Pentagon’s UAP files stir fresh debate as Trump urges public to interpret
The Pentagon began releasing a new batch of declassified records related to unidentified aerial phenomena on Friday, putting additional U.S. government documentation into the public debate over what those incidents show. The release comes after Donald Trump resurfaced the topic in recent months, drawing attention to promised disclosures and encouraging public reaction to the material.
In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump wrote, “Mientras que administraciones anteriores no han sido transparentes sobre este tema, con estos nuevos documentos y videos, la gente puede decidir por sí misma: ‘¿Qué diablos está pasando?’ ¡Diviértanse y disfruten!” The Republican president’s statement framed the documents as something the public can interpret without a government conclusion supplied on his timeline.
The Pentagon’s disclosure includes records the government describes as new and “nunca antes vistos,” though some material has been made public previously. The Pentagon said the releases reflect cases it still considers not resolved, meaning investigators could not explain the incidents with certainty through available evidence at the time, according to the descriptions accompanying the files.
A Pentagon website now hosts the records in a layout that uses prominent black-and-white images of unidentified objects alongside text presented in a typeface similar to a typewriter style. The administration said the documents include older State Department cables, FBI records and NASA transcripts tied to crewed spaceflights, and it presented the release as part of a broader effort to disclose more about the government’s handling of these phenomena.
Among the examples highlighted in the initial publication were accounts tied to Kazakhstan and other locations. A 1994 State Department cable described an incident in which a Tajik pilot and three Americans reportedly saw a brightly illuminated unidentified aerial phenomenon while flying over Kazakhstan, describing the object as performing “múltiples giros de 90 grados” and “giros en tirabuzón” at high speed.
Other documents described motion patterns that were characterized as erratic by the original observers. A 2023 military report about the Aegean Sea, for instance, described an unidentified aerial phenomenon that reportedly traveled just above the ocean surface and made “múltiples giros de 90 grados” at an estimated speed of 80 mph (129 km/h).
The Pentagon also released material that includes interviews from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement contexts. The AP reported that an interview captured an incident involving an intelligence official conducting a search from a helicopter, who said he encountered a “súper caliente” sphere that moved about 32 kilometers (20 miles) at high speed and that he later saw “otras cuatro o cinco esferas” whose brightness reportedly intensified and dimmed. In addition, the records included an FBI interview in which a drone pilot reportedly described an “objeto lineal” with a light bright enough to “ver bandas dentro de la luz,” according to the interview text, and said the object appeared for five to 10 seconds before the light went out.
The documents also reach back into older spaceflight records. In a 1969 briefing with Apollo 11 crew members, astronaut Buzz Aldrin reportedly recalled seeing unusual things, including an object described as a “fuente de luz bastante brillante,” which the crew considered could be a laser. Separately, a NASA photograph from the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, as described in the release, showed three points in a triangular formation, and a caption noted there was “no hay consenso sobre la naturaleza de la anomalía,” but that preliminary new analysis suggested it “podría tratarse de un ‘objeto físico’.”
Across many of the newly posted materials, the Pentagon also provided videos and sensor-based accounts, including clips described as showing unidentified objects seen in places ranging from Syria and Japan to North America. The AP reported that the release includes more than 20 video files, and it described examples such as footage where objects appear as rapidly moving distant points, as well as a separate clip in which a football-shaped object was reportedly seen over the East China Sea in 2022.
The Pentagon’s disclosure also includes cases where follow-on determinations were made. One document described a moving object over Syria in 2023 that was reported as traveling at 777 km/h (483 mph) for at least seven minutes before it was later determined to be harmless, according to the AP’s summary of the file.
Still, officials and outside experts urged caution about drawing sweeping conclusions from the visual material alone. Sean Kirkpatrick, a former director of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the Pentagon, said there was “nada inesperado” about the release and warned that without analysis, “sólo servirá para alimentar más especulación, teorías de conspiración y seudociencia de sillón.”
Trump previously released records tied to other high-profile assassinations that, according to the AP, did not reveal much more than what was already known. In the broader UAP effort, the Pentagon has worked for years on declassifying related material, and the U.S. Congress created an office in 2022 tasked with declassification. In an inaugural 2024 report, the office disclosed hundreds of new incidents of unidentified aerial phenomena but did not find evidence that the U.S. government has confirmed any alien technology.
Lawmakers and advocacy groups said the Friday release does not end their push for additional transparency. A small group of Republican members of Congress has pressed the Pentagon to release more documents and videos. In March, Representative Anna Paulina Luna sent a letter demanding 46 unidentified aerial phenomenon videos referenced by whistleblowers, and she told reporters Friday that the Pentagon would publish the remaining videos later.
Tim Burchett, another Republican congressman, thanked Trump in a statement for “cumplir su palabra” on transparency and disclosure, adding that full transparency would not happen at once and “tomará algo de tiempo.” Outside groups also used the Friday release to argue for additional disclosures. The Sol Foundation, according to the AP, backed legislation that would require an “exhaustive” review of classified UAP-related records with the aim of providing Americans “toda la verdad” about long-running government knowledge and programs involving technologies and vehicles of non-human origin, as its leaders said.
The AP reported that the Sol Foundation’s executive director, Peter Skafish, and retired Vice Adm. Tim Gallaudet, a former acting administrator of NOAA, said the new step was welcome but that more work is needed to end decades of secrecy.