If ever there was an exercise in futility, and a demonstration in intentional stupidity, it was the just dropped UFO files from the US Department of War. The release comes after President Trump ordered in February that the Pentagon and other agencies identify and publish governmental files related to “alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena, and unidentified flying objects.”
“These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation – and it’s time the American people see it for themselves,” said Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in a statement posted to social media. “This release of declassified documents demonstrates the Trump Administration’s earnest commitment to unprecedented transparency.”
The release is the latest example of UFO activity that began with a controversial 2017 article in the New York Times describing a secret Pentagon program to investigate UFOs. It was controversial because two of its three authors were UFO enthusiasts who omitted to add that the project also included looking into ghosts and werewolves. They also got a lot of the details, such as who ran the project, factually wrong.
It launched the careers of a new wave of UFO celebrities who fed the growing number of UFO YouTube channels and conferences. There were speaking tours, TV spots and book deals. They fueled the decades old suspicion that there is a cover-up, a conspiracy hiding our contact with so-called non-human intelligence and retrieved crashed spaceships. The key word was disclosure. Stephen Spielberg caught the zeitgeist and his new film, “Disclosure Day,” is out soon.
But the new files are a dull selection, many not even new to space historians and watchers of the skies. There is nothing that would remotely lead one to think twice about their implications, but that doesn’t matter. Physicist and former director of the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office Sean Kirkpatrick says the files are likely to fuel speculation rather than quell it. “There’s nothing unexpected in their release. And without any analysis or context, [it] will only serve to fuel more speculation, conspiracy and armchair pseudoscience, particularly from the playhouse politics theater company,” he says.
Some of the files refer to astronauts having seen something strange in space such as objects following them, glinting in the sunlight. Astronaut Frank Borman’s comments made during the December 1965 Gemini 7 mission are included in the release. But this is not new having been known at the time. Other astronauts saw similar things. The first American to orbit Earth John Glenn said his capsule was engulfed by fireflies later identified as paint specs. It’s part of space history and Borman’s observations are explained as rocket debris. We even know what bit of the rocket it is. So why is the Department of War now saying this is unexplained?
Other files show fuzzy dots. The problem with fuzzy dots is that they are…fuzzy dots. Another shows a pointed star-like object that has the striking symmetry of a snowflake. Some are saying it’s a craft of some sort. But far from being new this is a well known observation and is an optical diffraction effect.
It’s not the first time the US government has shown itself to be dumb when it comes to UFOs. In the first Congressional hearing on UFOs for over 50 years that took place in 2022 officials fawned over a fuzzy blue triangle. It took just seconds for others to realize it was an out of focus star, the triangular shape being due to the aperture of the camera.
Much attention has been focused on two pictures taken on the Moon. During the six moon landings about 6,000 pictures were taken on the surface with a Hasselblad camera specially made for the missions. Generally, the Apollo images are magnificent but there are in the newly released files two photos taken on the surface by Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 astronauts in which there are tiny smears of light only visible after considerable enhancement. It looks like film damage, and the smears do not appear on adjacent frames. There is not definitive explanation, but it certainly doesn’t look suspicious.
While some see a slight technical issue others see spaceships. On NewsNation Luis Elizondo (incorrectly described as the director of the Pentagon’s team in the 2017 New York Times article) said we didn’t have things orbiting the Moon back then (wrong) and that NASA has been lying Adding that we should wait until the videos come out from the Space Shuttle missions and find out what’s been going on with the International Space Station. I suspect that will come as news to those astronauts!
But you can’t disprove a conspiracy and the appetite for aliens remains strong. In 2021 the Pentagon said there was no evidence for aliens. In 2023 a NASA report said the same thing. Elon Musk has said none of his many thousands of satellites has encountered anything.
Perhaps this latest release might serve a purpose. Alien advocates are saying the good stuff is yet to come. They know this because they have seen it. The UFO community has many so-called whistleblowers, former intelligence and military officials along with some politicians who tell us they have seen or been briefed about aliens but can’t tell us because it’s secret. But now there is no longer any place to hide. Following President Trump’s initiative and the Department of War’s precedent they have no reason not to tell us in detail what they know.
Dull as they are, these latest files mark a turning point. Those who claim to have the alien evidence must now show us, no more excuses. If not, then the latest wave of UFO interest ends here. Until the next time.