NEW YORK, April 24. /TASS/. US Congressman Tim Burchett believes that US authorities are hiding information about unidentified flying objects (UFOs), while spending tens of millions of dollars on research in this area.

"I think there is a cover-up," he said in an interview with Fox News. "I mean, it's a cover-up when you release a file, and it's just half blacked out. And there's a cover-up when one group says one federal authority says something exists, and then another federal authority says it doesn't exist. That's a cover-up."

According to the congressman, US authorities spend "tens of millions of dollars on something they say doesn’t exist."

He added that "it’s not about little green man or flying saucers, it’s about tens of millions of dollars that our federal government is spending."

"If [UFOs] don't exist, why do they keep spending tens of millions of dollars researching? And why do they not declassify the documents?" he added.

The lawmaker told Fox News that, last week, the Administration held a classified briefing for UFOs and some other members of the US Congress. However, he "didn't learn anything new and wondered why it couldn't be discussed in public," Fox News says.

In March, the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) issued a report on US authorities’ activities on studying unidentified anomalous phenomena, which found "no empirical evidence" of alien technology. The document noted that the reports of UFOs and alleged alien spacecraft turned out to be "a result of a false identification" by the witnesses.

Meanwhile, in 2023, former US President Donald Trump claimed that, when he served in the Oval Office between 2017 and 2021, the military reported to him about UFOs, attributed to extraterrestrial life. According to Trump, some US Air Force servicemen said they saw UFOs with their own eyes.