US President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he is directing the Pentagon and other government agencies to identify and release files related to extraterrestrials, UFOs, and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) due to the “tremendous interest" in the topic, reports the Associated Press.
Trump made the announcement in a social media post hours after accusing former President Barack Obama of disclosing “classified information" when Obama suggested in a podcast interview that aliens were real.
Trump commented on Obama’s interview to reporters aboard Air Force One, stating, “I don’t know if they’re real or not," and added, “I may get him out of trouble by declassifying."
In his post, Trump said he was directing government agencies to release all files connected to “alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters."
Obama, who made his comments over the weekend in a podcast appearance, later clarified that he had not seen evidence that aliens “have made contact with us," but acknowledged, “statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there."
Trump responded, saying, “I don’t have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it."
The renewed public interest in UFOs and the possibility of government concealment of extraterrestrial life began after former Pentagon and government officials leaked Navy videos of unidentified objects to The New York Times and Politico in 2017. This led to Congress holding its first hearings on UFOs in 50 years in May 2022. At the time, officials stated that the objects seen in Navy footage were likely drones.
Following this, the Pentagon committed to more transparency. In July 2022, it established the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a central office to collect reports of all military UFO encounters. AARO replaced the previous task force dedicated to the subject.
An 18-page unclassified report submitted to Congress in June 2024 revealed that service members made 485 reports of unidentified phenomena over the prior year. Of those, 118 cases were identified as “prosaic objects such as various types of balloons, birds, and unmanned aerial systems." The report emphasized that AARO had discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology to date.