FigureKarl Nell

Retired U.S. Army Colonel; career intelligence and aerospace-engineering officer. Holds a BS West Point and an MS engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. Reported by the post-2017 disclosure-era press as a former program coordinator for the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force (UAPTF) before that office transitioned into the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). In post-retirement public appearances — most prominently at the 7 November 2023 Sol Foundation inaugural symposium at Stanford University, and in interviews with Australian journalist Ross Coulthart on NewsNation through 2023–24 — Nell has stated on the record that ‘non-human intelligence is real’ and that this judgment is based on his classified-program access. He is named in the David Grusch testimony record (House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, 26 July 2023) as one of the former officials who corroborates elements of Grusch’s program-existence claims; Nell’s own corroborative statement was entered into the Roll Call and The Debrief contemporaneous reporting. As of 2026 he is one of three named former U.S. military officers (with Grusch and Elizondo) whose public on-the-record statements assert the existence of unacknowledged crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering programs; none of the three has had their substantive program claims confirmed in the public record by a current executive-branch agency.