From Apollo astronauts’ dispatches to modern military footage, newly released files by the Trump administration reopen the debate over unidentified flying objects and other anomalous phenomena
Disclosure Day is the title of the new sci-fi film directed by Steven Spielberg, slated for release on June 12. But even before Hollywood’s latest brush with extraterrestrial intrigue arrives in theatres, the United States government has staged a disclosure event of its own, triggering a fresh wave of fascination around the subject. On May 8, Washington released the first tranche of previously classified records linked to what officials now call Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAP—the contemporary and more scientific term for incidents once commonly described as UFO, or Unidentified Flying Object, sightings. The release, part of a newly created Pentagon portal called the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, or PURSUE, has so far included 220-plus declassified documents, videos and images across two tranches, the second released on May 22. The material ranges from Cold War-era eyewitness accounts of “flying discs” to infrared footage captured by sensors on modern military platforms.
Consider this radio exchange between the crew of the 1965 Gemini 7 spacecraft and mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, whose original handwritten notes—annotated “UFO Sighting by Borman”—have now been declassified.
Astronaut Frank Borman: Gemini 7 here, Houston—how do you read?
Houston: Loud and clear, Seven. Go ahead.
Borman: A bogey at ten o’clock high…
Houston: Roger. Gemini 7, is that the booster or is that an actual sighting?
Borman: We have debris up here—this is an actual sighting.
The object was later described by Borman’s crewmate Jim Lovell as a “brilliant body in the sun against a black background with trillions of particles on it”.