Florida lawmakers Gaetz, Luna and Moskowitz call for more transparency on UFOs

A small group of lawmakers that include Florida Republicans Matt Gaetz, Anna Paulina Luna and Democrat Jared Moskowitz called for Congress to force the government to be more transparent about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), also known as unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

"If we achieve that objective, I think we can start to restore some of the trust the public has (lost)," Gaetz said during a press conference Thursday in Washington D.C. that was live streamed on Luna's X.com account, the social media website formerly known as Twitter.

The three Republican lawmakers were joined by Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., Eric Burlison, R-Mo., and Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn.

For the last several years in Congress, there has been a growing movement to take UAPs more seriously as a number of sightings by U.S. military pilots cannot be explained. Many prominent members of Congress have raised concerns that UAPs may be unknown surveillance aircraft from adversarial nations like China or Russia with capabilities that cannot be matched by any known U.S. aircraft systems, while others have focused on extra-terrestrial explanations.

The group of lawmakers that held a press conference Thursday said they were concerned about the lack of transparency from the government and what appeared to be an orchestrated effort to keep information about UAPs from members of Congress.

"In my short time in office, it has become very clear and evident that there is an orchestrated attempt to deny this access, and it appears that that is coming from the intelligence community," Luna said. "We have a rampant overclassification problem. We need the UAP Disclosure Act."

Burchett sponsored an amendment that made it into the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which funds the U.S. military, that would require the Department of Defense to declassify any documents or records relating to publicly known sightings of UAPs that do not compromise national security.

"It all comes down to one word, and that word is transparency," Burchett said. "I've been briefed on things I can't talk about in public because it's considered classified. Why are we classified so much about this, especially if the information doesn't jeopardize national security."

The House and the Senate are in the middle of negotiations on a final version of the NDAA and Gaetz said Burchett's amendment is under consideration of being dropped from the final version of the bill in favor of a proposal by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that would set up a commission that would decide what UAP documents to release.

Gaetz described the commission as similar to the one set up to handle the release of documents related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and it could take more than 25 years before any information is released.

"I am concerned about embracing a disclosure paradigm that mirrors the JFK assassination disclosure paradigm," Gaetz said. "I don't know that there are any Americans who would view the JFK assassination disclosure paradigm as some sort of vaulted standard. Time and again, we've seen that system fail."

Moskowitz, who was the only Democrat to participate in the press conference, said he did not expect to become involved in this issue, but when he saw legitimate questions get pushback from government officials, he became more interested.

"I think the American people have a simple question, which is if none of this exists, that it is all false, why at every turn are there people trying to stop the transparency and the disclosure," Moskowitz said. "Why are folks who are in charge of committees, whether they are in the House or in the Senate, opposed to this disclosure? And it's that point alone that piques the interest. And that's really what we're about. This is not about whether there are aliens or they're not aliens. Those are questions that I think remain unanswered."

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Gaetz, Florida lawmakers call for more transparency on UFOs, UAPs