Pentagon releases first batch of declassified UFO files following Trump directive

The Pentagon on May 8 began publishing never-before-seen government files on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), the official term for what are commonly known as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), through a new dedicated government website. 

The initial release consists of 162 files, including photographs, videos, eyewitness accounts, and documents drawn from the FBI, the War Department, NASA, and the State Department. The materials span incidents dating back to the 1940s and include reports from around the world. 

The files are hosted at war.gov/ufo, where additional records will be posted “every few weeks” on a rolling basis as more records are reviewed and declassified, according to a War Department statement.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in the statement that his department is in “lockstep” with President Donald Trump in bringing “unprecedented transparency regarding our government’s understanding” of UAP. 

“These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation — and it’s time the American people see it for themselves,” Hegseth added. “This release of declassified documents demonstrates the Trump Administration’s earnest commitment to unprecedented transparency.”

Trump directed federal agencies in February to identify and declassify records related to UAP, UFOs, and any potential extraterrestrial matters. He called the issue “extremely interesting and important” in a Truth Social post at the time.

After the initial release, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman applauded the push for transparency in a statement on X, while noting the space agency “will remain candid about what we know to be true, what we have yet to understand, and all that remains to be discovered.”

Reps. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have led congressional calls for the release of more information about UFOs. Burchett said in a May 8 X post that the newly released files are “a drop in the bucket” compared with what is to come.

The release also drew reactions from Catholic commentators, including Eternal Christendom founder Joshua Charles, who have encouraged fellow Catholics to approach claims about UAP and “non-human intelligence” through the lens of Church teaching.

Charles directed his followers to a detailed video commentary by Catholic author and philosopher Daniel O’Connor, who outlined what he described as essential theological principles and dogmas all Catholics should know before engaging with the UAP materials. 

Charles has warned for months that he believes the issues could be used to confuse or mislead people spiritually. In a February social media post, he said the topic could be used “to deceive humanity in a truly apocalyptic way.”

Charles also argued in an April X post that one of the most “disturbing aspects of so-called ‘disclosure’ about ‘non-human intelligence’” is that it risks placing temporal powers — especially the U.S. government — in the role of “promulgating essentially new revelation to the world.” 

Such framing, he warned, could supplant in a “not-so-subtle way” the “spiritual power (the apostolic priesthood established by Jesus Christ), by which we have already received God’s revelation.”

Charles predicted that many would frame the release as a kind of “revelation” or “apocalypse” that would supposedly reveal humanity’s true place in the universe and the nature of reality. But he argued that God has “already revealed this to us in Jesus Christ” through the Catholic Church and the apostolic authority entrusted to her in Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium. 

“This new ‘disclosure,’” he wrote, “will instead be promulgated by apostate temporal powers.”