Secretary of War Pete Hegseth confirmed Monday that the Department of Defense is working to identify and release government files related to UFOs, unidentified anomalous phenomena, and extraterrestrial life. The effort follows a directive from President Trump announced last week, ordering Hegseth and other agencies to begin the process.
Speaking at an "Arsenal of Freedom" tour stop in Denver, Hegseth said the department was "digging in" and would be in "full compliance" with Trump's order. He acknowledged he didn't expect to be handling the issue, but said he would review the material and "find out" alongside the public.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida said declassified records will be posted on the National Archives website.
According to Newsmax, the disclosure push arrives against a backdrop that should temper expectations. In 2024, an unclassified Pentagon-linked report from the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office found no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology. Many of the identified cases turned out to be ordinary objects.
That finding didn't kill public interest. If anything, it sharpened the question: if there's nothing to hide, why has the federal government spent decades treating UFO-related files like they contain nuclear launch codes?
That's the tension Trump's directive cuts through. The answer to secrecy isn't more secrecy. It's sunlight. Whether the files contain evidence of something genuinely unexplained or simply reveal decades of bureaucratic overcaution, the American public has a right to see what their government has been sitting on.
Trump's move was reportedly spurred in part by renewed public attention after former President Barack Obama discussed the statistical likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe. In an interview published February 14, YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen asked Obama point-blank: "Are aliens real?"
Obama's response:
"They're real, but I haven't seen them."
A fascinating sentence from a man who had access to every classified briefing the U.S. intelligence community could offer for eight years. Obama had every opportunity during his presidency to push for transparency on this issue. He didn't. He chose to let the ambiguity simmer, then dropped a cryptic one-liner on a YouTube channel years after leaving office.
That's a pattern with the previous administration: tease the public with half-answers, maintain the mystique, and never actually do the work of disclosure. Trump looked at the same question and issued a directive.
The UFO file release fits a broader philosophy that conservatives have championed for years: the federal government classifies too much, hoards too much, and trusts the public too little. The national security apparatus has developed a reflexive instinct toward secrecy that often has less to do with protecting Americans and more to do with protecting institutions from scrutiny.
This doesn't mean every released file will contain something dramatic. It probably won't. The 2024 report already suggested that most cases have mundane explanations. But the principle matters more than the payload. A government that voluntarily opens its files, even on a topic this culturally charged, signals something important about where power ultimately resides.
Hegseth's willingness to engage the issue publicly, rather than punt it to some interagency review committee that would bury it for another decade, reflects the administration's instinct to act rather than study. He told the public he'd review the material and find out what's there. That's the right posture.
Hegseth made his remarks during a broader tour that also included a stop in Louisville, Colorado, where he visited Sierra Space, a Colorado-based space-defense manufacturer and engineering company. The pairing isn't accidental. Space defense and the question of what the government knows about unexplained aerial phenomena occupy overlapping territory, both in terms of national security and public curiosity.
The mechanics of disclosure still need to unfold. Luna's statement about the National Archives suggests an effort to make the process accessible and permanent, not a controlled drip of redacted pages designed to satisfy the letter of the order while violating its spirit. That distinction will matter.
Skeptics will note, fairly, that the Pentagon's own office already concluded it found no evidence of extraterrestrial activity. Believers will argue the office wasn't looking hard enough, or in the right places. Both camps will get to examine the same material and draw their own conclusions.
That's how it's supposed to work. The government collects information on behalf of the people. The people get to see it. The debate happens in the open, not behind classification stamps.
Eight years in the Oval Office, and Obama gave America a riddle on YouTube. A few months in, and Trump gave America a directive. The files are coming.