Reports: David Wilcock, Former Star of "Ancient Aliens," Dead at 53

​In the wake of an FBI investigation into the statistically unremarkable deaths and disappearances of a handful of government scientists linked to nuclear secrets and UFOs, I sarcastically observed in an earlier blog post that proportionally more cast members from Ancient Aliens had died this year than government scientists. Sadly, my prescient comment became still more accurate with the news that David Wilcock, an early cast member of Ancient Aliens, who left the show following controversy, died April 20 at the age of 53, according to social media posts from Wilcock’s friend and onetime media partner Corey Goode and from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a congressional UFO advocate who has also posted ancient astronaut content. [UPDATE: The Boulder County Sheriff's Department confirmed the deceased was Wilcock on Wednesday evening.]

We just learned of the tragic passing of David Wilcock. We are praying for his family and loved ones and the millions of lives he impacted.

□️John 8:32

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) April 22, 2026

My response to the passing of my good friend, David Wilcock.https://t.co/KWahtOHDDE@boulderpolice @DABoulder20th @BldrCOSheriff

— Corey Goode (Official) (@CoreyGoode) April 22, 2026

​According to a statement from the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, a man in Nederland, Colorado, ended his own life following a “mental health crisis.” Police encountered a man with a weapon, who used it on himself. Luna said on social media that Wilcock, who lived in Nederland, had died, and Goode confirmed that the death took place at the site where police responded and that he had met with police to provide information. 
 
In a live stream two days earlier, Wilcock said he was thankful to still be alive because of the rash of allegedly suspicious disappearances. “Frankly, people are disappearing. Scientists are going missing,” he said. “It’s a little bit scary.”
 
Wilcock told viewers he had had a “rough week.”
 
Wilcock had long experienced mental health issues dating back to his adolescence, writing about them in his 2016 autobiography The Ascension Mysteries, where he self-disclosed a series of mental illnesses, including depression and hallucinations, confessed to years of drug abuse, and wrote about his delusional belief that science fiction television shows communicated secret messages to him and that space aliens damaged the plumbing in his house in order to threaten him into silence. He believed his TV and his VCR spoke to him through high-pitched squeals. Wilcock also claimed that he had suffered repeated abuse and trauma, beginning in childhood. Wilcock provided a full list of his self-disclosed conditions, ranging from compulsive eating to chronic thumb-sucking, in The Ascension Mysteries.
 
Born in Rotterdam, New York, in 1973, Wilcock grew up in nearby Scotia, a child of unhappy parents whose contentious and stormy marriage traumatized Wilcock, according to his own account. His mother believed in New Age spirituality and a wide range of conspiracy theories, including anti-vaccine conspiracies and her belief that her neighbors, who were Freemasons, were performing Satanic rites and ritual orgies next door—beliefs which she passed on to her son. He claimed his pot-smoking mother was emotionally abusive and exercised extreme control over his early life.
 
Wilcock described his high school and college years as an unending series of traumas and ostracism against a young man unable to fit in with his peers. He claimed his college roommates turned him into a submissive cleaning slave. It was in these years that he discovered alternative history literature and UFO books in his college’s library. As a result, he came to believe that his dreams were visions of alternate dimensions and that his writings were prophecies. He claimed to have predicted the September 11 attacks a decade before they happened when he wrote song lyrics about “metal to metal, soul to soul, meshing to fusion.”
 
His mother had taught him to believe that he had ESP, and his early career focused on his alleged prophetic powers. In 2004, Wilcock publicly claimed that he was the reincarnation of “sleeping prophet” Edgar Cayce, a belief he had developed in the late 1990s. He made his reputation from his first book, The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?, which tried to prove Wilcock was Cayce reborn. Wilcock then raised his profile through radio appearances on Coast to Coast AM. His radio gigs led him to appear on a Sci-Fi Channel documentary about 2012 prophecies.
 
However, his big break came when he was selected as a cast member for Ancient Aliens in season 2, likely due to the influence of George Noorey, the Coast to Coast host who has long been involved with Ancient Aliens. From 2010 to 2019, Wilcock was one of television’s most prominent ancient astronaut theorists, starring on Ancient Aliens and hosting programs on the Gaia TV streaming channel. He parlayed his TV appearances on the then-massively popular Ancient Aliens into a series of New York Times bestselling books, including his 2016 Ascension Mysteries, and launched a YouTube channel in 2010 to expand his reach.
 
But he became increasingly outspoken in his pro-Trump political stance, which bordered on messianic, and in his advocacy of Pizzagate and QAnon, the latter sometimes drawing directly on Wilcock’s own conspiracy theories for some of its more outlandish claims. Wilcock parted ways with Ancient Aliens in 2019 following a dispute in which he refused to appear in an episode interviewing Democratic operative John Podesta, claiming Podesta was part of an anti-Trump child-raping cult. Wilcock’s partnership with Gaia ended in 2018 when he accused the streaming service of editing his shows to make him appear to be a devil-worshipper. He later apologized for the claim, blaming domestic abuse for his outburst.
 
In 2014, Wilcock, then an Ancient Aliens cast member, appeared on Russian television as the star of an anti-American documentary watched by 21 million Russians accusing “international financiers” (i.e., the Jews) of a global plot to exterminate 6.5 billion humans and destroy Russia. In 2017, Wilcock accused the Rothschilds (i.e., the Jews) of threatening to assassinate him.
 
Wilcock was married from 2017 to 2021 to wife Elizabeth, a spiritual teacher, with whom he collaborated professionally.
 
During these years, Wilcock turned his attention to YouTube live streams, direct-to-video documentaries, and social media. Wilcock, alongside his wife, promoted an alien-themed salvation narrative whereby believers could “ascend” to enlightenment through belief in Donald Trump and the beneficent space aliens who acted through him.
 
Wilcock purchased a $1.2 million Colorado ranch in 2019, at the height of his popularity and at the peak of his book and video sales. He had moved to Colorado in 2017 to be closer to Gaia TV’s production facilities.
 
However, Wilcock’s popularity began to wane after leaving his most prominent television outlets. Even as he faded from the public eye, he retained a large social media following with more than half a million YouTube subscribers.
 
Wilcock’s last known position, in which he served since 2023, was as “director of advanced technology” for Stavatti Aerospace Ltd., a troubled aerospace firm that produced no airplanes in its 32-year history and was sued for financial fraud.
 
One of Wilcock’s last social media posts expressed outrage at Donald Trump’s recent A.I.-generated image depicting himself as Jesus, with the formerly supportive Wilcock asking if Trump was “out of his mind” or “the Antichrist.”