The Pentagon released a second batch of previously classified files on unidentified flying objects Friday, including historical sightings near a top-secret New Mexico nuclear facility and a recent firsthand account from a senior intelligence officer who says he watched a glowing orb split in two and accelerate in opposite directions.
The release, posted to war.gov/ufo, contains 222 files. It follows the first batch published May 8, 2026, at the order of President Donald Trump.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the documents had been hidden too long.
“These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation, and it’s time the American people see it for themselves,” Hegseth said in a statement.
One of the files spans 116 pages and covers a series of investigations at a top-secret facility in Sandia, New Mexico, from 1948 to 1950. The Department of Defense said that file documents 209 reported sightings of “green orbs,” “discs,” and “fireballs” near the military installation. The investigations were conducted by the Air Force and the Armed Forces Special Weapons Program, the post-World War II successor to the Manhattan Project.
A separate file in Friday’s release includes an account filed last month by a “senior U.S. intelligence officer” who described a close-range encounter with unidentified aerial phenomena near an undisclosed “sensitive U.S. military facility” in late 2025. The officer, writing from the vantage point of a U.S. military helicopter, described observing “glowing orbs” at close range and at a distance. The account also describes a low-level, high-speed object that appeared to split into two distinct objects and accelerate in different directions. Multiple high-altitude orbs were also observed, some in close proximity to the aircraft.
The Pentagon said war.gov/ufo has logged more than 1 billion visits since its launch last May.
The disclosure process for U.S. government UAP records began in the late 1970s. Trump is the latest president to order classified materials released to the public. The administration has used the same executive declassification framework to also publish previously sealed files related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Experts who reviewed the first batch released on May 8 said it contained new footage of known sightings but provided no conclusive evidence of alien technology or extraterrestrial life. The Pentagon did not make different claims for Friday’s files.
