“It's simple: they spent all this time telling us they don't exist: so release the files, dammit!”. So does the congressman Tim Burchett he commented “UAP Transparency Act“, the new law he presented that would force the US government to declassify all UFO documents within 270 days of its approval.
A bipartisan initiative that challenges the Pentagon and federal agencies to clarify a topic that fascinates and divides public opinion, including conspiracy theories and shocking revelations.
What does the “UAP Transparency Act” provide?
The law, whose name refers to the government's new preferred term for UFOs, namely "unidentified aerial/anomalous phenomena" (UAP), was introduced by the Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett. Burchett, however, is not alone. The law is “co-sponsored” by the representatives Jared Moskowitz (Democratic), Anna Paulina Luna (Republican) e Eric Burlison (Republican). If approved, it would require the Pentagon to declassify all UFO documents within 9 months.
This bill isn't just about looking for little green men or flying saucers. This is about forcing the Pentagon and federal agencies to be transparent with the American people. I'm tired of hearing bureaucrats tell me these things don't exist when we've spent millions of taxpayer dollars studying them for decades.
Tim Burchett in the press release accompanying the bill.
Burchett's beliefs about UFO documents
Burchett is one of the most vocal supporters of the existence of extraterrestrials in Congress. In the past said that “UFOs were in the Bible,” specifically citing the Ezekiel chapter as proof. He has long used his role to urge the government to share more information about his knowledge of UFOs with the public.
Behind this push for declassification is Burchett's belief that the government has long supported a cover-up of its knowledge and use of UFO technology.
“The devil got in our way of doing this,” the congressman, who sits on the House of Representatives oversight subcommittee, said during a hearing last year. “We faced obstacles from members of the intelligence community and the Pentagon.”
David Grusch's testimonies and the Pentagon's response
Inspired by the whistleblower testimony David Grusch Last year, Burchett and the bill's co-sponsors sent a letter to the intelligence community's inspector general requesting more information about claims that the government he would have recovered and reverse engineered about alien technology. This year, the Pentagon's UFO office released a 63-page document. In the text, it is very clearly stated that it has no such records.
Given the strange religiosity and general discredit of Grusch and his testimony, we take this law with a grain of salt. But it will be interesting to see what happens, even if its chances of being approved currently seem slim.
A topic that divides and excites
Beyond the specific provisions of the “UAP Transparency Act”, Burchett's bill reflects the growing public interest in the topic of UFOs and the ever-increasing pressure for greater transparency from the government. In recent years, in fact, there has been excitement on the topic in the USA. Reports of sightings have multiplied revelations from former officials and rumors about alleged secret programs to study anomalous phenomena.
An interest also fueled by a series of official reports. For example, the one released in June 2021 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which admitted the existence of 144 UAP sightings by military pilots between 2004 and 2021, of which only one was positively identified as a weather balloon. Or like the memo leaked by the US Department of Energy at the beginning of 2023, according to which some phenomena could have an extraterrestrial origin.
Statements that have reignited the debate on the existence of intelligent life forms outside the Earth and on the possible presence of alien visitors on our planet. A debate which, as Burchett's initiative demonstrates, has reached the halls of the US Congress. And it has divided public opinion and the political class itself between skeptics and believers, between supporters of transparency and defenders of state secrecy.
UFO documents, it is a question of trust in institutions
Ultimately, beyond personal beliefs about UFO phenomena, Burchett's proposal raises a crucial question. Which? That of citizens' trust in institutions and their ability to be transparent on issues of public interest. In an era of “fake news” and rampant conspiracy theories, in which distrust towards governments and elites is at an all-time high, the request to declassify all documents on UFOs can be read as an attempt to re-establish a pact of transparency between state and citizens.
Of course, there is the risk that such an operation results in nothing, confirming the suspicions of the most sceptical, or that on the contrary it further fuels the most imaginative speculations, giving credence to conspiracy theorists. But perhaps, in a certain sense, the result matters less than the process: the important thing is that there is an open and informed debate, based on factual data and not on inferences or unspeakable secrets.
Because, whether you believe the little green men or not, in a democracy citizens have the right to know what their government is doing. And if the latter has indeed spent millions of dollars studying UFOs, as Burchett claims, then perhaps the time has come to "release the documents, dammit!". For transparency, for knowledge, for trust in institutions. And maybe, who knows, I don't believe it much, also to discover once and for all that we are not alone in the universe.
