U.S. Releases First Tranche of UFO Files Under Trump Administration

The U.S. government released the first tranche of UFO files on May 8 2026 under the Trump administration, with further batches issued later that month and in June. Newsweek reported that the disclosures follow years of increased congressional oversight and public interest in unidentified anomalous phenomena.

NASA launched its independent UAP study in 2022. The agency released the study results in 2023 and appointed a director of UAP research. Then-administrator Bill Nelson stated that NASA would apply its scientific expertise and observational capabilities to better understand anomalous reports while conducting the work transparently for the benefit of humanity.

The modern UFO era began in 1947 after pilot Kenneth Arnold reported nine fast-moving objects near Mount Rainier and the Roswell incident occurred. The U.S. Air Force launched Project Sign in 1948. Coast Guard photographer Shell R. Alpert captured four bright objects in V-formation above power plant smokestacks at the Salem air station that decade.

Astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell reported a bogey outside Gemini 7 in December 1965. Buzz Aldrin reported an unusual object during the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969.

Project Blue Book wound down by the end of the 1960s after the Air Force concluded that further investigations were unlikely to yield significant scientific results. Cameras recorded luminous objects changing direction near Discovery during the 1991 STS-48 mission. Dozens of bright objects appeared near a broken satellite tether in Columbia's 1996 STS-75 Tether Incident.

Publication of Navy infrared videos later revealed the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Jordan Flowers, executive director of the Disclosure Foundation, stated that Congress has mandated NASA transfer its UAP records to the National Archives and that very little of that work has been done.