Pentagon drops UFO files and leaves the mystery wide open

The Pentagon on Friday began releasing a fresh trove of records on unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, giving the public access to videos, official cables, FBI material, and NASA transcripts tied to decades of reported sightings.

The rollout comes after President Donald Trump revived interest in the topic and said people should be able to judge the material for themselves.

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File dump spans decades of sightings

The initial release includes descriptions of sightings ranging from a brightly lit object over Kazakhstan in 1994 to a UAP over the Aegean Sea in 2023 that reportedly made multiple 90-degree turns at high speed.

One document describes a “super-hot” orb seen by a U.S. intelligence official during a helicopter search, while another one revisits Buzz Aldrin’s 1969 Apollo 11 debriefing, in which he recalled spotting a “fairly bright light source” near the moon.

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The public should see the records and ‘decide for themselves.’

Trump framed the release as an effort at transparency.

“Whereas previous administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new documents and videos, the people can decide for themselves, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’ Have fun and enjoy!" he wrote Friday on Truth Social.

The Pentagon’s website for the material presents the documents in a retro style, with black-and-white imagery and typewriter-like text.

The files add detail, but not proof of alien life or recovered tech

Officials and experts urged caution about reading too much into the material. The AP reported that videos can be misinterpreted by people unfamiliar with military technology.

A 2024 Pentagon report found no evidence that the U.S. government had recovered alien technology or confirmed alien life.

The latest release also includes more than 20 video files from locations including Syria, Japan, and North America, as well as older reports dating back to the 1940s.