David Grusch Makes Wild Claims in Oct 2026 Appearance on Joe Rogan Podcast

[JMartJr]

Aren't the Nordics distinct from the greys in the abduction/UFO narrative?

Yeah.

These three and the "mantids," insect-looking guys, seem to be the four that are embraced by UFO buffs these days, but of course over the years there have been dozens.

I am not sure about where this image originated, nor about what the basis is for assigning a ship type to each, but I found it on Reddit's r/aliens. I assume that it is AI slop due to hints like the three different views of the ships being mutually inconsistent...

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/aliens/comments/1wv2nl9/the_3_species_we_keep_hearing_about_we_still_dont/

 

[Ann K]

Yeah.

You're right, of course. Nordics are described more often as being silvery blue. I believe those "beautiful" people were invented as the modern-day succubus, providing a sort of UFO porn to turn "believers" into "hopers".

As for tic-tacs, I can attest that they're not that shape, but I suppose that's a catchier name than "Good & Plentys". Do they also come in pink?

 

[jdog]

Yeah.

And who flies the jellyfish, the hammers, the orbs, the black triangles, the rods, and the cubes within the circles? I need more of a dramatis personae. Plus the eggs, who makes Barber's eggs?

 

[John J.]

Off-topic a bit,
always uncomfortable with ufology's use of "Nordic", and UFO enthusiast's apparent lack of insight into why it might be a problematic term
(as well as the startling improbability of aliens not only resembling humans but a specific stereotype of some northern European people).

Aliens described as Nordics have been in UFO lore at least since George Adamski, 1952 (though I think the term "Nordic" in ufology is later, retrospectively applied):

On 20 November 1952, Adamski and several friends were in the California Desert near the town of Desert Center... ...according to Adamski's accounts, a scout ship made of a type of translucent metal landed close to him, and its pilot, a Venusian called Orthon, disembarked and sought him out. ...Adamski described Orthon as being a medium-height humanoid with long blond hair and tanned skin wearing reddish-brown shoes, though, as Adamski added, "his trousers were not like mine.

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Adamski

Wikipedia, Nordic aliens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_aliens) says "Nordic" aliens are often tall, blond,

...and showing stereotypically "European" or "White" features

In the 1950s, George Adamski, a Polish-American ufologist, was among the first to publicly report his alleged contact with Nordic beings. Scholars note that the mythology of extraterrestrial visitations from such beings (with physical features superficially described as "Aryan") often make mention of telepathy, benevolence, and physical beauty and grace.

(Remembering Grusch's description of cadavers as "very beautiful").

Billy Meier's Pleiadeans, which broadly fit this template (some of the women have darker hair, claimed photo post #26) warned of "gypsies" causing future catastrophes,

Meier's prophecies repeatedly blame Jews (whom he refers to as "gypsies") for future atrocities.

Wikipedia, Billy Meier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Meier

As an ethnographic or anthropological term, "Nordic" is obsolete and associated with discredited theories that underpinned "scientific racism", and is broadly equivalent to the Nazi use of "Aryan".
Much less problematically Nordic is a common synonym for Scandinavian, but in ufology it's clearly used as an ethnographic/ racial descriptor.

Grusch's aliens might not be classic "Nordics", but the long (albeit greyish) hair, their supposed beauty (not really explained by Grusch) might suggest they are a continuation of this mythology.
At 1:00:20 in the vid in the OP Grusch describes their pallor as "...blueish-white",

"Nordics" as blue-skinned
Later legends and popular culture sometimes depicted benevolent aliens as bluish in color, rather than blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and light-skinned.

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_aliens (Though Adamski's aliens are almost always considered "Nordics", he described them as tanned- implying fair-skinned people who've been in the sun or whatever). So Grusch has seen footage "confirming" a pre-existing trope.

Strange racial references crop up elsewhere in ufology; they appear to be a feature of Betty and Barney Hill's narrative and Betty's subsequent identification of ethnic groups she believed resembled the claimed abductors (post 20, Communion Book Cover thread).
Somewhat bizarrely to our modern sensibilities, Betty made one identification (with Mongolians) after attending a presentation by anthropologist Carleton Coon,

...best known for his scientific racist theories concerning the parallel evolution of human races, which were widely disputed in his lifetime and are considered pseudoscientific by modern science.

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carleton_S._Coon

In the thread Claim: Time-Travelling Humans are Causing Close Encounter Experiences, which discusses the claims of biological anthropologist Michael Masters, @SkepticSteve tells us

...he suggested in podcast appearences that different races might to a certain degree represent different "human races" being propagated into time. With the Nordics being of Northern European ancestry, while the Greys could be of East Asian origin. I know - it's ridiculous.

Odd that aliens very rarely resemble black African or Australian people, and no-one says that future time travelling visitors are descended from them.
They're "Nordics", like "Greek gods", or "East Asian"/ Mongolian. The former are friendly and want to protect and teach us; the latter scary and inscrutable abductors who perform intimate examinations and weird experiments. The existence of superior beings resembling Europeans isn't questioned: Nor is the absence of human-looking aliens with features resembling people of African descent.

To be clear, I'm not saying ufology has an inherent "race problem", or that UFO enthusiasts are more likely to be racist than other folk (Meier is probably an outlier).
But the failure of ufology, and individual UFO enthusiasts, to question these strange correspondences between claimed aliens and specific human ethnic groups, and their use of outdated (and discredited, unscientific) terminology in their comparisons is I think telling.
They ignore the red flags ("Nordics" good, those resembling/ descended from Asians scary), the tanned blond(e)s/ pale skinned ones are beautiful or handsome, even like Greek gods.
No consideration seems to be given to the possible influence of unconscious biases, cultural factors. Descriptions and subjective impressions (beauty) are unchallenged.
Grusch's description of the claimed cadavers, and the lack of obvious critique by UFO enthusiasts, arguably continues this dubious tradition.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I've been struck by Adamski's 1952 description of Venusians and the portrayal of Venusians in the comic strip Dan Dare from 1950 on:

Adamski claimed Orthon was from Venus, and described him

...as being a medium-height humanoid with long blond hair and tanned skin

The British comic "Eagle" featured Venusians with long (for men of that time) blonde hair and tanned skin in the strip Dan Dare, from November 1950, two years before Adamski met Orthon.
They were called Therons, and were pleasant, wise and peace-loving.

The Therons were in conflict with the green-skinned Treens- maybe of reptilian appearance? The Treen leader, the Mekon, had an enlarged head and a small spindly body, traits seen in some descriptions of "greys". (L-R, Therons, a typical Treen, the Mekon).

The names "Orthon" (Adamski's Venusian) and "Theron" (the Eagle's Venusians) have some similarity.
Eagle was not published in the US as far as I know. Radio Luxembourg aired the series The New Adventures of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future (in English) from July 1951, 16 months before Adamski's encounter (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Dare)- maybe syndicated/ broadcast in the US? (I've no evidence of this).
Contactees were so unoriginal, but their influence lives on in ufology and perhaps in Grusch's account.

 

[JMartJr]

Grusch's aliens might not be classic "Nordics", but the long (albeit greyish) hair, their supposed beauty (not really explained by Grusch) might suggest they are a continuation of this mythology.

I'm also put in mind of the Vilas-Boas (or Villas Boas*) abduction mythology:

The aliens conducted a series of experiments on their captive(Antonio Vilas-Boas -- JM) ... compelling him to have sexual intercourse with a female alien, who was, Villas Boas said, very attractive, with blonde hair and blue, cat-like eyes.

Source:https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna47328006

and

In the account he gave months later, a naked female being with pale skin, red body hair, and slanted eyes came into the room and had sexual intercourse with him twice, then pointed at her belly and at the sky, which he took to mean she would bear his child among the stars.

Source: https://alientavern.com/knowledge/alien-abductions/vilas-boas-abduction-1957


This sounds enough like the "Nordics" of later UFOlogy to be suggestive of just how self-referential UFO lore is. (The Vilas-Boas case supposedly happened in 1957!)



*The name shows up on the Internet spelled both ways.

 

[Mendel]

As for tic-tacs, I can attest that they're not that shape, but I suppose that's a catchier name than "Good & Plentys". Do they also come in pink?

I wish we could normalize "suppositories" for these.

And who flies the jellyfish, the hammers, the orbs, the black triangles, the rods, and the cubes within the circles? I need more of a dramatis personae. Plus the eggs, who makes Barber's eggs?

Bring back the good old "cigar-shaped UFO", I say.

Odd that aliens very rarely resemble black African or Australian people, and no-one says that future time travelling visitors are descended from them.

Which is weird, because we are descended from a type like that.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

I wonder why there are Nordic aliens but no southern aliens

Edit:
It's a joke but also a serious question, why Nordics? I get that snakes and insects and weird looking, large head beings can easily be part of human imagination. But why Nordics and not, who knows, Asian aliens?

 

[Harabeck]

I wonder why there are Nordic aliens but no southern aliens

Edit:
It's a joke but also a serious question, why Nordics? I get that snakes and insects and weird looking, large head beings can easily be part of human imagination. But why Nordics and not, who knows, Asian aliens?

I'm not sure I can support it. but the answer sure feels like, "because it resonates with white supremacists".

 

[Ann K]

Odd that aliens very rarely resemble black African or Australian people, and no-one says that future time travelling visitors are descended from them.

Please note that most of the descriptions we have come from white people*. White-ish people are most likely the ones that they dream of. And since most of the viewers seem to be male, beautiful "Nordic" women, I suggest, are the ones most likely to populate their erotic dreams. "Greys" and "Lizards" are reserved for nightmares.

Which makes me wonder if they all originated in dreams. And of course if one reads about strange entities, that becomes another memory in the dream bank.

* With the exception of some schoolchildren in Zimbabwe.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

Please note that most of the descriptions we have come from white people*. White-ish people are most likely the ones that they dream of. And since most of the viewers seem to be male, beautiful "Nordic" women, I suggest, are the ones most likely to populate their erotic dreams. "Greys" and "Lizards" are reserved for nightmares.

Which makes me wonder if they all originated in dreams. And of course if one reads about strange entities, that becomes another memory in the dream bank.

* With the exception of some schoolchildren in Zimbabwe.

We're back on the gustibus with this!
Scandinavian women? No thanks!
I'll stick with my grey aliens based erotic dreams!

 

[Mendel]

I think if you really want to understand these tropes, you need to go back to the cultural context from which they originated.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

I'm not sure I can support it. but the answer sure feels like, "because it resonates with white supremacists".

It could be.
But the whole "four humanoid species" BS is pretty modern.
Lots of older reports talk about dark skinned, furry, small humanoid little people.
I guess it's a game of opposites.
Tall Vs. Short, fair skin / dark skin.
There are also thousands of other reports of beings that resemble neither of the above, which I find more interesting.
But I also find very interesting that Grusch just picked from one of the most banal stereotypes of ufology.
Travis Walton was also someone who described Nordics on the ship, and greys being "workers".
It's almost the equivalent of modern mitology, with lots of variation.

 

[Mendel]

Travis Walton was also someone who described Nordics on the ship, and greys being "workers".

Reminds me of H.G Wells "The Time Machine" (1895) and its Eloi and Morlocks.

 

[JMartJr]

And since most of the viewers seem to be male, beautiful "Nordic" women, I suggest, are the ones most likely to populate their erotic dreams.

This may tie back to sleep paralysis and incubus/succubus mythology? Though the "presence" looming ominously in sleep paralysis is usually somewhat amorphous or indistinct, and the portrayals of incubi and succubi are often not attractive at all.

That's the succubus sitting on the sleeping lady...

(...at least, before the present era, when fantasy roll playing game art and the like makes them more alluring!)

Still, I'd guess some sort of psycho-sexual dream/hallucination that was talked about and the story caught on and spread enough for us to hear about it would be more likely to feature Vilas-Boas style inhumanly beautiful, nekkid as a jaybird, partial red heads than, say, erotic fanfic starring one of these mantids...

 

[Ravi]

What I think is interesting, is that I have never ever seen any witness reports on aliens being "robot like", or mechanical in nature. Fascinatingly it seems ALL aliens were always biological.. Pretty good indicator it all relates to culture.

 

[JMartJr]

What I think is interesting, is that I have never ever seen any witness reports on aliens being "robot like", or mechanical in nature. Fascinatingly it seems ALL aliens were always biological.. Pretty good indicator it all relates to culture.

It seems to have fallen out of the UFO occupants set of popular descriptions, but back in the day it was not unknown...

 

[Ravi]

@JMartJr
If I was able to read what it says, I could agree..
But I think I can distinguish 1 or 2 robots? From the how many?

I think (well that was my standpoint all along) that these figures are all coming from the vivid imagination of people of certain cultures of course.

 

[yoshy]

Thank you, GPT-6 Astra, for summarizing...

Summarizing long videos is seriously one of the best uses of AI. YouTube's built-in AI always has a prompt for "Summarize this video", and each point of the summary will have thorough timestamps. It's probably more convenient than Astra, though I'm not sure how it compares on quality of summary

 

[Ann K]

We're back on the gustibus with this!
Scandinavian women? No thanks!
I'll stick with my grey aliens based erotic dreams!

That tells me more about you than I really wanted to know.

This may tie back to sleep paralysis and incubus/succubus mythology? Though the "presence" looming ominously in sleep paralysis is usually somewhat amorphous or indistinct, and the portrayals of incubi and succubi are often not attractive at all.

Please note, that's HER dream/nightmare, not his. The "Night Mare" is peeking through the curtain. And the creature on top is an incubus, not a succubus.

 

[Smythe Bacchus]

IMO, Grusch and his absurd beliefs and retellings of old and recycled UFO stories, represent all the hallmarks of a successfully indoctrinated and "turned" intelligence asset.

It appears that Grusch was targeted because of his credulity. To cover themselves, those who recruited Grusch likely convinced him to distrust and never interview with AARO.

If those interviews had taken place, AARO could have gathered enough evidence of "cultivation through misinformation and deception" to refer it for federal investigation.

Grusch being mocked in social media has the perverse effect of downplaying the potentially serious misdeeds of those hiding behind him for now.

Those who have been feeding Grusch all of this nonsense: fanatics, who believe the ends justify the means, must always be worried in the backs of their minds, and they should be.

IMO there is a countdown, however long it may be, for Grusch to gradually escape the rabbit hole, and when he does, there will be a different kind of "disclosure".

 

[John J.]

If I was able to read what it says...

The picture has a few visitors identified as robots (1965, 1977).
Of course, a culture more technologically advanced than our own might be able to make humanoid robots that look organic.
If I remember rightly the Kelly-Hopkinsville hobgoblin witnesses said there was a metallic sound when the aliens were struck by bullets... ()

The picture's fun, and reminds us of the diversity of reports which I feel some parts of modern ufology are reluctant to acknowledge, maybe it makes their building a coherent narrative harder.
I guess we shouldn't take the picture too seriously; it repeats the myth that Betty and Barney Hill described "grey"-type aliens, they did not (which I've moaned about before, similar posts #20, Communion Book Cover thread, #38, Origin of Iconic Alien Face thread) and there are no (clothed!) Venusians/ Pleiadeans/"Nordics", who have a notable role in the history of UFO reports.

I think... that these figures are all coming from the vivid imagination of people of certain cultures of course.

I think that's likely correct. They might not all be conscious imaginings (though I think we can be confident at least some are deliberate hoaxes).
Just like folkloric beings and popular culture representations of aliens, I'd guess there have been enough representations of robots (often in highly dramatic contexts) for them to leave subconscious associations, half-forgotten memories in some.

I guess it's a common childhood fantasy/ fear that statues, mannequins, scarecrows, empty suits of armour or dolls etc. might come to life, maybe at some level the robot taps into this, a technologically plausible (well, sort of) embodiment of long-forgotten fears.

Very widespread awareness of fictional robots might originate from the SF films of the 1950s (e.g. Robbie in Forbidden Planet) but robots were present in popular culture from the 1920s. Like the flying discs and sphere-shaped craft from other planets, they featured on the cover of many pulp SF magazines and comics (at least from 1930 on).

Our use of the word "robot" famously comes from Čapek's play Rossum's Universal Robots, 1920 (though his robots were made of organic material). The 1927 film Metropolis (based on a 1925 novel) gave us the Maschinenmensch, sometimes erroneously called Maria- 50 years before C3PO!
All are preceded by the Tin Man who would've been known to millions from the 1925 film The Wizard of Oz (though the character had first been human), the title page of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 1900 looks a bit like a pop-culture robot.

Left to right, the Tin Man (1900), Maschinenmensch (1927), newspaper story from The Standard-Examiner, Utah, 23 October 1932*, detail from cover of Astounding Stories August 1930, cover of British comic Scoops 10February 1934.

*Very loosely based on a real event, a British inventor made a crude automaton that could fire a pistol and managed to injure himself while preparing it; details on blog The Daily Kos https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...ity/You-Are-Pronouncing-the-Word-Robot-Wrong/

 

[Mick West]

those who recruited Grusch

Who do you think that might be?

We have to be careful in veering towards the conspiracy theory over the the f-up theory. It's quite possible that Grusch is part of a "self-licking" cult, and not one that's being directed by powerful people.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

We don't have to resort to a masterplan or masterminds as an explanation. Things just naturally happen when there are consistent character traits and reinforcement.

It's too bad Barney Fife is falling out of the collective unconscious. It used to be that I could just use his name to save time. There's a reason why Don Knotts won five straight Emmys.

 

[yoshy]

Who do you think that might be?

Whoever was in charge of or part of AAWSAP/AATIP. I can't remember which parts are actually true of that convoluted boondoggle. I don't think it would even need to be a conspiracy though. It could be as simple as true believers in that program found Grusch, who they told things they actually believed, and Grusch believed it too. I definitely don't share @Smythe Bacchus 's confidence:

Those who have been feeding Grusch all of this nonsense: fanatics, who believe the ends justify the means, must always be worried in the backs of their minds, and they should be.

I feel like the revelation that a senator basically gave his friend $22 million to do ghost and UFO hunting should have been a bombshell scandal in itself. But nobody ever seemed to come at it at that angle. Elizondo is seemingly mostly unpunished for continuing the program despite it being shutdown, basically running his own X-Files. He claims there was some conspiracy against him, and that's why he resigned. But at most jobs, if your bosses found out you had been huffing glue sticks in the corner after they told you already to stop, you would get fired.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

We've got to bring Barney back. He's just too useful as an archetype. And Don Knotts was funny...

 

[Ann K]

It's too bad Barney Fife is falling out of the collective unconscious. It used to be that I could just use his name to save time. There's a reason why Don Knotts won five straight Emmys.

Barney to prisoner: "Rule one: obey all rules. Rule two: Do not write on the walls."
Yes, I remembered that without listening to the clip...but I'm old, y'know.

 

[Smythe Bacchus]

Who do you think that might be?

We have to be careful in veering towards the conspiracy theory over the the f-up theory. It's quite possible that Grusch is part of a "self-licking" cult, and not one that's being directed by powerful people.

No conspiracies or powerful people are required, only cultism. Cult members will both compete and collaborate to seek and recruit new members.

Anyone with current or past ties to government, military, or defence industry, and who is
already a UFO "enthusiast" with credulity must surely be a ripe target.

Your 2023 article provides the Knapp/Corbell version of the timeline, of how/when they met Grusch, who apparently approached them first as a nascent whistleblower.

Article:

UFO Whistleblowers Go to Washington

by Mick West, Skeptical Enquirer, Nov/Dec 2023

Grusch did not spring fully formed onto the UFO scene; instead, his debut was orchestrated, staged, and carefully managed by a small group of like-minded individuals.

It seemingly started back in June 2022, when Grusch met George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell at a UFO conference.
...
They met again a few months later at a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas. Grusch confided that he had some knowledge of a secret government program to do with alien technology.
...
Grusch was introduced to the inner circle of UFOlogy
...
They must have felt like they had struck gold. All of them had been involved for years, trying to build on the momentum of the 2017 New York Times article by Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal that is at the root of the current media and government interest in UFOs. Success had been limited.

Source: https://skepticalinquirer.org/2023/10/ufo-whistleblowers-go-to-washington/

Yes people are also more than capable of dropping down the rabbit hole themselves, but is that really what happened in this case?

The difference between what Grusch had actually been investigating in UAPTF before he approached Knapp and Corbell, vs what he finally presented to congress is something I'd be very Kean to find out (pun intended).

I doubt it was 7 foot tall humanoid space lizards flying tic-tac shaped craft.

In hindsight, the UAPTF appears (at least to me) to have been exploited as a front by Jay Stratton to hunt for alien conspiracies. He hand-picked Grusch for his security clearance and pre-existing beliefs, and tasked him to dig into special access programs, rather than focussing solely on outward-facing UAP threat assessments. Appears like a repeat of the same basic misdirection tactic used for AAWSAP.

Was Grusch primed by cultists right from the beginning? One day he may have something to say about that.

 

[purpleivan]

What I think is interesting, is that I have never ever seen any witness reports on aliens being "robot like", or mechanical in nature. Fascinatingly it seems ALL aliens were always biological.. Pretty good indicator it all relates to culture.

One that comes to mind was the Cisco Grove robot, reported by Donald Schrum in 1964.
theironskeptic.com/articles/cisco/cisco.htm

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

What I think is interesting, is that I have never ever seen any witness reports on aliens being "robot like", or mechanical in nature. Fascinatingly it seems ALL aliens were always biological.. Pretty good indicator it all relates to culture.

There are a few interesting ones, the Pascagoula (Mississippi) incident or the Cisco Grove incident.

 

[JMartJr]

I have seen social media chatter claiming that Grey's are robots made by the nordics/mantises/lizard-men/etc.

This was asserted without evidence or even explanation as to why this was believed to be the case.

 

[Kelvin]

Plus the eggs, who makes Barber's eggs?

Barber's chicken. Where the chicken came from is the real mystery.

I have seen social media chatter claiming that Grey's are robots made by the nordics/mantises/lizard-men/etc.

This was asserted without evidence or even explanation as to why this was believed to be the case.

It's an answer to the question, "Why do greys look more or less like us, walk around in 1g, and breathe our air?" They didn't evolve this way--they're robots or biomechanoids designed by extraterrestrial biological entities to function in an Earth-like environment and interact with humans.

How do the Nordics, mantis-men, and reptilians also function in Earth's environment? Biomechanoids all the way down?

 

[Mauro]

* With the exception of some schoolchildren in Zimbabwe.

IIRC they too were mostly white.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

IIRC they too were mostly white.

True, but didn't they describe Greys instead of beautiful alien people from Tromsø?

 

[John J.]

I have seen social media chatter claiming that Grey's are robots made by the nordics/mantises/lizard-men/etc.

I think I've read something similar but can't remember where.
The claim discussed in the thread Biologist claims to have studied alien bodies (EBOs - Exo-Biospheric-Organisms) describes a grey-type alien and states

They are artificial, ephemeral and disposable organisms created for a purpose that still partially eludes us.

but not really a robot in the way we use the term (an electromechanical thing).

True, but didn't they describe Greys instead of beautiful alien people from Tromsø?

The Ariel Primary School children described/ drew beings that might be grouped into 2 very broad categories, long hair and short or no hair.

IIRC very few if any of the children initially drew/ described both types; the situation is clouded a little by some of the claimed witnesses having made later drawings for TV programs etc. which differ significantly from their original drawings, e.g. Lisel who originally drew a single figure with maybe "grey"/ Close Encounters characteristics but much later drew a picture with two figures, one with long hair (not the one below).

Thread The Ariel School, Zimbabwe UFO sighting - has it ever been debunked?, also Ariel School UFO - glinting reflections through vegetation how to visualise?

 

[NorCal Dave]

Whoever was in charge of or part of AAWSAP/AATIP. I can't remember which parts are actually true of that convoluted boondoggle. I don't think it would even need to be a conspiracy though. It could be as simple as true believers in that program found Grusch, who they told things they actually believed, and Grusch believed it too.

It seems to be a bit more tangential, but it's still a lot of the same people over and over. As a refresher for @yoshy or anyone else that doesn't nerd out on this stuff, we have to do a bit of meandering. Recall:

In 1995 hotel magnate Robert Bigelow set up the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) to study UFO, the paranormal and other "anomalies". Bigelow was particularly interested in consciousnesses. This organization's members and/or advisors included people like Jacques Vallee, Col. John Alexander, Hal Puthoff and Eric Davis. Senator Harry Reid also attended meetings. In 1996, after journalist George Knapp reported on ghosts and UFOs at the Sherman Ranch in Utah, Bigelow purchased it and much of NIDS work was done there, renaming it Skinwalker Ranch. NIDS was shut down in 2004, due to lack of progress, however, Knapp and NIDS lead administrator Colm Kelleher, authored a book highiting various UFO and paranormal claims entitled Hunt for the Skinwalker.

After his stint as 1 of 3 actual employees at NIDS Eric Davis worked at times in the early to mid '00s for Hal Puthoff's Earth Tech company, and together with former CIA guy, Dr. (MD) Kit Green and Vallee they were deep into the UFO scene. Vallee's Forbidden Science is a 7 volume memoir of his endeavors in UFOlogy over the decades, and Volume 5 Pacific Heights, covers 2001-2009. It is full of anecdotes and references to what these guys were up to.

FULL DISCLOSURE : As this is a memoir, it is hear-say or at least what Vallee claims these guys were saying. Much of it can be corroborated via other sources, including statements from Davis and Puthoff themselves. So, while it may not be completely accurate as to exactly what was said at the time, I think it's thematically accurate. Also, I just bought the Kindle version of Volume 5, and I've yet to get it up on the app for copying, so I'm using quotes here from a document presented to Congress by journalist Michael Shellenberger. These are likely paraphrases or possibly even AI summaries of sections of Vallee's book. Again, much of it can be corroborated, such as the TRW claim below, which Davis repeated at presentation, also below. Just some tid-bits from Vallee/Shellenburger concerning project Zodiac and some "Nordics":

31 July 1999 —EarthTech and former CIA scientist Hal Puthoff emails former CIA Life Sciences Division analyst Kit Green and his life partner Kristin B Zimmerman about a story published in a UFO magazine by a pseudonym "Greg Halifax" about a UAP crash retrieval personnel member pseudonym "Sedge Masters."

The story refers to Masters having participated in a UAP crash retrievals group known as "Zodiac ," of which Puthoff states "we have reason to believe the set of stories are only slightly fictionalized versions of a source's experiences writing up records for the archives at WPAFB." Puthoff asks Green if he's ever heard of Zodiac, "which is supposed to be the true name," not MJ-12 or Majestic 12.

It states the CIA had control over Zodiac as of the 1980s and between 1947-1980s, Zodiac recovered eleven UAP craft of different sizes and quality, some of which included live occupants of Nordic, small hairy, and tall "grey aliens" and short "grey aliens" appearance. Locations of recoveries listed include New Mexico, off the coast of Denmark and the Midwest.

8 May 2000 —Jacques Vallee states he, Eric Davis and Hal Puthoff discuss an "attorney friend" of a former TRW employee who gathered her testimony that claims she was part of a secret reverse-engineering project called Zodiac.

Eric has compiled his own file but it is not verifiable yet. (Note: That attorney is later suggested to be former Hughes Aircraft counsel Jeffrey W Griffith, and the Zodiac participant is suggested to be Mary Elizabeth Elliot).

- 3 March 2001 —Eric Davis tells Jacques Vallee the story of Zodiac, which allegedly involved real people like Dale Graff who ran RV experiments at WPAFB and Jerry Rosenberg of IDA. There are a reported ten Velobind volume at WPAFB with Roswell data concerning two crashed "manta ray" shaped craft, recovered bodies, foil material and a special study done by TRW. Eric has a file on Zodiac.

So, in the early '00s, we have Puthoff and Davis investigating Project Zodiac, which supposedly recovered at least 11 crashed UFOs containing Nordics, tall Greys and short Greys.

Also in the early to mid '00s we have people like Jay Stratton and James Lacatski are reading Hunt for the Skinwalker and getting interested. Lacatski, along with Senator Reid end up creating AAWSAP a government contract awarded to Bigelow's BAASS company that carries on the NIDS work at Skinwlaker Ranch and prepared to receive meta-materials they believed were from crashed UFOs. Puthoff's Earth Tech was sub-contracted by BAASS to provide speculative papers about things like zero-point/vacuum energy and warp drives, several of which were authored by Puthoff and Davis.

When AAWSAP was canceled, Stratton and Elizondo carried on an unofficial version focused on UFOs they called AATIP. After Elizondo resigns the DoD and goes public in the NYT story (2017), Stratton carries on and becomes involved in the UAP Task Force (UAPTF). This is where Davis meets Grusch (video link below, YouTube auto captions/transcript):

0:23
through the assap (AAWSAP) in AIP and that's how I met Dave Rush (Grusch) Jay Stratton introduced me to Dave he was the nro liais an (NRO liaison) officer to the uaf (UAPTF)

Davis has often claimed to be one of, or the primary, source for Grusch's claims. He repeated this claim in the video while also saying Puthoff was briefing Grusch:

11:02
...supporting his program okay and Dave was doing some aspect of that on the security side as one of Jay (S)stratton's
uh contributors to the U APF (UAPTF) because he was the nro liazon officer to the APF so anyway I met both of them and I gave
Dave all my data all my briefing information and he took that ran with it and he found everything and then later on I think maybe a year or two later
11:27
yeah actually almost two years later somewhere in that period they finally got to be meet with Hal put off (Puthoff) and and he briefed them with his set of information a lot of what he has overlaps mind but I have a lot of unique information both in and outside of the era of the 15 years that I worked with how (Hal) a lot of it came from nids (NIDS) and how knew some of that a lot of came from afrl and then a lot of it came uh through the assap (AAWSAP) with my interactions with uh the CIA and other agencies and companies and so forth so Dave yeah

Interesting in a circular way, Davis claims that after he and Puthoff gave Grusch all of their data, Grusch "found everything". In doing that he found the 40 witnesses we've heard about before and that he knows 2 of them:

11:52
...yeah Dave basically ran with our data mine and house (Hal's) and uh found everything found 40 Witnesses um I I'm not going to say who they are but I could say that uh I know two of them

When asked about who he knows, he's a bit coy:

12:08
(Host): Can you say how many of them are in this building

(Davis): I'll say I know that at least one that one only one of them is in the building and the guy who didn't come to the conference because he had a a travel Conflict for a pre pre-arranged I think family trip or something uh if he were here he'd be the second one and all the rest of them are not here in the building that and um there's more to it than that but I can't discuss it because then that I would
identify who the two witness....

So, he can't tell them who the 2 witnesses are, but it sure sounds like himself, as he's "in the building" and Puthoff, who had a scheduling conflict that Davis is intimately aware of.

So, just like the KONA BLUE situation, the data that Davis and Puthoff gave to Grusch was substantiated by 40 witnesses and 2 of these witness sure sound like Davis and Puthoff.

And just to tie into the quotes about Vallee's book above, here is Davis repeating the TRW claim:

31:05
...1960s 30 not too long after it was born was actually spin-off of TRW so TRW was the principal investigator for the first roughly what almost 30 yeah practically well 29 years

Davis repeats these claims of meeting and providing data to Grusch at Chris Mellon's Disclosure Fund presentation to congressional members (link to thread below):

12:01
Jay put Dave and and Dave's uh boss and I together and I briefed them for two and a half days just the week before COVID struck And uh Dave took all of my classified and uh proprietary information of all the investigations I did at NIDS AFRL who working for uh help
put off at her and he took that data and ran with it...

In the Q&A session of the same Disclosure Fund presentation, Davis discusses that various "aliens":

39:09
(Burlison) And then do you have or can you comment on whatever species have been um that have been piloting these craft how are they large in are they are they multiple species are they are they what was their size and how many are usually on a craft

(Davis) they're typically the multiple species People are familiar with the grays the Nordics Uh people have talked about reptilians and insectoids Is not that they're reptilian or insecttoid is that they resemble uh to the (perception) a reptile or insect type humanoid because they have this a head and four limbs and a torso

(Burlison)So large small

(Davis) uh human size human scale
(Burlison)And are there are there how many are a crew

36:56
(Davis) well the well the grays I'm familiar with from uh investigating the crash at (Corona) which is mis misnamed the the crash of (Roswell) It's not the crash of (Roswell) It's the crash of (Corona?) in Mexico (should be New Mexico) Uh those were brazels ( he does seem to say "brazels" instead of aliens or occupants, possibly confusing the Brazel family that originally discovered the wreckage) are 4 foot tall and um the Nordics are typically human size uh probably I five six feet tall Um and same with the people who mis mislabel reptilian and insecttoid they're roughly at that height too I haven't heard anything about anything seven feet or 9 foot tall

That was one long ass post to say, much of what Grusch is claiming, from crashed UFOs to the various alien "races" are the same claims that Eric Davis has been making for years and Davis claims to be a prime sources for Grusch. Obviously, Davis is not originating these claims, they been around for a while, but he seems to be a major conduit for these stories to Grusch.

Disclosure Fund thread:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ua...ith-house-oversight-committee-may-2025.14218/

YouTube with Davis being interviewed (while eating lunch):


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnAiNChnuEQ