The Pentagon released a slew of “never-before-seen” files related to UFOs on Friday, part of the Trump administration’s pledge to increase transparency around government files connected with reports of extraterrestrial activity.
But the materials contain nothing proving conclusively that we’re not alone.
A new website posted Friday by the Department of Defense is filled with decades of eyewitness accounts and a slideshow of photos depicting unidentified anomalous phenomena – the term the federal government has adopted in recent years for what used to be known as UFOs. Trump has been teasing the release since a Feb. 19, post he made on his Truth Social platform.
“Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant departments and agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life,” the post said.
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The files feature several grainy black-and-white photos of the type that have long adorned the cover of tabloid newspapers. One shows a metallic-looking object “materializing out of a bright light in the sky and disappearing instantaneously,” the caption states.
The files come from the FBI, the State Department, the Defense Department and NASA, with some made from scanned pieces of paper dating back to 1947. One tells a story of a person in Hackensack, New Jersey, losing their balloon and encountering a flying disc.
Another is a letter to former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The letter says: “Last Sunday morning the neighbor’s wife got up to get a drink of water and happened to see a steady white light circling their farm.” The person wrote he had found three triangular burn patches and “something that looks like tinsel” on his farm.
The release is meant to dampen ongoing speculation on the topic by giving the American people previously classified information.
Former President Barack Obama, who has confirmed that he asked during his presidency about government knowledge of alien life, has helped revive interest in the topic in recent months, telling a podcast audience in February, “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them. And they’re not being kept in Area 51.”
He attempted to clarify his remarks soon after they went viral.
“Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” Obama said in a statement. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
Pressed about the interest his remarks generated, he most recently fed the fray yet again in a CBS interview this week on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
“One of the things you learn as president is the government is terrible at keeping secrets,” Obama said. “I promise you some guy guarding the installation would have taken a selfie with one of the aliens and sent it to his girlfriend to impress her. There would be leaks.”
Friday’s release is part of a larger effort by the Pentagon, with dozens of agencies involved – including the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Energy, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, NASA and the FBI.
“I applaud President Trump’s whole-of-government effort to bring greater transparency to the American people on unidentified anomalous phenomena,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said. “We will remain candid about what we know to be true, what we have yet to understand, and all that remains to be discovered. Exploration and the pursuit of knowledge are core to NASA’s mission as we endeavor to unlock the secrets of the universe.”
With tens of millions of files to sift through, Congress created an office in 2022 to declassify government files. Its first report in 2024 cited hundreds of UAP appearances but could not confirm an alien sighting.
Even with the new release of files, the U.S. government still cannot confirm anything. The website cites the materials as “unresolved cases,” unable to determine what the observed phenomena is.
The photos and additional files will be released on a rolling basis and stored at War.Gov/UFOaccording to the website.
Photos You Should See – May 2026
