CIA Will Neither Confirm Nor Deny UFO Crash Records
- Cristina Gomez
- Jul 16
- 3 min read
Vice President JD Vance was asked about UFOs again, and this time the answer arrived with a deadline. Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, Vance said that as Vice President he holds effectively unlimited access to classified information, and that the only thing stopping him from reading the government’s UFO files is time. According to his own words on the show, no one is telling him no. The constraint, he said, is simply how busy the job keeps him.
That explanation invites a fair question. There was time to fly across the country and sit for a three-hour interview, yet not time for the one subject he calls himself obsessed with. It is worth noting that certain legacy and special access programs are so tightly held that even a president may not automatically reach them, which leaves an open question of whether the delay is a crowded schedule or a level of access too limited to admit.
The promise itself is not new. According to reporting from The Hill on his late-March appearance on The Benny Show, Vance said he entered office obsessed with the UFO files, admitted he had not read a single one, and described planned trips to Area 51 that fell through. He also called the phenomenon demonic. In June, per Newsweek’s coverage of his Diary of a CEO interview with Steven Bartlett, he again said he had not gone through the files, dropped the demonic framing, and when pressed on whether aliens could be real, answered simply, “I do.” On Rogan in July, the promise was identical. The only figure that moved was the time left, from three years in March to roughly two and a half years now.
What changed is the government around him. Reference a February directive from President Trump on releasing UAP records, followed by the release of more than 160 files in May. On Rogan, Vance argued that if the files held something world-changing, someone would have acted already, and he leaned on the idea that a secret that large could not survive the smartphone era. Rogan pushed back, pointing out that no phone enters a SCIF, a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, and that anyone inside that system works under a nondisclosure agreement. Vance offered no counter.
While Vance talks about someday, Congressman Eric Burlison is not waiting. According to his appearance on NewsNation, Burlison has asked the CIA and FBI to produce flight logs tied to the 1996 Varginha crash in Brazil, where witnesses, including those featured in James Fox’s 2022 documentary Moment of Contact, say United States personnel recovered material and flew it home through the Campinas area. A Freedom of Information Act request, CIA reference F-2023–00442, already sought records on American flights and material transfers between January 14 and 28, 1996. In January 2025 the CIA responded that it could neither confirm nor deny such records exist. Burlison sent formal letters on July 7 to CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel, and he has also asked about exhuming a Brazilian officer who allegedly handled the material and died weeks later. As of this writing, neither agency has responded.
Sources
NewsNation. (2026, July 15). Congressman seeks CIA, FBI help on Brazil’s alleged 1996 UFO crash | Elizabeth Vargas Reports [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BwrZCx2ENw
PowerfulJRE. (2026, July 15). Joe Rogan Experience #2526 — JD Vance [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtxyvD58eDg
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