Rep. Eric Burlison on Reality Check (Ross Coulthart, NewsNation) — SCIF material, FBI orb footage, the interrogatories (30 Jun 2026)
Source: NewsNation, “Reality Check with Ross Coulthart,” episode “Rep. Eric Burlison on UAP material he saw inside SCIF and files he’s forcing open.” Host Ross Coulthart; guest Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO-07). URL: https://youtu.be/fsse0ZYw31s (2026-06-30; ~21:01). Research producer credited: Rob Jones. Captured: 2026-06-30. OpenAI Whisper (whisper-1, verbose_json segment timestamps) on the downloaded audio; the two speakers attributed by content (Coulthart asks, Burlison answers — unambiguous in an interview). Speaker phrasing is verbatim; proper nouns were normalized from the ASR (the model rendered “Coulthart” as “Coulthard,” “Burlison” as “Burleson,” “Grusch” as “Grush,” “SCIFs” as “skiffs,” and mangled the two generals’ surnames — normalized here to the evident referents). Provenance only; analysis: burlison-uap-oversight, coulthart-career-and-claims. What this is: a 21-minute sit-down recorded in Washington the same day as the Disclosure Foundation forum week. Burlison’s fullest account to date of (a) the material he says he was shown inside SCIFs, (b) an ODNI briefing that reversed itself, (c) FBI footage of glowing orbs at residential locations, and (d) his document-forcing interrogatories to MITRE, MIT Lincoln Lab, the CIA and the FBI. Notable specifics, several sharper than prior statements:
- The two-stage ODNI briefing. Burlison says his first ODNI briefing concluded “we’ve not found any evidence of anything,” and that ODNI “called me in two months later to say, we felt like we had to bring you back because we have had an experience that we cannot deny” — tied to the Western-US military-facility event where senior intelligence officials saw the “glowing orbs / plasmoids.”
- FBI residential-location footage. He says the FBI provided footage from “residential locations where their field agents have responded to reports and then they see them themselves” — the same glowing plasma orbs — and briefed Congress with those videos. He is “not certain” whether the FBI was also at the Western military facility.
- The 1952 reel-to-reel. He says the MIT Lincoln Lab letter confirmed a 1952 reel-to-reel audio file exists (a US Air Force general seeking guidance from MIT scientists about the 1952 Washington, D.C. overflights), now “in the process of declassifying it,” and that the executive-order 25-year auto-declassification “we’ve not found that to be the case… you’ve got to force it.” Cf. the Ruppelt-film request on the Burlison page.
- “I have eyes on these files before I even ask the question.” He claims inside sources let him cite a file’s name and date before requesting it, so “if it has been altered or changed, we will know” — his stated method behind the interrogatories.
- The interrogatory targets. MITRE, MIT Lincoln Lab, the CIA (a second letter after “Trump issued his memorandum”), and the FBI (letters requesting investigation of the Varginha, Brazil incident — tying to filmmaker James Fox’s work).
- Stephen Miller, on record. Asked where Trump stands on “Big-D disclosure,” Burlison says the administration “is absolutely driven to find that… he assigned this to Stephen Miller, and Stephen Miller is a pit bull… the White House isn’t going to accept half measures.” (The page previously carried the Miller-amnesty link only as unconfirmed second-hand; here Burlison names Miller on camera as the assigned driver.)
- Calibration and faith. He keeps the plasmoids as “unshakable… but I have no idea what they are, and neither does our intelligence community,” declines to prejudge, and frames disclosure as “the greatest revelation since Jesus Christ” while saying the discovery of non-human intelligence “underscores” rather than shatters his Christian worldview (angels as “non-terrestrial creatures”). Weight as Burlison’s own first-person account and relayed-briefing claims — a sitting member describing classified material the public cannot check — distinct from independently verified fact; the document-forcing actions (the interrogatories, the confirmed-to-exist 1952 file) are the checkable part.
Coulthart: G’day and welcome to Reality Check. I’m your host, Ross Coulthart, and today we’re in Washington, D.C., in the Washington swamp, and it’s my very great pleasure to introduce Representative Eric Burlison of Missouri, who we have long wanted to get on the show. Welcome, sir. It’s a great privilege to have you here.
Burlison: It’s my honor to be on. I really enjoy what you do.
Coulthart: You grilled me earlier in the week with your own podcast, which took me by surprise — reduced me to a blubbering wreck. I was shattered afterwards. You grilled me with all the hard questions. But no, it was refreshing to actually see a congressman using social media as well. You’re becoming more attuned to your audience.
Burlison: Most of the audience is on here, sir. Yeah. Well, we’re trying. I feel like it’s my obligation to communicate what I’m up to and what’s happening in Washington, D.C. In this type of era, you can’t always rely on the mainstream media covering all the bills that you’re working on.
Coulthart: Well, I think one of the most neglected areas of media coverage in America today, if not the whole world, is the subject of UAPs, as I discovered, quite frankly, to my shock when I started investigating the subject. It’s an overlooked subject. It’s stigmatized, ridiculed.
Burlison: Yeah, and we had to overcome that. But frankly, for me, being on an oversight committee, seeing those brave men come forward — Ryan Graves, David Grusch, Admiral Gallaudet — that was impressive. And I felt like their bravery deserved a true, serious investigation. And so that’s why I’m trying to take it seriously.
Coulthart: I was going to ask you, what motivates your interest in UAPs? Because you do cop a bit of stick online for taking the subject seriously. There’s a tendency, I think, to try and deride the subject. And I noticed — I was just reading your Wikipedia entry, for example — they make much of your interest in the subject with a bit of a titter. Do you get that from your colleagues in the Congress?
Burlison: Oh, it may be like snickering a little bit, but it’s more and more people taking it seriously and respecting the work that we’ve done. Because in the course of this investigation, this went from being something that everyone was very skeptical about. I mean, you always had some people that want to jump to a conclusion — they believe that they’re little green men coming from another planet. But I have always had a very skeptical attitude. But I will say, as we hear more and more very credible people coming forward — people from our highest ranking of our intelligence community — and then you have some of the reports that have happened recently, whether it was the event that happened in the Western United States where you saw senior intelligence officials all see these glowing orbs, or some people call them plasmoids. That’s not something that you can just readily dismiss, and not something you can snicker about.
Coulthart: Now, you’ve spoken before about the fact that you’ve been in SCIFs and you’ve been shown material that’s still not public information — videos, photographs. What can you tell us about that?
Burlison: A lot of it is being released, and that’s a great thing. So a lot of the things that I have seen to this point have been released. There’s still some that I’m wondering why — maybe they are still evaluating it, trying to make sure that they’re covering — or I think a lot of the times they’re worried about exposing the locations.
Coulthart: Or means and methods, I guess.
Burlison: Right. Capabilities. And because, you know, for example, they don’t want everybody showing up at somebody’s backyard where these things have sighted, right? Binoculars.
Coulthart: Are you able to tell me anything at all about what you’ve seen?
Burlison: What I consistently have seen, that to me is unshakable, is these plasmoids — these glowing balls of plasma. I don’t know if it is plasma, but they look like what plasma would look like. And it’s moving intelligently. They seem to be maybe half the size of a sedan or something like that. But they’re not flying by conventional means. And so one can’t really just — I have no idea what they are, and neither does our intelligence community.
Coulthart: When you say they’re moving intelligently, why do you say that?
Burlison: Well, look, I mean, they’re not moving in a way that seemed natural, right? So they’re moving in sometimes right angles. They’re moving, going from just standing still to an incredible speed. And it’s part of the briefing that we don’t know what they are.
Coulthart: That’s right. Yeah.
Burlison: In fact, I just — I asked point blank to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence when they briefed me about this. That briefing began as — and that was a second briefing. The first briefing that I had, they said, “Sir, we just don’t — we’ve not found any evidence of anything.” They called me in two months later to say, “We felt like we had to bring you back because we have had an experience that we cannot deny.”
Coulthart: So this is the actual — what you’ve seen is the actual object that the ODNI people saw?
Burlison: I’ve seen footage. So I’ve not seen the footage from that event, but I’ve seen similar objects that are filmed by the FBI.
Coulthart: Really?
Burlison: Yes.
Coulthart: Because I was told that the FBI team who saw an object, they were actually part of the ODNI investigation, investigating another case at the same time. Is that your understanding?
Burlison: So I’m not certain, and I need to get to the bottom of that, whether or not the FBI was at that Western military facility. But what I have seen that the FBI has provided is footage from different locations. These are residential locations where they’ve responded — their field agents have responded to reports, and they’ve arrived and then they see them themselves. So they’ve seen the same glowing plasma orbs in residential locations and have filmed them, and they brought us in and briefed us and showed us those same videos.
Coulthart: This is very interesting, because I know for a fact that two Pentagon generals went on CBS 60 Minutes in March last year — General Gregory Guillot and General Glen VanHerck — and they basically said, the heads of NORTHCOM, NORAD respectively, they had no idea what the drones were that we were supposedly seeing all along the East Coast of America. That’s still an unsolved mystery that actually came to Congress and seized the imagination of Congress at the time, didn’t it?
Burlison: It did. And I think that those drone events may very well have just been conventional prosaic drones, that’s what they say. But I’m still talking to sheriffs and people in the counties in New Jersey who say they’re still seeing these objects. And they very well may. And I’m not saying that those are not plasmoids or similar things. I’m saying what I have seen, where they have shown up and have been videotaped — definitively, at the end of the day, these things do exist and nobody knows what they are.
Coulthart: You’re a member of the UAP Caucus, which of course is members who are part of the Oversight Committee — yourself, Anna Paulina Luna, Moskowitz, a series of members of Congress who’ve basically decided to take a stand on transparency. Why? What motivated your decision?
Burlison: To me, this strikes at the heart of: does this government belong to the people, or do the people belong to the government?
Coulthart: It’s a constitutional issue, isn’t it?
Burlison: It’s a democracy issue. It’s a fundamental question about the nature of this government. And to me, if this government has information, for example, that we’re not alone, that there is non-human intelligence that exists, that we’ve encountered — that is not for this government or any government to withhold from its people or all of humanity.
Coulthart: So what do you think? I’m inviting you to speculate, and I know you can’t be determinative. What’s your hunch about what’s going on?
Burlison: Honestly, I don’t want to jump to that conclusion because I don’t want to jade, or I don’t want to—
Coulthart: Prejudge.
Burlison: That’s right. I don’t want to prejudge what it might be. Because at the moment that you try to prejudge, you don’t want to be proven wrong, right? And so that’s where I come about.
Coulthart: Can I ask you this? Do you find David Grusch a trustworthy and reliable human being?
Burlison: I do. I wouldn’t have hired him if I didn’t think that.
Coulthart: He’s a pretty impressive guy, and there’s something about his character that makes me think he wouldn’t lie about this.
Burlison: Yeah, no, there is. And for me, he is a brilliant individual. He’s been a tremendous asset. Early on in this investigation, I quickly realized I cannot even navigate this community — the intelligence community. I’m a financial advisor and a former software consultant. I do not understand the acronyms, the lingo, and the architecture of all of the intelligence agencies. I needed somebody that did — somebody that knew maybe literally where the bodies are buried. And that was David Grusch. And the fact that he’s lost — his credentials are under question, his clearances are under question — because of his willingness to come forward. He’s lost so much. And I felt like if he was willing, I was willing to hire him on because of the value that he would bring to the team.
Coulthart: And have you seen evidence that has made you think there’s a there there?
Burlison: I would say these plasmoid-type objects — there is something there there.
Coulthart: Yeah. Do you think it’s possible for governments to keep secrets, as seems to be the inference behind all of this? I mean, if this is true, the U.S. government has concealed possession of alien technology since at least 1944 — 82 years ago.
Burlison: Yeah. I think that this government learned from the Manhattan Project how not to do things, because obviously that information was leaked. And so I think that when you saw, right after that, a period of time in which we stood up all of these quasi-private entities — these what are called federally funded research and development centers, or FFRDCs — that I think was a very crafty way in which you could isolate and compartmentalize and keep secrets for a long period of time.
Coulthart: So to that end, you’ve been sending out what are called interrogatories — questions — to some of these private corporations. One of them, for example, is MITRE Corporation.
Burlison: Yes.
Coulthart: What sort of questions are you asking them?
Burlison: Well, we’re trying to be very specific. So we know that if you just ask a very broad question, they’re going to say, “Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But it’s harder. And I learned this from watching Senator Chuck Grassley when it came to the FBI file related to Hunter Biden. He, in that investigation, asked for the file for an FBI report. He was told, “We’re not aware of that. It doesn’t exist.” Then he followed up and said, “I’m talking about a report that has this, that’s numbered this and dated this.” And they said, “Oh, that file. Here you go.” That’s what we’re doing. We’re being very specific. We’re giving them very little wiggle room. Either the files that we’re asking for exist or they do not. And if you’re going to say that that does not, then you may be perjuring yourself.
Coulthart: And have they started to respond?
Burlison: They have. So our letter to MIT Lincoln Lab produced some results — that there was a reel-to-reel audio file from 1952 that did exist, because we asked specifically. We had received a tip that that file existed, and we’ve made that request. That also has led us—
Coulthart: And they’ve confirmed that audio file exists?
Burlison: They confirmed it, and they’re in the process of declassifying it and getting it to us.
Coulthart: And do you think — when you say that they’re in the process of declassifying it — do you think they’ll redact it?
Burlison: I don’t know yet.
Coulthart: I mean, isn’t this part of the problem — that to what extent is the Defense Department or the intelligence community able to intercede before you’re even allowed to look at that file?
Burlison: That very well could be the case. But I think they also — what they don’t know is that part of this investigation is that I have eyes on these files before I even ask the question. It’s the old thing in cross-examination: always know the answer to the question before you ask it.
Coulthart: That’s right.
Burlison: So while I may not have heard the file myself, I know that if it has been altered or changed, we will know.
Coulthart: You’ll know.
Burlison: Right.
Coulthart: Oh, that’s exciting.
Burlison: And they know that we know.
Coulthart: Cool.
Burlison: So there are people on the inside that are giving us this information. Otherwise, how else would we know that that file exists, and what it’s named, and what date it was dated? All of that. It also has led us to the MITRE Corp. So we already were looking at sending interrogatives to MITRE, but the fact that this kind of led us and gave us some more evidence has given us some ammunition to go ask questions.
Coulthart: I know this sounds like an episode of Stranger Things, but when I saw you were asking interrogatories of MITRE Corporation — I’ve been aware for quite some time that MITRE Corporation has been involved in psionics research with children under the GATE program, the Gifted and Talented Education program. Have you heard about this?
Burlison: I’ve heard about these things, and I’m willing to take a next step at some point to look into some of that, but right now I’m focused on the nuts and bolts of the UAP stuff.
Coulthart: So what you’re looking for through MITRE Corporation at the moment is: is there any knowledge there of a crash-retrieval program, reverse engineering of non-human technology—
Burlison: Right.
Coulthart: —or an understanding or scientific evaluation of any extraterrestrial craft? Are you aware that — that reel-to-reel recording that you now know exists — does it relate to crash retrieval and reverse engineering, allegedly?
Burlison: It’s my understanding that, without having heard it, that it’s a US Air Force general who is seeking the help and the guidance from some MIT scientists about some phenomenon that was existing, and probably is related to the sightings over in Washington, D.C. before 1952 or in 1952.
Coulthart: Wow. So it goes right back to the 1952 sightings over Washington.
Burlison: That’s what we’re speculating.
Coulthart: Wow. So this is a really big opportunity. I know under the executive order that was passed under the Obama administration, anything older than 25 years is meant to be automatically declassified.
Burlison: Yeah, but we’ve not found that to be the case. If anything, you’ve got to force it. You’ve got to tell these agencies, “Hey, we know that there’s a file, it’s called this,” and then they’ll go look for it and release it. They don’t have this automatic posture to just—
Coulthart: No, they don’t.
Burlison: —to want to release things.
Coulthart: Are you able to tell me who else you’re directing your interrogations to?
Burlison: We have sent things to the CIA. We’ve sent a second letter to the CIA now that Trump has issued his memorandum, or whatever you want to call it. We’ve sent multiple letters to the FBI requesting investigations, particularly into the Varginha incident that happened in Brazil. And there’s very specific things — are there flight records? — I don’t want you to delve into things like that, that they can sink their teeth into.
Coulthart: So you’re investigating the claims that our friend James Fox, the filmmaker, has been investigating in Varginha?
Burlison: Yes. So we’re investigating that. We also are sending letters to — we will ultimately send letters. They’re going to know they’re coming, but I don’t know that I want to say all of these entities that we’re going to send letters to.
Coulthart: But crucially, you won’t be sending those letters unless you already know what you’re looking for.
Burlison: That’s right.
Coulthart: So they’d better be careful.
Burlison: That’s right.
Coulthart: This is exciting stuff, sir.
Burlison: Well, it is. I mean, this topic is never boring, I can say that. And look, a lot of times when I talk to people that come, they’ll say, “Oh, all you’re doing is UFOs.” And I’m like, “No, you’ve got to look at the bulwark of things that I’m working on. I’m working healthcare reform and doing transportation infrastructure stuff.” But nobody else cares about my healthcare bills. This is what I get interviews for.
Coulthart: I know, but it’s the exact subject. I mean, look at what we were in today. I felt a great sense of history in that Kennedy Caucus Room this morning. We’re sitting in the room where the Titanic disaster was investigated, where the Watergate hearings were held, where Iran-Contra was exposed. It struck me — we’re on the cusp of perhaps uncovering the biggest secret in human history, if this is true.
Burlison: It would be. To me, it would be the greatest revelation since — I think since Jesus Christ, since the birth of God.
Coulthart: Now, seeing as you’ve mentioned God — you’re a man of faith. I think you’re a Protestant. You go to church regularly. Can I ask you — are you in any way confronted by the possibility, the ontological shock that might be born? Christians are meant to be so vulnerable that the discovery of a non-human intelligence would apparently shatter the worldview. What do you say to that?
Burlison: I think that the people who would have their worldview shattered probably haven’t read the Bible enough. To me, the more that you read the Bible, you come to the conclusion that God has created a vast universe that’s much bigger than the little planet that we occupy. To me, if anything, it really underscores what I read in the Bible. When the Bible describes angels — whether they’re called seraphim, cherubim, watchers, whatever it’s going to be — they are, by definition, non-terrestrial creatures.
Coulthart: Absolutely. And it’s funny, I noticed somebody took a slight dig at you on Wikipedia about exactly that, because you referred to them as angels. But frankly, maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe angels were our way, as humans, of trying to understand a phenomenon that is indeed a mystery.
Burlison: It very well could be the case. It also very well could be the case that there are things on other planets — just like we haven’t discovered every shellfish on this planet, we may discover other things that are simply creations that are quote-unquote extraterrestrial, that have nothing to do with the things described in the Bible as angels. But I’m not going to eliminate any possibilities. And I do find it frustrating that people try to pigeonhole me into certain perspectives and views to try to mock or make fun of me. But at the end of the day, I’m just trying to be objective.
Coulthart: But you know what? It’s not working. I mean, here we are in the NewsNation room. I can tell you that there is an enormous audience out there that want answers. And I think most of the people watching this right now — the vast majority of people watching this — are people who are totally supportive of the UAP Caucus’s push for transparency. Has President Trump given you or any members of the UAP Caucus any indication of where he stands on Big-D disclosure? Because at the moment, we’ve seen this slow dribble of interesting, but not overwhelming, files of evidence that the Pentagon clearly has been taking this issue seriously. But the big bear in the room — are there crash retrievals? Is there a reverse-engineering program? Do you think you’re going to get the answer to that?
Burlison: If it does exist, I do think that this administration is absolutely driven to find that, to answer that question. Because he assigned this to Stephen Miller. And Stephen Miller is a pit bull. And he is taking this very seriously, very aggressively. And all these agencies now know that the White House isn’t going to accept half measures. The White House wants answers on this. They are being very aggressive about this.
Coulthart: And what’s the reaction from your colleagues who aren’t members of the caucus? Is there a kind of a growing interest?
Burlison: There is. I get a lot of people on the House floor — they’ll come up to me, whether they’re Republican or Democrat, and say, “Hey, I want in. I want to — can you get me into the SCIF?”
Coulthart: This is great. I was really struck today. It’s a bipartisan, bicameral effort, what we’re seeing here.
Burlison: It really is. I mean—
Coulthart: And that’s rare.
Burlison: It is extremely rare, and more and more rare right now. But I have good friends on the other side of the aisle that we have found commonality with on this. And I think at the end of the day, this is a humanity issue, and it is something that we all should care about.
Coulthart: Representative Eric Burlison, thank you for coming and joining us on Reality Check. And good luck finding out the truth. There are a lot of people watching this, cheering you on.
Burlison: Thank you very much, sir. Thank you, Ross.