The Trump White House has quietly pushed the Pentagon to accommodate congressional requests for access to highly restricted sites linked to longstanding UFO claims, according to a Republican lawmaker who says President Donald Trump has been "fully briefed" on allegations involving recovered craft and non-human life.
Rep. Eric Burlison, a Missouri Republican who sits on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said the administration has intervened directly with the Department of Defense to support lawmakers seeking entry to classified facilities often associated with unidentified flying objects, or UAPs. Speaking on the Jan. 30 episode of the Aliens Last Night podcast, Burlison said: "The White House has told the DoD to make it happen."
Burlison added that the administration's message to Pentagon officials was to "do what you can to make it happen," describing the effort as an attempt to force movement on congressional oversight rather than a formal declassification order. No timetable for such visits has been announced, and the Defense Department has not confirmed that access has been granted.
The remarks arrive amid renewed political attention on government secrecy surrounding UAP investigations, a topic that has migrated from fringe speculation into formal congressional hearings and oversight efforts. Burlison is also a Republican member of the House Oversight Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, a panel created to review long-classified material across multiple agencies.
In the podcast interview, Burlison went further, claiming the president has been informed about alleged evidence dating back decades. He said Trump had been "fully briefed" on claims involving recovered craft from as early as the 1940s, "non-human bodies," and even "non-human beings allegedly living among us." Burlison offered no documentation to support those assertions.
He also described an alleged object stored outside the United States that was so large "a building had to be built around it," suggesting the overseas location could be "the final destination" of his push for access. The comments echoed themes long circulated in UFO communities but have not been substantiated by publicly available evidence.
Federal officials have repeatedly rejected such claims. The Pentagon has said it has found no verifiable evidence that the U.S. government possesses extraterrestrial spacecraft or has reverse-engineered alien technology. Those denials were reiterated after a high-profile House Oversight subcommittee hearing in July 2023.
At that hearing, former intelligence official David Grusch testified under oath that he had been told of a "multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program" and that he was denied access to it. The Defense Department responded at the time that it had not uncovered information supporting the existence of such a program.
The same session featured testimony from military aviators, including former Navy pilot Ryan Graves, who told lawmakers that UAP encounters were "routine" and often underreported, citing stigma and career concerns rather than extraterrestrial explanations.
Burlison has since moved to institutionalize the issue. In March 2025, he announced that Grusch would join his congressional office as a special adviser, praising his sworn testimony and framing the hire as part of a broader transparency effort.
