Pentagon
The Pentagon has started putting decades of declassified UFO files online via a new public website, officials in Washington confirmed on Friday. Wayne Thornton/Pinterest

The Pentagon has begun publishing decades of declassified UFO files on a new public website, officials confirmed on Friday in Washington, bringing previously secret reports from the late 1940s to 2025 into the open for the first time.

The move follows President Donald Trump's directive earlier this year ordering US agencies to release government records on UFOs, now formally labelled unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs, along with any files touching on 'extraterrestrial life.'

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, known as AARO, has spent recent years sifting through historic reports and producing public summaries, but this is the first time complete case files, drawn from multiple federal agencies, have been made directly accessible online.

Pentagon UFO Website Puts 'Never-Before-Seen' Files in One Place

The Pentagon said the new site will host 'never-before-seen' UFO material, including videos, photos and original documents pulled from across the US government.

In a statement, the Department of Defence stressed that anyone can now search the database without security clearance, and promised further releases on a 'rolling basis' as more files are reviewed.

It can be recalled that interest in UFOs has surged in recent years, fuelled by leaked cockpit footage, congressional hearings and an increasingly vocal community of former officials urging transparency.

The Pentagon appears keen to show it has heard that noise. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth hailed Friday's drop of documents as 'unprecedented transparency,' even as some files arrive heavily redacted, with full pages blacked out.

Many of the UFO sightings cluster around sensitive military activity and major deployments. In the 1950s and 1960s, that meant Cold War flashpoints in Germany and the Soviet Union.

In more recent years, alleged encounters concentrate in the Middle East, particularly near the Strait of Hormuz, Iraq and Syria, where the US has maintained a sustained footprint and some of its most advanced surveillance kit.

Officials suggest that it is no coincidence. The lion's share of reports in the cache come from military pilots and personnel, often using sophisticated sensors that far outstrip civilian technology. If you go looking with the best gear, in other words, you see more weird stuff.

Crucially, in all of the incidents described in the newly released records, the Pentagon says the aerial phenomena posed no apparent threat to US forces. Most of the unknown objects either broke contact abruptly or vanished from view just as quickly as they had appeared.

Orbs, a 'Super-Hot' Object and a Bronze UFO in the Sky

Among the more recent entries, one 2023 case in the western United States stands out inside the document trove. Over two days, federal law enforcement officers independently reported strange orbs in the sky, with one account describing 'orbs launching other orbs.'

The Pentagon itself labels that episode 'among the most compelling' in its holdings, although the files stop short of any firm conclusion about what was actually seen.

In a separate 2024 encounter in Iraq, an unidentified craft was reported zipping across the surveillance systems of a US aircraft at high speed while the crew was engaged in an unrelated strike. The object cut across their sensors but, again, did not interfere with the mission and disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

A 2025 account relayed by a senior intelligence officer to the FBI pushes things further into science-fiction territory. According to the government's own description, US personnel were dispatched in a helicopter to search an area where orbs had previously been reported.

They allegedly located a 'super-hot' orb hovering above the ground, which then travelled roughly 20 miles at a speed too fast for the helicopter to keep up. That is the sort of detail that will send online forums into overdrive.

The historic files are hardly less surreal. NASA transcripts from 1969 in the release record Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin telling officials he saw what he described as a 'possible laser' in space, noting a 'fairly bright light source' that the crew tentatively ascribed to that explanation.

UFO
Trump says it was his push for 'complete and maximum transparency' that forced the release of UFO files Pinterest

Then there is the FBI's own artwork. One composite sketch, based on witness reporting, shows what the bureau calls an 'apparent ellipsoid bronze metallic object materialising out of a bright light in the sky, 130-195 feet in length, and disappearing instantaneously.'

The image reads like classic UFO lore, except this time it is filed in a government record rather than a tabloid or late-night talk show.

Trump Claims Credit as Experts Warn of New Speculation

Trump teasing a major disclosure of UFO and UAP material. On his social media platform, the president took a victory lap on Friday, saying it was his push for 'Complete and Maximum Transparency' that forced the release.

'It was my Honor to direct my Administration to identify and provide Government files related to Alien and Extraterrestrial Life, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and Unidentified Flying Objects,' Trump wrote, claiming the publication will allow Americans to 'decide for themselves' what is happening in the skies.

Last month, while welcoming the Artemis II astronauts to the Oval Office, Trump told reporters that his administration would be 'releasing as much as we can in the near future.' UFOs, he said, had been 'in the minds of people for a long time', hinting that the government needed to catch up with public curiosity.

Not everyone inside the Pentagon ecosystem is thrilled about how the data drop is being presented.

Sean Kirkpatrick, the former head of AARO, issued a pointed warning against reading too much into raw files without expert context.

He said there was 'nothing unexpected' in the latest release and argued that, without analysis, the website would 'only serve to fuel more speculation, conspiracy and armchair pseudoscience, particularly from the playhouse politics theatre company.'

For starters, AARO's official reviews to date have not found any evidence that UFOs or UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin. That conclusion runs directly against the hopes of some true believers, and it is one reason the office has itself become a target of suspicion and wild claims.

The newly released files arrive, then, in an awkward middle ground. On one hand, this is the first time complete case files, even in redacted form, have been published straight from federal archives. On the other, many pages remain obscured, and the government is still saying, essentially, that nothing in its vaults proves alien visitors.

Whether this wave of UFO transparency calms public obsession or just adds more fuel to it, the files are now out there, and they are not going back in the box.