A former US intelligence analyst testified in Congress on Wednesday that the government was hiding information about UFOs and "non-human biologics".
David Grusch said he “absolutely” believed the US was in possession of unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs – which has replaced the term UFO in official parlance – and remains of their non-human operators.
“I was informed, in the course of my official duties, of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering programme,” Mr Grusch told Congressional members.
“I made the decision, based on the data I collected, to report this information to my superiors and multiple inspectors general, and in effect becoming a whistleblower."
He said the US government was hiding information on UAPs not only from the public but from Congress, and that he personally interviewed people with direct knowledge of non-human craft.
“My testimony is based on information I've been given by individuals with a long-standing track record of legitimacy and service to this country, many of whom also shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation and classified oral testimony,” Mr Grusch told Congress.
Representative Nancy Mace asked him: "if you believe we have crashed aircraft, as you stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft?"
Mr Grusch answered: "Biologics came with some of these recoveries."
Ms Mace asked: "Were they human or non-human?"
He said the biologics obtained were "non-human".
The Pentagon has denied all of his claims.
Representative Tim Burchett supported the idea that the government was concealing information.
Mr Burchett said at the opening of the hearing – which also featured testimony from two former Navy officers who said they witnessed UAPs – that “we're going to uncover the cover-up".
“This is an issue of government transparency. We can't trust a government that does not trust its people,” he said.
But the US government has begun taking the issue of UAPs more seriously in recent years.
Nasa held its first public meeting on UAPs in May, calling for a more rigorous scientific approach to clarify the origin of hundreds of mysterious sightings.
The Pentagon also began paying closer attention to the subject after inexplicable sightings from US Navy and Air Force pilots.
The central worry was that the sightings could be of unknown aerial surveillance technology used by China to collect intelligence on US defences.
AFP contributed to this report
