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@ParaN_rmal excerpt of Jesse Michels on meeting David Grusch (10 Aug 2026)

@ParaN_rmal excerpt of Jesse Michels on meeting David Grusch (10 Aug 2026)

This is an edited excerpt from Julian Dorey Podcast episode 240, recorded no later than its October 4, 2024 publication. It is not a new 2026 interview. The excerpt begins around 2:35:05 in the original but removes portions of the longer exchange.

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JESSE MICHELS on how was first introduced to DAVID GRUSCH in 2021..

"It was in a venture capital context... I was looking at a company... the guy who had started it was an officer in the Space Force"

"I met him initially at my house, my buddy who is in the Space Force brought him over to my spot"

"I knew him decently well before he came out.. and he seemed extremely frustrated.. at trying to reform things from within.. he was experiencing much reprisals... blowback around his investigations... he was like 'I gotta get out.. I gotta go public..' "

Embedded-video transcript

Transcribed from the complete X video on 2026-08-15 with Antigravity CLI using Gemini 3.5 Flash (High). Speaker identification and wording were checked against the original YouTube captions. The host is Julian Dorey, not Danny Jones.

[Jesse Michels, 0:00] I actually was in a venture capital context, like I was looking at a company, um, that was like in, in space, uh, it actually had come out of Space Force. Like the guy who started it was an officer in the Space Force. And he started a company in, in this area and I was diligencing it and I was talking to him about, you know, his company, but all, you know, at the end of my diligence, I was like, "Hey man, like, I'm also really into this other stuff. I'm really into the UFO thing. I know you're like, you know, uh, you've been around the block when it comes to space." And he was like, "Yeah, like, I'm, look, I'm a believer, but, uh, I don't know that much. Like, I, you know, there are limits to my knowledge." And like, he could tell I was deep on it. He was like, "I have somebody you should probably meet." And so that's when he introduced me to Grusch.

[Julian Dorey, 0:40] What year was this?

[Jesse Michels, 0:41] This was, I guess, two years before I put out the thing in July of '23. So, '21? Is when I met him.

[Julian Dorey, 0:46] Mm-hmm.

[Jesse Michels, 0:47] Yeah.

[Julian Dorey, 0:47] Where'd you meet him?

[Jesse Michels, 0:49] I met him initially at my house. My buddy who's in the Space Force brought him over to my spot. And it was really like a trip for me because I was like, I don't know man, you're so used to meeting these really snake-oily people. A lot of the people in the UFO world, they're just full of shit, and they just speak in these super hokey ways, and he really broke that pattern. I was like, "Whoa, this guy's like..."

[Julian Dorey, 1:17] What about him broke that?

[Jesse Michels, 1:19] It's like, he's clearly mildly autistic. Like, not, you know, all the way, but he's a little autistic. Very high attention to detail. Extreme truth-seeking. And very sincere, too. And so I think all of those things combined, he just broke the pattern, you know.

[Julian Dorey, 1:36] Did he tell you everything that he later has told us publicly, at that meeting?

[Jesse Michels, 1:40] Did he tell me everything that he later...

[Julian Dorey, 1:43] Yeah. Like, did you know the details?

[Jesse Michels, 1:45] Oh, oh, oh. Was he like, "There has been a crash retrieval program"?

[Julian Dorey, 1:48] Yes.

[Jesse Michels, 1:49] He was really high level in that first meeting. I think he was kind of sussing me out. But he kind of hinted like, "Hey, you know, I think you might be onto something. There might be more here than meets the eye." But, you know, he was still in the government at the time, so he was very cagey around what he could share. But it was clear like, you know, when you speak to somebody, you see the resonance in their eye. I'm decent at picking cues up like that, and I came out still pretty pumped because I was like, that guy got a lot of the fringy shit I was saying. So I was like, there's some recognition in his eyes that I could just detect.

[Julian Dorey, 2:20] He's also definitely, clearly a very highly intelligent guy.

[Jesse Michels, 2:24] Yeah, you know, he's become a really good buddy. And he's next-level intelligent. He's really, really smart.

[Julian Dorey, 2:30] Did he hint at all in, whether it was that meeting or your earliest meetings, whatever they were, did he talk about the idea that like, "Hey, I'm going to go public with this at some point"?

[Jesse Michels, 2:38] Not then. But I got to know him a bit, actually, decently well before he came out. And he seemed extremely frustrated at trying to kind of reform things from within. And it was clear at one point that he was experiencing a bunch of reprisals, basically blowback around his investigations. And he was like, "I got to get out. You know, I got to go public," basically for his own immunity and so he could actually affect any sort of change on this.

[Julian Dorey, 3:09] What do you mean like he was trying to reform things from within?

[Jesse Michels, 3:11] I don't know the actual specifics, but my sense was that the initial strategy was discover this stuff, bring it to the right people in charge, and then try to engage in the proper reforms around it. Reorganize the legacy stuff. Create academic programs around this. The nuclear stuff, it's like nuclear physics should not be classified, right? But nuclear trade secrets should be classified. These obvious things. And I think he was trying to affect this change from the inside. Like, "Hey, we're not in front of this issue at all. We need to be more forward-minded on this." And I think he just wasn't getting anywhere. I think he was sort of spinning his wheels. I think superiors and colleagues were doing all sorts of dirty things. And, yeah, I think he basically was like, "I got to blow the lid on this."

[Julian Dorey, 3:57] Did he discuss with you, and I'm going to come back to some of the specific things he said for people out there who haven't heard it, but did he discuss with you some of the threats or the fearfulness surrounding both him and his family, the blowback, that was keeping him up at night at that time?

[Jesse Michels, 4:15] Yeah, he touched on it. He touched on, you know, I think, certain shots across the bow that he and his family got that were pretty unnerving. Unnerving, obviously, for him. Extremely unnerving. And then unnerving for me to hear as well, because I'm like, man, we're in communication, and I'm kind of looking into this stuff too. So, yeah, I think it was a very precarious time for him coming out, because you don't have immunity, nobody knows who you are. And so if they're going to engage in retaliation, it was pre-July of '23, not after. I think now it would be much harder for them to do that.

[Julian Dorey, 4:50] Why do you think he, minus the clear understanding of the knowledge of the subject that you had, and you're a friendly guy too, why do you think he trusted you and gave you all this? And the reason I ask that is because at the time you're not a public figure, you don't have the YouTube channel, and if you wanted to toss on a paranoia brain from his end, because obviously things were happening in his world, you're investing Peter Thiel's money, the guy who owns Palantir. You could make some conclusions there like, "Why the fuck am I being walked into this guy's house?" Why do you think he was like, "You know what? I fuck with you, Jesse."

[Jesse Michels, 5:26] I think it was two things. I think it was one, just genuine social rapport. Or maybe three things. Two, a respect for how far I had gone in open-source techniques, just discovering a lot of this stuff on my own. There are guys who are extremely deep, like Richard Dolan, for example.

[Julian Dorey, 5:49] Yes.

[Jesse Michels, 5:49] I'm trying to think of other guys. Back in the day it would have been Stanton Friedman or Leonard Stringfield or whatever. Guys who you just have to give your props to as far as knowledge on this stuff. I think those guys are often way stronger than me on an amalgamation of facts and sightings. They just have more of it. I think as far as theory, I'm pretty deep on this stuff. So I think there was a mutual respect there and coming to the same conclusions. And then I think it was also kind of a trust-building process where, first of all, he was trying to put this out through mainstream media initially. And the Washington Post and New York Times kind of shit the bed and didn't end up running with the story.

[Julian Dorey, 6:30] Right.

[Jesse Michels, 6:31] And so I...

[Julian Dorey, 6:32] Especially New York Times.

[Jesse Michels, 6:33] I don't know why. I think, you know, I spoke to Leslie Kean about it, because Leslie Kean broke the story for The Debrief. But she's a New York Times staff writer.

[Julian Dorey, 6:39] Right.

[Jesse Michels, 6:40] So she wanted to do it through the New York Times. And I think, what's the guy's name? Is it Julian Barnes? I think it's Julian Barnes. I think they're like their intel editor or whatever, or national security editor. I think he's just kind of anti the UFO thing.

[Julian Dorey, 6:56] Right.

[Jesse Michels, 6:57] And so, also, I think none of the 40 people could come forward directly to the New York Times, and I think they doubted that. The whole thing is actually absurd, because you have colleagues of Grusch's coming out. They published the 2017 stuff, why wouldn't they publish Grusch? That's total double standard right there. But second of all, you have pretty unimpeachable colleagues of Grusch's, guys like Karl Nell, who set up Army Futures Command, and others saying like, "You know, this guy's legit," and defending his credentials. And then Grusch coming out and saying what he's saying. That itself is a story. And you can caveat it with whatever you want if you're the New York Times. But to me, not publishing that shows a prima facie, a priori disinterest or bias that's weird.

[Julian Dorey, 7:39] Very weird.

[Jesse Michels, 7:40] Yeah, it doesn't make sense. You can say, "We don't know," and XYZ need to be corroborated, but you have the ICIG, Thomas Monheim, saying, "This is credible and urgent." That's him, that's not you. And then you have his credentials being sort of backed up. And so I can't answer why they didn't publish it. But then I think it was this thing where he was feeling really burned by the mainstream media, and he's like, "Oh, my friend Jesse, yeah, he has this smaller channel. But he's really deep on this stuff, he's high conviction on it."

[Julian Dorey, 8:05] Excellent episode, by the way.

[Jesse Michels, 8:06] Thanks, man.

[Julian Dorey, 8:06] The one with him. That was a good one.

[Jesse Michels, 8:08] Appreciate that. Yeah, it was fun to make. That one felt like really, I don't know, it was like a beautiful moment. Like, I was pumped to do it for him and for the whole kind of movement.

[Julian Dorey, 8:16] Yeah.

[Jesse Michels, 8:16] Yeah.

[Julian Dorey, 8:17] Yeah, the thing that keeps coming into my head is some of these stories I've heard from behind the scenes where intel comes in, says, "Don't do that."

[Jesse Michels, 8:25] Yeah.

[Julian Dorey, 8:26] And that would, especially considering Leslie's there, like, that's what I'm thinking, especially also given that he was getting reprisals behind the scenes, so people weren't happy about this.

[Jesse Michels, 8:36] There's clearly some sort of internal war inside the government.

[Julian Dorey, 8:38] Of course.

[Jesse Michels, 8:40] And I don't know if I know the exact fault lines, but it's clear there's some part of the government does not want this out, another really does, in a limited sense and over time. There's nobody that I think is full Ed Snowden on this.

[Julian Dorey, 8:52] Right, yes.

[Jesse Michels, 8:53] And we were talking about this before camera, I agree.

[Julian Dorey, 8:54] Yeah.

[Jesse Michels, 8:55] So I think it's a war between those two sides. I'm definitely on the side of, again, not knowing ontological truth or whatever, and being on the outside, I'm on the side of, I don't see any... I've been given no reasons outside of these rumors you hear. Guys like Jeremy Corbell or Ross Coulthart, who are supposedly in touch with people in and around the actual program, they always say, "You know, we get deep, we get super deep with these people and they all say the same thing at the end of the conversation, which is: 'If you knew what I know, you wouldn't be pursuing this stuff.'" You hear that over and over again.

[Julian Dorey, 9:24] Yeah.

[Jesse Michels, 9:25] And so I'm not inclined to dismiss it. I think there is a credulousness to that world sometimes of reporting, but I also think they're doing good work, and it's important to not throw the baby out with the bathwater, and kind of parse the good from the bad. I think some of the stuff that they're bringing out is really good, and then sometimes it's a little indiscriminate at times or whatever.

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