelligence officers, many of whom he knew nearly his whole career, began confiding in him and provided documents and other "proof" that they were part of a secret craft retrieval program that the UAP Task Force "was not read into," Grusch claimed during a separate interview with NewsNation.
"We’re definitely not alone," he said. "The data points, quite empirically that we’re not alone."
Grusch told The Debrief that UFO "legacy programs" have long been concealed within "multiple agencies nesting UAP activities in conventional secret access programs without appropriate reporting to various oversight authorities."
On Tuesday, Fox News Digital spoke to three different people - two experts and a journalist - who backed Grusch's claims.
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Jeremy Corbell, an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker who was the only civilian named during Congress' historic UFO hearing in May 2022, said "everything" is true.
Grusch said he began providing hours of recorded classified information transcribed into hundreds of pages, which included specific data about the materials-recovery program to Congress starting in 2022.
"Individuals on these UAP programs approached me in my official capacity and disclosed their concerns regarding a multitude of wrongdoings, such as illegal contracting against the Federal Acquisition Regulations and other criminality and the suppression of information across a qualified industrial base and academia," Grusch told The Debrief.
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Though specific data, such as the locations of recoveries and program names remain classified, and no physical materials have been provided to Congress, several current members of the recovery program have since spoken to the Inspector General’s office, corroborating information in Grusch’s complaint.
"His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past 80 years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct, as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence," Karl Nell, a retired Army Colonel who worked with Grusch on the UAP Task Force, told The Debrief.
Per protocol, Grusch notified the Department of Defense of the information he intended to disclose to The Debrief, and the Pentagon cleared those intended on-the-record-statements for open publication in April – just days before Grusch left the government.
Fox News Digital Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
