Pentagon releases 162 UFO files under Aliens Ufo disclosure push
The Pentagon released its first batch of 162 aliens ufo files on Friday, opening hundreds of pages of previously secret material on a monochrome new defense department website. The release includes military video, FBI documents, state department cables and NASA transcripts that had been kept out of public view for decades.
Pete Hegseth posts release message
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement posted on X that the files had long fueled justified speculation and that it was time for the American people to see them. Hegseth wrote: “These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation – and it’s time the American people see it for themselves.”
The first batch matters because it is the first public window into a records project that moves from blanket secrecy to selective release. The collection spans older material and recent military footage, making the disclosure a file-by-file look at what the Pentagon has preserved.
Buzz Aldrin and East China Sea footage
Among the most notable files is a 1969 debrief of Buzz Aldrin that says he saw a “sizeable” object close to the lunar surface. The same debrief says the crew thought a “fairly bright light source” could have been a laser. The release also includes video from military cameras around the globe, including footage from 2022 showing a football-shaped object spotted over the East China Sea.
Other video recorded in the last few years shows dots moving erratically and at different speeds over Iraq, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. A September 2023 FBI interview with a drone pilot describes a “linear object” with a light bright enough to “see bands within the light,” visible for five to 10 seconds before the light went out and the object vanished.
Trump directive and federal files
The release followed a February directive from Donald Trump ordering federal agencies to begin identifying, declassifying and releasing government files related to unidentified flying objects, based on the “tremendous interest shown.” The Pentagon now uses the term unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, for the subject that many people still call UFOs.
That directive brought together records from different parts of the federal system, including the Pentagon, the FBI, the State Department and NASA. The result is not a single report but a broad archive, with one 1947 Air Defense Command headquarters report in New York describing a Pan American World Airways pilot and navigator briefly sighting a “bright orange object” in the sky.
Public release after years of pressure
The files add more pages to a debate that has lasted for decades, but they do not close it. Jared Isaacman said in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press: “The odds that we will find something at some point to suggest that we are not alone are pretty high.”
For readers, the immediate change is access: material that had been classified is now public, and the Pentagon has started with 162 files rather than a final, all-at-once archive. The next step is more releases through the new site, which now holds the first batch for anyone reviewing what the government has chosen to show.
