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UFO disclosure: Rep. Eric Burlison targets private labs in search of information

  • Source: NewsNation
  • URL: https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/lawmaker-ufo-talk-private-contractor/
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Key facts

  • Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) sent a letter to MIT Lincoln Laboratory requesting a classified 1952 briefing video referenced as a “flying saucer talk”
  • Lincoln Labs’ attorneys responded quickly; will comply within 30 days
  • This is part of Burlison’s broader investigation following the trail to RAND, MITRE, Aerospace Corp, MIT Lincoln Labs, and Northrop Grumman
  • His rationale (X post): “If you really want to hide something from Congress, you don’t put it in a government file cabinet. You hand it to a private contractor.”
  • Echoes Grusch’s testimony that contractors carry out UFO crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering programs to shield them from congressional oversight
  • Burchett (R-TN) comparison: “You have to imagine Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Manhattan Project, thousands of people working on the atomic bomb and less than 12 knew what it was.”
  • Pentagon position: denies UFO retrieval programs exist; states no reason to believe UAPs are extraterrestrial

Why FFRDCs matter for this investigation

MIT Lincoln Lab, MITRE, RAND, IDA, Aerospace Corp, JPL, Sandia are all Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) — a special class of government contractors created in the 1940s-50s to retain wartime scientific capability outside the civil service.

Properties that make FFRDCs uniquely useful for the alleged concealment thesis:

  1. Access to classified information that for-profit contractors are legally barred from seeing
  2. Access to proprietary information that for-profit contractors are barred from seeing
  3. Operate “one legal step removed from the executive branch”
  4. Founded as nonprofits with long-term project structure, not contract-by-contract

This is the institutional architecture Grusch’s testimony pointed to. The 1952 “flying saucer talk” letter is the first publicly documented congressional demand to an FFRDC for UAP records.

The 1952 reference

The “flying saucer talk” predates Project Sign’s reorganization into Project Grudge and is contemporary with the 1952 Washington DC UFO incident (July 1952, radar/visual contacts over the White House). MIT Lincoln Lab was founded in 1951 to build SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment air defense network) — a system designed to detect Soviet bombers but also the era’s primary radar infrastructure for detecting unidentified aircraft.

A 1952 internal briefing at Lincoln Lab about “flying saucers” would have been institutionally significant — this was a defense radar lab being briefed on the radar phenomenon they would have been detecting. If the briefing video exists and is released, it would be a primary source document from the era contemporary with the Twining memo (1947), Project Blue Book formation (1952), and the Washington DC incident.

(NewsNation) — As lawmakers continue to pursue transparency regarding alleged secret UFO programs operated by the Pentagon, one member of Congress is now pursuing private contractors.

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., announced on social media he has sent a letter to MIT Lincoln Labs regarding a “flying saucer talk” from 1952.

“I sent a letter to MIT Lincoln Labs asking for a classified 1952 briefing video referenced as a ‘flying saucer talk.’ Their attorneys wrote back fast. They’ll comply within 30 days. Congressional letters carry weight. We’re going to keep sending them,” he said.

Whistleblower David Grusch, whose testimony regarding alleged secret UFO-retrieval programs kicked off a series of congressional hearings, has stated private contractors are being used to make it more difficult for lawmakers to obtain information on certain programs.

“If you really want to hide something from Congress, you don’t put it in a government file cabinet. You hand it to a private contractor. That’s why my investigation is following the trail into RAND, MITRE, Aerospace Corp, MIT Lincoln Labs, and the Northrop Grummans of the world,” Burlison said on X.

MIT Lincoln Laboratory is one of the oldest federally Federally Funded Research and Development Centers in the country, founded in 1951 to build the SAGE air defense network.

FFRDCs are a special class of government contractors that work on long-term projects and have access to classified information, as well as proprietary information that for-profit contractors are legally barred from seeing.

Over time, the facility has been at the center of U.S. defense research and development, from ballistic missile defense to electronic warfare, work that is rarely seen by the public.

The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, along with others, including MITRE, RAND, IDA, the Aerospace Corporation, JPL and Sandia, was designed in the 1940s and 1950s to retain wartime scientific capability outside the civil service.

That structure has led to a network of private nonprofits with classified access that ordinary contractors do not have and that also operate one legal step removed from the executive branch.

Grusch alleged in his testimony before Congress that private contractors are carrying out UFO crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering programs to shield them from congressional oversight.

That has been echoed by lawmakers, including Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., one of the leading voices around UFO disclosure, who has accused the Department of Defense of siloing information to avoid questions from Congress.

“The federal government learned to do this during the Second World War,” Burchett said. “You have to imagine Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Manhattan Project, thousands of people working on the atomic bomb and less than 12 knew what it was.”

For lawmakers, the question is not just one of potential UFO programs but about where taxpayer money is being spent.

The Pentagon has denied the existence of UFO retrieval or reverse engineering programs and has stated there is no reason to believe UAP sightings are extraterrestrial in nature.

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