\n
\n WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014\u00a0President Donald Trump\u00a0says the Pentagon is preparing to release some “very interesting” UFO files uncovered by his administration, generating a mix of buzz and skepticism as he hints at new revelations around\u00a0questions of alien life.
\nTrump started stoking interest in the extraterrestrial in February,\u00a0directing federal agencies\u00a0to release their records related to\u00a0extraterrestrial life and UFOs. Since then, he has built suspense with tantalizing updates, teasing an imminent release of documents never before shared by the U.S. government.
\nWATCH: 3 ways scientists use math to help debunk UFO videos
\n“We’re going to be releasing a lot of things that we haven’t,” Trump said Wednesday at a White House event celebrating NASA astronauts. “I think some of it’s going to be very interesting to people.”
\nTrump has relished in portraying himself as the president who spills the secrets. In the first week returning to office, he ordered the\u00a0release of records\u00a0related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. The disclosures revealed little beyond what was already known.
\nIn the buildup to that release, Trump said “the American people deserve transparency and truth.” Now, as he turns to the sky, the president has struck a similar tone, suggesting answers to decades-old questions may be on the way. His February directive on social media called for transparency around “alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”
\n“The first releases will begin very, very soon,” he told supporters in April at a\u00a0Turning Point USA event\u00a0in Phoenix. “So you can go out and see if that phenomena is correct. You’ll figure it out.”
\nAn expert cautions against raising expectations
\nEven before Trump’s directive, the Pentagon was years into a process to declassify and release government documents related to UFOs, now often referred to as unexplained anomalous phenomena, or UAP.
\nCiting concerns over national security, Congress created an office in 2022 to investigate UAP and declassify as much material as possible. The office’s\u00a02024 debut report\u00a0revealed hundreds of new UAP incidents but found no evidence that the U.S. government had ever confirmed a sighting of alien technology. A second report covering more recent sightings is expected to come soon.
\nThat agency, the\u00a0All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, is now working with the White House to release “never-before-seen UAP information,” according to a Pentagon statement.
\nThe office’s previous director, however, said Trump’s promises were bluster, a “shiny object” to distract Americans from the\u00a0war with Iran. Sean Kirkpatrick, a physicist and former career intelligence officer who led the office until 2023, said he has seen the government’s records and believes there are no bombshell revelations to be found.
\n“Readers should not get their hopes up that there’s going to be some document with photos, interviewing the aliens when they came down,” he said. “Because that just doesn’t exist.”
\nVideos purporting to show alien technology tend to have mundane explanations, he said. Modern infrared cameras used by the U.S. military often capture jet engines and other hot objects in a long thermal bloom, which, Kirkpatrick said, explains viral videos of speedy, pill-shaped objects.
\nPentagon not forthcoming on UAP reports, GOP-led panel says
\nOn Capitol Hill, those types of videos have caught the attention of a small group of Trump-aligned Republicans who insist the Pentagon is holding back secrets.
\nThe Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets has been conducting its own investigation into reports of mysterious aircraft near U.S. military installations, which the panel says pose a threat to national security and the armed forces.
\nLast fall, the task force\u00a0heard testimony\u00a0from current and former service members who described UAP encounters. In one case, a senior Navy officer said he was off the coast of California in 2023 when he saw a glowing “Tic Tac” shaped object emerge from the ocean and link up with three similar objects. They sped away in an instant, he said.
\nTrump’s interest in the subject has energized congressional Republicans, including Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, an Air Force veteran who co-chairs the task force. Luna has criticized what she calls “less than adequate” transparency from the Pentagon.
\nIn a March letter\u00a0to\u00a0Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,\u00a0Luna demanded dozens of UAP videos identified by whistleblowers and labeled with names such as “Spherical UAP in clouds.” Her deadline for Hegseth came and went, and no videos were produced.
\nTrump’s entry to the UFO fray drew applause from Luna, who last year told podcaster Joe Rogan that she has seen evidence of “interdimensional beings.” The Pentagon “can’t hide from our docs request anymore!” Luna said on social media after Trump’s directive.
\nVance professes to be ‘obsessed’ with UFO files
\nTrump appears skeptical about the existence of extraterrestrial life. Addressing the Turning Point USA crowd in Phoenix, he said, “I figured this was a good crowd because I know you people, you’re really into that. I don’t know if I am.”
\nWhy he made the revelation at that event, held at a megachurch, is unclear. A day earlier, Trump had spoken in Las Vegas, not far from\u00a0Area 51, a top-secret Cold War test site that has fueled UFO conspiracy theories.
\nVice President JD Vance has described himself as “obsessed” with UFO files. In March, he said he has been trying to find time to investigate Area 51 since he took office.
\n“I’ve still got three more years as vice president,” Vance told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson. “I will get to the bottom of the UFO files.” Invoking his Christian faith, Vance said he believes sightings reported to be aliens are actually the work of spiritual demons.
\nEven before Trump tackled the topic, alien buzz was already in the air.
\nIt’s back in Hollywood with an upcoming\u00a0Steven Spielberg movie, “Disclosure Day.” Former President Barack Obama made a splash in February when he declared on a podcast that\u00a0aliens are real. He later clarified that he had seen no evidence but that “the odds are good there’s life out there.”
\nTrump is hardly the first president drawn to UFO mysteries. President Bill Clinton has said he once ordered a review of the Roswell Incident \u2014 something had crashed in 1947 at a New Mexico ranch and officials later said the debris was the remnants of a high-altitude weather balloon \u2014 around its 50th anniversary in 1997. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan claimed to have seen UFOs before their time in the White House.
\nThe U.S. government has been investigating UFO reports since the 1940s, in part to determine if they represent advanced technology from competing nations or “evidence of off-world technology,” according to the\u00a0Defense Department’s 2024 report.
\nIn online communities devoted to UFOs, some see Trump’s promise as a step in the right direction; others believe it will come to nothing. For people who follow the topic closely, promises of big revelations have never lived up to the hype, said Greg Eghigian, a Pennsylvania State University professor who wrote a book on the history of UFO sightings.
\n“There is almost no satisfaction that is possible for many of the really die-hard folks,” he said. “So in a sense, I think disappointment can almost be guaranteed to be expected no matter what comes out of this.”<\/p>\n
A free press is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy. <\/p>\n
Support trusted journalism and civil dialogue. <\/p>\n