[spirited irish]

The Guardian printed an opinion piece by Stuart Clark about Grusch's claims which included questions from three scientists. Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb, who co-founded the UFO-investigating Galileo Project, noted that nothing extraterrestrial has been observed. Radio astronomer Michael Garrett noted that crashed landings of alien craft "would imply that there must be hundreds of them coming every day, and astronomers simply don't see them". Sara Russell, a planetary scientist from the Natural History Museum in London, said that, "if you give me an alloy, it would take me less than half an hour to tell you what elements are in it", and that "it should be easy to understand whether something falling to Earth is man-made or extraterrestrial, and if it is the latter, whether it is naturally occurring or not".[27]

Greg Eghigian, a history professor at Pennsylvania State University and expert in the history of UFOs as it occurs in the context of public fascination,[28] notes that there have been many instances over recent decades in the U.S. of people "who previously worked in some kind of federal department" coming forward to make "bombshell allegations" about the truth regarding UFOs with the whistleblower claims by Grusch fitting this pattern.[29] Eghigian described the 1940s-50s media enthusiasm about flying saucers, and comments that the successful books on the subject by authors Donald Keyhoe, Frank Scully and Gerald Heard, "provided the model for a new kind of public figure: the crusading whistleblower dedicated to breaking the silence over the alien origins of unidentified flying objects."[30] Since then all these similarly credentialed claimants have been unable to provide any further corroboration.[30] Eghigian noted the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office denied all of the claims made by Grusch and he questioned the veracity of Grusch's claims. According to The Guardian:

Eghigian is also skeptical about the veracity of these claims because it looks like Grusch followed Pentagon protocol in publishing this information, meaning that the Department of Defence approved the information he would pass on to the press, which is something the department only does if the information is not classified. If Grusch is telling the truth, surely this information would be classified, Eghigian says, and the department would not have allowed him to go on the record.[29]

David Grusch UFO Whistleblower Claims

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Grusch_UFO_whistleblower_claims.

[RoosterRedux]

Goods points all.

Re: the Department of Defence approved the information he would pass on to the press

As I understand it, the information Grusch passed on was cleared by the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR) and that information was reviewed mostly to make sure no classified info was included and that Grusch had not violated his NDA.

As said, I think that's what Grusch meant when he said he had followed protocol (in other words, Grusch was saying, in effect, that he hadn't broken the law).