WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Pentagon began posting declassified documents, photos and videos related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena on Friday, May 8. The release included a photo from an Unresolved UAP Report by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in 2024 showing a UAP that resembled a football-shaped body near Japan.

The release followed a Feb. 19 social media post by President Donald Trump directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other agency heads to begin the process of identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena and unidentified flying objects, and any other information connected to "these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters."

According to a government report, there were more than 750 new UAP sightings between May 2023 and June 2024. A video made public last year by a member of Congress shows a U.S. missile striking an unidentified glowing orb in the sky and appearing to bounce off it.

Sean Kirkpatrick, the first director of the Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, who led AARO from July 2022 to Dec. 1, 2023, said Trump's order is a distraction for the administration. "There are going to be unsatisfied people," Kirkpatrick said. "You're going to have a bunch of people who are going to continue to cry conspiracy, they're going to say there's a cover-up."

His office did not find proof of extraterrestrial life during his tenure. "Nothing would have made me happier in that job but to have discovered alien technology and rolled it out," he said. "The probability that extraterrestrial intelligent life is here is little to none," Kirkpatrick added.

Shelley Wright, an observational and experimental astrophysicist at the University of California San Diego who served on NASA's independent study team, said she was excited for the document release. Wright said she expects most of the documents to be heavily redacted due to the sensitivity of the surveillance equipment used by the military, and that releasing information could encroach on national security. She said the administration could declassify security and surveillance documents from decades ago, allowing scientists to study the material with new technologies that were not available when the data was originally collected.