UFO Files Release Falls Flat: First Tranche of Trump’s UAP Disclosure Yields Grainy Footage and Few Answers
The US Department of War dropped its first batch of UFO files on Friday, May 8. People had been waiting for this. Some were hoping for proof of alien life. Others expected, at minimum, something they had never seen before. What they got was 162 files, a lot of grainy footage, and more questions than answers.
The release sits under the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters PURSUE following President Donald Trump’s directive for greater transparency on UAPs, extraterrestrial life, and related topics. The files are publicly available at war.gov/ufo.
What Was Actually in the Files
Friday’s drop contained 120 PDF documents, 28 videos, and 14 image files, totalling more than 35 minutes of footage. The Department of War aggregated and declassified material presented as never-before-seen or newly compiled covering eyewitness reports, intelligence summaries, diplomatic cables, photos, and video.
The timeline is broad. FBI records on flying disc sightings run from 1947 to 1968. Historical case files include photographs from Oak Ridge. Federal law enforcement reports cover hovering orbs and silent objects over the western United States. On the more recent end, military infrared footage shows a craft executing a 90-degree turn at low speed off the coast of Greece in 2023, alongside encounters recorded in Iraq, Syria, and the Persian Gulf. There is also archival NASA imagery objects near the lunar horizon during Apollo missions, and audio of Gemini 7 astronauts reporting something they could not identify.
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Most of it, though, is blurry. Low-resolution. The kind of footage that raises an eyebrow but proves nothing.
The Verdict From Those Who Know
Former AARO head Sean Kirkpatrick and author Garrett Graff, whose assessments were cited in The New York Times, described the initial files as inconclusive murky blobs and dots consistent with what has been declassified before. Most of what is visible, analysts noted, can be explained by conventional means: jet engines, diffraction patterns, balloons, drones.
No alien bodies. No reverse-engineered aircraft. No government official saying, on the record, that any of this came from somewhere other than Earth. Many of the files involve cases the government simply cannot explain due to insufficient data and some remain partially redacted.
A few critics went further, calling the release a distraction from the domestic and international crises currently sitting on the Trump administration’s desk. The phrase “nothing burger” circulated widely.
Draw Your Own Conclusions — Literally
The administration’s response to the underwhelmed reaction was essentially: we gave you the raw material, now figure it out. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard both invoked the phrase “unprecedented transparency” and invited the public to review the files and reach their own judgements.
Which is one way to handle it. The other way to look at it is that the government released tens of thousands of pages and hours of footage with zero official interpretation and called that transparency.
This is not the end of the process, either. Friday’s release is the first in a rolling series expected every few weeks, drawing from multiple agencies including the Department of Defence, AARO, ODNI, FBI, NASA, the Department of Energy, and the State Department. Reports suggest the full effort could involve tens of millions of records.
Trump administration supporters say no previous government has come close to this level of openness on the subject. Whether the next tranche delivers something more concrete is the question everyone is now waiting on.