NASHVILLE – U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville, says he is “100 percent” convinced that the federal government and Pentagon officials are covering up information about unidentified flying objects and unidentified aerial phenomena, known as UFOs and UAPs.
Burchett and his colleagues hope to shed more light on the issue Wednesday during a House Oversight subcommittee hearing on anomalous phenomena and their implications for national security, public safety and government transparency.
“We’ve asked for documents, we’ve gone to interview pilots and our Pentagon has stopped us. It’s ridiculous. It’s been going on since the 1940s,” Burchett said in an interview with Fox News on Saturday. “We’re taking the gloves off … We’re done with cover-ups.”
The subcommittee will hear first-hand accounts of unidentified phenomena and assess threats while highlighting legislative efforts to bring transparency to the issue.
“The Pentagon and Washington bureaucrats have kept this information hidden for decades, and we’re finally going to shed some light on it,” Burchett said in a subcommittee statement. “We are bringing credible witnesses who can provide public testimony because people deserve the truth. We are done with cover-ups.”
Before winning election to Congress in 2018, Burchett served two terms as mayor of Knox County. Before that, he served in the General Assembly, first as a representative and then as a senator.
The congressman told Knoxville television station WVLT in a recent interview that he became interested in the subject from a “very young age” after finding books on UFOs and other subjects on a table at the local public library.
“There was all this wild stuff,” Burchett said, including information about UFOs and the 1947 “Roswell incident” in New Mexico, where metal and rubber debris was recovered from a crash with personnel at Roswell Army Air Field who initially issued a press release announcing they had found a “flying saucer.”
Decades later, the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force concluded in a 1994 report prompted by a General Accounting Office investigation that the debris recovered was from a US Army Air Force balloon research project called MOGUL. The report said the “alien bodies” appeared to be Air Force members who were killed or injured while on duty.
Burchett told WVLT that “military intelligence is really like congressional ethics. It doesn’t exist.”
He said several military pilots will testify, including David Rush, a decorated combat officer who served in Afghanistan and has described his experiences serving in a UAP task force. Also expected to testify is David Ver, a former Navy commander who Burchett says shot the “famous Tic Tac” with video of a white oval object found by two Navy fighter jets off the coast of San Diego in 2004.
Burchett said there have been 14 “near misses” reported by pilots. The pilots are putting themselves at risk, he added.
“You have to ask yourself why would they lie about this? … All I want is transparency. Let’s get to the bottom of it,” Burchett told the Knoxville station. “Stop sending us these redacted files.”
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a recent White House press conference that the Biden administration was taking the UFO issue seriously, Politico reported.
“The Pentagon has set up an entire organization to help collect and coordinate the reporting and analysis of UAP sightings in the military,” Kirby said. “Prior to this, there really wasn’t a coordinated, integrated effort to do that.”
“They’re not telling the truth,” Burchett told Fox News. “The hearings they’ve had have been fake.”
Speaking to WVLT, Burchett said, “I’m 100 percent convinced it’s not one of our enemies or allies, meaning ‘Skunk Works’ or alien. If it were the Russians, they wouldn’t be fighting in Ukraine. If it were China, they’d control us.”
Skunk Works is an official pseudonym for Lockheed Martin’s advanced development programs.
Censorship by Jayapal
U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Culleoka, is sponsoring a House resolution to censure U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, after the congresswoman called Israel a “racist state.”
The resolution accuses Jayapal, who leads a caucus of House progressives, of “fostering anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiment throughout his congressional career.”
Jayapal, a critic of both Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, first sought to clarify his remarks and later apologized for them.
The Republican-led House passed a resolution last week on a 412-9-1 vote to express support for Israel and say it is “not a racist or apartheid state,” while rejecting anti-Semitism and xenophobia. He declared that the US “will always be a strong supporter” of the Jewish state.
Jayapal voted in favor of the resolution. Nine progressive Democrats voted no.
Ogles later introduced his separate resolution, stating on Twitter: “I hope all my Housemates join me in condemning the anti-Semitism perpetuated by @RepJayapal.”
In a text over the weekend to the Chattanooga Times Free Press in response to questions, Ogles called Jayapal’s statement “unacceptable.”
“Israel is America’s best ally in the Middle East, and to call it ‘racist’ is not only disgustingly anti-Semitic, it threatens the strength of the relationship between our nations. Unfortunately, my colleague’s comments are not that surprising given that her time in Congress has been plagued with anti-Israel sentiments, which are not tolerated so it is not an anti-terrorism resolution.”
He added that he hopes “all my fellow lawmakers will join me in condemning his hateful and problematic speech.”
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com.
