Pentagon Launches UAP Disclosure Portal, Releases 162 Declassified Files

The Department of Defense released 162 declassified files on unidentified anomalous phenomena on May 8, publishing them through a newly launched government website at war.gov/UFO, as part of a multiagency initiative ordered by President Donald Trump ^[1][2]. The files represent the first tranche released under PURSUE, the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, an interagency program Trump ordered in February. The Pentagon stated that the latest UAP videos, photos, and original source documents from across the entire U.S. government are now "all in one place, no clearance required." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement that the files had "long fueled justified speculation" and that the time had come for the public to see them ^[3][4].

Trump issued the directive in February 2026, posting on Truth Social that he would be instructing the Secretary of War and other agencies "to begin the process of identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters." At Trump's direction, the Department of War is overseeing a multiagency effort to find, review, identify, declassify, and publicly release unresolved UAP-related records and historical documents in the federal government's possession. The disclosure framework carries no explicit statutory mandate from Congress, but it operates against the backdrop of the 2022 establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, AARO, which was created by Congress to centralize UAP review and had previously issued only public summaries ^[5].

The files draw from the FBI, the State Department, NASA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Department of Energy, among other agencies. The first tranche includes reports, photographs, videos, witness accounts, military records, astronaut transcripts, and other historical materials connected to unresolved sightings and investigations dating from 1944 and 1945 to recent years. Many of the reported sightings were clustered near active military operations, and a large share of the alleged encounters date back to the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in Cold War-era hotspots like Germany and the Soviet Union. The State Department's contribution includes diplomatic cables from U.S. embassies in locations including Papua New Guinea, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Mexico, with dates ranging from 1985 to late 2025.

The Pentagon was explicit about the limits of the release. The agency confirmed there are no known explanations for the currently released videos, stating that "the materials archived here are unresolved cases, meaning the government is unable to make a definitive determination on the nature of the observed phenomena." The files do not claim that the U.S. government has come in contact with any sort of alien life, and none of the incidents mentioned conclude that alien beings from other planets have visited Earth. Hegseth touted the release as "unprecedented transparency," while some of the files are heavily redacted, including several documents with entire pages blacked out. The Pentagon stated it had reviewed all files for security purposes but had not yet analyzed many of them for resolution of the anomalies described ^[6].

Congressional pressure preceded the release. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who chairs the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, has argued that unexplained objects operating near U.S. military assets may pose a threat to national security. In the month following Trump's February directive, Luna demanded Hegseth send her videos of UFOs by a deadline she established; according to the Associated Press, that deadline "came and went, and no videos were produced." Luna indicated after the May 8 release that an additional tranche is expected within approximately 30 days ^[7]. Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, another advocate for disclosure, called the initial release "a great start" ^[8].

Sean Kirkpatrick, the former head of the Pentagon's AARO, cautioned against drawing conclusions from the release, stating it contained "nothing unexpected" and that, without analysis or context, the files "will only serve to fuel more speculation, conspiracy and arm-chair pseudoscience." Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard described a "comprehensive" multiagency declassification program as underway. The Pentagon's UFO site states that new documents will be released on a rolling basis "as they are discovered and declassified, with tranches posted every few weeks." The scope of the review is significant: the Pentagon has cited "tens of millions" of records potentially subject to review, and the PURSUE program frames the May 8 release as a starting point, not a definitive accounting ^[9].