House members call for select committee on UAPs to fight Pentagon's 'overclassification' of info

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is calling for House leaders to form a select committee on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in response to the Pentagon's "overclassification" of information and its lack of transparency on the topic.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and others have asked House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Oversight Chairman James Comer for the select committee on UAPs so they would have subpoena powers.

"We're running into a lot of roadblocks," said Burchett during an online discussion on Thursday hosted by The Hill on UAP's (commonly referred to as UFO's) and national security. "It just creates more and more conspiracy theories because our federal government is so arrogant and so bloated, and they can just tell they'll just run out the clock."

Newsweek reported that in June, David Grusch a former U.S. Air Force and intelligence officer who served for 36 years, told The Debrief that the U.S. government is "retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles, call it spacecraft if you will, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed." Newsweek added that Grusch said "intact and partially intact vehicles" had been recovered by authorities. Grusch also accused the U.S. government of running a "sophisticated disinformation campaign" to hide this information.

Burchett said Pentagon officials shouldn't continue to refuse to answer lawmakers questions about UAPs, especially if a select committee issues a subpoena.

"If they don't have anything to hide, if the Pentagon doesn't, then they shouldn't throw up another roadblock, as they've done in the past," he said.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), an Air Force veteran, said the Pentagon's overclassification of UAP information is leading to a lack of government transparency and more public curiosity on the subject.

"I think that we're facing a massive issue of overclassification. Even if you, for example, let's say you were flying, and you recorded something on your iPhone, right, that would be considered classified information and if it had a UAP they would obviously hide that information, even though you recorded it on your device," she said.  "The Department of Defense is literally trying to stonewall us."

Luna said Congress should work to remove the stigma surrounding pilots reporting UAP sightings. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner made similar comments during an interview with Just the News earlier this year.

"There's multiple commercial airline pilots that are unable to address these issues to report them. They're facing retaliation from some of these corporate airlines, if they do speak out, they get letters, basically, cease and desist letters," she said.

Luna said she supports forming a select committee to push back against the secrecy around UAPs.

"The intelligence community is not above law. They're not above the American people. It is a select group of people that have become these megalomaniacs with information and think that they can control everything," she said. 

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), a member of the House Oversight Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee, also shares the view that a select committee dedicated to UAPs is needed.

"I think one is warranted with subpoena power," he said. “I hear from people more on this subject than anything else. Not the Trump indictments, not Hunter Biden. They are talking about the UAP hearing because there’s great interest in this government transparency issue.”

He was asked what Congress can do to better define the kind of information the Pentagon can legally classify or declassify. In response, he said Congress is not doing enough on the issue.

"We see the agencies just growing and this bureaucracy is growing and more rulemaking going on because Congress has failed to do their role, because we're too busy just trying to figure out how we're going to win the media cycle or when the next election or, you know, how we're how we're going to investigate somebody to try to help our side," he said.

"I mean, that's really Congress's main function now. It's a giant PR comms agency. It's not a lawmaking body anymore and so we can make it better by getting back into the lawmaking business and getting these agencies back under our control," he added.

He previously suggested a congressional delegation visit military bases like Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Air Force facility in Nevada known as Area 51.

“If there’s nothing to conceal, let Congress go to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Dugway Proving Ground or even Groom Lake in Nevada. We should have disclosure today, we should have disclosure tomorrow. The time has come," he said.

During the event, Moskowitz suggested having a field hearing outside of the bases if lawmakers aren't able to go inside. 

"If they won't let us in, we should have a field hearing outside," he said. "The military will have to explain why that is." He added that "it's time for disclosure, at least to a point where we're not hurting a national security."

In the Senate, democrats have joined the push for more information. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) strongly supported an amendment that was added to the chamber’s annual defense bill that would require government records related to UAP's be declassified and disclosed unless a review board says they must be kept classified.