President Donald Trump said the Pentagon is preparing to release what he described as “very interesting” government files on unidentified anomalous phenomena, rekindling public fascination with the possibility of extraterrestrial life even as the former head of the Pentagon’s UAP office dismissed the president’s promises as bravado and asserted that the records contain no revelations that would satisfy disclosure advocates.
Trump ordered federal agencies in February to release their records on “alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified anomalous phenomena, and unidentified flying objects,” and he has steadily stoked anticipation since then. “We’re going to be releasing a lot of things that we haven’t released,” Trump said Wednesday at a White House event honoring NASA astronauts. “I think some of it’s going to be very interesting to people.”
The president has framed himself as the disclosure president. In the first week of his return to office, he ordered the release of long-sought files on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.; those releases produced little new information. Turning his attention skyward, Trump told supporters at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix in April that the first UAP document releases would begin “very, very soon.”
Pentagon process predates Trump order
The Pentagon had already been immersed in a multi-year effort to declassify and publish UAP-related records before Trump’s directive. In 2022, Congress created the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, to investigate UAP incidents and declassify as much material as possible. The office’s inaugural report in 2024 catalogued hundreds of new UAP incidents but determined that no evidence existed that the U.S. government had ever confirmed the sighting of alien technology. A second report covering more recent sightings is expected soon.
AARO said in a statement that it is working with the White House to release “never-before-seen UAP information.”
But Sean Kirkpatrick, a physicist and career intelligence officer who directed the office until 2023, said Trump’s promises are hollow. “Readers should not get their hopes up that there is going to be some document with photos interviewing the aliens when they came down,” he said, “because that simply does not exist.” Kirkpatrick said videos that supposedly show alien technology often have mundane explanations: modern infrared cameras used by the U.S. military frequently capture jet engines and other hot objects in a long thermal trail, explaining viral clips of fast-moving, pill-shaped objects.
Congressional pressure and Republican demands
On Capitol Hill, a small group of Trump-aligned Republicans on the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets has been conducting its own investigation. The panel heard testimony last fall from active-duty and retired 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 bright, Tic Tac-shaped object emerge from the ocean, join three similar objects, and speed away in an instant.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican and Air Force veteran who co-chairs the task force, has criticized what she calls “less than adequate” transparency from the Pentagon. She demanded dozens of UAP videos from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a March letter, identifying recordings with labels such as “spherical UAP in clouds.” Her deadline passed with no videos delivered. After Trump’s February order, Luna celebrated on social media: “The Pentagon can no longer hide from our document request!” Luna told podcaster Joe Rogan last year that she has seen evidence of “interdimensional beings.”
Vance ‘obsessed’ with UFO files
Vice President JD Vance has described himself as “obsessed” with the UFO files. He told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson in March that he has been trying to find time to investigate Area 51. “I’ve still got three more years as vice president,” Vance said. “I’m going to get to the bottom of the UFO files.” Vance, citing his Christian faith, said he believes reported alien sightings are actually the work of demonic spirits.
Trump himself has appeared skeptical. At the Phoenix event, he told the crowd, “I thought this was a good crowd because I know you, you like that stuff. I don’t know if I do.” The event was held in a large church, and the city lies a short drive from Area 51, the ultrasecret Cold War test site that has long fueled UFO conspiracy theories.
Trump is hardly the first president drawn to UFO mysteries. President Bill Clinton ordered a review of the 1947 Roswell Incident around its 50th anniversary; Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan both reported seeing UFOs before their White House years. Former President Barack Obama made waves in February when he said on a podcast that aliens are real, then clarified that he had seen no evidence but that “there’s a good chance there’s life out there.”
‘Disappointment almost guaranteed’
For those who track the issue closely, promises of grand disclosures have never lived up to the buildup, said Greg Eghigian, a professor at Penn State who wrote a history of UFO sightings. “Almost no satisfaction is possible for many of the most die-hard believers,” he said. “So, in a sense, I think disappointment can almost be guaranteed, whatever comes out of this.”
The U.S. government has been investigating UFO reports since the 1940s, partly to determine whether they represent advanced technology from rival nations or “evidence of technology from outside the world,” according to the Pentagon’s 2024 report.
The entertainment industry has also picked up the theme. A new Steven Spielberg film, “Disclosure Day,” is in production, and online communities devoted to UFOs are split between viewing Trump’s promise as a step in the right direction and expecting nothing to come of it.