The Pentagon declassified a new batch of files on Friday about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) - alien sightings.
The files, released as part of US President Donald Trump’s campaign promise of greater government transparency, have hundreds of pages and videos of unexplained aerial encounters from the 1940s until early 2024.
There are 161 files accessible on the US Department of Defense website, with more set to be released.
In February, former president Barack Obama said that aliens were “real, but I haven’t seen them,” later adding that statistically other life should exist, but he has seen “no evidence” of it during his presidency.
Shortly after, Trump took to Truth Social, saying, “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, UAPs, and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”
The declassified files cover reports from astronauts on the Apollo missions, military sightings in the Middle East, and hundreds of reports from individuals.
The files contain transcripts from the Apollo space missions, including reports from Apollo 11, 12, and 17 describing flashes of light on the moon.
Buzz Aldrin: I saw 'a fairly bright light source'
Buzz Aldrin, the famed astronaut from Apollo 11, said in a 1969 interview (declassified on Friday), “I observed what appeared to be a fairly bright light source which we tentatively ascribed to a possible laser.”
Other astronauts described flashes of light “sailing off into space,” and noted that “it's like the fourth of July out there.”
The astronauts commented that the flashes could just be light reflecting off pieces of ice on the moon’s surface.
The Apollo missions aren’t the only time that NASA astronauts have seen UAPs, an audio recording from the 1965 Gemini 7 space flight includes communication between Frank Borman and ground supports, where he describes a sighting of “trillions of little particles” to the left of the spaceship.
A state department cable from the US Embassy in Tajikistan in 1994 details four pilots seeing a UAP while flying a jet over Kazakhstan. They described the object as “making 90 degree turns, doing corkscrews and maneuvering in circles at great rates of speed.”
This isn’t the only report in the latest files of erratically moving objects - another military report from over the Aegean sea details a UAP making “multiple 90-degree turns at an estimated 80 mph (129 km/h)".
An interview with a US Intelligence official from 2024 discusses encountering a “super hot orb,” hovering over the ground and moving at around 20 mph (32 km/h).
The documents include over 20 videos of UFOs captured by military censors across the world, from fast moving specks in the distance to an American football shaped object spotted above the East China Sea.
The files also contain reports from dozens of civilians of UAP sightings.
One such file shows a man being interviewed by the FBI in 1957, who said that he witnessed a large circular vehicle rising over the ground, while other interviews from September and October 2023 describe civilians seeing hovering metal objects appearing out of a bright light.
Members of Congress have described the declassification of the files as “a great start,” but still want greater transparency from the Trump Administration on the issue.
Republican Anna Paulina Luna, a congresswoman from Florida, called it a “massive first step in the right direction,” in a statement over the weekend. Other politicians were less than impressed with the release.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the ex-congresswoman who has fallen out of favor with President Trump, said that the release only happened to distract from bigger issues, such as the war in Iran, adding, “I’m so sick of the ‘look at the shiny object’ propaganda.”
Taylor Greene was not alone in this opinion, her sentiment was shared by former director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), Sean Kirkpatrick, who argued that the files "only serve to fuel more speculation, conspiracy and arm-chair pseudoscience.”
At the same time, advocacy organizations such as the Sol Foundation continue to campaign for full transparency regarding objects that are “not of human origin.”