MAY 8, 2026
Pentagon releases declassified UAP files and videos following Trump directive
The Pentagon on Friday released a batch of previously undisclosed files, videos, and photos on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, following a directive from President Trump. The materials, which span decades of reported sightings, are publicly accessible without a security clearance. The Defense Department stated it will continue releasing new materials on a rolling basis as they are discovered and declassified.
The Department of Defense posted the files to a dedicated government website, writing that "the latest UAP videos, photos, and original source documents from across the entire United States government are all in one place — no clearance required," according to CNN and Fox News. The release is described by the White House as the first in a series of tranches, with new materials to be posted every few weeks.
Among the documents made public are a large FBI file containing hundreds of pages of eyewitness testimonies and public reports about UFOs between 1947 and 1968 — versions with fewer redactions than those previously released by the FBI, CNN reported. More recent military memos describe "one possible small UAP" observed in Iraq in 2022 and "multiple glares or light from an unknown origin" in Syria in 2024, periods when U.S. troops were stationed in both countries as part of ongoing operations against ISIS, according to CNN. Reports from U.S. personnel in the United Arab Emirates and Greece were also included.
The release also included materials from NASA's Apollo missions. An astronaut on Apollo 12 in 1969, Alan L. Bean, reported to mission control seeing "flashes of light" that were "sailing off in space," saying objects appeared to be "escaping the Moon." During Apollo 17 in 1972, astronauts described "very bright" particles of light, with Lunar Module Pilot Harrison "Jack" Schmitt saying, "It's like the Fourth of July out there." The astronauts theorized the lights might have come from chunks of ice, CNN reported. Fox News highlighted photos from the Apollo missions showing clusters of small dots, and published a transcript of the Apollo 17 crew's exchange with mission control describing "jagged, angular fragments that are tumbling."