A sitting US Congressman has ignited widespread debate with claims that aliens might not be arriving from faraway galaxies but could already be inhabiting Earth's oceans.

Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett, a member of the House Oversight Committee which reviews UFO reports, was filmed in a casual sidewalk interview with UFO researcher and documentary maker "Red Panda Koala" near the US Capitol. In the clip, posted to X on 17 September, Burchett proposed that alien entities may have established underwater bases in the Atlantic Ocean.

"What if these are entities that are here on this earth, that have been on this earth for who knows how long, and we think they're coming from way out. Maybe they did a millennia ago, but they're here, and they're in these deep water areas," Burchett said.

The Congressman also claimed that US Navy personnel had reported multiple sightings of unidentified underwater craft at "five or six" specific ocean locations. According to him, these objects were capable of speeds far beyond the limits of existing American military technology. "We have naval personnel telling me that we have sightings … of these underwater crafts that they're chasing," he added.

Supporting these remarks, Dr Michael Salla, a researcher specialising in extraterrestrial phenomena, pointed to a region near the Bahamas where the US Navy operates the Atlantic Undersea Testing and Evaluation Center (AUTEC). The highly classified facility, often compared to an "Area 51 underwater," lies close to the Tongue of the Ocean - a deep marine trench plunging around 3,000 feet.