The Pentagon has released 161 previously classified files on unidentified flying objects, posted publicly on the Department of Defense’s website at the direction of President Donald Trump. More files are expected to follow.
The documents span several decades and include declassified military memos, reports from Apollo Moon missions, and accounts from civilians who claim to have witnessed unexplained aerial phenomena.
Among the more striking disclosures are transcripts from the Apollo 11, 12 and 17 missions. Buzz Aldrin, in a 1969 interview now made public, described seeing “a fairly bright light source which we tentatively ascribed to a possible laser.”
Pentagon releases 161 declassified UFO files at Trump’s direction
Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean reported particles and flashes of light “sailing off in space” during his lunar walk, which he said looked like they were “escaping the Moon.” On the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, astronaut Jack Schmitt described the scene as “like the Fourth of July out there,” though crew members noted the flashes could have been reflections off ice. A separate audio recording from the 1965 Gemini 7 mission captures astronaut Frank Borman reporting a “bogey” and “trillions of little particles” to NASA mission control.
Among the civilian records is a 1957 FBI interview in which a man described seeing a large circular vehicle rising from the ground. More recent reports from 2023 describe hovering metal objects appearing out of bright light.
The files also include video footage captured by the US military in the Middle East in 2022, from locations in Iraq, Syria and the UAE. The Pentagon’s website describes the clips as showing “unresolved unidentified anomalous phenomenon.” One clip, from an undisclosed Middle East location, shows an oval-shaped object moving left to right, which an accompanying report flagged as a “possible missile.”
Trump had directed the Pentagon in February to release materials “related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs),” citing “the tremendous interest shown.” The release follows renewed congressional attention to the topic, including the first UFO hearings in 50 years held in 2022.
Reaction on Capitol Hill was broadly supportive but measured. Republican Congressman Tim Burchett called the release “a great start,” while Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna described it as “a massive first step in the right direction.” Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took a different view, dismissing the files as a distraction. “I’m so sick of the ‘look at the shiny object’ propaganda,” she wrote on X.
