Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said this week that several high-ranking government officials have come forward with allegations involving UFOs similar to those made by former intelligence officer David Grusch.
Grusch, a U.S. Air Force officer and former member of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, claimed that the military has a secret UFO retrieval program that covers up evidence of "nonhuman exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed."
In an interview with NewsNation on Monday, Rubio said that he's heard from unnamed officials with "high clearances and high positions within our government" who made similar claims.
"I will say I find most of these people — at some point, or maybe even currently — have held very high clearances and high positions within our government, so you do ask yourself, What incentive would so many people with that kind of qualification ... have to come forward and make something up?'" Rubio said.
"We're trying to gather as much of that information as we can … and, frankly, a lot of them are very fearful of their jobs … fearful of harm coming to them."
Rubio added: "There are people that have come forward to share information with our committee over the last couple of years. … I want to be very protective of these people. A lot of these people came to us even before protections were in the law for whistleblowers to come forward."
Rubio did not say if he found the claims to be credible.
"What I think we owe is just a mature understanding, listening, and trying to put all these pieces together, and just sort of intake the information without any prejudgment or jumping to any conclusions," Rubio said.