PURSUE

The U.S. government threw open its classified UFO files on Friday, releasing never-before-seen documents, videos, and photos through a new interagency program and making them freely accessible to any American with an internet connection — no security clearance required. The Department of War announced the initial release as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, known as PURSUE. UAP — unidentified anomalous phenomena — is the U.S. government's current official term for what most people simply call UFOs. The collection is now housed at WAR.GOV/UFO, with additional files to follow on a rolling basis. The release brings together materials from across the federal government: the Department of War, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Energy, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, NASA, the FBI, and additional components of U.S. intelligence agencies. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth did not understate the moment. "The Department of War is in lockstep with President Trump to bring unprecedented transparency regarding our government's understanding of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena," Hegseth said in the department's announcement. "These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation — and it's time the American people see it for themselves." The release follows a direct instruction from President Donald Trump to begin identifying and declassifying government UFO files in the interest of what the administration calls total transparency. The Department of War's announcement states that no prior president or administration has followed through on this level of UFO disclosure — a claim that, whatever one makes of its political framing, reflects the practical reality that decades of congressional pressure, Freedom of Information Act requests, and public advocacy produced far less than what landed on a public government website Friday. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard described the release as the opening move in a sustained effort. "Under President Trump's leadership, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is actively coordinating the Intelligence Community's declassification efforts with the Department of War to ensure a careful, comprehensive, and unprecedented review of our holdings to provide the American people with maximum transparency," Gabbard said. "Today's release is the first in what will be an ongoing joint declassification and release effort." The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office — the Pentagon office stood up in 2022 specifically to investigate UFO reports from military and intelligence personnel — sits at the center of the departmental side of this effort. AARO has spent the past several years cataloguing and analyzing encounters reported by U.S. military pilots and other personnel: objects that moved in ways inconsistent with known aircraft, appeared without transponder signals in restricted airspace, or behaved in ways that defied conventional explanation. Making those files publicly accessible rather than routing them through selective congressional briefings represents a meaningful shift in how the government handles the topic — at least in stated intent. FBI Director Kash Patel framed the release in historical terms. "For the first time in history, the American people have unfettered access to declassified government files on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon — a level of transparency that no prior administration has delivered," Patel said in the announcement. "The FBI remains committed to supporting this rolling declassification effort with the same rigor and integrity we bring to every national security matter." One caveat runs through the announcement and it is a significant one. The Department of War acknowledged that while all released files have been reviewed for security purposes, many of the materials have not yet been analyzed for resolution of any anomalies. The government is releasing raw material — documents, videos, photos of UFO encounters — without necessarily telling the public what to make of them. That places the interpretive burden squarely on whoever downloads the files, which will produce a predictable spectrum of conclusions ranging from the rigorous to the conspiratorial. Whether that outcome serves the stated goal of transparency or complicates it is a question the administration has chosen to answer by releasing first and analyzing later. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman struck a tone that acknowledged both the excitement and the limits of the moment. "At NASA, our job is to bring the brightest minds and most advanced scientific instruments to bear, follow the data, and share what we learn," Isaacman said. "We will remain candid about what we know to be true, what we have yet to understand, and all that remains to be discovered." For generations, Americans who reported seeing unidentified objects in the sky were met with official dismissal, ridicule, or silence. Friday's release does not answer what those objects were. But it does something the U.S. government has resisted for decades: it admits, in public, with documents attached, that the question was always worth asking.

PURSUE

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PURSUE

U.S. government releases classified UFO files to the public

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About The Defence Blog