Alien Bases Beneath the Ocean? Examining Tim Burchett's Underwater UAP Claims

What Burchett Actually Said

Burchett's public statements on underwater UAPs span several years and multiple interview formats, and they distinguish him from members of Congress who have simply demanded more disclosure. He has expressed a personal conclusion. In a September 2025 interview with UAP researcher and documentary filmmaker Red Panda Koala — reported by Newsmax — Burchett said he believes alien civilizations may have been present in the ocean for generations. He connected that belief directly to what he said he has heard from Navy personnel.

Four distinct claims run through Burchett's public statements and should be kept separate throughout any responsible analysis of them:

A. Secondhand reports attributed to military personnel. Burchett says he has spoken with Navy pilots who described unusual objects entering and exiting water, and who were reportedly directed away from specific ocean areas. He presents these as accounts relayed to him, not as information he personally observed.

B. Several deep-water areas associated with repeated activity. Burchett has described multiple ocean locations where activity has allegedly been concentrated. The precise number has varied in reporting — "five or six" is frequently cited — but no specific coordinates, ocean basin designations or declassified documentation has been released to substantiate these locations.

C. Burchett's personal interpretation. Beyond relaying attributed accounts, Burchett has stated his own conclusion: that the activity described to him indicates alien entities operating from underwater installations. This is his interpretation, not a finding drawn from authenticated records.

D. The evidentiary gap. No publicly released coordinates, authenticated sonar data, vessel records, physical evidence or independently verified imagery establishes permanent extraterrestrial installations beneath the ocean. Classified information may exist that would change this assessment, but the burden of confirmation has not been met in any public disclosure.

The Speed and Scale Claims

Among the most striking figures Burchett has discussed are the reported speeds and dimensions of the alleged objects. In his September 2025 Newsmax interview, he cited Navy personnel describing underwater craft travelling at "hundreds of miles an hour." In a March 2026 interview for The Resilient Show, he reportedly discussed accounts of submerged objects described as roughly football-field-sized and moving at approximately 200 miles per hour. Both figures were attributed to other personnel; no corresponding sonar record, vessel log or raw sensor data has been released for independent analysis.

Several factors complicate the interpretation of such figures even if the underlying accounts are accurate. Underwater speed estimates derived from visual or acoustic tracking depend critically on sensor geometry, tracking duration, environmental conditions, calibration accuracy and positive target identification. An apparent speed of 200 mph could reflect genuine object velocity, a tracking error, a sensor artefact or a misidentification of the object being tracked. None of these can be resolved without access to the original sensor data and methodology — neither of which has been publicly provided.

The "Five or Six Locations" — What Is and Isn't Known

The specific number "five or six" gained traction in coverage of Burchett's statements, implying a precise, enumerated intelligence picture. Whether that level of specificity reflects what Burchett was told or accumulated through media paraphrasing across multiple interview cycles is not established in any public record. Burchett himself has at times spoken of "several" locations rather than a precise number.

No geographic coordinates, ocean basin designations or documented sonar surveys have been publicly released to substantiate any of these locations. They have not appeared in NOAA public mapping releases, in declassified naval survey data, or in the documents released under the AARO Historical Record Report. Their existence is asserted, not documented.

This is consistent with a pattern of assertion seen in related congressional UAP claims. Rep. Eric Burlison's claim about a UAP "too large to move", examined separately by this publication, presents a structurally similar evidentiary situation: attributed congressional testimony, no authenticated physical record and a significant gap between what was claimed and what is publicly verifiable.

Transmedium UAPs: What the Pentagon Has Confirmed

The factual core beneath Burchett's position is real and significant. Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough confirmed to news organizations that the 2019 USS Omaha footage was recorded by Navy personnel and was under review by the UAP Task Force — as reported by The War Zone in May 2021. That confirmation establishes the authenticity of the recording as a genuine Navy document. It does not establish that the object entered the ocean, originated underwater or represented non-human technology, and it was not a published analytic conclusion about the object's identity or behavior. AARO has not issued a case resolution for the Omaha footage. This secondary reporting is cited here as the specific basis for the authentication claim; the original DOD spokesperson statement was not issued as a standalone published release.

The 2004 USS Nimitz "Tic Tac" footage — examined in detail in our USS Nimitz investigation — provides the most extensively documented transmedium UAP record. Navy pilots including Cmdr. David Fravor described an object with flight characteristics inconsistent with known aircraft that was observed near the ocean surface. Neither footage establishes a permanent underwater installation; both establish that anomalous aerial objects have been observed near the ocean by credible military witnesses using calibrated instruments.

The logical distance between "anomalous objects observed near the ocean surface" and "permanent alien bases on the ocean floor" is substantial. That distance has not been closed by any publicly released documentation.

What a Resolved "Transmedium" Case Shows

In March 2025, AARO issued a case resolution report for one of the most widely circulated "transmedium UAP" examples in the public record — the 2013 Aguadilla infrared video from Puerto Rico. The case is instructive precisely because it illustrates how apparent transmedium behavior can arise from sensor geometry and atmospheric conditions, not anomalous object performance.

This resolution does not address Burchett's separate allegations, which involve different alleged locations, different witnesses and different time periods. What it does demonstrate is that apparent transmedium behavior — including apparent entry into water and apparent anomalous speed — can be fully explained by sensor geometry, motion parallax and atmospheric conditions. Establishing genuine transmedium performance requires reconstruction of the sensor's geometry and the object's actual flight path, not visual interpretation of the footage alone. That methodology has not been applied to any of the alleged locations Burchett describes, because no corresponding sensor records have been released.

The Physics: Could Existing Technology Detect Underwater Structures?

If permanent large-scale structures existed on the ocean floor in areas frequented by U.S. naval vessels, would they be detectable? Modern naval sonar systems are capable of detecting anomalous structures on the ocean floor. The United States has maintained ocean surveillance networks — including the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) and its successors — with broad coverage of strategically important ocean regions. NOAA's mapping programs have charted substantial portions of the seafloor using multibeam sonar.

A structure large enough to shelter vehicles of the kind described by Burchett — approximately football-field-sized — would in principle produce sonar returns inconsistent with natural seafloor formations. No publicly reported anomaly consistent with such a structure has appeared in NOAA mapping releases, peer-reviewed oceanographic research or any declassified naval survey data.

This absence is not conclusive proof. Coverage is not total, classified sonar data is not publicly available, and the ocean floor in many areas remains inadequately mapped at the resolution required to identify structures at the scale described. But the absence of any corroborating signature in the substantial body of publicly available oceanographic data is a meaningful evidentiary gap.

Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet's Independent Position

Retired Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet — former NOAA Acting Administrator and Navy oceanographer with expertise in ocean acoustics — has made independent public statements that lend institutional weight to the broader question of underwater UAPs, while stopping short of confirming Burchett's specific accounts.

In written testimony to the House Oversight Committee on November 13, 2024, Gallaudet stated: "I add the term 'water space' because UAP have been observed in the ocean and are known to exhibit transmedium travel through the air-sea interface. These are often referred to as unidentified submerged objects (USOs)." He called for integration of NOAA and naval oceanographic assets into UAP investigation, and described a 2015 incident in which he received an urgent Navy communication about UAP encounters during a pre-deployment exercise, after which the communication disappeared from the network without explanation.

Gallaudet has also written on this subject independently. His March 2024 Sol Foundation paper, "Beneath the Surface: We May Learn More about UAP by Looking in the Ocean," argues that transmedium UAP and USO reports represent a systematically underexplored domain. In it, he makes the case for systematic scientific investigation — not for the existence of permanent alien installations.

Gallaudet has not publicly confirmed Burchett's specific "five or six locations," the reported speed or size figures, or the existence of permanent underwater installations. His testimony represents an expert advocacy position — that underwater UAP phenomena deserve rigorous investigation — not independent corroboration of Burchett's attributed accounts. The distinction is important: Gallaudet's credibility strengthens the case for taking these reports seriously as an investigative priority; it does not confirm what Burchett was told.

Sources: House Oversight Committee hearing, November 13, 2024 · Gallaudet written testimony (PDF) · Sol Foundation paper, March 2024

What Would Confirm a Permanent Underwater Base?

The evidentiary standard for confirming a permanent underwater installation is demanding — appropriately so, given the magnitude of the claim. Understanding that standard identifies precisely what is missing.