The Department of Defense announced on Friday that the Trump administration has launched a website containing "new and previously unreleased" data related to UFOs. (And yes, judging by the new website address being war.gov/ufo, it seems there is no problem with using the term UFO again.)
In an official announcement, the Department of Defense (renamed the Department of War under the Trump administration) stated that the materials to be released for the first time on this website will include footage, photos, and original documents regarding unidentified anomalies (UAPs) collected from across the U.S. government. The Department added that while the materials have been reviewed for security reasons, analysis of many of the data regarding the anomalies has "not yet been completed."
It also stated that the scale of the data will gradually expand as additional materials are released "continuously" in the future.
This document was released following news reported in December 2017 by The New York Times, Politico, and others regarding the U.S. Department of Defense's classified $22 million Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). This program has been investigating military contacts with unidentified objects.
Since then, as public interest in UAPs—the modern term for UFOs—has grown, concerns about what is in the sky have intensified, such as the 2024 U.S. drone sighting. Because the sky has changed significantly from the past due to SpaceX rocket launches and satellites, it has become more difficult to determine what truly constitutes an inexplicable phenomenon. For this reason, these documents, supported by military intelligence agencies, will serve as interesting material.
News of the government's funding of the Department of Defense program has also influenced popular culture in recent years, as can be seen in works such as the 2023 film *Jules*, which tells the story of a man who forms a bond with an alien that crash-lands in his backyard. The movie *Bugonia*, which deals with conspiracy theories regarding the existence of aliens, and Steven Spielberg's upcoming film *Disclosure Day* raise suspicions of a government cover-up regarding aliens.
While the release of UFO-related files would have been big news in the past, many Americans today are paying more attention to more urgent issues such as the war with Iran and the resulting rise in oil prices, the ever-increasing cost of living, job losses due to artificial intelligence, healthcare issues, and climate change.
According to the Department of Defense, the release of these UFO files is the result of a cross-agency collaborative project called the Presidential UFO Reporting System (PURSUE). This project involves the White House, the Office of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Defense Accredited Office for Anomalies in All Domains (AARO), NASA, the FBI, and other U.S. intelligence agencies.
Previously, the independent news site 404 Media discovered last March that the Oval Office had registered the domain aliens.gov, but the site is currently deactivated.
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