Nick Betts's story about reptilian-like beings: no independent corroboration
According to a former American sniper, an unnamed man in a hotel room in Poland told him that American soldiers had killed three non-human beings at an underground facility near Area 51. Liberation Times has now revisited the ten-month-old podcast story following similar claims by David Grusch. Neither comes with any evidence.
Nick Betts, who by his own account was a U.S. Army sniper, told the story in an episode of the Liberty Risk podcast released on December 5, 2025. Liberation Times summarized it in an article published on October 15. The ten-month-old account resurfaced because David Grusch made similar claims on Joe Rogan's show on September 30.
What did Betts say?
Betts was in Poland to film a documentary about the war in Ukraine, together with a friend nicknamed "Ranger," who had previously served in a Ranger battalion. In a hotel room they met two men. One of them, an unnamed man, said that he had served with a unit of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at Fort Bragg and had taken part in an operation near Area 51. According to him, the older man had served in the same unit and had also been there.
According to the account, they were the second quick reaction force sent to an underground facility after contact with the first team was lost. They were issued an unfamiliar, magazine-less "high-energy" weapon. Inside, they killed an attacker and three beings, and one of their own men died. The soldier's body was cremated despite his Catholic faith, and his death was recorded as a training accident. The survivors were made to sign documents, and biometric data was taken from them.
According to Betts, the next morning the older man grabbed him by the neck and pinned him against the wall, forbade him to talk about the subject and demanded to know where he had heard about it. The storyteller told him to leave the country. Betts and his friend were removed from the documentary job and flown home from Poland.
The podcast hosts suggested that the whole thing could have been a hoax. Betts replied that he would hardly have lost his job and thousands of dollars in pay over a prank. He also acknowledged that the storyteller had been drinking, but in his view he was not drunk.
What do we know, and what don't we?
The account is secondhand throughout. Betts named neither the storyteller, nor the older man, nor the unit, and the friend who was present has not spoken publicly either. No public document, recording or other witness supports the story. Betts's military background and his removal from the shoot are also claimed only by himself.
Liberation Times is a consistently pro-disclosure outlet that often works with anonymous sources. The article also lists other, similar claims. David Grusch, a former Air Force intelligence officer, said on Joe Rogan's September 30 episode that his contacts had described reptilian beings, in some cases over two meters tall, and that American soldiers had shot living beings during the retrieval of a crashed craft. According to other reports, he stressed that he had not seen such a being himself. In May 2025, physicist Eric W. Davis told lawmakers that according to his sources, the crews of some UFOs include reptilian beings. An anonymous intelligence source of Liberation Times also spoke of such beings.
These claims echo one another, but all are based on other people's accounts or anonymous sources, and none comes with physical evidence. Although Betts's story was told earlier than Grusch's Rogan interview, this does not make either of them more credible.
The sober take
According to the source, the story rests on a single, anonymous, secondhand account that the storyteller gave while drinking, and the article mentions no document, recording or independent witness. Several mundane explanations present themselves: it may be an invented or exaggerated story, perhaps a prank or a rumor passing on beliefs, which the listener recalled inaccurately, emphasizing the striking details. The podcast hosts themselves suggested it could have been a hoax. The fact that other people make similar claims about reptilian beings is not independent confirmation, because these are also indirect or anonymous accounts.
Sources
- Liberation Times: Former Army Sniper Says He Was Told of Deadly Encounter With Reptilian Beings Near Area 51
- David Grusch Says He Never Saw a Reptilian Himself but Claims US Personnel Shot Them After a UFO Crash