Descriptions of claimed encounters, both by citizens on Earth and by astronauts on the Moon, are included in the Pentagon's tranche of never-before-seen documents on UFOs.
President Donald Trump ordered the decades-old records to be declassified and made available online on Friday. Earlier this year, he had stated that he would make them public "based on the tremendous interest shown."
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in alien life in the United States. Congress convened its first UFO hearings in fifty years in 2022, and the military pledged to be more open about the subject.
The Department of Defense's website currently has 161 files, and more are scheduled to be made available.The data were made public on Friday after former President Obama's statement in a February interview that aliens are "real, but I haven't seen them" generated additional curiosity.
Obama has recently amended his remarks, stating that although he observed "no evidence" while in office, the odds are that life exists mathematically.
Later that month, Trump gave the Pentagon instructions to make files "related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs)" public.
Decades of declassified military memoranda, reports from the Apollo Moon missions, and tales from people who say they saw an unidentified flying object (UFO) that they believe has alien origins are all included in the papers that were made public on Friday.

Astronauts from Apollo recount light flashes

Transcripts from astronauts on the Apollo 11, Apollo 12, and Apollo 17 Moon landing missions from the 1960s and 1970s are included in the files.
In a 1969 interview that was released on Friday, renowned Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin claimed to have witnessed a number of mysterious occurrences on his journey to the Moon. "I observed what appeared to be a fairly bright light source which we tentatively ascribed to a possible laser," he replied.
According to the transcripts, Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean, who set foot on the moon in 1969, claimed to have seen particles and light flashes "sailing off in space" while on the trip. He claimed that the particles appeared to be "escaping the Moon."

During the Apollo 17 flight in 1972, two astronauts also claimed to have seen flashing lights. "It's like the Fourth of July out there!" exclaimed astronaut Jack Schmitt. They also mentioned the possibility that the light was reflected off of ice fragments.
An audio tape from the 1965 Gemini 7 spaceflight shows astronaut Frank Boman conversing with ground support in another file that has been made public. He describes seeing a "bogey" and "trillions of little particles" to the left of the spaceship when reporting an unidentified object sighting to NASA mission control.
Hovering things that appear in the light
Dozens of separate reports of sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, are among the decades' worth of records made public in the archives.

According to one file, a guy reported to the FBI in a 1957 interview that he saw a big, circular vehicle rise above the ground. Additionally, US individuals who were interviewed in September and October of 2023 reported seeing floating metal objects appear out of blinding light.
Sightings of military personnel in the UAE, Syria, and Iraq
Video clips from 2022 that were captured by the US military in the Middle East are also included in the files.
The Pentagon's website refers to a "unresolved unidentified anomalous phenomenon" in footage from Iraq, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates.
An accompanying analysis identified an oval-shaped item streaking from left to right in a 2022 video that was shot in an unidentified Middle Eastern area as a "possible missile".Congressman Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee, has already pushed for greater governmental transparency on UFO encounters. Lawmakers think this is a good starting step, but we need more. In a post on X, he called the Pentagon's release of the information a "great start" and praised it.
Another Florida congresswoman who supports openness on this matter is Republican Anna Paulina Luna. She described the revelation in a statement as "a massive first step in the right direction."
The release, according to former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump ally who had a falling out with the president and left Congress, was a diversion from more urgent problems facing Americans, like the war in Iran and pricing affordability.