PURSUE Program: Declassified UAP Files — Live Coverage & Analysis
Published May 8, 2026 · Updated September 25, 2026 · Live updates ongoing
Apollo 17, December 1972. The yellow box highlights three lights visible above the lunar terrain. The U.S. Department of War announced on May 9, 2026 that it has actively opened a case to reanalyze this image using the original mission film. Per the official statement: "new preliminary US government analysis suggests the image feature is potentially the result of a physical object in the scene." Source: Department of War / NASA archives, released via war.gov/UFO.
Summary
On May 8, 2026, the U.S. Department of War launched the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE) and released its first batch of declassified UAP files at war.gov/UFO. The first tranche initially comprised 132 files; with the video tranche added May 9, independent inventories place the full first release at approximately 160-162 files (~3.7 GB), including Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 mission imagery, FBI infrared stills, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command UAP imagery near Japan, 28 "Unresolved UAP Report" videos from CENTCOM, EUCOM, and Indo-Pacific Command areas of responsibility (2020-2026), and a multi-asset image carousel covering decades of unresolved UAP cases.
Second tranche — May 22, 2026: a core release of 64 files (6 PDFs, 7 audio files, 51 videos) per CBS News, with some outlets reporting a higher total including supporting assets.
Third tranche — June 12, 2026: 72 files in total, comprising (per CBS News) 53 documents and 10 images alongside 6 videos and 3 NASA audio recordings, drawn from the CIA, FBI, NASA, the Department of Defense, and other agencies, and dating from the 1940s to the present. Notable contents include orb-like object videos with "artistic interpretation" recreations, Apollo 16 mission debrief audio, a Pentagon-cited set of 209 reported "green orbs," "discs," and "fireballs" near a military facility, and — per a report dated June 5 attributed to AARO director Dr. Jon Kosloski — an assessment that roughly 40% of analyzed cases lack a reasonable explanation and remain unresolved. The release also surfaced a CIA internal-history admission that secret U-2 and OXCART spy-plane flights accounted for more than half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and 1960s.
Fourth tranche — July 10, 2026: 40 files (14 documents, 19 videos, 4 audio files, and 3 images) drawn from the Pentagon, NASA, the CIA, the FBI, and the Department of Energy, resuming the rolling-release cycle after a roughly four-week pause attributed to the shift from already-public material to newly declassified records.
Fifth tranche — August 7, 2026: 41 files (a mix of documents, images, and videos) drawn from the Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, and the Executive Office of the President, with records spanning 1950 through 2026. Reported contents include an FBI interview summary in which a former military pilot described a large, silent triangular object observed over Afghanistan in 2002; a September 2021 Gulf of Oman incident in which U.S. Special Operations personnel aboard an AC-130J gunship reported approximately 25 encounters with objects described as "cold orbs"; and a 2025 U.S. Central Command clip of an object crossing a populated area in the Middle East. Both the Gulf of Oman and CENTCOM incidents remain unresolved by AARO.
Sixth tranche — September 18, 2026: 71 files — 55 documents, 15 videos, and one audio recording — 67 from the Department of War and, for the first time, four from local law enforcement in Colorado, with records spanning 1952 to 2025. The release centers on the Defense Intelligence Agency's Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP, 2008–2012), including 37 "Defense Intelligence Reference Documents" on speculative topics such as warp drives, wormholes, and negative-mass propulsion — all previously public via FOIA, now released with formerly withheld details — and a 2010 study examining injuries to three engineers following an unexplained aerospace event. The Pentagon's accompanying notes state the reference documents "should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed." Also included: an hour-long 1952 recording of Air Force Captain Edward Ruppelt, who went on to run Project Blue Book.
Consistent with prior tranches, reporting noted no conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial life or government cover-up, and AARO's standing position remains that it has found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial activity. The interagency effort coordinates the White House, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Department of Energy, AARO, NASA, FBI, and additional intelligence agencies. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, DNI Tulsi Gabbard, FBI Director Kash Patel, and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman all issued statements supporting the release. With six tranches now public across four months, the rolling-release framework is a functioning, recurring process rather than a stated intention, with the Department stating that additional files will continue to be released on a rolling basis. On May 9, the Department of War announced it has actively opened a case to reanalyze the Apollo 17 anomaly using the original film. For the institutional context, see our UAP disclosure timeline.
Primary Source · Department of War
The declassified files are publicly available via the Department of War's dedicated portal — no clearance required.
The first PURSUE tranche, made public via the Department of War's dedicated portal at war.gov/UFO, includes never-before-seen materials alongside previously redacted files now available in fuller form. Key items in the initial release:
Apollo-era imagery. Photographs from the Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 lunar missions showing unexplained lights and shapes against the lunar terrain. One Apollo 17 image highlights three lights visible above the moon's surface. A transcript of Apollo 17 communications between operators captures the moment of observation: "Now we've got a few very bright particles or fragments or something that go drifting by as we maneuver."
FBI infrared stills. Black-hot infrared imagery from September 2025 showing unidentified objects over the western United States.
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command imagery. A football-shaped UAP captured by U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific theater, near Japan.
FBI Photo B2. Black-hot infrared still image of unidentified object(s) over the western United States, September 2025. Source: Department of War / FBI, released via war.gov/UFO.U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, near Japan. Reported UAP resembling a football-shaped body, captured by an infrared sensor. Source: Department of War / U.S. INDOPACOM, released via war.gov/UFO.
Department of War 17-asset carousel. A curated archive of UAP-related imagery covering decades of unresolved military encounters.
The Department of War noted that "all of the files were reviewed for security purposes" but that "many of the materials have not yet been analyzed for resolution of any anomalies" — meaning the government is releasing the raw record without representing that anomalies have been adjudicated.
Official Statements
Department of War · Official PURSUE Directive Page
"The materials archived here are unresolved cases, meaning the government is unable to make a definitive determination on the nature of the observed phenomena. This can occur for a variety of reasons, including a lack of sufficient data, and the Department of War welcomes the application of private-sector analysis, information and expertise."
Pete Hegseth · Secretary of War
"The Department of War is in lockstep with President Trump to bring unprecedented transparency regarding our government's understanding of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation — and it's time the American people see it for themselves."
Tulsi Gabbard · Director of National Intelligence
"The American people have long sought transparency about the government's knowledge of unidentified anomalous phenomena. Today's release is the first in what will be an ongoing joint declassification and release effort."
Kash Patel · FBI Director
"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. The FBI remains committed to supporting this rolling declassification effort with the same rigor and integrity we bring to every national security matter."
Jared Isaacman · NASA Administrator
"I applaud President Trump's whole-of-government effort to bring greater transparency to the American people on unidentified anomalous phenomena. 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."
Primary Sources
All PURSUE material is published by the U.S. government and is available directly from the official portal. Readers are encouraged to examine the primary records rather than rely on secondary characterizations — including this page's. The Department of War maintains a searchable database filterable by release, agency, and file type, and publishes each tranche as downloadable document and video bundles.
AARO.mil — the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, including its statutorily mandated annual reports on resolved cases.
A note on the imagery accompanying Release 05: of the nine images featured in the official slideshow, eight are labeled by the Department of War as digital renderings — illustrations produced from witness descriptions rather than sensor data or photographs. They depict what observers reported seeing; they are not themselves evidence of what was present. The video bundle contains the sensor and camera footage, including thermal imagery. This distinction is easy to lose in secondary coverage and is worth carrying into any assessment of the release.
Live Updates
September 18, 2026 — Sixth tranche released
The Department of War published the sixth PURSUE tranche on war.gov/UFO (Release 06). Per CBS News, the batch comprises 71 files — 55 PDF documents, 15 videos, and one audio recording — 67 provided by the Department and, for the first time in the program, four submitted by local law enforcement in Colorado. Sixty-four of the 71 files contain redactions; document dates span 1952 to 2025. The release arrived four days after the Department's legal waiver for UAP disclosures, and 42 days after the fifth tranche — the longest interval in the program to date.
The centerpiece is a set of documents from the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), established by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2008 and terminated in 2012, whose stated objective was to understand "the physics and engineering" of advanced aerospace weapon applications "as they apply to the foreign threat out to the far term, i.e., from now through the year 2050." The release includes the program's July 2008 Statement of Objectives and 37 "Defense Intelligence Reference Documents" (DIRDs) on topics including warp drives, wormholes, antigravity, negative-mass propulsion, and invisibility cloaking. All 37 DIRDs have been publicly available for years through Freedom of Information Act releases; the September 18 versions restore some previously withheld details, such as the names of the DIA offices that produced them. The Pentagon's own accompanying notes are explicit that the DIRDs are "best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research" and "should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed."
The single most-discussed document is a 38-page 2010 DIRD titled Anomalous Acute and Subacute Field Effects on Human Biological Tissues, which analyzed "evidence of unintended injury to human observers by anomalous advanced aerospace systems." It describes three "antennae engineers" who experienced an unexplained aerospace-related event and subsequently suffered skin heating and redness, hair loss, and — in one case — "signs of radiation illness" and, over several years, "signs of malignant transformations." The study did not identify the source of the exposure. Its analytical frame is conventional radiofrequency injury: the author compared the three cases against 42 published and roughly 300 unpublished incidents of known-source RF injury, and offered as a hypothesis that "some advanced systems are already deployed, and opaque to full US understanding" — language consistent with undisclosed terrestrial systems as much as with anything else. The document is a contractor synthesis from 2010, subject to the Pentagon's blanket disclaimer above.
Other contents follow the established pattern. Most videos are grainy military sensor footage of fast-moving unexplained objects: a 2022 Middle East encounter with 1–2 meter objects "flying spora[d]ically" at 80–180 mph, and a 2025 Middle East video of "six small spherical objects" that "seemed to be agile" and were "frequently changing direction," both unresolved. The four Colorado law-enforcement clips are partially blurred cellphone footage from October 2023 of a "silent" phenomenon with "red, blue, and green flashing lights." Historical material includes an hour-long 1952 audio recording and transcript of Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt — who would go on to lead Project Blue Book — explaining that of roughly 800 reports investigated, "about 20% are very good reports offered by very reliable people and … just absolutely no conclusions can be drawn." Several additional Project Blue Book files are included.
The counterweight is stated by the Department itself in this release more explicitly than in any prior tranche. AAWSAP's existence has been publicly known since 2017, its reference documents have circulated for years, and the Pentagon has now released them with a written disclaimer that they validate nothing. AARO's standing position is unchanged: no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial activity or technology. What the release adds to the record is institutional context — the program's stated objectives, its organizational provenance, and the government's own characterization of its output — rather than new evidence. See the full disclosure timeline →
September 14, 2026 — DoW legal waiver for disclosures to PURSUE
The Department of War announced, in an official press release, a targeted legal waiver authorizing all current and former DoW service members, civilian personnel, and contractors holding UAP-related National Defense Information to disclose it directly to designated PURSUE representatives. The waiver "supersedes civil and administrative enforcement provisions" of both nondisclosure agreements and Special Access Program indoctrination agreements, "strictly for communications directed to the PURSUE team." It is the Department's implementation of the July presidential directive, paralleling the ODNI memorandum that covered the intelligence community.
The SAPIA provision is the substantive addition. Individuals claiming knowledge of compartmented UAP programs have consistently cited special-access indoctrination terms — not ordinary NDAs — as the legal barrier, and the release acknowledges this directly. The scope is unchanged from July: disclosures flow to PURSUE for "systematic review, security evaluation, and potential declassification" — a government channel with no commitment to public release. The measure removes a stated obstacle; whether it produces anything is now a testable question. Within a week, three prominent claimed witnesses — Grusch, Borland, and Brown — publicly petitioned the President for a broader waiver permitting disclosure to the public rather than to PURSUE, and none has stated that he has used the channel now open to him. The pre-waiver baseline is small: AARO’s FY2025 annual report counted seven individuals, over the twelve months to May 30, 2025, whose claims warranted a follow-on interview. See the full disclosure timeline →
August 7, 2026 — Fifth tranche released
The Department of War published the fifth PURSUE tranche on war.gov/UFO (Release 05). Per CBS News, the batch comprises 41 files — a mix of documents, images, and videos — drawn from the Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, and the Executive Office of the President, with the oldest records dating to 1950 and the most recent to this year. In a statement, Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said the Department "will release additional files on a rolling basis" and that the Department and its agency partners are "actively working on the next release."
Reported contents include an FBI interview summary in which a former military pilot described a large, silent triangular object that blocked out the stars over Afghanistan in 2002; a September 2021 incident over the Gulf of Oman in which U.S. Special Operations personnel aboard an AC-130J gunship reported approximately 25 encounters with objects described in an intelligence report as "cold orbs" flying between 250 and 1,300 mph in formation, maneuvering aggressively, and appearing to react after the aircraft fired its main cannon; a 2025 U.S. Central Command clip showing an object crossing a populated area in the Middle East; and an FBI account from a former Pentagon employee describing a nearly translucent triangular object over his Colorado home in October 2023. The Gulf of Oman and CENTCOM incidents both remain unresolved by AARO. The release also contains FBI-created renderings based on firsthand witness accounts.
The counterweight remains consistent with every prior tranche. CBS News characterized the bulk of the release as "the type of grainy videos that have been the hallmark of past disclosures," and AARO's standing position is unchanged: it has found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial activity or technology. AARO director Dr. Jon Kosloski put it directly in an August interview with TIME: "Great claims require great evidence, and the evidence just isn't there yet." Unresolved is not equivalent to anomalous — AARO's FY2025 annual report attributed the substantial majority of its resolved caseload to balloons, birds, satellites, aircraft, drones, and satellite flaring.
July 2026 — AARO's FY2025 annual report (separate from PURSUE)
Distinct from the PURSUE releases, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office published its congressionally mandated Fiscal Year 2025 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP, covering June 2024 through May 2025. Its findings are predominantly prosaic: of 319 reports received, 114 were resolved as balloons, birds, satellites, aircraft, drones, and single instances of a rocket launch and a manned jet pack, while a new 3D modeling capability attributed 238 reports to satellite flaring. Nine reports were flagged for further analysis, and AARO reiterated that no case it has resolved indicates advanced foreign capabilities or breakthrough technologies in any domain.
Notable open items include a single maritime case in which U.S. Navy assets off the Virginia coast reported roughly 100 airborne objects and two likely uncrewed surface systems — under active investigation — and two cases of electronic or avionic interference near operational aircraft, causation undetermined. AARO also noted 50 notifications of uncrewed aerial systems near nuclear infrastructure and launch sites (up from 18 the prior year), none classified as UAP, and acknowledged that a "lack of timely and actionable sensor data continues to constrain" its ability to resolve cases. The report was published several months later than the customary annual cycle. See the full disclosure timeline →
July 10, 2026 — Fourth tranche released
The U.S. military released the fourth PURSUE tranche on war.gov/UFO (Release 04). Per CBS News, the batch comprises 40 files in total — 14 documents, 19 videos, 4 audio files, and 3 images — drawn from the Pentagon, NASA, the CIA, the FBI, and the Department of Energy. The release resumes the rolling-disclosure cycle after a roughly four-week gap following the June 12 third tranche. That pause had prompted speculation the program was stalling; ahead of this release, Mike Gold — a member of the White House-tasked UAP Science Advisory Council — stated the delay reflected a transition rather than a halt: the earlier tranches had drawn largely on already-public or "low-hanging" material, while the ongoing work involves the slower process of formally declassifying still-classified records.
Notable contents identified in reporting (NewsNation, The Hill, The Debrief) include: a 2020 Atlantic Ocean video of a blob-shaped object with narrower filaments dangling beneath it, described as matching long-rumored "floating brain" or "jellyfish" UAP footage; a 2023 Yellow Sea video, nearly five minutes long, in which a U.S. military platform's electro-optical and infrared sensor footage appears to progressively degrade over the course of the encounter; a 2019 "Range Fouler" debrief over the Eastern United States in which a U.S. aviator described an object's flight characteristics as "unlike anything [they] had seen" in 28 years of Air Force and Navy service; and a 2024–2025 Indo-Pacific Command series including an object over the Yellow Sea described as "an area of contrast resembling a six-pointed star." Historical documents include a 1949 conference at Los Alamos on "green fireball" sightings attended by prominent physicists (some of whom had worked on the Manhattan Project), a 1948 Project Sign document compiling roughly 100 reports from 1947–48, and a 1996 STS-80 NASA image of a triangular object photographed from Space Shuttle Columbia.
The sober counterweight is important and comes from within the UAP-research community itself: as The Debrief summarized, most of the new videos "leave much to the imagination" — small, blurry objects captured on multi-sensor targeting systems — and to date none of the PURSUE material provides clear examples of objects attributable to unknown aircraft or to unusual or advanced technologies. Consistent with all prior tranches, reporting noted no conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial life or government cover-up; AARO's standing position remains that it has found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial activity or technology. (Note: a separately circulating claim that "China and Russia may have retrieved objects," cross-linked in some coverage, is an unsourced third-party assertion and is not part of the tranche's contents.)
The Department of War published the third PURSUE tranche on war.gov/UFO — 72 files in total. Per CBS News, the release comprises 53 documents and 10 images — drawn from the CIA, FBI, NASA, the Department of Defense, and other agencies — alongside 6 videos and 3 NASA audio recordings, dating from the 1940s to the present. The videos depict orb-like objects, with an accompanying set of images and clips offering "artistic interpretations" of reported sightings. Several documents detail 2023 encounters reported by federal law enforcement officers, including one in which an agent recounted a partner asking "Are you seeing this?" as a glowing orb lit the sky, and a Cheyenne Mountain–area sighting of a "potato-shaped" object with an opalescent, fish-scale appearance. The release also included over two hours of Apollo 16 mission debrief audio and a 1962 Gordon Cooper–Walter Cronkite interview. A report dated June 5, attributed to AARO director Dr. Jon Kosloski, has been widely cited (notably by Harvard's Avi Loeb, who reviewed the release on CBS) as describing still-unresolved cases — including an orange "mother" orb observed launching smaller orbs — and as indicating that a substantial share of analyzed phenomena lack a conventional explanation and remain unresolved. Notably, the tranche also surfaced a CIA internal-history admission that secret U-2 and OXCART spy-plane flights accounted for more than half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and 1960s, with Project Blue Book offering the public alternative explanations to protect the programs — a documented case of mundane origins behind a large share of historical sightings. The Pentagon stated that war.gov/UFO has received over 1.7 billion hits worldwide since its May 8 launch and that additional releases are in preparation. Consistent with prior tranches, reporting noted no conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial life or government cover-up; AARO's standing position remains that it has found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial activity or technology. See the full disclosure timeline →
June 12, 2026 — Context: the U-2 / OXCART precedent
One of the third tranche's most substantive — and most sobering — items is a CIA internal-history document addressing the spy-plane era. Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force's UFO investigation effort (1952–1969), routinely cross-checked reported sightings against classified U-2 and, later, OXCART (A-12) reconnaissance flight logs. The high-altitude aircraft, with their reflective surfaces catching sunlight at altitudes far above where any civilian aircraft then flew, generated a flood of "unidentified" reports from pilots and ground observers. The CIA history states plainly that investigators "could not reveal to the letter writers the true cause of the UFO sightings," and that "U-2 and later OXCART flights accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and most of the 1960s." Investigators issued natural-phenomena and weather explanations as cover to protect the classified programs. The quoted passage originates in a CIA history of the U-2 program (declassified in 2014) and was resurfaced in the June 12 release. Its significance for an honest reading of the disclosure record is twofold: it confirms that the government did, at times, knowingly issue false public explanations for sightings — validating long-standing suspicion of a cover-up — while simultaneously demonstrating that the cover-up concealed terrestrial classified technology, not extraterrestrial craft. It is a useful corrective against interpreting raw historical sighting counts as evidence of non-human activity: a documented majority of that era's reports had a mundane, now-declassified origin. See the full disclosure timeline →
June 12, 2026 — Context: the 1952–53 Robertson Panel
The third tranche also included documents from the Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects — the "Robertson Panel," convened by the CIA in January 1952 and 1953 and chaired by physicist H.P. Robertson. The panel concluded that flying saucers posed no direct physical threat to national security, but recommended an official policy of "debunking" the UFO subject to "strip the … UFO subject of its mystery." It warned that a "morbid national psychology" around UFOs could be exploited by adversaries to overload official reporting channels or induce mass hysteria, and suggested public-education and media efforts to reduce public interest in the topic. Its inclusion in the release is significant for the same reason as the U-2/OXCART admission above: it is a primary-source, documented instance of the U.S. government deliberately shaping public perception of UFOs — here, actively working to reduce credulity rather than conceal craft. For a careful reader, the two items together establish that government perception-management around UFOs is a matter of record, while also showing that the documented motives were institutional (channel overload, counterintelligence, program secrecy) rather than the concealment of confirmed non-human contact. See the full disclosure timeline →
Show earlier updates — program launch and first two tranches (May 8–22, 2026), 18 entries
May 22, 2026 — Second tranche released
The Department of War published the second PURSUE tranche on war.gov/UFO, delivering on Chief Pentagon Spokesperson Sean Parnell's May 18 confirmation. Per CBS News, the core release comprises 64 files — 6 PDF documents, 7 audio files, and 51 videos — with each video clip accompanied by a detailed description; some outlets reported a higher total file count including supporting assets. The official statement read: "Today, the Department of War is publishing the second release of declassified and historical Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) files as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The collection continues to be housed on WAR.GOV/UFO, and additional files will be released on a rolling basis." The release's most widely reported item is a memo from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) documenting a 2025 first-hand account from a senior U.S. intelligence officer who, on a helicopter mission to investigate "thuds" near a mountain range, described "a series of close UAP encounters lasting over an hour." The officer reported "countless orange orbs swarming in all directions against the backdrop of the mountain," and two large orbs that flared up beside the helicopter — "oval-shaped, orange with a white or yellow center, and emitted light in all directions" — stationary just above the rotor disk. A ground team radioed that one object "had risen from the ground, approached within ten feet of the helicopter, dropped below us and sped away." After fighter jets were scrambled, the officer recounted that "the same orbs we had encountered were now 'chasing' the fighters," matching their speed and flight path. The officer also described "orange orbs flaring up and down around us for several minutes, forming a distinct triangle before vanishing," before concluding: "We were virtually speechless after these observations." The memo records no conclusion about the objects' nature. Other notable items in the release include: a U.S. Coast Guard infrared sensor video from April 2024 showing an object near an aircraft over the southeastern United States; newly released Pentagon footage of the February 2023 shootdown of an unidentified object over Lake Huron, Michigan — an event the U.S. publicly acknowledged at the time — which AARO describes as "likely derived from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform"; a five-minute "Syrian UAP instant acceleration" video recorded in 2021; a 116-page file documenting 209 reports of unidentified phenomena at the Sandia, New Mexico secure facility between 1948 and 1950; and Apollo 12 mission audio in which astronauts Conrad, Gordon, and Bean describe "streaks of lights" (which NASA later attributed to internal visual effects rather than external sources).
U.S. Coast Guard, southeastern United States, April 2024. Infrared sensor still of an unidentified object near an aircraft, from a video in the second PURSUE tranche. The Pentagon notes such descriptions should not be read as "reflecting an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination." Source: Department of War / U.S. Coast Guard, released via war.gov/UFO.
The Pentagon attached an explicit caveat to the video descriptions, stating readers "should not interpret any part of this description as reflecting an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the described event's validity, nature, or significance." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said: "It's time the American people see it for themselves." Critically, the statement confirmed that "the Department of War and our agency partners are actively working on the third release of UAP files, which will be announced in the near future." With two tranches now public and a third in active production, the rolling-release framework has moved from stated commitment to demonstrated operational reality. Rep. Tim Burchett, who had previewed the release on May 14 by stating the first batch would be "a drop in the bucket" compared to what was coming and that "'Holy Crap' is coming," framed the ongoing disclosure as accelerating. As with the first tranche, analysts reviewing the material cautioned that the files document unresolved cases without providing definitive proof of extraterrestrial origin. See the full disclosure timeline →
May 18, 2026 — Parallel disclosure channel
A second disclosure channel opened alongside PURSUE: the National Security Agency released more than 330 pages of historical UAP records — many marked TOP SECRET UMBRA, among the most sensitive classifications in the U.S. signals-intelligence system — after a Freedom of Information Act appeal by the Disclosure Foundation. The NSA's own appeals authority ruled the agency's original blanket denial improper. The case traces to a 1980 FOIA lawsuit; the NSA's defending affidavit (the "Yeates Memo") was declassified in 2009, but the underlying intelligence material had never been released until now. The records document objects with measured azimuth and bearing data and at least eight instances of fighter aircraft scrambled to intercept unidentified objects. The Disclosure Foundation — whose advisory board includes physicist Dr. Harold Puthoff — stated it will continue challenging remaining redactions. This is significant because it demonstrates institutional UAP disclosure now advancing through two parallel channels at once: the administration's voluntary PURSUE releases and legally-compelled FOIA litigation reaching the most sensitive classification tiers. Full context on the disclosure timeline →
May 18, 2026 — Second tranche imminent
Chief Pentagon Spokesperson Sean Parnell — Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and senior advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — confirmed in an official post on his verified X account: "Over 1 BILLION users around the world have visited https://war.gov/UFO. The second release of UAP files are actively being processed for publication on the site. More to come very soon!" The announcement is the first official Pentagon confirmation that the second PURSUE tranche is in active production. Parnell's statement comes ten days after the May 8 first tranche, consistent with the administration's stated framework of rolling releases "every few weeks." The "over 1 billion users" statistic — measured 12-13 days after war.gov/UFO launched, building on the 340 million hits captured in the first 12 hours — establishes the disclosure portal as the most heavily-trafficked institutional UAP communication channel in U.S. government history. Combined with Japan's May 11 Chief Cabinet Secretary response and the documented congressional pressure for additional video releases (Rep. Luna's 46-video demand, Rep. Burchett's "30-40 videos" claim on the Ruthless Podcast on May 14, Rep. Burlison's MIT Lincoln Labs letter on May 14), the PURSUE framework is now operating as a sustained, multi-agency, cross-administrative, internationally-coordinated declassification cycle. Specific content of the second tranche has not been previewed by the Pentagon. See the full disclosure timeline →
May 15, 2026 — Major institutional development
Japan becomes the first allied government to formally respond to the U.S. PURSUE program. On May 11, 2026, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara — the Japanese government's top spokesman — addressed PURSUE at a regular news conference, confirming that Tokyo is "analyzing with great interest" the U.S. release, which included two videos of UAP near Japanese airspace. Kihara stated: "Regarding incidents related to our national security — including UAPs — we are constantly gathering and analyzing information with great interest, while maintaining close coordination with the United States and other countries." Most significantly, the Chief Cabinet Secretary confirmed Japan possesses UAP data including video footage and signaled that public disclosure of Japanese UAP files will begin within the limits of national security restrictions, with specific decisions made case-by-case considering intelligence-gathering protection. On May 12, former AATIP director Luis Elizondo publicly confirmed that Japan has been seeking a bilateral information-sharing agreement with the U.S. on UAP, citing increased frequency of UAP encounters near Japanese airspace. The Kihara statement is the first formal, on-the-record allied-government commitment to UAP disclosure in coordination with the PURSUE framework — building on Japan's pre-existing institutional infrastructure including the Parliamentary UAP Caucus and the March 2026 formal proposal aligned with President Trump's directive. Full context on Japan's institutional UAP architecture →
Late afternoon ET — May 10, 2026
A specific case from the released archive draws renewed attention: the April 26, 2013 Aguadilla, Puerto Rico incident, captured by an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft (under the Department of Homeland Security) over Rafael Hernandez Airport. According to the official record, the object was tracked at low altitude across the airport perimeter, then entered the Atlantic Ocean at approximately 90 miles per hour with minimal surface impact — a transmedium capability (operating in both air and water) that defies known propulsion physics. The Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, which conducted an extensive 2015 analysis of the video, characterized it as "the best documentation of an unknown aerial and submerged nautical object exhibiting advanced technology" the authors had then encountered. The footage has circulated publicly since 2013 through unofficial channels; its inclusion in the PURSUE release at war.gov/UFO formally elevates it to an institutionally-archived federal record. The incident also broadens the disclosure's institutional footprint beyond Department of Defense — extending to Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection — reinforcing the multi-agency framing of the PURSUE program. The Aguadilla case is among the most-studied transmedium UAP incidents in modern history.
Late morning ET — May 10, 2026
As reporters work through the FBI files released Friday, the source documents have come into sharper focus. The most-discussed material centers on a 1966 internal FBI summary memo — not 1965 generally, as initial coverage suggested — that catalogued witness accounts from what FBI investigators at the time characterized as "the year of the greatest number of UFO sightings." The memo describes witness reports of beings approximately three-and-a-half to four feet tall, described as wearing "space suits and helmets," observed emerging from craft. Wreckage descriptions reference magnesium alloys, "an unknown metal" containing tiny metallic spheres, and material with apparent micro-meteorite-impact patterns. Craft typologies range from disc-shaped saucers and egg-shaped vehicles to "gigantic zeppelin type vehicles" measuring hundreds of feet in length. Physical effects in witness accounts include tremendous heat, light, scorched ground at landing sites, and electromagnetic disruption of nearby devices. The 1966 memo also discussed public reaction to Frank Edwards's 1966 book Flying Saucers — Serious Business and noted that then-Congressman Gerald Ford — later 38th President of the United States — had publicly called for official hearings into the phenomenon. A separate file in the release surfaces the historic March 22, 1950 memo from Guy Hottel, then Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Washington field office, to Director J. Edgar Hoover, describing reports of small beings recovered with craft in New Mexico. Important framing: these are reports the FBI catalogued in formal files at the time, not findings the FBI subsequently confirmed. The Pentagon's per-record disclaimer applies — descriptive language reflects subjective witness or officer interpretation, not investigative conclusion. The institutional significance is that the U.S. government has now released this material in an official transparency framework with reduced redactions, surfacing material whose existence (the Hottel memo, the 1966 summary) has long been a matter of FBI Vault record but whose institutional treatment has now been formally recontextualized through PURSUE.
Morning ET — May 10, 2026
The Washington Post publishes its first major analysis of the release: "Trump officials release UFO files, say public can judge for themselves." The Post notes "it was not immediately clear whether the collection of videos, photos and interviews would significantly advance the public's understanding," echoing NBC's framing from the day before. With WaPo coverage now active, the release has been picked up across the full top tier of U.S. mainstream prestige outlets (NYT op-ed by Tyson, NBC, CBS, CNN, AP, Fox News, WaPo) and across international wire syndication (Al Jazeera, AeroTime, NewsGram, 1News, The Mirror, Reuters). In a separate cultural marker, OSV News reports that a Vatican parish hosted a discussion event on UFOs and extraterrestrial life within hours of the PURSUE release — a small but notable institutional-religious response, consistent with the Vatican Observatory's longstanding engagement with the question of life beyond Earth.
Late evening ET — May 9, 2026 (III)
Reactions to the release span the disclosure-credibility spectrum. Peter Skafish, Director of the Sol Foundation — a research organization focused on UAP science — characterized the release as a positive but limited first step: "While today's new step toward a full disclosure of government knowledge concerning UAP is welcome, many more need to be taken to bring an end to the decades of secrecy by which the American people were kept in the dark." The Sol Foundation simultaneously called for legislation forcing a thorough review of classified UAP records relating to "technologies and vehicles not of human origin." On the skeptical side, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — previously a staunch Trump ally — described the release as "'look at the shiny object' propaganda," echoing Sean Kirkpatrick's earlier "shiny object" framing. Each individual record on war.gov/UFO carries an explicit Pentagon disclaimer: "Readers should not interpret any part of this description as reflecting an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the described event's validity, nature, or significance." The institutional posture is deliberate: release the raw record, decline to adjudicate.
Late evening ET — May 9, 2026 (II)
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna issued her formal response to the release. Per Globe News and PBS coverage, Luna stated Friday that the 46 specific UAP videos she demanded by name on April 1 "will be released later by the Pentagon." This is materially significant: the May 8 PURSUE Tranche 1 does not include the Luna 46. Those remain a separate, future release. Combined with the Trump administration's stated cadence of new tranches "every few weeks," the Luna 46 are now reframed as a potential subsequent tranche rather than the Tranche 1 contents many had anticipated. Rep. Tim Burchett, a longtime UAP transparency advocate, thanked Trump for "keeping his word" on transparency and added: "Transparency won't all happen at once, it will take some time."
Late evening ET — May 9, 2026 (I)
CBS News and CNN coverage surfaces additional substantive content from the release. Among the most significant: the FBI file 62-HQ-83894, released with fewer redactions than prior versions, includes a memo from the Bureau's Dallas field office reporting that a major in the U.S. Air Force called to inform the office "that an object purporting to be a flying disc was recovered near Roswell, New Mexico." This marks the first time the U.S. government has released, within an official institutional transparency framework, a primary FBI source document referencing the Roswell incident as a recovered object. Separately, the release includes a composite sketch derived from an eyewitness account: "an apparent ellipsoid bronze metallic object materializing out of a bright light in the sky, 130-195 feet in length, and disappearing instantaneously." Quantitative detail on the released videos: roughly two dozen video files totaling 41 minutes of footage, covering encounters spanning 2020-2026 globally — including a Greece 2023 incident in which a UAP made multiple 90-degree turns at approximately 80 miles per hour, a Mediterranean encounter in which a pilot reported a "triangular and metallic UAP" at 25,000 feet, and additional reports from Iraq, Syria, the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Aden, and United Arab Emirates. President Trump posted on Truth Social that the documents allow people to "decide for themselves, 'WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?'"
Composite sketch, FBI case 62-HQ-83894. An eyewitness-derived composite of "an apparent ellipsoid bronze metallic object materializing out of a bright light in the sky, 130–195 feet in length, and disappearing instantaneously." Source: Department of War / FBI, released via war.gov/UFO.
Evening ET — May 9, 2026
A specific case surfaces from the released archive: a 1994 State Department cable from the U.S. embassy in Tajikistan documenting American and Tajik pilots witnessing a brightly lit UAP while flying. According to the cable, the object was "corkscrewing across the sky," making "90 degree turns," and "maneuvering in circles at great rates of speed." Separately, former AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick told the Associated Press that the released documents do not contain evidence of alien contact: "Readers should not get their hopes up that there's going to be some document with photos, interviewing the aliens when they come down. Because that just doesn't exist." Kirkpatrick's framing reinforces his earlier May 3 characterization of the disclosure cycle as "bluster" and a "shiny object." International coverage of the release has expanded to outlets including AeroTime, NewsGram, 1News, and The Mirror, marking full global wire syndication.
Late afternoon ET — May 9, 2026
Department of War announces it has actively opened a case to investigate the Apollo 17 photograph showing three lights in triangular formation in the lower right quadrant of the lunar sky. The DOW has obtained the original film from the 1972 mission. According to the official statement: "New preliminary US government analysis suggests the image feature is potentially the result of a physical object in the scene." Full NASA and DOW analysis to be released when complete. This marks the first time the U.S. government has formally treated an Apollo-era anomaly as warranting active reanalysis rather than archival release alone.
Afternoon ET — May 9, 2026
Independent inventory of the war.gov/UFO release confirms the first tranche at approximately 160-162 files — 118 PDFs, 28 MP4 videos, 8 PNGs, and 6 JPGs — totaling roughly 3.7 GB. The video tranche (28 MP4s, ~1.27 GB) was added on May 9, the day after the initial document release, which is why early counts cited 132 files before settling at the higher figure. Of the PDFs, 54 contain text layers and 64 are scanned without text. Each video carries a Presidential Release identifier (PR-19, PR-21 through PR-23, PR-26 through PR-29, PR-31 through PR-49). The Trump administration has confirmed the archive will be updated with new tranches "every few weeks." The first tranche focuses on cases where the government has been unable to make a definitive determination on the nature of the phenomena observed.
Mid-day ET — May 9, 2026
NBC News publishes the first major mainstream analysis of the released files. The network's assessment is that the documents do not suggest a wide-ranging government cover-up of extraterrestrial encounters and contain no indication of past government interaction with non-human beings. NBC also observes that the Pentagon's rolling-tranche release model appears to mirror the Department of Justice's December 2025 approach to releasing the Epstein Files.
Morning ET — May 9, 2026
Specific contents from the released files begin surfacing in mainstream coverage. A representative UAP report describes a linear, metallic-gray object with a bright white light on its east side displaying visible "bands within the light." Witnesses estimated it as roughly the size of one to two Blackhawk helicopters — smaller than a 737, larger than a drone — with no wings or exhaust. The object was at approximately 5,000 feet altitude, moved east to west, and vanished after 5-10 seconds. The Department of War noted that redactions in the documents protect witness identities and sensitive military information unrelated to UAP.
Late afternoon ET — May 8, 2026
Mainstream coverage cycling through Fox News, OAN, The Mirror, The Debrief, AeroTime, and Standard Newswire. The Debrief notes the release is "what officials say will unfold over the coming weeks and months." Volume of impressions across disclosure-related search queries is reportedly spiking.
Mid-afternoon ET — May 8, 2026
Rep. Tim Burchett, who introduced the UAP Transparency Act, publicly thanks the President for "keeping his word." No formal statement yet from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna or her House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets regarding whether today's release satisfies her April 1 demand for 46 specific classified UAP videos.
Morning ET — May 8, 2026
Department of War announces PURSUE program and goes live with war.gov/UFO. Cabinet-level statements from Secretary Hegseth (War), DNI Gabbard, FBI Director Patel, and NASA Administrator Isaacman issued in coordinated rollout. White House framing: "no clearance required."
Background and Institutional Context
The May 8 launch was the culmination of an extended escalation through 2026. President Trump's February 19 directive ordered the Department of War to begin reviewing and declassifying UAP records. The ODNI confirmed in March that declassification was imminent. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna demanded 46 specific UAP video files by April 14; the Pentagon missed the deadline. On April 15, a War Department official confirmed AARO was coordinating with the White House to release "never-before-seen" UAP information. On April 29, Luna stated on the record that she had personally viewed evidence in a SCIF "of nonhuman origin and creation." On May 5, FBI Director Patel publicly confirmed an active interagency process. On May 8, that process produced its first public output.
The release went through war.gov/UFO, establishing that as the operative public channel for the program's rolling declassification. For the comprehensive chronology, see our UAP disclosure timeline.
What This Means
The PURSUE program represents the first formal, multi-agency, public-facing declassification framework specifically built for UAP material. Unlike prior piecemeal releases — the 2020 Navy infrared videos, scattered FOIA disclosures, AARO summary reports — PURSUE consolidates the disclosure architecture under a single named program with rolling releases, a dedicated portal, and Cabinet-level coordination across the Department of War, ODNI, DOE, AARO, NASA, FBI, and additional agencies.
The substance of the first tranche is mixed. Some materials are genuinely new; others are previously known but now available without redactions. Apollo-era imagery and infrared stills are evidentiary, not conclusive — the government has not represented that the released materials prove non-human origin. Defense officials have explicitly noted that "many of the materials have not yet been analyzed for resolution of any anomalies."
What is unambiguous is that the institutional posture has shifted. A formal program now exists. A dedicated portal is live. More tranches are scheduled. Whether subsequent releases yield definitive answers — or whether PURSUE remains a vehicle for managed transparency around unresolved cases — will define the disclosure trajectory through the remainder of 2026.
Related Coverage
For the comprehensive chronology that led to this release, see our UAP disclosure timeline. For profiles of the credentialed scientists and former officials interpreting the release, see our reference on UAP researchers. For broader international context — twelve national governments have run formal UAP investigation programs — see our reference on international UAP disclosure efforts. For the deeper history of the scientific search, see our coverage of SETI. For the specific scientific case currently under multi-spacecraft observation, see our coverage of 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object.
For the First.Contact domain, the PURSUE program is the most consequential institutional development since the site launched. While the released materials do not themselves confirm non-human intelligence, the launch of a formal multi-agency disclosure program signals that the U.S. government has moved decisively from denial to managed transparency. The domain remains the singular, irreplaceable communications address for the broader question of first contact.
First.Contact is available for acquisition by qualified institutional parties.
