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Rep. Tim Burchett says he has been briefed by intelligence agencies on information so sensitive it would leave Americans "unglued" — and he's calling on President Trump to release it all.

[USA HERALD] - Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett told Newsmax host Rob Finnerty on Wednesday that classified briefings he has received on unidentified aerial phenomena contain information the American public would find deeply unsettling — and that he believes the government should release it anyway.

"I've been briefed by just about every alphabet agency there is," Burchett said during the appearance. "If they would release the things that I've seen, you would stay up — you'd be up at night worrying about or thinking about this stuff." 

Burchett said he had received a classified briefing approximately two weeks prior, and that if the public had heard what he heard, "this country would have come unglued" and citizens "would demand answers."

The congressman added a pointed personal note. "Unfortunately, it just keeps getting covered up and covered up, and the people that know are dying or disappearing — and for the record, I'm not suicidal and I don't take risks," he said.

His message to the president was direct: "I told the president, release it all. And the problem is, the people that are around the president don't know the questions, and the president doesn't know the questions to ask. A few of us are going to have to get with the president and tell him what he needs to ask and where he needs to look." Yahoo!

Burchett did not disclose the contents of any classified briefing, citing his ongoing role as a sitting member of Congress.

Wednesday's remarks were not out of character for Burchett, who has been one of the most persistent advocates for UAP disclosure in Congress over the past several years.

In May 2024, Burchett introduced the UAP Transparency Act, which would require the declassification of all federal documents related to unidentified aerial phenomena within 270 days of enactment. "This bill isn't all about finding little green men or flying saucers," Burchett said at the time. "It's about forcing the Pentagon and federal agencies to be transparent with the American people." Representative Tim Burchett

In 2023, Burchett also headed an effort to establish a UAP caucus in the House, and has been part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers consistently pushing for greater transparency from military officials. The Hill

Burchett has acknowledged the limits of what congressional pressure alone can achieve, saying that without someone who "walks out of one of these labs with something in their hand, or can have something we know is not AI — I think we're hurting the cause." X

The Legislative Push: Luna's April 14 Deadline

Burchett's comments arrive as Congress applies mounting pressure on the executive branch to produce actual records, not just promises.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) recently wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting 46 specific UAP videos, with a deadline of April 14, 2026. Luna chairs the House Oversight Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets.

Luna's task force held a hearing in September 2025 titled "Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection," during which she raised concerns about military pilots being silenced. "We cannot protect our airspace if our best-trained observers are silenced," she said in her opening remarks. House Oversight Committee

As recently as February 2026, Luna told reporters she was in active discussions with staff at ODNI, the FBI, the Pentagon and the White House about the disclosure process, saying she was "looking forward to sharing what we've all seen." Askapoluaps

The pressure has a White House counterpart. President Trump said in February that he would direct the Pentagon and other agencies to release files on UAPs and "alien and extraterrestrial life," posting on Truth Social that the process of identifying and releasing government files would begin. The Hill

What Skeptics Say

Not everyone in Washington shares Burchett's urgency — or his framing.

Critics within and outside Congress have pointed out that alarming statements from legislators about classified briefings, delivered without any verifiable detail, are difficult to evaluate and can fuel speculation that outpaces the available evidence. Defense Department officials have generally maintained that UAP investigations through the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, known as AARO, have not produced evidence of extraterrestrial origin for any observed phenomena.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), also a member of the UAP subcommittee, offered a more grounded explanation for why some UAP footage remains classified: "A lot of these videos that they're keeping classified have been captured on technology that we don't want our adversaries to know that we have the ability to capture," Burlison said in a Fox News interview. "In other words, the cameras themselves are highly classified." The Gateway Pundit

That distinction — between secrecy driven by sensor technology versus secrecy driven by the nature of what was observed — is at the core of the transparency debate, and one that advocates say only full disclosure can resolve.

What Disclosure Advocates Are Actually Asking For

Beyond the headline-grabbing statements, serious disclosure advocates have focused on specific, concrete demands: declassification of sensor data and military encounter footage that does not compromise intelligence collection methods; formal whistleblower protections for military and intelligence personnel who report UAP encounters; a functioning, independent review process with genuine congressional oversight; and consistent, verifiable reporting from AARO rather than conclusions without underlying data.

Burchett and Luna have jointly introduced legislation that would add protections for individuals who report UAP information to Congress, including provisions shielding those who disclose how taxpayer funds have been used to research the phenomenon. Free Republic

The April 14 deadline Luna set for the Pentagon represents the most concrete near-term test of whether the executive branch's disclosure commitments will produce actual documents — or another round of delays.

Burchett's office did not respond to a request for additional comment at time of publication.