Intercept Article on David Grusch's Past - Allegations of a Smear Campaign

[Amathia]

New statement from David Grusch via Ross Coulthart's twitter:


Source: https://twitter.com/rosscoulthart/status/1689064573540999249




Not much we can say before reading the article by The Intercept but, as someone who works in the criminal justice system who specializes in working with PTSD all day, every day, can we just...not? I hope the intercept has a very good reason for even bringing this up, otherwise it's just tasteless. I've had the honor of working with many combat veterans, from Vietnam, to Persian Gulf, to Iraq and Afghanistan wars, all of whom, for various reasons, have ended up in jail after serving their country. I admire their resiliency and am constantly ashamed at the innumerable ways our nation continues to fail them when they come home. When you work with these folks, and have had the privilege of hearing their stories and have been blessed enough to be in a position of helping them heal, you gain a great deal of respect for their struggles and hate any instance of anyone using those struggles to further any kind of agenda. I sincerely hope the Intercept doesn't take his PTSD lightly, nor use it as a means of discrediting him in any way. Whatever we may think of his claims, I hope they don't stoop to the level of weaponizing mental health.

 

[Amathia]

Source: https://twitter.com/UAPJames/status/1689069917780180992?s=20

 

[MonkeeSage]

Source: https://twitter.com/UAPJames/status/1689069917780180992?s=20

I will also wait to see the Intercept article, but based on what Coulthart said there it seems like it could be a hit-piece "weaponizing mental health" as you put it, which would be pretty slimy. I can't help but feel that Coulthart and NewsNation also did the same by leaving that segment out of the interview and not reporting it anywhere. Ross presenting it as something to be proud of, and his indignation that anyone would use it to discredit Grusch, don't square with intentionally withholding it.

 

[Amathia]

I will also wait to see the Intercept article, but based on what Coulthart said there it seems like it could be a hit-piece "weaponizing mental health" as you put it, which would be pretty slimy. I can't help but feel that Coulthart and NewsNation also did the same by leaving that segment out of the interview and not reporting it anywhere. Ross presenting it as something to be proud of, and his indignation that anyone would use it to discredit Grusch, don't square with intentionally withholding it.

I guess I'm not sure why Coulthart and NewsNation should have mentioned it or reported on it. It's hard to see how it would have been relevant to the focus of the original NewsNation interview or to the claims he's making. They barely touched on his personal life at all. It's just not the kind of thing anyone needs to know about, *especially* if you've been suicidal at some point but received the help you needed. It's irrelevant and a distraction from the subject. I don't think there's anything wrong with them omitting it.

 

[MonkeeSage]

I guess I'm not sure why Coulthart and NewsNation should have mentioned it or reported on it. It's hard to see how it would have been relevant to the focus of the original NewsNation interview or to the claims he's making. They barely touched on his personal life at all. It's just not the kind of thing anyone needs to know about, *especially* if you've been suicidal at some point but received the help you needed. It's irrelevant and a distraction from the subject. I don't think there's anything wrong with them omitting it.

Coulthart said in that interview that he asked Grusch if there was "any dirt anybody could drag out to try to discredit him" which is when Grusch offered the information, so Ross was aware of the potential, and he said any reporter could have found the info. Given that they were building public and Congressional support based solely on Grusch's credibility, I can't help but see it as a calculated move on the part Coulthart and others promoting Grusch, not to report it, as a way to control the narrative.

I don't blame Grusch in any way. In the previously unaired interview clip he said he was proud and wanted vets to know and get help if needed, but I feel like his media representation not reporting it actually just furthered the stigma. My feeling is the average person might have dismissed him as "crazy" if it was initially reported, but maybe at least give him a chance, but now the same person is going to say "he's so crazy they covered it up."

 

[Ann K]

Whatever we may think of his claims, I hope they don't stoop to the level of weaponizing mental health.

Agreed. But is Grusch not ...well, not weaponizing, but USING his mental health problems preemptively in an effort to add credence to his testimony? There is a very self-serving "I deserve your pity" flavor about what he says, but our compassion about his condition has nothing to do with how believable we find his statements, nor should it.

 

[Duke]

Agreed. But is Grusch not ...well, not weaponizing, but USING his mental health problems preemptively in an effort to add credence to his testimony? There is a very self-serving "I deserve your pity" flavor about what he says, but our compassion about his condition has nothing to do with how believable we find his statements, nor should it.

Yep, it's called "getting ahead of the story."

To me the issue isn't if he has/had mental health issues, it's whether he reported those mental health issues to the vetting authorities for his security clearance. If it turns out he hid or attempted to hide his mental health issues to safeguard his clearance, his credibility is screwed.

 

[knobby]

Yep, it's called "getting ahead of the story."

I wonder why they didn't get ahead of the story in the original interview and use Grusch's admissions in the first place. From the clip I saw, Grusch was hopeful of helping others with PTSD by sharing his story.

We could certainly question Coulthart's and/or News Nation's motives in suppressing the PTSD disclosure. Feels to me like they didn't want Grusch's medical history to get in the way of their story.

 

[Mendel]

Not much we can say before reading the article by The Intercept but, as someone who works in the criminal justice system who specializes in working with PTSD all day, every day, can we just...not? I hope the intercept has a very good reason for even bringing this up, otherwise it's just tasteless.

Could you please not say anything about the Intercept article before reading it?
The most they likely have done so far is to ask Grusch for comment; they may include this in their article on Grusch, or they may not.

 

[Mendel]

My feeling is the average person might have dismissed him as "crazy" if it was initially reported, but maybe at least give him a chance, but now the same person is going to say "he's so crazy they covered it up."

It may be worse.

Article:

You are all entitled to your opinions but in my PERSONAL OPINION:

• Gillibrand and Rubio have weakened their stance about what they know compared to a few weeks ago.
• Senators and congressmen in general seem more skeptical now.
• No SCIF or if there was one no one seems convinced by what they saw.
• No one seems shocked by what Grusch told ICIG, or intel committees.
• ICIG only said "credible and urgent", nothing more. He has not spoken to the media and he has not testified before congress even to say "I can say more in a SCIF." He may have cleared Grusch as a favor to his lawyer. Out of respect for their respective positions.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/15m3cys/if_no_evidence_comes_out_to_support_david_grusch/

All of this sounds good, maybe leading to a conclusion of "maybe there are no UFOs after all", but that's not where that redditor is going; they're going to "PTSD proves it's a PsyOp":

Article:

This leads me to pure speculation but one theory is that they are running this operation for some reason and Grusch was manipulated to believe it was all real. Thats possibly why he had these psychotic breakdowns.

The military was deceiving him and bringing him false witnesses and false reports and his gut told him something wasn't right but people he trusted kept telling him it was real. He couldn't speak out about it and it was killing him bottling all this up.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/15m3cys/if_no_evidence_comes_out_to_support_david_grusch/

More comments:

Also, everyone who says "PTSD" don't matter. Yes. Yes it does. Otherwise Coulthart would have left it in the original interview. He sacrificed his integrity by cutting it out. And now he's using it to rehabilitate his witness and it looks even worse. Why did he hide it? Because he knew Grusch claims wouldn't stand on their own if they had that against him. If Coulthart felt as strongly about the evidence as he says he did he would have left it in. Even if the guy was schizophrenic. Because you wouldn't want to give the appearance of something fishy(kookoo) going on. But thats not what happened. He tried to do the Hollywood thing and protect his star's image. And now it does look like something fishy is going on...

Content from External Source

It wasn’t ptsd, Ross and David are saying that because they know the police report about him shooting at aliens and his wife calling the police in 2018 will be bad.

Content from External Source

So, Ross Coulthard seems to have fanned some flames there.

 

[Mendel]

Agreed. But is Grusch not ...well, not weaponizing, but USING his mental health problems preemptively in an effort to add credence to his testimony? There is a very self-serving "I deserve your pity" flavor about what he says, but our compassion about his condition has nothing to do with how believable we find his statements, nor should it.

From Grusch's statement (see screenshot above):

It has come to my attention that The Intercept intends to publish an article about two incidents in 2014 and 2018 that highlights previous personal struggles I had with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Grief [sic] and Depression [sic].

Content from External Source

I suspect the Intercept is going to go with "the 2014 and 2018 incidents show that Grusch is nuts", and Grusch is countering via Coulthard with "it's PTSD, have some sympathy with this decorated vet". He doesn't dare reveal the incidents himself right now, he's just priming the public to go "aww, the poor guy had PTSD" instead of "wtf, he's nuts" when they learn about it.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

What is Coulthart's evidence that the IC leaked this?
If it was in the original interview, there's a roomful of people from the producer to the camera guy to the editor who all heard it.

 

[jarlrmai]

I hope they don't stoop to the level of weaponizing mental health.

Would you consider "using a combination of someone's potential vulnerability to suggestion and fantasy due to poor mental health and position of office to add legitimacy to a belief that that US government has alien spacecraft" as "weaponizing it?"

Taken on board suggested edits.

 

[Mendel]

editing your post for clarity

Would you consider "using a combination of someone's potential vulnerability to suggestion and fantasy due to poor mental health and position of office to add legitimacy to a belief that the US government has alien spacecraft" as "weaponizing it"?

You're speculating that Elizondo etc. have been using Grusch to further their own agenda, preying on his mental health.

 

[jarlrmai]

editing your post for clarity

You're speculating that Elizondo etc. have been using Grusch to further their own agenda, preying on his mental health.

It's possible but I am more interested in seeing that if that has happened to some degree (even if not intentionally) that we can agree that that is weaponization.

This thread of enquiry is going to go some uncomfortable places and the potential for offence and upset is high. I want to remain respectful and not judge anyones motivations too much.

But of course the accusations of "using this to discredit Grusch" have already started.

 

[DavidB66]

I see that the references in Grusch's statement are to PTSD, grief and depression. As I mentioned in another thread, Grusch has also been reported to be autistic. In that case the report came from none other than Ross Coulthart, based on his own conversations with Grusch. In the accounts I have seen, it wasn't clear whether Grusch had authorised Coulthart to disclose it. Since autism isn't mentioned in Grusch's 'Personal Statement', one might surmise that either (a) it isn't true, or (b) Grusch doesn't want it mentioned. Either way it doesn't look good for Coulthart.

 

[sephirex]

This feels slimy, speculative, and ultimately irrelevant. Best to avoid this topic entirely.

Focus on demanding evidence, data, physical materials, and open access for scientists. If they are unable to deliver those goods then their case inevitably melts away. Everything else is a distraction.

 

[Ravi]

I see that the references in Grusch's statement are to PTSD, grief and depression. As I mentioned in another thread, Grusch has also been reported to be autistic. In that case the report came from none other than Ross Coulthart, based on his own conversations with Grusch. In the accounts I have seen, it wasn't clear whether Grusch had authorised Coulthart to disclose it. Since autism isn't mentioned in Grusch's 'Personal Statement', one might surmise that either (a) it isn't true, or (b) Grusch doesn't want it mentioned. Either way it doesn't look good for Coulthart.

Coulthart is seen as the messiah among True Believers. He cannot do anything wrong.

 

[LilWabbit]

This feels slimy, speculative, and ultimately irrelevant. Best to avoid this topic entirely.

Focus on demanding evidence, data, physical materials, and open access for scientists. If they are unable to deliver those goods then their case inevitably melts away. Everything else is a distraction.

The psychology of a named person in public is always tricky territory.

On one hand, all manner of character-assassination and personal attacks are morally inexcusable and simply substandard for what Metabunk represents. But on the other, if a person's diagnosed psychological condition -- say a narcissistic personality disorder, autism or PTSD -- goes a long way in shedding light into why a person does and says certain things, it becomes scientifically relevant in offering a plausible explanation to a particular phenomenon. Obviously, our amateur speculations are generally unhelpful.

But in the event the psychological condition of a person has prompted that person (or a group using him/her) to deliberately stir up a public media and congressional charade, which will potentially cost the American tax-payer, over mere hearsay, then that psychology becomes very relevant to understanding what's going on. It also becomes the right of the public to discuss it even though politeness and sensitivity would still need to be upheld.

Hence, the need to tread a careful balance. A hard and fast rule of not discussing a person's psychology at all, and the other extreme of anything goes, are both problematic if we really want to get to the bottom of phenomena involving a great deal human psychology amongst other variables.

 

[FatPhil]

This feels slimy, speculative, and ultimately irrelevant. Best to avoid this topic entirely.

Focus on demanding evidence, data, physical materials, and open access for scientists. If they are unable to deliver those goods then their case inevitably melts away. Everything else is a distraction.

No, it's context. It has been suggested already by several independent parties that he's a stooge, do we have any evidence that he might be more susceptible than the neurotypical in falling into this role? His mental health history could indeed be such evidence. As has been stated already - he's already raised the subject himself; we're not opening any book he hasn't already opened himself. Did he really expect no scrutiny in that direction after raising it? Have you never encountered the phrase "anything you do say can be used against you" - what is being done here is perfectly common, perfectly standard.

 

[Mendel]

It has been suggested already by several independent parties that he's a stooge, do we have any evidence that he might be more susceptible than the neurotypical in falling into this role?

We do not have evidence that Grusch is a stooge.
We do not have evidence that PTSD or autism leads people to be more easily conned (or do we?).
What we see is speculation without evidence.

I'm hoping that The Intercept reports that, as the reddit commenter wrote, Grusch was "shooting at aliens" in 2018, because if it turns out to be true, that puts an early date on Grusch's UFO belief and suggests that it may not be entirely founded on what he saw at work. The nice thing is that to find out if it's true, all I need to do is wait.

 

[Ann K]

A hard and fast rule of not discussing a person's psychology at all, and the other extreme of anything goes, are both problematic if we really want to get to the bottom of phenomena involving a great deal human psychology amongst other variables.

Hence a discussion of his autistic tendencies may have been appropriate when responding to criticism of his affect and delivery in personal testimony. Further than that, I think it's best to wait for more information.

 

[jarlrmai]

There are papers to the effect that autistic traits can be linked to CT (Conpspiracry Theory) beliefs.

Of course it's just one paper but I have not had time to search exhaustively and it's way outside my wheelhouse.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33970807/

Results: The results confirmed that both autistic and schizotypy traits were positively associated with CT beliefs, but that schizotypy traits were the strongest predictor. Exploratory analyses of cognitive style measures indicated potential avenues for further investigation in relation in differences in cognitive processes that might underlie the development of CTs for in people with autistic traits as opposed to schizotypal traits.

Content from External Source

 

[FatPhil]

We do not have evidence that Grusch is a stooge.
We do not have evidence that PTSD or autism leads people to be more easily conned (or do we?).
What we see is speculation without evidence.

I suspect even if he is a stooge, no evidence of it will be forthcoming. It really wouldn't look good if there was another Paul Bennewitz-like reveal (assuming Mirage Men was accurate). All we'll ever have is a sniff test. And of course unwitting stooges and willing stooges smell very different. Probably what happens years down the line will be the most informative.

Haven't most of the FBI's look-at-us-we-foiled-a-terrorist-plan fake successes been stooges that had mental health issues - presumably the FBI thinks they're much easier to manipulate? And they're experts.

Yes, that's why I'm waiting for evidence rather than saying "oh, no, I must hide my head in the ground to ensure I never hear anything on this matter".

 

[fizzBuzz]

What I find strange and disingenuous about this is in the first long interview with Grusch, Coulthart asks him "Do you have any kind of mental illness?" and Grusch says "no". If Coulthart knew about the PTSD, then why leave this question in? Seems slightly dishonest. And it's an unnecessary question, of course the guy is going to say "no"!

Aside from that, I don't hold the PTSD against Grusch. Most of the people I know that have gone over seas have come back with some form of PTSD. Also, Coulthart has a good point when he says despite Grusch having PTSD, he retained his clearances. I'm hoping Coulhart isn't being disingenuous here again, because we do not know the timeline of all this.

 

[Mendel]

There are papers to the effect that autistic traits can be linked to CT (Conpspiracry Theory) beliefs.

Of course it's just one paper but I have not had time to search exhaustively and it's way outside my wheelhouse.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33970807/

Results: The results confirmed that both autistic and schizotypy traits were positively associated with CT beliefs, but that schizotypy traits were the strongest predictor. Exploratory analyses of cognitive style measures indicated potential avenues for further investigation in relation in differences in cognitive processes that might underlie the development of CTs for in people with autistic traits as opposed to schizotypal traits.

Content from External Source

Well, the paper says autistic traits don't matter as much as schizotypy traits. How much they matter is paywalled.

A similar paper says this:

Article:

In summary, the proposed study revealed that anti-vax attitudes may be favored by proximity to the schizotypal pole of the ASD-SSD continuum, whereas being close to the autistic pole promotes the adoption of a more positive perspective toward vaccination.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10161933/

Translation: autists are less likely to be anti-vaxxers than the average person.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Have we worked out, solidly, Grusch's relationship to the Usual Suspects? Elizondo, Puthoff, Vallee, Knapp, Corbell, Bigelow...

Question: Is Grusch a prepared frontman for The Invisible College?

In light of this new issue, I'm awaiting an update on Grusch by Dr. Grande (YT channel).

 

[jarlrmai]

Grusch worked for AATIP/UAPTF with/under Stratton/Taylor/Elizondo is my understanding.

The origins of these departments was the with the support of IC members.

 

[Amathia]

It may be worse.

Article:

You are all entitled to your opinions but in my PERSONAL OPINION:

• Gillibrand and Rubio have weakened their stance about what they know compared to a few weeks ago.
• Senators and congressmen in general seem more skeptical now.
• No SCIF or if there was one no one seems convinced by what they saw.
• No one seems shocked by what Grusch told ICIG, or intel committees.
• ICIG only said "credible and urgent", nothing more. He has not spoken to the media and he has not testified before congress even to say "I can say more in a SCIF." He may have cleared Grusch as a favor to his lawyer. Out of respect for their respective positions.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/15m3cys/if_no_evidence_comes_out_to_support_david_grusch/

All of this sounds good, maybe leading to a conclusion of "maybe there are no UFOs after all", but that's not where that redditor is going; they're going to "PTSD proves it's a PsyOp":

Article:

This leads me to pure speculation but one theory is that they are running this operation for some reason and Grusch was manipulated to believe it was all real. Thats possibly why he had these psychotic breakdowns.

The military was deceiving him and bringing him false witnesses and false reports and his gut told him something wasn't right but people he trusted kept telling him it was real. He couldn't speak out about it and it was killing him bottling all this up.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/15m3cys/if_no_evidence_comes_out_to_support_david_grusch/

More comments:

Also, everyone who says "PTSD" don't matter. Yes. Yes it does. Otherwise Coulthart would have left it in the original interview. He sacrificed his integrity by cutting it out. And now he's using it to rehabilitate his witness and it looks even worse. Why did he hide it? Because he knew Grusch claims wouldn't stand on their own if they had that against him. If Coulthart felt as strongly about the evidence as he says he did he would have left it in. Even if the guy was schizophrenic. Because you wouldn't want to give the appearance of something fishy(kookoo) going on. But thats not what happened. He tried to do the Hollywood thing and protect his star's image. And now it does look like something fishy is going on...

Content from External Source

It wasn’t ptsd, Ross and David are saying that because they know the police report about him shooting at aliens and his wife calling the police in 2018 will be bad.

Content from External Source

So, Ross Coulthard seems to have fanned some flames there.

This is all so ridiculous and sometimes claims like these are so ignorant that they're frankly not even worth the time to respond to. Just the fact that the OP called them "psychotic breakdowns" shows they have no clue what they're talking about nor what the term "psychotic" even means. Good lord this is so stupid.

 

[Amathia]

From Grusch's statement (see screenshot above):

It has come to my attention that The Intercept intends to publish an article about two incidents in 2014 and 2018 that highlights previous personal struggles I had with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Grief [sic] and Depression [sic].

Content from External Source

I suspect the Intercept is going to go with "the 2014 and 2018 incidents show that Grusch is nuts", and Grusch is countering via Coulthard with "it's PTSD, have some sympathy with this decorated vet". He doesn't dare reveal the incidents himself right now, he's just priming the public to go "aww, the poor guy had PTSD" instead of "wtf, he's nuts" when they learn about it.

I sincerely hope not because neither PTSD, nor grief, nor depression make someone "nuts" (whatever the fuck *that* word even means).

 

[Amathia]

Would you consider "using a combination of someone's potential vulnerability to suggestion and fantasy due to poor mental health and position of office to add legitimacy to a belief that that US government has alien spacecraft" as "weaponizing it?"

Taken on board suggested edits.

Yes I would. Because neither PTSD, nor grief, nor depression make anyone more "vulnerable to suggestion and fantasy".

 

[Amathia]

The psychology of a named person in public is always tricky territory.

On one hand, all manner of character-assassination and personal attacks are morally inexcusable and simply substandard for what Metabunk represents. But on the other, if a person's diagnosed psychological condition -- say a narcissistic personality disorder, autism or PTSD -- goes a long way in shedding light into why a person does and says certain things, it becomes scientifically relevant in offering a plausible explanation to a particular phenomenon. Obviously, our amateur speculations are generally unhelpful.

But in the event the psychological condition of a person has prompted that person (or a group using him/her) to deliberately stir up a public media and congressional charade, which will potentially cost the American tax-payer, over mere hearsay, then that psychology becomes very relevant to understanding what's going on. It also becomes the right of the public to discuss it even though politeness and sensitivity would still need to be upheld.

Hence, the need to tread a careful balance. A hard and fast rule of not discussing a person's psychology at all, and the other extreme of anything goes, are both problematic if we really want to get to the bottom of phenomena involving a great deal human psychology amongst other variables.

I agree with this. There are some conditions which are absolutely relevant to take into consideration when assessing a person's claims. A person diagnosed with a delusional disorder, for instance, would be a less reliable source of information if they were claiming to have experienced an alien abduction episode or that they had found an "implant" in their body left there by their abductors. Some psychotic episodes and disorders would also be relevant when assessing the general reliability of witness testimony. However, these are rare conditions (statistically, though given the populations I work with I see them all the time), so it's seldom the case that any such considerations are relevant in addressing anything related to Ufology.

Neither autism, nor PTSD, nor grief (which isn't a disorder), nor depression are conditions that cast any doubt whatsoever on Grusch's testimony. His testimony is worth doubting because of how extraordinary his claims are and because of how little (or none) corroborative evidence exists for them. This whole mental health thing is a massive and irrelevant distraction and I hope we can move past it quickly.

 

[jarlrmai]

I agree with this. There are some conditions which are absolutely relevant to take into consideration when assessing a person's claims. A person diagnosed with a delusional disorder, for instance, would be a less reliable source of information if they were claiming to have experienced an alien abduction episode or that they had found an "implant" in their body left there by their abductors. Some psychotic episodes and disorders would also be relevant when assessing the general reliability of witness testimony. However, these are rare conditions (statistically, though given the populations I work with I see them all the time), so it's seldom the case that any such considerations are relevant in addressing anything related to Ufology.

Neither autism, nor PTSD, nor grief (which isn't a disorder), nor depression are conditions that cast any doubt whatsoever on Grusch's testimony. His testimony is worth doubting because of how extraordinary his claims are and because of how little (or none) corroborative evidence exists for them. This whole mental health thing is a massive and irrelevant distraction and I hope we can move past it quickly.

Do you know the full extent of his mental health issues? I don't think anyone does?

 

[Amathia]

What I find strange and disingenuous about this is in the first long interview with Grusch, Coulthart asks him "Do you have any kind of mental illness?" and Grusch says "no". If Coulthart knew about the PTSD, then why leave this question in? Seems slightly dishonest. And it's an unnecessary question, of course the guy is going to say "no"!

Aside from that, I don't hold the PTSD against Grusch. Most of the people I know that have gone over seas have come back with some form of PTSD. Also, Coulthart has a good point when he says despite Grusch having PTSD, he retained his clearances. I'm hoping Coulhart isn't being disingenuous here again, because we do not know the timeline of all this.

Just a reminder that PTSD is treatable (it's what I specialize in myself). Many individuals meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD and after treatment like exposure therapy and EMDR the symptoms have sufficiently reduced such that they no longer meet the diagnostic criteria. At such a point it is perfectly accurate to say "no, I don't have a mental illness" when asked, because if you no longer meet the diagnostic criteria then by definition you do not have that condition anymore. Having PTSD at some point in your life doesn't mean you have it for the rest of your life (thankfully), so it is perfectly reasonable to think Grusch may have recovered from it, hence his "no" response. Same for depression.

 

[Amathia]

Do you know the full extent of his mental health issues? I don't think anyone does?

I don't need to. I know enough about PTSD, depression, and grief to know that such diagnoses do not cast doubt on a person's testimony. Since those are the only conditions mentioned so far, those are the ones I'm addressing. If those are the things he's been diagnosed with in the past, there's nothing even to talk about here.

 

[Mick West]

As far as I know, there's nothing actually been leaked to the public yet. The only info we've got has come from Coulthart (or Grush via Coultart), as happened with Grusch's autism (which was not leaked, but revealed by Coulthart in the context of people interpreting Grusch's body language). We don't know the details. We do know that Coulthart's actions have created a wave of support for Grush in the UFO community. There's also a vast amount of public support for veterans, and especially those veterans who have been physically or mentally harmed during their service. It's such a good PR move for Grush that it has raised obvious questions on if it was an inside job - i.e. if the leak actually came from Coulthart.

Either way, this is a very sensitive subject. It's very easy for any discussion about mental health to veer off into speculation about what is impossible to know (what's going on in his head), and also to be perceived as an unwarranted ad-hominem attack.

So, please keep it polite and respectful. Refrain from speculating about the effect of unknown mental health issues.

 

[deirdre]

are both problematic if we really want to get to the bottom of phenomena involving a great deal human psychology amongst other variables.

you're not gonna get to the bottom of squat on a debunking website. Plus your argument is illogical, we have die hard [atheist] sceptics here with apparently no 'psychological' issues that still believe a few conspiracy theories.

It doesnt matter if one group may be "more prone" than another group. One could have every diagnosable disorder we know of and still not believe in conspiracy theories. Or one could have zero diagnosable disorders and believe in all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theorists engage in over reaching speculation to try and make sense of their world. Amateurs trying to psychoanalyze people by cherry picking "published papers" (please) are engaging in over reaching speculation to try and make sense of their world.

 

[Mendel]

Because neither PTSD, nor grief, nor depression make anyone more "vulnerable to suggestion and fantasy".

I've left grief off my list for a reason.

Article:

Scammers love situational vulnerability. Situational vulnerability happens whenever something is happening in your life that would make it easier for you to make an unwise decision you wouldn’t normally make, or make it easier for a criminal to push you into doing something rash. Situational vulnerability makes it much more likely for people to become fraud victims.

Scammers used to comb through obituaries to target grieving families. Bereavement is a situational vulnerability. You’re dealing with loneliness, loss, grief, family pressure, and the material responsibilities of managing a loved one’s death. It’s not easy to make calm and rational decisions in that state. Criminals love to target people in that situation when they’re not thinking clearly.

Other situations causing situational vulnerability are divorce, relationship breakdown, the birth of a child, and periods of mental health struggles. The average person in the UK has four periods of mental health struggles per year. If scammers catch people during one, it’s easy for people to become fraud victims.

Source: https://whatismyipaddress.com/fraud-victims-support

This is not a comment on Grusch's character.

But we also know that the situations that the above source describes are often a trigger that leads people down rabbit holes of any sort. (Again, not a comment on the character of those people.)

 

[deirdre]

Source: https://whatismyipaddress.com/fraud-victims-support

seriously?

family pressure, and the material responsibilities

loneliness,

 

[Duke]

Yes I would. Because neither PTSD, nor grief, nor depression make anyone more "vulnerable to suggestion and fantasy".

I'd like to see a source on that. I know I've read stories of depressed, grief stricken widows/widowers and divorcees who've been bilked out of the life savings by scam artists taking advantage of their vulnerabilities. I think there are even laws on the books to deal with those taking advantage of vulnerable adults.

Again I think it's important to remember we're not talking about your average Joe Sixpack suffering with mental/emotional health issues, but an individual with high level clearances with knowledge critical to the defense of the US. The concern about someone like that being potentially vulnerable to a honey trap is understandable.

On the other hand.....

If the IC is planning to discredit Grusch over his mental illnesses as has been alleged, they potentially stand to make themselves look foolish. Consider the likely scenario where Grusch dutifully informed his superiors of his legitimate medical diagnoses and any medications he was prescribed/was taking. If his superiors and the cognizant vetting authorities determined the so afflicted Grusch did not pose a threat to the national defense of the US, and allowed him to retain his clearances/access to highly classified material, then they could and should come under scrutiny for trying to discredit him for a situation they themselves vetted, and thus created.

Although I think it unlikely, there is also the possibility Grusch did not report his condition/medications to his superiors, and could be seen as having retained his clearances/access to highly classified material by deception or omission of information. This, in turn, could raise the question of how truthful and trustworthy he is, even if he isn't "nuts."