UFO Whistleblower Claims US Forces Had a Deadly Shootout With Seven-Foot-Tall Reptilian Aliens

David Grusch, the former US intelligence officer who testified at the 2023 congressional UFO hearing, told Joe Rogan on 30 September that US forces allegedly shot dead about seven-foot-tall reptilian beings after a crashed craft, although he said he never personally saw them.

Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, Grusch described a crashed 'tic-tac' craft linked to what he framed as a clash between two groups of non-human beings. He said dead 'grays' were recovered alongside living reptilians, creatures he described as more than seven feet tall, with a gorilla-like build and scaly skin.

Those beings, he claimed, turned on US personnel, wounding and killing some before troops opened fire and killed them. He also described human-like beings said to resemble Greek gods, part of a wider set of alleged non-human types.

Grusch told Rogan the account came from a colleague, not from anything he witnessed, and he offered no physical evidence to back it. 'I cannot believe I'm talking about this on Joe Rogan,' he said during the episode. Rogan himself called the subject 'kooky talk', while allowing that 'if it was real, there's no way it doesn't sound kooky'.

The Claim That Divided UFO Watchers

Reaction inside Reddit's r/UFOs forum turned sharply sceptical rather than excited. Users questioned why Grusch had moved from pressing for government transparency earlier this year to sharing a vivid, unprovable crash story. Several criticised the account as attention-seeking or fictional, with one comparing it to something lifted from a bad novella. The shift matters because Grusch built his reputation on documents and sworn statements, not on dramatic retellings.

Why Credibility Is the Real Story

Grusch is not a fringe figure, which is what makes the latest claims so awkward. He served as an Air Force intelligence officer and as the National Reconnaissance Office's representative to a Pentagon task force studying unidentified anomalous phenomena. When he testified under oath to a House Oversight subcommittee on 26 July 2023, he presented allegations based largely on information provided by others.

Even then, he said his testimony was based on information he had been given, and he declined to share classified material when pressed. His new account, by contrast, rests entirely on what others allegedly told him.

What the Pentagon Has Found

Official findings have not corroborated the broader claims of recovered extraterrestrial technology. The Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, known as AARO, published a historical review in March 2024 and reported no verifiable evidence that the US government has recovered or reverse-engineered alien technology. The office also determined that specific claims about people, locations, and documents tied to alleged reverse-engineering programmes were inaccurate.

Sean Kirkpatrick, AARO's first director, told the Senate in April 2023 that investigators had found no credible evidence of extraterrestrial activity.

What Happens Next

Grusch told Rogan to expect major disclosure before President Donald Trump leaves office and predicted a coming shift in what the public accepts as real.

For now, the story rests on a secondhand account with no publicly available footage, bodies, or records that independently verify the encounter. Readers weighing whether to believe it face the same basic evidentiary question: where is the physical evidence?