The Department of War launched war.gov/ufo in May 2026 and published two tranches of declassified UAP records. Here is a clear-eyed account of what was released, what it shows, and what it does not.
On May 8, 2026, the U.S. Department of War published the first tranche of declassified records under its new Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters - known by the acronym PURSUE. The files were posted to a dedicated public portal at war.gov/ufo, making decades of previously restricted government documentation on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
A second release followed on May 22, 2026. Together, the two drops represent the most substantial single act of government UAP declassification in American history, though analysts and researchers have been quick to note that volume does not equal revelation.
PURSUE is described on the war.gov portal as a multiagency effort directed by President Donald J. Trump to “expeditiously find, review, identify, declassify and publicly release unresolved Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena-related records and historical documents in the federal government’s possession.” The programme coordinates the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, NASA, the FBI, and other federal agencies.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth framed the first release in terms of public trust: “These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fuelled justified speculation - and it’s time the American people see it for themselves.” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard described the release as “the beginning of a continuing process” subject to ongoing review. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacson added that the agency would “remain candid about what we know to be true, what we have yet to understand and all that remains to be discovered.”
The May 8 tranche contained 162 items: 120 PDF documents, 28 videos, and 14 images. The records span from 1944 and 1945 to recent years and originate from multiple agencies. Included are field reports, internal military memos, pilot accounts, FBI interview transcripts, astronaut communications, and surveillance imagery.
Notable contents in the first release included photographs from the 1969 Apollo 12 mission on the lunar surface, a 2024 report of a football-shaped object sighted near Japan, and a September 2023 FBI composite sketch of an object described as a 130-to-195 foot bronze metallic ellipsoid. Pentagon officials described these as “unresolved cases” - meaning the government cannot make a definitive determination about what was observed.
At least 100 of the 162 files in the first release contained redactions, according to independent researchers who reviewed them. That detail drew criticism from some transparency advocates, who questioned why material presented as a disclosure effort retained significant black-bar edits.
The May 22 release expanded the archive substantially. It added 222 new documents alongside approximately 51 audio recordings and more than 40 videos. New material included infrared footage from 2019 Middle East operations showing multiple unidentified objects, historical military documents, and Apollo-era mission communications. One video was described as showing an object being shot down; another depicted four objects in formation near Iran in 2022.
The Interesting Engineering summary of the second release noted that the portal had received over one billion hits worldwide since launch, indicating the scale of public interest.
Pentagon officials were consistent across both releases: none of the material provides confirmation of extraterrestrial origin or advanced non-human technology. AARO, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, stated it has “found no evidence linking any recorded UAP to alien activity.”
Early independent analysis was measured. Analysts from The War Zone, which covers defence and aerospace closely, concluded that the first release contained “nothing groundbreaking” on initial review. Observers identified conventional explanations for several items - thermal imaging artefacts, likely surveillance balloons - and noted that the government’s ability to redact sensitive data while claiming prior inability to disclose raised questions about the completeness of the transparency exercise.
The continued absence from the releases of imagery from the high-profile 2023 shootdowns of four aerial objects over North America - incidents that generated significant congressional attention - was also noted by researchers tracking the PURSUE programme.
Officials described PURSUE as a process rather than a single event. A third batch of files is expected as review efforts continue, with AARO coordinating the identification and preparation of additional Department of War files for posting on war.gov/ufo.
The DefenseScoop reporting outlet, which has followed AARO’s work closely, described the programme as moving “the issue out of the fringe and into mainstream national security discourse.” The concern expressed by some UAP research advocates, however, was captured in a line that circulated after the first drop: “Data alone is not disclosure.” The existence of declassified files does not by itself answer whether those files represent a comprehensive accounting of what the government holds.
For now, war.gov/ufo provides a publicly searchable archive that - whatever its limitations - gives researchers, journalists, and citizens direct access to primary-source government records that were previously unavailable. That represents a genuine shift in the institutional posture of the U.S. government toward this subject, even if the contents of the released files remain, in the government’s own characterisation, unresolved.
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