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Some white spots near the moon. Some black dots on a sensor. Various eyewitness statements. An almost comical artist's rendering of one sighting. But, really, nothing revelatory.
Congratulations, you're pretty much caught up on the first batch of UFO files released by the Pentagon.
The release included 162 files, including 120 PDFs, 28 videos, and 14 images. The Pentagon's new UFO website says the materials are “unresolved cases, meaning the government is unable to make a definitive determination on the nature of the observed phenomena." That's useful, as far as it goes. It just doesn't go very far.
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Let's not forget the self-congratulatory statement from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
This is "unprecedented transparency" in what the U.S. government knows about UFOs, Hegseth said, adding: "These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation—and it’s time the American people see it for themselves."
Justified speculation! You would be forgiven for thinking that this drop of files answers the obvious and definitive question: Does the U.S. have proof of alien life and extraterrestrial technology?
As things stand, the files say implicitly what officials won't explicitly: No.
In its 2024 annual report, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) said it had received 757 UAP reports for the period it reviewed, resolved 118 cases to prosaic objects such as balloons, birds and drones, and found “no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology."
A separate historical review found no verified U.S. government confirmation that a UAP sighting represented extraterrestrial technology.
There is more to come, with the government saying new materials will be released “on a rolling basis” and “every few weeks” as records are found, reviewed, and declassified . Perhaps these next files will hold the secrets of the universe.
There are, of course, pressing terrestrial concerns about UFOs and UAPs. A House task force has argued that UAPs around restricted airspace and military installations could pose a threat to security and readiness. AARO also said in 2024 that two military aircrew reports raised flight safety concerns and that three reports described pilots being trailed or shadowed by UAP.
But the Trump administration, including the president himself, has set a high bar for expectations about these files, one that lifts deep into outer space.
When former President Barack Obama appeared to casually confirm aliens are real on a podcast earlier this year, President Donald Trump said he "gave classified information" and made a "big mistake."
Obama later clarified that this was his belief based on statistical probability, not evidence.
Then, in April, the master hyperbolist Trump said pilots saw "things that you wouldn't believe" and these reports would be within the UFO files. Trump’s own February directive to release the documents referred not just to UAPs and UFOs, but to “Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life”.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican leading a House task force on government transparency that includes the UFO files, went one stop further on the intergalactic hype train.
Luna said, in her opinion, she had "observed things that are of nonhuman origin and creation" when viewing evidence at a sensitive compartmented information facility.
Lots of people are of the opinion that intelligent life exists beyond Earth. A 2021 Pew Research Center survey put that share at 65 percent, and 11 percent thought UFO reports are "definitely" evidence of that. Some galaxy-brained individuals on the internet even think aliens built the pyramids.
But opinion is not fact, and facts need evidence. There is, so far, very little of the latter to answer what we're all dying to know about life beyond our planet.
For some, this will be a deflating moment of truth. And to others, there will never be enough transparency to shake their faith-like belief that the government is hiding what it knows.
Either way, the aftertaste of these files is the same: Trump-flavored disappointment.
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