New York, September 27: Former US Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch, who earlier this year in the US House of Representatives Congressional Hearing exposed that the US government maintains a "multi-decade old secret UFO recovery program and is in possession of non-human spacecraft" has recently claimed that China and Russia have joined the race and are pursuing efforts to seize and analyse extra-terrestrial technology. During a conversation with podcast host Joe Rogan, Grusch elucidated the events leading up to the UFO crash retrieval challenge, Daily Star reported.

Delving extensively into the specifics of an incident that occurred in Italy in 1933, he said that Pope Pius XII and the Vatican were also involved. During this time, the confused Italian government reportedly contacted the Germans and sent descriptions of the "saucer-shaped" spacecraft that had crashed in the grounds of Northern Italy. This was when Mussolini and Hitler started working together to unravel the secret of the spacecraft during World War II. 'Alien Dead Bodies' Real or Fake? Tests Conducted on Two 'Non-Human' Corpses Displayed in Mexico Congress; Here's What Doctors Concluded.

It was during this time that the US got wind of the secret claim of the former US Air Force intelligence officer. "Establishing a covert communication pathway via the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), which evolved into the CIA, and eventually reaching [then-president Franklin D. Roosevelt], when the US became aware of the unusual occurrence", he added.

He further stated that the Pope and the Italian mafia concocted a plot to steal away the 20-foot “flying saucer” from the Axis powers during the later years of the war. "The secret UFO arms is still underway", according to Grusch. Maintaining his stance, he said that he didn't go public to help Russia and China fine-tune their intelligence-gathering efforts but to put the truth in the public domain and hold the US government responsible. Do Aliens Exist? Here's What NASA Administrator Bill Nelson Has to Say on Possibility of Alien Life and UFO Sightings (Watch Videos).

Grusch claimed that he had conversations with unnamed officials that led him to believe about the UFO arms race. He, however, disclosed that the number of alien spacecraft captured by the US is in double digits. He said his main purpose is to try and get the US government to go public with the facts so that it could bring humanity together. Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough, however, dismissed Grusch's claims and said that the US Defense Department has not found any evidence to support assertions that there were past or current programs related to the possession or reverse-engineering of extra-terrestrial materials.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 27, 2023 08:01 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).