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By Giulia Carbonaro
Senior Reporter
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Just over a week after the release of the Department of Defense’s first batch of UFO files, President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated photo of himself walking next to a handcuffed alien on Truth Social on Sunday night, sparking confusion on social media over its meaning.
The image shows the president walking next to a tall, gray humanoid in front of what looks like a military site. The alien appears to be tied by the wrists and ankles, though the chain linking the handcuffs is not connected to one of them.
There is significant interest among Americans over any possible proof of extraterrestrial life. A YouGov poll released in November 2025 found that 56 percent of Americans believe aliens definitely or probably exist, and 47 percent believe they have definitely or probably already visited Earth.
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"What are you trying to tell us @realDonaldTrump ?? Disclosure season? ‘I caught one’ energy? Or just the biggest troll in presidential history?" reads one of the comments written by Truth Social users in response to the post.
"We the People can handle full disclosure!" wrote another, urging for the full release of all the Department of Defense’s UFO files.
"Another distraction from all the failures," wrote a different Truth Social user.
Trump wrote no caption to shed light on the meaning of the image, but added several other posts on Sunday night, including two AI-generated images of himself sitting on something like a spaceship’s command center overlooking Earth and pressing a red button.
The image reads: "Space Force." One of the screens behind him reads: "Target destroyed."
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What’s in the Released UFO Files?
The never-before-seen documents released by the Department of Defense on Friday, May 8, at the direction of the president contain descriptions of reported UFO sightings by both civilians and military staff on Earth and by astronauts on the Apollo moon missions.
The 161 files accessible on the Department of Defense’s website contain no proof of alien life.
Trump said he had directed relevant departments to release the material "based on the tremendous interest shown."
More files will likely be released as they become declassified—and some lawmakers are pushing for them to be shared with the public even if they are not.
"There’s some that are pretty interesting and especially given the environment and the circumstances of the videos, whether they are videos of UAPs that are flying around Russian submarines or aircraft that are firing on some of these UAPs," Republican Representative Eric Burlison said in a recent interview with The Will Cain Show on Fox News.
"I’ve seen those kinds of videos, and so I’m teasing that because I know that I’m telling the administration—through you, at this moment—that if they don’t release those, then I have the capabilities of getting those videos and releasing them."
UAPs refers to unidentified anomalous phenomena, a term the U.S. government uses for what have long been called UFOs.
NASA defines UAPs as observations in the sky or elsewhere that cannot be readily identified or scientifically explained. According the The Associated Press, the government shifted to the term UAPs in order to be able to describe a broader range of unexplained sightings, as the term UFOs refers specifically to flying objects.
Many have pointed out that the release of the UFO files has come in the midst of the increasingly unpopular Iran war, which 58 percent of Americans disapprove of, based on the latest Ipsos poll.
Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who resigned in January after a falling out with the president, described the release of the first batch of UFO files as something of a distraction tactic for the Trump administration.
She wrote on X on May 8: “I really don’t care about the UFO files. I just don’t. I’m so sick of the ‘look at the shiny object’ propaganda while they wage foreign wars, let rapists and pedophiles run free, and ruin the value of our dollar.
“Unless they roll out live aliens and test demo UFOs or actually admit what we know this really is then I have way better things to do on this Friday.”
What Has Donald Trump Said About Aliens?
Until a few years ago, Trump seemed dismissive of the possibility of extraterrestrial life. During an interview with ABC News in June 2019, he said that "people are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly."
In the same year, he told Tucker Carlson that he was "not a believer," but added: "I guess anything is possible."
When asked directly if he believed in aliens while aboard Air Force One on February 19, Trump said: "Well, I don’t know if they’re real or not." On the same day, he announced the release of the government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, UAPs and UFOs.
The announcement came after former President Barack Obama said in an interview in February with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen that aliens were "real, but I haven’t seen them."
Obama later explained that he was referring to the statistical likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe.
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