Congressman Says He Saw 'Top Secret' UFO Info on Extraterrestrial Crafts

Representative Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, claimed on Friday to have seen "top secret" information about extraterrestrial crafts.

Burchett has been among the most vocal members of Congress on the topic of UFOs, UAPs, and the disclosure of government information surrounding them. In June, the Tennessee lawmaker went so far as to accuse the government of covering up the infamous 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico, which urban legends claim involved alien spacecrafts crashing in the desert. He has also stated in the past that he believes the government has retrieved extraterrestrial crafts, and even alien beings, from UFO crash sites.

Meanwhile, a majority of U.S. eligible voters believe the government knows more about UFOs than the public, according to new polling exclusively conducted for Newsweek. The poll, carried out by Redfield & Wilton Strategies that was conducted on July 6 and surveyed 1,500 people, found 57 percent of respondents believed that the government has more information about UFOs and alien life than it publicly shared. In addition, 21 percent said they did not think this was the case, while 22 percent said they did not know.

Burchett made an appearance on NewsNation on Friday where host Chris Cuomo questioned him on the subject of UFOs, specifically about recent reports that several witnesses for an upcoming House Oversight Committee hearing on the matter have opted to back out.

"We had one tell us that the Pentagon had made some inquiries and they were backing out," Burchett said. "NASA backed out on us. But we do have three strong, strong witnesses, decorated veterans, pilots, and these are firsthand accounts. This isn't somebody whose [saying], 'Well, my third cousin saw this fly over the trailer park,' this is real."

The House Oversight Committee hearing is scheduled to begin sometime before the end of July. Among the witnesses still participating in the hearing is whistleblower David Grusch, an Air Force veteran whose recent claims about a U.S. program to conduct retrieval operations from UFO crash sites have sparked a renewed national interest in the subject.

"These are retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles, call it spacecraft if you will, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed," Grusch told NewsNation in May. "Well, naturally, when you recover something that's either landed or crashed, sometimes you encounter dead pilots, and believe it or not, as fantastical as that sounds, it's true."

A U.S. Defense Department spokesperson said following Grusch's NewsNation interview that it had "not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of any extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently."

The GOP lawmaker later discussed on Friday the difficulties that he and some other colleagues had in getting access to information regarding UFOs and sightings by pilots, describing a meeting in Florida that was ended without top secret information about UFOs being discussed. Eventually, they were able to speak with some of the pilots, but were not shown any photographs.

"We finally got to talk to some pilots, but there weren't any pictures," the congressman added. "But they did draw some, we saw some things that were very top secret, but it was obviously some crafts that were not of this world. It was nothing anybody, any of our enemies or allies, had any knowledge of whatsoever."

Newsweek reached out to Burchett's office via email for further comment.