(NewsNation) — New polling shows a majority of voters believe the U.S. government knows more about UFOs than it says it does.
In a poll of 1,500 eligible U.S. voters carried out by Redfield & Wilton Strategies exclusively for Newsweek, 57% of respondents believed that the government has more information about UFOs and alien life than it has publicly revealed.
Another 21% said they did not think this was the case and 22% said they did not know.
Members of Congress have recently said they want to investigate UFOs after claims made by David Grusch, a former member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Grush spoke in June to investigative journalist Ross Coulthart on NewsNation about his time in Congress’ Unidentified Aerial Phenomena task force, which is now called the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO.
Grusch said the UAP task force was refused access to a crash retrieval program. He alleges the U.S. government has recovered nonhuman origin technical vehicles, or “spacecraft” for decades and even said the U.S. has retrieved bodies from other species.
“I have plenty of senior former intelligence officers that came to me, many of which I knew almost my whole career, that confided in me that they were part of a program,” Grusch said.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican, says he’s heard from officials with “high clearances” who make similar claims.
“What I think we owe is just a mature understanding, listening and trying to put all these pieces together and just intake the information without any prejudgment or jumping to any conclusions,” Rubio said.
Asked about Grusch’s specific allegations of the government possessing “non-human original technical vehicles,” 34% of those asked in the Newsweek poll said they believed them, 30% did not and 36% said they did not know.
The Pentagon responded to UFO claims in a statement saying that “AARO has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.”
After Grusch came out with these claims, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said he will hold a hearing on UFOs soon. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida told NewsNation the hearing is likely going to be bipartisan-led and in her home state.
Many people surveyed for Newsweek, 40%, supported or strongly supported lawmakers looking into Grusch’s claims.