Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon is “working” to identify and release government files related to UFOs and extraterrestrial life, following a directive from President Trump last week to declassify information on the subject. Trump, in a social media post, instructed Hegseth and other agency heads to begin the process of releasing files pertaining to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
The announcement followed former President Obama’s recent comments that aliens are “real,” though he later clarified he had not seen evidence of contact during his time in office, suggesting the vastness of the universe makes extraterrestrial life statistically probable. Trump, when questioned by reporters, stated he wasn’t certain about the existence of aliens but suggested Obama may have alluded to classified information.
Hegseth, during a visit to Sierra Space in Colorado as part of a nationwide tour of defense industrial bases, acknowledged the task wasn’t initially on his agenda. “I did not have that on my bingo at all,” he said, according to a C-SPAN interview. He assured reporters the Pentagon would be “in full compliance” with Trump’s order and that updates would be provided, though he offered no specific timeline. “We’ve got our people working on it right now. I don’t want to oversell how much time it will take, right? We’re digging in,” Hegseth stated.
The move comes amid growing public interest in UAPs. A government report indicated more than 750 fresh UAP sightings were reported between May 2023 and June 2024. While the Pentagon has tracked these phenomena for decades, a 2024 report found no evidence confirming the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Sean Kirkpatrick, former director of the Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), expressed skepticism that the released files would reveal evidence of alien life. He described Trump’s order as a “distraction” and predicted the release would leave many unsatisfied, fueling continued conspiracy theories. Kirkpatrick, a physicist who led AARO until December 2023, said his office focused on declassifying information but found no proof of extraterrestrial technology.
Federica Bianco, an associate professor at the University of Delaware and a member of NASA’s independent UAP study team, echoed Kirkpatrick’s perspective, stating the probability of life existing elsewhere in the universe is “negligibly small,” but that she had not observed any phenomena that violated the laws of physics. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, said he would be looking for “an actual alien” in the released files, suggesting many sightings are misinterpretations of natural phenomena. He noted the difficulty of maintaining secrecy in the age of ubiquitous smartphone cameras and internet connectivity.
Shelly Wright, an astrophysicist at the University of California San Diego, who also served on NASA’s independent study team, anticipates the released documents will be heavily redacted due to national security concerns related to military surveillance equipment. However, she suggested declassifying older surveillance data could allow scientists to analyze it with modern technology. Harvard theoretical physicist Avi Loeb, who leads the Galileo Project searching for extraterrestrial artifacts, urged Congress to consult with scientists during the review process, emphasizing the importance of examining incidents through the lens of known physics. Loeb pointed to a recent incident involving a missile and an “orb” off the coast of Yemen, which he attributed to a drone.
Loeb stated his primary interest lies in identifying anomalies that defy known physical laws, rather than terrestrial technology. Janna Levin, a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College, expressed excitement about the possibility of finding evidence of microbial life, which she believes is a more realistic prospect than discovering advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.
As of Wednesday, February 25, 2026, the Pentagon has not provided a timeline for the release of the files, and the White House has not commented on the matter.
