That UFO Whistleblower Apparently Had a Psychiatric Detention

Last month, Air Force veteran and former member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency David Grusch renewed his allegations in front of the House Oversight Committee, accusing the US government of secretly hiding evidence of extraterrestrial life and working to reverse-engineer the otherworldly relics.

We remain deeply skeptical of his far-fetched claims — at least pending extraordinary evidence — and now, new details about Grusch's personal life have surfaced that further shroud his allegations in doubt.

As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein reports, the former intelligence officer-turned-whistleblower has had a turbulent past, suffering from PTSD and severe depression.

According to records obtained by Klippenstein, Grusch appears to have been committed to an inpatient psychiatric program after making a suicidal statement to his wife.

The eyebrow-raising report sheds light on a far-too-common plight of veterans. Whether his personal issues are directly relevant to his claims that the US government is hiding aliens will likely remain a subject of debate — but they certainly don't instill confidence. And the ensuing chaos following The Intercept's report doesn't help either.

Grusch, for his part, maintains that he has become the victim of an even greater conspiracy.

"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 and Depression," he wrote in a statement shared by Australian UFO journalist Ross Coulthart.

Grusch also reiterated that the evidence he told Congress about came from "over 40 credentialed intelligence and military personnel."

Coulthart, who has since come out firmly on Grusch's side, called Klippenstein's report — which was based on records obtained through a simple Freedom of Information Request — an effort "to try to discredit an American patriot by leaking his struggle with PTSD."

"The intelligence community and the Defense Department clearly accepted there was no issue because he was allowed to keep his security clearance," Coulthart told NewsNation's Chris Cuomo in a Tuesday interview that aired before The Intercept published its report.

Coulthart was clearly incensed by the publication of the records, comparing the purported leak to Richard Nixon's attempt to stop the leak of the Pentagon Papers.

Meanwhile, NewsNation had to publish a correction admitting that Coulthart "erroneously suggested records" were "leaked by government."

"The UFO whistleblower is accusing me of using confidential medical records leaked to me by the intelligence community," Klippenstein tweeted. "Every part of that is false. I used publicly available police records I obtained under FOIA."

Meanwhile, as Klippenstein discovered, truthers on Reddit's biggest UFO subreddit r/UFOs had to issue a public statement, telling others not to "harass Klippenstein at his fucking house."

At the end of the day, there are still plenty of reasons, even outside of all of this drama, to be skeptical of Grusch's claims. For one, the Air Force veteran has maintained that he has never seen any evidence of the existence of aliens with his own eyes, relying instead on things people told him.

Several experts and government officials have also thrown cold water on his claims.

"The recent UFO hearing is an embarrassment to everyone involved," Steven Aftergood, former director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, told The Intercept.

We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

More on Grusch: Former Intelligence Guy Tells Congress the Government Is Reverse-Engineering Alien Relics