Donald Trump told a crowd on Friday that the government has already uncovered “many very interesting documents” in its ongoing review of UFO files, and that the first public releases are coming “very, very soon.” He made the remarks at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix, Arizona, stopping just short of saying the findings involve extraterrestrial life.
According to NBC News, Trump told attendees: “As you remember, I recently directed the Secretary of War…to begin releasing government files relating to UFOs and unexplained aerial phenomenon. This process is well underway, and we found many very interesting documents, I must say, and the first releases will begin very, very soon.”
Trump had directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other agency heads in February to start reviewing classified government files on what he described as “alien and extraterrestrial life.” That announcement came just days after former President Barack Obama made comments on a podcast about the possibility of alien life, which Obama later walked back, clarifying he had not actually seen evidence of extraterrestrials during his time in the White House.
Congress has been pushing hard for answers
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been pressing the Pentagon for months to come clean about what it knows. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida who chairs the House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, sent a letter last month demanding the release of 46 videos from the Pentagon’s UAP investigation by April 14. That deadline passed without action, and Luna has since said she is considering subpoena authority to force disclosure.
“The continued lack of transparency surrounding these anomalies and the potential national security threat they pose is troubling,” Luna wrote in her March letter. After Trump’s Friday remarks, she posted a clip of his speech on X with nothing but a winking emoji.
Rep. Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee, also shared the clip and wrote: “Thank you for keeping your word to me @realDonaldTrump.”
What the Pentagon has said before
The Defense Department’s position going into this review was not exactly encouraging for believers. In November 2024, the Pentagon said it had received hundreds of UAP-related reports following congressional hearings, with 21 flagged for further review due to unusual characteristics. But officials said at the time that none of the reports provided evidence of life from another planet.
A separate Pentagon report from March 2024 went further, concluding there was no credible evidence the U.S. government had ever covered up findings of extraterrestrial activity. It attributed the vast majority of UAP sightings to misidentified objects, natural phenomena, or other ordinary explanations.
Trump has not said he personally believes the UAPs are of alien origin. The White House has declined to give details on what specific documents have been uncovered or when the first batch will be released publicly.
The UFO announcement is one of several areas where Trump has drawn attention this week. He has also faced scrutiny on the economy, with critics noting that he dismissed the country’s worst inflation in four years as fake. Separately, his foreign policy moves have also come under fire, with Sen. Tim Kaine previously calling Trump’s exit from the Iran deal one of history’s worst decisions.
