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UFO transparency: Bipartisan push to establish UAP committee

(NewsNation) — Is enough being done to find the truth about unidentified anomalous phenomena?

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., doesn’t seem to think so. Now, he’s requesting a House select committee on UAPs.

Burlison sent a letter to House leadership Tuesday calling for a new select subcommittee to focus on UAPs, otherwise known as unidentified flying objects (UFOs). He believes it would provide a significant opportunity for Congress to find long-overdue answers.

Members of Congress have led a bipartisan effort to investigate and declassify government documents containing information regarding such unidentified phenomena following the testimony of UFO whistleblower David Grusch, a former Air Force and intelligence officer, before a House Oversight subcommittee in July 2023.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers formed the House UAP Caucus in the fall to focus on the issue, urging transparency and communication with the public. 

Burlison, a member of the caucus, said the proposed select committee would first be focused on questioning the Department of Defense on expenditures he believes are for secret UAP recovery programs.

“We’re all taking this matter very seriously,” Burlison told NewsNation’s Blake Burman on Tuesday. “We took the whistleblower David Grusch and his allegations very seriously … I think we owe it to the American people to shed light on the expenditures being used to investigate these matters.”

The efforts are based on the need for government transparency, Burlison said.

The Pentagon brushed off concerns over spending in a report last week, claiming that all the expenditures questioned were either related to non-UAP projects or defunct ones. The report also reiterated that the government is not aware of any extraterrestrial crafts and that reported sightings have been the “result of misidentification.”

Burlison said he was concerned the Pentagon is not being completely forthright in its denials about UAP programs. He said Defense officials were not truthful to members of Congress in private when sharing classified information.

Burlison said he had not questioned Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on the issue, but already has the support of Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., as well as Reps. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.

The Hill contributed to this report.