- The U.S. Pentagon released its 1st batch of UAP files to the public. UAP stands for Unidentified Anomalous (formerly Aerial) Phenomena.
- There are 162 files in total, including 12 from NASA. The NASA ones are from Apollo 12, Apollo 17 and Gemini 7. They were already in the public domain.
- The file release is expected to be the first of several rollouts in the coming weeks.
1st batch of Pentagon UFO files released
For the past few months, there were rumors and hints on social media that the U.S. government was about to start releasing information on UAP (still known by many as UFOs). On May 8, 2026, the first public records were released. The Pentagon unveiled its new website called PURSUE (Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters). This batch of info is said to be the first batch of more to come in rolling releases over the next weeks. So what does it show?
In this first batch, there are 162 records in total. They consists of 120 PDF documents, 28 videos and 14 images. Eighty-two of the total came from the Pentagon, 56 from the FBI, 12 from NASA, eight from the State Department and four with the agency not identified.
You can find all the documents, videos and images at War.gov/UFO.
You can also keep track of these files and future ones, which are better organized, at UFO Release Tracker and Pentagon UAP Files.
New Pentagon UFO files include reports from moon landings trib.al/DJBprKC
— Task & Purpose (@taskandpurpose.com) 2026-05-08T18:45:07.649633Z
Details on Pentagon UFO files
This first batch of records contains a wide range of documents, videos and images. They are split between older historical records and modern-day reports. The historical files, largely from the 1940s to 1960s, are FBI files, NASA transcripts and photos, State Department cables and Cold War-era UFO reports. The modern reports come from AARO (military reports), still imagery from U.S. military systems, 302 FBI interviews and a 2023 Western U.S. event summary.
But much of the material has already been in the public realm for years, even decades. So those items are not actually newly declassified.
The documents include the famous “Twining Memo” from 1947, in which General Nathan Twining stated:
The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious. There are objects probably approximating the shape of a disc, of such appreciable size as to appear to be as large as man-made.
The full memo can also be seen here (three images).
And, as seems to be typical for the Trump administration, some of the documents are still largely redacted even though they are “released.” For example, one document contains the rather cryptic sentence “2X round white white hot UAPS dynamic south” after six pages that have been completely blacked out.
Apollo 11, 12 and 17
The files contain some of the old NASA UAP reports. Apollo 11, 12 and 17, as well as Gemini 7, are in there. The public has known about these cases for decades. But it is interesting to see them included. And there are other NASA cases as well, but not included in this file dump. Perhaps in a subsequent one?
For example, from the included files, the Technical Crew Briefing for Apollo 11 records an object on the way out to the moon, flashes of light inside the astronauts’ cabin and a sighting on the return trip of a bright light tentatively assumed by the crew to be a laser.
And images taken from the lunar surface during Apollo 12 show several faint but colorful dots or lights in the black sky. These include a tight formation of three lights in a triangle (shown at top). It is still not known what the origin of these were, although most analysts think they were likely anomalies/blemishes in the film used at the time.
The Apollo 17 sighting took place out in space. All crew members, including Commander Eugene Cernan, saw a “flashing object” estimated to be several miles from their capsule, as well as closer “particles.” As Cernan told Mission Control at the time:
It’s way out in the distance, as I say, because there are particles that are close by and it’s obviously not one of those. It’s apparently rotating in a very rhythmic fashion because the flashes come round almost … almost on time.
Gemini 7
In addition, the original audio of the Gemini 7 sighting in in the files. too. That’s the one where astronaut Frank Borman said:
We have a bogey at 10 o’clock high … This is an actual sighting … very many A … it looks like hundreds of little particles.
Both Borman and astronaut Jim Lovell thought they were looking at debris from the mission itself, which is common. But whether that included the “bogey” is debated to this today. Sadly, both astronauts have now passed away.
Skylab
There is also the Technical Crew Debriefing from Skylab in 1973. It mentions crew observations of flashing lights outside of the Skylab space station.
Pentagon releases swath of UFO files
COMETA
Also in the files is the French COMETA report “UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare For?” It was originally published in July 1999. It details a lengthy study of UAP by the French Institute of Higher Studies for National Defence.
COMETA consisted of former military and defense officials and experts in France. The report concluded that there was an “almost certain physical reality” of completely unknown flying objects displaying extraordinary capabilities that current science could not explain. And it even went as far to say that the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UAP was a “probable or credible explanation.” This was based on the roughly 5% of cases that were documented with radar data, etc., but still difficult to explain. In fact, that number is similar to other studies, including from AARO.
It was not widely circulated at the time due to copyright restrictions. But it was finally made public in 2007 by GEIPAN. GEIPAN is a unit of the National Space Centre (CNES) in France.
Other videos in Pentagon UFO files
There are 28 videos together, mostly from various U.S. military stations or surveillance missions. One of the most interesting is this one from the Indo-Pacific Command in 2024. It shows a small, bright object quickly moving around numerous wind turbines, flying close to the water. The video was taken by an infrared sensor. Download the higher-resolution version here:
Video of a UAP from the Indo-Pacific Command
Bottom line: On May 8, 2026, the U.S. Pentagon released its first batch of Pentagon UFO files. They include some from Apollo moon missions 11, 12 and 17.
Read more: UAP and science: Testing new methods of scientific analysis
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Paul Scott Anderson
