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The US government has produced dozens of previously classified files about unidentified incidents (UAPs) – a class of alien phenomena that used to be called UFOs.
The Trump administration is calling it historical effort in transparency; some critics call it a distraction, or fuel for conspiracy theorists.
UAP enthusiasts will be poring over the files for days and even weeks to come, though it’s far from certain they’ll get the answers they’re looking for.
Here are five key questions about the content of the first phase of what the White House has called PURSUE: The President’s Shutdown and Reporting Program for UAP Meetings.
What’s in this version?
The material comes from the Pentagon, NASA and the FBI and includes videos, photographs, investigative case files, documents and military intelligence reports.
Some of the items date back to the late 1940s, while a few videos and photos come from this decade. Locations range from the Middle East to the Western US
Chris Rutkowski, a Canadian science writer who has read reports of UAPs, described the phenomenon in an interview with CBC News as “a dog’s breakfast of everything.”
Why was it released now?
The Pentagon has been on a mission to declassify UAP materials for several years.
Trump has taken ownership of the issue, ordering federal agencies in February to release records related to the extraterrestrial life of UAPs and saying this week’s release will be “very exciting.”
The view of Trump’s critics is that the exemption is intended distracting the public from the administration’s problems and conflicts, such as the rise in fuel prices caused by the war with Iran, or another set of files: those about the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his relationships with the powerful.
Trump’s staunch ally, former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, described the release as “‘look at the shiny object propaganda’.”
The US congressional hearings are part of a campaign to ensure that the government discloses what it knows about the UFOs, formerly known as UFOs.
So, is there life out there?
Well, that we know of.
The Pentagon issued a lengthy report in 2024 denying allegations that the US government had ever found evidence of extraterrestrial life or samples of alien technology.
Nothing in the recently released material suggests otherwise.
“Some interesting videos, interesting pictures, but there’s no smoking gun, nothing like that that comes out and says, ‘These are aliens’ or ‘they’re not aliens,'” Rutkowski said.
Sean Kirkpatrick, former director of the Pentagon’s UAP investigation office, said there was nothing unexpected about the release. He told the Associated Press that without analysis, the materials will “promote more speculation, conspiracy and armchair pseudoscience.”
See the astronauts?
Among the content that gets the most attention are items from NASA’s Apollo missions.
In an interview following Apollo 11’s return to Earth, Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, said he saw strange things in space, according to a document released Friday.
“I saw what appeared to be a bright light source that we immediately assumed might be a laser,” Aldrin said.
A photograph taken from the surface of the moon a few months later during the Apollo 12 mission shows five unknown phenomena in the sky, while the Apollo 17 crew in 1972 reported seeing ““highly visible particles or fragments” that travel over their caps in space.
What do the files tell us?
The fact that the US government has withheld these documents for decades is part of their appeal.
“The files show that the UAP is not just a matter of speculation or public curiosity,” Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb said in an email to Reuters. “The government has collected records.”
However, the government is warning the public not to jump to conclusions about the records.
“Readers should not interpret any part of this description as reflecting an analytical judgment, an investigative conclusion, or a factual determination regarding the event described’s legality, nature, or significance,” says a disclaimer attached to each report compiled on the Pentagon’s UAP website.
