Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) knows a thing or two about UFOs. After all, he sits on a House committee investigating UFO sightings and he’s attended some closed-door briefings. He hears things that you don’t hear.

And like any member of Congress, he loves to talk.

The lawmaker appeared on the podcast “Event Horizon” last week and had some startling things to say. Here they are, below:

“We’ve been dealing [with government coverups] since 1947, probably since about 1897 in what was the Aurora Texas ‘UFO crash.'” “They [the craft] can travel light years or at the speeds that we’ve seen defy physics as we know it.” “They can fly underwater and don’t show a heat trail.” They could “turn us into a charcoal briquette.” “We are out of our league. … We couldn’t fight them off what we wanted to. That’s why I don’t think they’re a threat to us, or they would already have been.”

Well, at least that last one is good news.

Burchett said it’s time the government just comes clean and tells America what it knows.

“We don’t need to fund anybody anymore. Let’s just turn loose the reports, quit with the redacted reports that look like Swiss cheese with everything whited out or blacked out, and just give us all the information and let the American public decide,” he said on the Event Horizon podcast.

“We can handle it. Stop with the arrogance. Stop with the corruption. Let’s get it all out there,” Burchett said.

Back in March, Burchett claimed that UFO technology — that is, technology he believes the U.S. has captured — is possibly “being reverse-engineered right now” but we “don’t understand” how it functions. He maintains that the U.S. has “recovered a craft at some point, and possible beings.”

Burchett’s comments follow testimony on covert UFO programs from senior military and intelligence whistleblowers beyond David Charles Grusch.

Grusch said last month that he gave Congress reams of classified information about covert U.S. government programs that he says are now in possession of an intact craft of “non-human origin.”

Grusch, 36, is a decorated former combat officer in Afghanistan and a veteran of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office. He was the reconnaissance office’s representative to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force from 2019-2021. And then from late 2021 to July 2022, he was the NGA’s co-lead for UAP analysis and its representative to the task force.

The UAP expert said the information was illegally withheld from Congress, and he “filed a complaint alleging that he suffered illegal retaliation for his confidential disclosures,” The Debrief reported.

“Grusch said the recoveries of partial fragments through and up to intact vehicles have been made for decades through the present day by the government, its allies, and defense contractors. Analysis has determined that the objects retrieved are ‘of exotic origin (non-human intelligence, whether extraterrestrial or unknown origin) based on the vehicle morphologies and material science testing and the possession of unique atomic arrangements and radiological signatures,’ he said,” The Debrief reported.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who reportedly attended a classified UAP briefing on a military base in Florida on February 21, has also revealed a small bit of information he has received.

“I have seen evidence of craft that I am not familiar with any of our allies or adversaries or even our country possessing. I’ve seen that craft taken by air crews who have gotten quite close to it and we’ve got a lot more questions about why this information isn’t more broadly available to the American people,” Gaetz told Newsmax last week.

So, they’re here. Or these lawmakers just like to hear themselves talk.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

Maine may soon allow elective abortions up until birth, pending final approval from the state’s governor. 

The bill — H.P. 1044, An Act to Improve Maine’s Reproductive Privacy Laws — would allow a woman to receive a late-term abortion at any point at the complete discretion of a doctor.

It’s likely the legislation will be codified. Maine Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, introduced the bill in January alongside legislative leadership, both also Democrats: House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross and Senate President Troy Jackson. At the time, Mills credited the case of Maine woman Dana Peirce as justification for the expanded legalization of abortion. 

At eight months pregnant, Peirce wanted to abort her unborn son after he was diagnosed with a genetic mutation called lethal skeletal dysplasia. Peirce ultimately traveled to Colorado for an abortion because Maine law prohibits post-viability abortions where the mother’s life or health are not jeopardized. The law does allow elective abortions up to viability, generally recognized at 24 weeks. 

“No Maine person should have to endure the same physical, emotional, psychological, and financial burden that Dana and her family had to in order to receive medical care,” stated Mills. 

Today, I joined House Speaker Talbot Ross and Senate President Jackson to announce that I am presenting legislation to strengthen Maine’s reproductive health care laws. 1/

— Governor Janet Mills (@GovJanetMills) January 17, 2023

H.P. 1044 passed out of the Maine Senate 20-11 on Thursday. The state House passed the bill last month, 73-69. 

During the Senate’s final vote, Republican state Sen. Stacey Guerin raised concerns about doctors and mothers determining unborn children diagnosed with disabilities to be unworthy of life. 

“Were they of less value to society?” said Guerin. “When we start down the path of deciding who is worthy of life, where do we stop? Where did governments before us stop in deciding who had the right to live, and who had the right to die, to make it convenient for the parents, the government, for business?”

Another Republican state senator, Eric Brakey, questioned the resistance from Democrats to narrowly legislate around fatal fetal abnormalities rather than expanding elective abortion.

“We are really opening the door here for those circumstances where […] a fully-developed baby could be killed for any number of reasons,” said Brakey.

Brakey introduced several unsuccessful amendments to mitigate the legislation’s impact. One reworked the bill’s language to only expand post-viability abortions to cases where the unborn child suffers from a fatal fetal abnormality likely to result in death within 30 days post-birth. Another proposed instituting a four-year moratorium on the sale or transfer of aborted fetal remains to for-profit or nonprofit entities.

State Sen. Anne Carney, a Democrat, declared that the bill represented compassion for families facing trying times.

During the final House vote on the bill, Republican State Rep. Tracy Quint argued that the bill would allow for abortions to take place without any valid reason.

“This bill allows babies at this age group of viability to be killed[,] at any time, for any reason, truly, for no reason at all,” said Quint. “Please allow our most vulnerable ones the chance of survival.”

Democratic State Rep. Bruce White broke ranks and voted against the bill, comparing the legislation to the historical persecution of classes of individuals that faced dehumanization and genocide for their differences. 

“To me, this isn’t about winning the next election; it’s about upholding the dignity and rights of the human person,” said White. “The vagueness [of this bill] puts at risk the lives of late-term, healthy, preborn children.”

Republican State Reps. Lucas Lanigan and David Boyer, both pro-choice, said that even they found the bill to be too extreme.

The bill is the latest in the state’s efforts to increase abortion accessibility. 

In 2019, Mills enacted legislation requiring public and private insurance to cover abortion services. The governor also enacted legislation allowing non-doctors to perform abortions, such as nurses.

Last year following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Mills issued an executive order prohibiting the state from cooperating with other states in the investigation of abortion law violators, as well as directing state agencies to research and limit laws and regulations limiting abortions.

In February, Mills joined the Reproductive Freedom Alliance: a 20-state coalition led by California Governor Gavin Newsom to further legalize abortions and expand abortion access. 

Other governors in the alliance include Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, Delaware Governor John Carney, Hawai’i Governor Josh Green, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers.

The alliance receives funding from the California Wellness Foundation and additional support from the Rosenberg Foundation, a statement from Newsom’s office said.