The Pentagon has released a new batch of declassified UFO files, including never-before-seen footage of a mysterious orb speeding over the Middle East and a black sphere hovering over the Pacific Ocean that appears to vanish briefly before reappearing.
The latest disclosure – the fifth tranche of declassified unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) files – contains 41 files: 16 videos, three images, and 22 PDF documents. The oldest document dates to 1947, while the most recent is from this year. The release brings the total number of files made public to 375, following four earlier releases of previously secret or rarely seen UAP-related material.
While commonly known as UFOs more broadly, UAPs are observed objects or events in the air, sea, or space that cannot be immediately identified or explained.
According to the Defense Department (DOD), the government website established to house the materials, WAR.GOV/UFO, has received more than 1.7 billion hits worldwide since launching May 8. The DOD said it will release additional files on a rolling basis.
Under the Trump administration, the DOD was rebranded as the War Department.
What’s in the files?
Like the previous disclosures, this fifth release includes a mix of mostly unredacted historical documents and videos, as well as files detailing more recent events, including firsthand testimony from civilians and military personnel.
MeriTalk reviewed the newly released files and found several that stand out for their unusual imagery and detailed eyewitness testimony.
While the materials provide dramatic visuals and detailed accounts, they do not offer confirmation of extraterrestrial life.
One file contains a memorandum relating to the U.S. Naval Photographic Interpretation Center’s assessment of two films allegedly depicting UAPs, captured in Montana and Utah in 1950 and 1952, respectively.
The center assessed that the objects depicted in the films demonstrated characteristics that were inconsistent with natural phenomena or commonly known aerospace technologies. The center recommended a more well-resourced investigation to corroborate its presumptive findings, citing a lack of funding and personnel.
Another file is a collection of U.S. government memoranda and correspondence relating to Project Sign, a 1948 U.S. Air Force program to investigate reports of high-performance airborne objects. The documents characterize some of the reports as being consistent with “real” objects rather than fabrications or the result of perceptual errors.
The U.S. Air Force cited reported characteristics of the phenomena, including high speed and maneuverability, as exceeding known performance envelopes of U.S. military aircraft and potentially presenting a national security threat if validated. That potential threat prompted the Air Materiel Command (AMC), the service’s major command for logistics and procurement from 1946 to 1961, to gather further evidence to assess the validity of the reports.
AMC’s investigation found that observers were generally not mistaken when reporting that they had seen an airborne object, but that their descriptions of those objects as unusual were likely a reflection of the “limits of their personal experience.”
The investigation identified “a great many” of the objects reported with a rounded appearance as “weather or upper air scientific balloons of some type.” It also identified several cases in which the reported objects were most likely celestial phenomena, such as Venus.
AMC found that a small number of reports lacked a “reasonable everyday explanation,” but that “so far, no physical evidence of the existence of the unidentified sightings has been obtained.”
AMC expressly considered whether the phenomena may have been “vehicles from another planet,” but found no evidence supporting such an origin.
Ultimately, AMC found that “there is as yet no conclusive proof that UFO, other than those which are known to be balloons, are real aircraft.” AMC recommended that the DOD avoid publicly commenting on the subject of “flying discs.” In response to anticipated public interest, AMC recommended that the department reply in terms that minimized the investigation’s inconclusive findings, focusing on positive determinations in cases assessed to be weather balloons and celestial phenomena.
More recent files include 51 seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in the Middle East in 2023. The United States Central Command submitted the report of the UAP to the DOD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
The fourth file contains a 1 minute and 4 seconds video transferred by the U.S. Navy UAP Task Force to AARO in 2022. The footage is a secondary capture recorded with a handheld recording device of an infrared sensor display aboard a U.S. military platform in the Pacific Ocean.