Washington — The Pentagon released another collection of UFO-related records on Friday, referring to the sightings as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP. Among the materials was a military aviator’s account describing a puzzling object as “unlike anything I had seen” during 28 years in service.
The latest release contains 40 files in all: 14 documents, 19 videos, four audio recordings and three images. The materials originated from several federal entities, including the Pentagon, NASA, the CIA, the FBI and the Energy Department.
The Defense Department published the newly released records on its UFO website, where it has been collecting materials made public under an executive order President Trump signed earlier this year.
What’s in the new UFO files?
The disclosure follows the pattern of earlier releases, combining largely unredacted historical records with videos and other files describing more recent incidents.
One notable file from the Energy Department describes an unidentified object entering restricted airspace over Pantex, a nuclear weapons facility near Amarillo, Texas, in September 2015. The report includes statements from two officers who pursued the object while the site was placed under lockdown.
“Although they were unable to catch up to the object, they stopped their vehicle and got out. Once outside, they noted that the object did not make any sound. Furthermore, the [officers] stated that they were unable to identify any type of propulsion system on the object while using binoculars to assess the object,” the report said. “After viewing it for 1-2 minutes, the object then continued north offsite.”
Roughly half of the released files are dated 2010 or later, and several videos feature infrared imagery recorded by military systems. The low-resolution footage captures unidentified objects and encounters in locations around the globe, including the western Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic and the Middle East.
One such episode took place over the Atlantic in 2020. The files include footage of an object described as “a darker, maroonish color, approximately 12-15ft in height,” according to a heavily redacted accompanying report by a Navy crew member.
“Structurally, it appeared as a large, somewhat deformed balloon, but we were unable to verify that as we passed at the merge,” the weapons systems officer wrote, followed by two redacted lines. “We then proceeded back to the ship, landing uneventfully.”
The report is known as a “range fouler debrief,” which the Pentagon described as “a standardized reporting form the U.S. Navy uses to record the circumstances surrounding an unauthorized intrusion into controlled airspace during active military operations or training.”
Another debrief documented an object that an aviator saw in 2019 over the Eastern U.S., along with four other personnel.
“I noticed an object with flight characteristics unlike anything I had seen in my 28 years of performing for the [Air Force] and Navy,” the aviator wrote. “A small object was below us and appeared to be traveling in a straight line opposite our direction at high speed. I tracked it for ~10-15 seconds before we turned on the recorder to provide the attached video. When I zoomed in to try and achieve more resolution, the object’s speed took out of my FOV and I was unable to reacquire, even at a lower zoom. Upon analysis after the flight, the object appeared to be rectangular. Others with equal or more experience were also unsure as to what this object might be.”
The video of the incident shows what appears to be an object traveling at high speed:
The most recent events described in the fourth batch of files came in 2025 near China, under the military’s Indo-Pacific Command. One video shows a military sensor tracking “an area of contrast resembling a six-pointed star” over the Yellow Sea. Another seems to track an object over the East China Sea for several minutes.
The historical records include the transcript of a 1949 conference in Los Alamos, New Mexico, of top physicists and scientists, including those who worked on the Manhattan Project. The conference attendees tried and failed to explain “green fireballs” that had been spotted over the nuclear lab. One theory held that they were meteors entering the atmosphere, but a prominent astronomer noted that “nothing like this … has ever been observed in the case of meteorite drops.”
The Pentagon said Friday’s release is not the last disclosure under the president’s executive order. “The Department of War and our agency partners are actively working on the next release of UAP files,” spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.
