New Law Would Force Government to Declassify Every UFO Document

Show Us Receipts

In an age of widespread public interest in UFOs, a handful of Congress members are calling on the government to show its cards.

Titled the "UAP Transparency Act," a reference to the government's new preferred term for UFOs of "unidentified aerial/anomalous phenomenon," the new law introduced by Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett would require that all documents about these phenomena be declassified.

"It's simple," Burchett told Fox News of his bill. "They spend all this time telling us they don't exist, then release the files, dagnabbit."

One of the legislative branch's most outspoken believers in extraterrestrials, the Tennesee congressman once claimed that "UFOs were in the Bible," specifically citing the chapter of Ezekiel as evidence.

As such, he's long used his power and podium to urge the government to share more information with the public about any knowledge of UFOs.

"This bill isn’t all about finding little green men or flying saucers, it’s about forcing the Pentagon and federal agencies to be transparent with the American people," Burchett said in the bill's press release. "I’m sick of hearing bureaucrats telling me these things don’t exist while we’ve spent millions of taxpayer dollars on studying them for decades."

Checkered Past

The GOP congressman  — who, we should note, made a transphobic comment so vile that he was shut down by a Fox host — is joined by Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), and Eric Burlison (R-MO) in cosponsoring the bill, which would require the Pentagon to declassify all its UAP documents within 270 days of its passage.

Behind this declassification push is Burchett's belief that the government has sustained a long term coverup of its knowledge and use of UFO technology.

"The devil has been in our way through this thing," the congressman, who sits on the House of Representative's oversight subcommittee, said during a hearing last year. "We’ve run into roadblocks from members from the intelligence community, the Pentagon."

Inspired by testimony from whistleblower David Grusch last year, Burchett and his bill cosponsors sent a letter to the intelligence community's inspector general requesting more information about claims that the government had retrieved and reverse-engineered alien technology. This year, the Pentagon's UFO office released a 63-page document saying it had no such records, which may or may not have been in response to that letter last summer

Given both the strange religiosity and the general discrediting of Grusch and his testimony, we're taking this bill with a grain of salt — but it will be interesting to see what happens with it, even if its chances of passing currently seem like a long shot.

More on UFOs: The Head of the SETI Institute Says He's Seen Zero Evidence of Alien Technology