WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the Pentagon is readying the release of a new batch of UFO files, the latest installment in his months-long effort to force federal agencies to disclose records on unexplained anomalous phenomena.
Speaking at a White House event honoring NASA astronauts, Trump offered a characteristically broad tease. “We’re going to be releasing a lot of things that we haven’t,” he said. “I think some of it’s going to be very interesting to people.”
The announcement follows a February directive in which Trump ordered the release of records related to “alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena, and unidentified flying objects.” In an April appearance at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix, he told supporters the first disclosures would arrive imminently. “The first releases will begin very, very soon,” Trump said, “so you can go out and see if that phenomena is correct. You’ll figure it out.”
The directive echoes Trump’s approach to presidential records on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., whose releases he ordered in his first week back in office. Those documents revealed little beyond what was already public — a pattern that has tempered expectations for the UFO cache.
Even before Trump’s involvement, the Pentagon was years into a declassification effort. Congress created the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office in 2022 to investigate UAP and release as much material as possible. The office’s debut report in 2024 identified hundreds of new incidents but found no evidence that the U.S. government had ever confirmed a sighting of alien technology. The office is now working with the White House to release “never-before-seen UAP information,” according to a Pentagon statement.
Expert warns against high expectations
Sean Kirkpatrick, the former director of the office, flatly dismissed Trump’s promises as a “shiny object” meant to distract from the war with Iran. “Readers should not get their hopes up that there’s going to be some document with photos, interviewing the aliens when they came down,” Kirkpatrick said. “Because that just doesn’t exist.”
Kirkpatrick, a physicist and former career intelligence officer who led the UAP office until 2023, said the government’s records hold no bombshells. Many viral videos of alleged alien craft have mundane explanations, he explained, with modern military infrared cameras capturing jet engines and other hot objects in elongated thermal blooms that create the illusion of speedy, pill-shaped craft.
GOP lawmakers demand more videos
On Capitol Hill, a small group of Trump-aligned Republicans has been pressing the Pentagon for greater transparency. The Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, co-chaired by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, has conducted its own investigation and heard testimony from current and former service members who described encounters with UAP.
In one account, a senior Navy officer said he saw a glowing “Tic Tac”-shaped object emerge from the ocean off the California coast in 2023, link up with similar objects, and speed away. Luna herself has publicly stated that she has seen evidence of “interdimensional beings.” She has accused the Pentagon of providing “less than adequate” transparency.
In a March letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Luna demanded dozens of UAP videos identified by whistleblowers, with names including “Spherical UAP in clouds.” Her deadline passed without any videos being produced.
Vance professes an obsession
Vice President JD Vance has likewise expressed intense interest in the subject. “I’ve still got three more years as vice president,” Vance told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson in March. “I will get to the bottom of the UFO files.” Invoking his Christian faith, he added that he believes reported alien sightings are actually spiritual demons.
Trump himself has struck a more agnostic tone. At the Phoenix event, 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.”
A long history of presidential curiosity
Trump is far from the first president drawn to the mysteries of the skies. President Bill Clinton once said he ordered a review of the Roswell incident around its 50th anniversary. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan each claimed to have seen UFOs before their time in office. And former President Barack Obama made a splash in February when he declared on a podcast that aliens are real; he later clarified he had seen no direct evidence.
Against that backdrop, scholars who study the history of UFO sightings say that high-profile promises of disclosure have rarely delivered. “There is almost no satisfaction that is possible for many of the really die-hard folks,” said Greg Eghigian, a professor at Pennsylvania State University and author of a book on UFO history. “So in a sense, I think disappointment can almost be guaranteed to be expected no matter what comes out of this.”