Karl Nell
| Karl Nell |
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Karl Nell. Headshot from SALT iConnections conference, 2024.
Karl E. Nell is a retired United States Army colonel, systems engineer, and intelligence officer who served as the Army's Director supporting the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) from 2021 to 2022. In June 2023, he provided on-the-record corroboration of David Grusch's UAP whistleblower claims, stating that "the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence" is correct. At the May 2024 SALT iConnections conference he declared publicly: "Non-human intelligence exists. Non-human intelligence has been interacting with humanity. This interaction is not new and it's been ongoing," adding: "There's zero doubt."
Education
Nell holds a B.S. in electrical engineering (cum laude) from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.S. in mechanical engineering from Boston University, an M.S. in computer science engineering (summa cum laude) from the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and a Master of Strategic Studies from the United States Army War College, where he received the Lt. Gen. Thomas J. Plewes National Security Strategy Award. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).
Military career
Nell served over 30 years as a fully joint-qualified commissioned officer in the Army Reserve, commanding at every grade level through colonel. Early assignments included service as Commander and Operations Officer at U.S. Space Command (1990–1994), overseeing military satellite communications systems, and command of a Special Operations Forces PSYOP/MISO company training for potential USEUCOM peace operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Nell served with the Defense Intelligence Agency, leading foreign material exploitation in Iraq as C/J-2 for the Combined Joint Captured Materiel Exploitation Center. In 2009 he was assigned to restructure the 323rd U.S. Army Reserve military intelligence battalion, and subsequently activated the Army's newest expeditionary military intelligence brigade supporting XVIII Airborne Corps and JSOC.
He served as Deputy Chief of Staff of U.S. Africa Command (Deputy COO and Director of Special Programmes), and as Chief Strategy Officer of the U.S. Army Reserves. He was selected by name for a nominative active-duty assignment as Modernization Advisor to the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army at Army Futures Command, where he recommended technical, programmatic, and funding actions for 32 highest-priority Army acquisitions and orchestrated the creation of Project Convergence — the Army's $107-million multi-year top-priority program for national-to-tactical, sensor-to-shooter integration. He also led systems engineering and integration for Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), collaborating with the OSD, DARPA, the NRO, and the Space Security Defense Program.
His culminating military role was as Army Director supporting the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) from 2021 to 2022, working alongside David Grusch. His engagements with senior Pentagon and Congressional leaders directly contributed to UAP legislation in the National Defense Authorization Acts of 2022 and 2023. His Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence evaluation described him as "an officer with the strongest possible moral compass."
Private sector career
Nell has over 34 years of private-sector experience in organizational and technology leadership. He has held positions at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space (as Senior Systems Engineer and Lead SATCOM SRE), Northrop Grumman/TASC (13 years, overseeing systems engineering and integration for billion-dollar satellite programs), CACI, and ENSCO. He has served as Vice President and General Manager of a $100-million national security R&D division and as Deputy Chief Technology Officer for a $2-billion systems engineering company. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Congressionally chartered IT Acquisition Advisory Council.
Jesse Michels has described Nell's private-sector background in connection with his UAP credibility, noting that he served as the deputy CTO of Northrop Grumman and was the Army representative on the UAP Task Force alongside David Grusch.
June 2023 Grusch statement
On June 5, 2023, when The Debrief published its article reporting David Grusch's whistleblower claims that the U.S. government possesses retrieved craft of non-human origin, Nell issued an on-the-record statement supporting Grusch:
His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct, as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence.
He described Grusch as "beyond reproach."
Sol Foundation symposium (November 2023)
Nell spoke at the inaugural symposium of the Sol Foundation, co-founded by Garry Nolan and Peter Skafish, held at Stanford University on November 17–18, 2023. He presented a "UAP Disclosure Campaign Plan" with a proposed timeline for controlled disclosure, with slides indicating a target of achieving disclosure by October 1, 2030. He called for a "Manhattan Project" to reverse-engineer recovered UAPs and warned of the dangers of "catastrophic disclosure" — the uncontrolled release of UAP information. He advocated for "restoration of proper Federal government oversight over all UAP legacy (and ongoing) program efforts."
Garry Nolan has described working closely with Nell on disclosure strategy, noting that they have had "positive arguments" about whether information should be kept secret or released, and that Nell has adopted a middle-ground position favouring public-private partnerships as a mechanism for moving classified UAP knowledge into the commercial domain.
SALT iConnections conference (May 2024)
On May 21, 2024, Nell delivered the keynote address at the SALT iConnections conference in New York City. He stated:
Non-human intelligence exists. Non-human intelligence has been interacting with humanity. This interaction is not new and it's been ongoing.
He added: "There's zero doubt." He stated he had been "read in to all the threats" with TS-SCI clearance and stated that "our adversaries don't have technologies like these." He declared: "We have spacecraft from another species" and "The United States is in possession of exotic material."
Nell outlined six reasons for ongoing non-disclosure: national security, lack of a contingency plan, potential societal disruption, possible non-public agreements with non-human intelligence, covering of government misdeeds, and organizational inertia. He gave three reasons disclosure should proceed: the moral right of the public to know the nature of reality ("nature of reality is fundamentally not government information"), the advantage of a proactive rather than reactive posture, and the potential for societal advancement.
He referenced the Bronze Age collapse (citing Eric Cline's 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed) as a historical parallel for civilizational fragility, and discussed a "grid of 93 Origin Hypotheses" ranging from prosaic explanations to exotic possibilities including cryptoterrestrial, interdimensional, and time-traveller hypotheses.
Associations
Lou Elizondo has described Nell as part of his close circle of trusted collaborators in the UAP disclosure effort, alongside Chris Mellon and Jay Stratton, noting that they worked together in a SCIF and regularly briefed each other on significant developments. Daniel Sheehan has named Nell alongside Elizondo, Tim Burchett, and Anna Paulina Luna as part of the network of individuals pursuing UAP disclosure across military, intelligence, and congressional channels.
During a live interview with Lou Elizondo and Sean Cahill on Theories of Everything, Nell submitted a question from the audience asking: "Is there anything about our moon that we should know about that we don't know?" — a question Elizondo responded to with the single word "exactly."
Sol Foundation policy paper (2025)
In 2025, Nell published "The UFO Enigma: A Call for US Government Disclosure" through the Sol Foundation. The paper proposed reintroduction of the UAP Disclosure Act, modelled after the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, establishment of an independent Review Board of nine citizens nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and provisions for "eminent domain over technologies of unknown origin." It outlined a five-phase disclosure timeline beginning with proving UAPs exist (2024) and culminating with engagement with non-human intelligence (after 2034).