WASHINGTON | The United States government just made history. This morning, the Department of War released the first batch of never-before-seen declassified files on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), the official government term for what most people still call UFOs. The files are live right now and accessible to anyone, no security clearance required, at war.gov/UFO.
This is not a rumor, a leak, or a conspiracy theory. It is an official government release, ordered by President Donald Trump and executed by the Pentagon, the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Energy, NASA, and the FBI.
The files are out. Here is what we know.
What Was Released
The first batch includes videos, photos, and original source documents pulled from across the entire United States government. Among the materials already drawing significant attention:
A football-shaped UAP photographed by the US Indo-Pacific Command near Japan. The object has no visible means of propulsion and does not match any known aircraft profile.
More Read
An infrared image labeled “FBI photo B2” showing an unidentified object captured over the western United States in December 2025.
Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 photos and transcripts, including audio from the moon missions that has not previously been made public.
An FBI lab photo with a graphic overlay depicting eyewitness reports from September 2023 of what witnesses described as an ellipsoid bronze metallic object roughly 130 to 195 feet in length that appeared out of a bright light and vanished instantly.
More Read
The Pentagon confirmed the materials on the site are all unresolved cases, meaning the government has been unable to make a definitive determination about what these objects are. Officials said the site will be updated with new tranches of files every few weeks on a rolling basis as additional documents are discovered and declassified.
What the Government Is Saying
The release is being framed as a transparency milestone. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the files have long fueled justified speculation and that it is time for the American people to see them for themselves.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the Intelligence Community is actively coordinating the declassification effort with the Department of War to ensure a careful and comprehensive review.
The White House issued a statement saying that while past administrations sought to discredit or dissuade the public on this topic, President Trump is focused on providing maximum transparency.
Trump himself previewed the release at a White House event honoring NASA astronauts, saying the administration would be releasing a lot of things. Earlier this year he posted on Truth Social directing the Secretary of War and relevant agencies to begin identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, UAP, and UFOs.
What PURSUE Means
The release operates under an official program acronym: PURSUE, which stands for Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. The model is reportedly similar to the structure the Department of Justice used when it began releasing the Epstein files in December.
More Read
The dedicated government website went live this morning and was reported as glitchy in the early hours, suggesting extremely high traffic from the public trying to access the files simultaneously.
What the Files Do Not Say
It is important to be clear about what this release is and is not.
The government is not confirming the existence of extraterrestrial life. The files contain unresolved cases, meaning the Pentagon itself does not know what these objects are. That is actually the point. Many of the materials have not yet been analyzed for resolution of any anomalies, according to the official statement. The Department of War said it welcomes private sector analysis and expertise to help work through the backlog.
What the release does confirm is that the US government has accumulated decades of documentation of aerial phenomena it cannot explain, and that documentation is now in the public domain.
Why This Is Happening Now
Trump announced his intention to release UAP files after renewed public interest in the topic, which surged following a series of congressional hearings in 2023 and 2024 where former military officials testified under oath about their encounters with unidentified craft. Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who has been one of the most vocal advocates for disclosure in Congress, said in response to today’s release that the American people deserve transparency, accountability, and access to information regarding UAPs and disclosure that the government has kept hidden from the public for decades.
The timing is also notable. The release comes on the same day that major news cycles are dominated by the MV Hondius hantavirus situation and ongoing developments in the Middle East, leading some observers to question whether the UFO file drop is partly a distraction. The Mirror reported public frustration from some quarters over the timing.
Whether strategic or coincidental, the files are real and they are out.
How to Access the Files Yourself
Go directly to war.gov/UFO to view the declassified documents, images, and videos. The site may be slow given the volume of traffic today but it is publicly accessible. New materials will be added on a rolling basis in the coming weeks and months.
What Comes Next
This is described as the first tranche, not the final one. The Pentagon has committed to releasing additional materials every few weeks as they are reviewed and cleared. That means this story is not going away any time soon. Congressional investigators, independent researchers, journalists, and the general public will now have the opportunity to analyze decades of government documentation that has never been seen before.
For a story that has spent 70 years in the realm of speculation, today marks a genuinely significant shift. The question now is not whether the government has been documenting UAPs. They clearly have. The question is what the next releases will contain.
Briefly USA will continue to report on this story as new files are made public.
