“We’re going to be releasing a lot of things that we haven’t,” Trump said Wednesday at a White House event celebrating NASA astronauts. “I think some of it’s going to be very interesting to people.”
In the buildup to that release, Trump said “the American people deserve transparency and truth.” Now, as he turns to the sky, the president has struck a similar tone, suggesting answers to decades-old questions may be on the way. His February directive on social media called for transparency around “alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”
Even before Trump’s directive, the Pentagon was years into a process to declassify and release government documents related to UFOs, now often referred to as unexplained anomalous phenomena, or UAP.
“Readers should not get their hopes up that there’s going to be some document with photos, interviewing the aliens when they came down,” he said. “Because that just doesn’t exist.”
Videos purporting to show alien technology tend to have mundane explanations, he said. Modern infrared cameras used by the U.S. military often capture jet engines and other hot objects in a long thermal bloom, which, Kirkpatrick said, explains viral videos of speedy, pill-shaped objects.
On Capitol Hill, those types of videos have caught the attention of a small group of Trump-aligned Republicans who insist the Pentagon is holding back secrets.
The Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets has been conducting its own investigation into reports of mysterious aircraft near U.S. military installations, which the panel says pose a threat to national security and the armed forces.
Trump’s interest in the subject has energized congressional Republicans, including Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, an Air Force veteran who co-chairs the task force. Luna has criticized what she calls “less than adequate” transparency from the Pentagon.
Trump’s entry to the UFO fray drew applause from Luna, who last year told podcaster Joe Rogan that she has seen evidence of “interdimensional beings.” The Pentagon “can’t hide from our docs request anymore!” Luna said on social media after Trump’s directive.
Trump appears skeptical about the existence of extraterrestrial life. Addressing the Turning Point USA crowd in Phoenix, he said, “I figured this was a good crowd because I know you people, you’re really into that. I don’t know if I am.”
Vice President JD Vance has described himself as “obsessed” with UFO files. In March, he said he has been trying to find time to investigate Area 51 since he took office.
“I’ve still got three more years as vice president,” Vance told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson. “I will get to the bottom of the UFO files.” Invoking his Christian faith, Vance said he believes sightings reported to be aliens are actually the work of spiritual demons.
Even before Trump tackled the topic, alien buzz was already in the air.
Trump is hardly the first president drawn to UFO mysteries. President Bill Clinton has said he once ordered a review of the Roswell Incident — something had crashed in 1947 at a New Mexico ranch and officials later said the debris was the remnants of a high-altitude weather balloon — around its 50th anniversary in 1997. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan claimed to have seen UFOs before their time in the White House.
In online communities devoted to UFOs, some see Trump’s promise as a step in the right direction; others believe it will come to nothing. For people who follow the topic closely, promises of big revelations have never lived up to the hype, said Greg Eghigian, a Pennsylvania State University professor who wrote a book on the history of UFO sightings.
“There is almost no satisfaction that is possible for many of the really die-hard folks,” he said. “So in a sense, I think disappointment can almost be guaranteed to be expected no matter what comes out of this.”
