Claim · G-025

David Grusch: Claims that he was informed, in the course of his official duties, of a decades-long program to retrieve crashed UAPs and reverse-engineer them, to which he was denied access.

David Grusch · Jul 26, 2023 · House hearing, Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs (Hearing)

Under oath Hearsay Legacy program and recoveries

Original words

a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access

In support

This is maintained, as witnesses, by former officials such as Karl Nell and, since 2025, Jay Stratton; Senators Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley have alluded to similar accounts received in closed session. No public evidence. Stratton is an executive producer, with Elizondo, of the documentary The Age of Disclosure; in October 2026 he published the book “Out of the Shadows,” from which Dan Farah and Terence Winter are developing a television series (The Debrief, September 24, 2026). These are professional and commercial interests that the reader should be able to take into account; in themselves they say nothing about the truthfulness of his testimony.

Against or denials

Kirkpatrick (July 27, 2023): AARO found no credible evidence of any reverse-engineering program; the AARO historical report vol. 1 (2024) found no verifiable evidence of reverse engineering of extraterrestrial technology. The Wall Street Journal (June 2025) reported that for decades some Air Force commanders were told about a fake reverse-engineering program (“Yankee Blue”): Rep. Burlison said that Grusch had never heard of it and no document links his sources to those briefings.

Sources

1. Official transcript of the July 26, 2023 hearing in the House of Representatives (GovInfo, CHRG-118hhrg53022) (primary source)
2. NPR (via KPCW), Pentagon finds no evidence of alien technology in new report (March 8, 2024) (press)
3. The Debrief, Sean Kirkpatrick's statement after the hearing (July 27, 2023) (press, pro-disclosure)
4. Sentinel News, reactions to the Wall Street Journal investigation (June 2025) (press, pro-disclosure)
5. The Debrief, la storia di Jay Stratton diventa una serie televisiva (24/9/2026) (press, pro-disclosure)
6. Skeptic (Michael Shermer), review of “The Age of Disclosure” (November 23, 2025), with the caption on the executive producers (analysis, skeptical)

On this site

People 1

• David Grusch

Claims 5

• David Grusch: Asked whether the government possesses UAPs, he answers “absolutely,” based on interviews with more than 40… Disputed
• David Grusch: Claims that the United States holds material of non-human origin, including intact and partially intact craft. Disputed
• David Grusch: Rules out, as far as he knows, that the craft are U.S. products, observing that the retrievals predate many… Disputed
• David Grusch: Argues that the reverse engineering of recovered craft contributed to the development of frequency-selective… Unverifiable
• Dylan Borland: Claims under oath that, a few years after a triangle sighting at the Langley base in 2012, through an… Unverifiable

Documents 8

• The Joint Staff's procedures for reporting UAP and handing material over to AARO (May 19, 2023) Original available
• Grusch's written statement for the July 26, 2023 hearing Original available
• The transcript of the July 26, 2023 House hearing with Grusch, Graves and Fravor Original available
• The prepublication review file for the message on the alleged retrieval program circulated by Christopher Mellon Documented provenance
• AARO's Historical Record Report, vol. 1 (March 2024) Original available
• AARO's Consolidated Annual Report on UAP for Fiscal Year 2025 Original available
• The confidential 1962–64 rules for recovering and analyzing space vehicle fragments Original available
• The State Department “Moon Dust” cables (1973–1978) on the retrieval of fallen space objects Original available

Where the claims come from 2

• The United States holds intact or partially intact craft of non-human origin, the product of a retrieval…
• The reverse engineering of recovered craft has contributed to the development of U.S. aerospace and military…

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UAPgrade's entries are compiled with artificial intelligence (three verifiers with opposing roles) and checked against the sources listed above: how we work. Have a document that changes this entry? Bring it to the Investigations Unit.