Last updated: June 27, 2026
The United States government has begun releasing UFO files to the public for the first time in history. Through a portal called PURSUE — the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters — the Department of War has published hundreds of declassified documents, videos, and audio recordings at war.gov/UFO. The releases span incidents from 1944 to the present day.
On paper, this is unprecedented. In practice, the investigators who have spent years documenting what the government knows say something more uncomfortable: what has been released so far is the least threatening version of the truth.
The PURSUE Portal: What Was Released and When
First Release — May 8, 2026
The Trump administration made history on May 8, 2026, publishing the first tranche of approximately 162 documents through the PURSUE portal. The materials were drawn from multiple agencies — the FBI, NASA, the Department of War, and the State Department — and spanned incidents from 1944 through 2026.
The first release included:
- Military pilot encounter reports, including incidents over the Persian Gulf
- Declassified photographs from NASA’s Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 missions showing unidentified objects over the lunar horizon
- Astronaut transcripts referencing unexplained observations
- FBI field reports on UAP sightings dating back to the 1940s
- State Department cables referencing international UAP incidents
- Historical military records spanning the Cold War era
Officials described it as the beginning of a rolling disclosure process, with additional materials to be released on a regular basis as records were reviewed and declassified.
Second Release — May 22, 2026
Two weeks later, on May 22, 2026, the Department of War published a second batch of 222 documents totaling 5.6 GB — the largest single drop to date. This release had been specifically requested by lawmakers and included:
- Over 40 videos of UAP incidents, many previously requested by members of Congress
- Approximately 51 audio recordings from military and intelligence sources
- Additional written reports and analysis documents
The second release generated intense reaction from journalists and investigators who had been covering UAP for years. Ross Coulthart, reporting live for NewsNation, described the footage as evidence that “we’re not the apex predator anymore.” But his analysis of the videos came with a pointed qualifier: the government had still not directly addressed the most significant claims — crash retrievals, reverse engineering programs, and recovered non-human technology.
Ongoing Rolling Releases
The PURSUE portal continues to accept and publish additional tranches on a rolling basis. War.gov has committed to updating the archive as records clear the declassification review process, though no fixed schedule has been published. As of June 2026, no release has addressed the core allegations made under oath by whistleblower David Grusch: that the U.S. government has recovered non-human craft and biological material, and that these programs operate outside congressional oversight.
Why This Release Matters
Set aside the question of what the files contain. The existence of a public, searchable government archive of UAP records is itself a historic development. For decades, the standard official position was denial — or at minimum, studied disinterest. The PURSUE portal marks a structural shift: the U.S. government now officially acknowledges that it has collected, investigated, and retained records on unidentified phenomena, and is making a portion of those records available to the public.
The multi-agency nature of the releases is also significant. The involvement of the FBI, NASA, the State Department, and the Department of War signals that UAP investigation was never siloed to a single corner of the military-industrial complex. These sightings were tracked, documented, and shared across the highest levels of government for decades.
For readers who want the historical framework behind this moment, UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record by Leslie Kean — who co-hosted the June 9 Capitol press conference — remains the most rigorous account of institutional evidence that preceded the PURSUE releases. UFOs and the National Security State by Richard Dolan documents the decades of classification that makes the current releases so overdue.
The Criticism: A Carefully Managed Story
The investigators closest to this story are not celebrating. Their concern is not that disclosure is happening — it’s that the version of disclosure being presented appears to have been selected to minimize alarm rather than maximize truth.
Luis Elizondo: “A Drop in the Proverbial Ocean”
Luis Elizondo, the former director of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and perhaps the most credible government insider in the disclosure space, was blunt about the first release. He called it “a drop in the proverbial ocean.”
Elizondo defended the release as an important first step while simultaneously warning that the deeper files have not moved. “We can whitewash it all day long, and we can pretend it’s not there,” he said. “All it’s going to do is erode the faith and confidence of the American people, because people know it’s real.”
His book Imminent — the most detailed insider account of the AATIP program — describes exactly the kind of advanced program documentation that is conspicuously absent from the PURSUE releases.
Ross Coulthart: The Government Is Still Avoiding the Core Question
Coulthart, the award-winning investigative journalist whose book In Plain Sight brought crash retrieval allegations into mainstream credibility, framed the initial release as “probably one of the bigger news stories of recent times” — before asking aloud whether it amounted to “a big nothing burger.”
His core criticism cuts to the heart of the problem: “The government has never directly addressed the claim [of crash retrievals] — it’s avoided it.” The PURSUE releases, however voluminous, do nothing to change that. There is no document acknowledging recovered craft. No file referencing non-human biologics. No record of the legacy programs Grusch described under oath.
What has been released instead is exactly the category of evidence that is easiest to explain away: blurry videos, eyewitness accounts from decades past, and archival photographs that raise questions without answering them.
Jeremy Corbell: “This Is the Floor, Not the Ceiling”
Documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, who has released some of the most significant UAP footage of the past decade and has reportedly seen materials that have never been made public, was direct: “This is the floor, not the ceiling.” He went further, threatening to release UAP files himself if the Trump administration failed to do so — a statement that implies the most important evidence is not what has appeared on war.gov.
Corbell has stated that material he has personally reviewed amounts to “absolute evidence” of non-human intelligence — and that “if the public could see the things that some of us journalists have seen, it would be shocking.” None of that material appears to be in the PURSUE archive.
Rep. Tim Burchett: Fake Evidence May Be Planted
Perhaps the most alarming criticism came not from a journalist but from a sitting member of Congress. Representative Tim Burchett, one of the most vocal advocates for UAP transparency on Capitol Hill, warned that the releases may include deliberately falsified material. He described the disclosure effort as a clash between elected officials pushing for transparency and entrenched agencies still determined to obscure the truth — and suggested that elements of the intelligence community may be “murkying the waters” by mixing genuine records with disinformation.
This concern is not new. Researchers have documented U.S. government disinformation campaigns targeting UAP investigations dating to the 1950s. If some of what is now being released as authentic government UAP records are in fact disinformation artifacts from that era — or newly created — the public has no reliable way to know.
What’s Not in the Files
The absence in the PURSUE portal is as telling as the presence. Here is what has not appeared in any release to date:
- Any document acknowledging crash retrieval programs — the central claim of David Grusch’s 2023 congressional testimony
- Records of reverse engineering of non-human technology — described in detail by Elizondo and others
- Documentation of recovered non-human biological material — referenced by multiple whistleblowers
- Any file from the programs described as operating outside standard congressional oversight
- High-quality, unambiguous footage of craft exhibiting performance characteristics beyond known human technology
The scientists reviewing the released materials have been equally unimpressed. Astrophysicist David Whitehouse, a former BBC science journalist, reviewed the initial tranche and concluded: “Some are optical artefacts, others fuzzy blobs, and some light smears. Some obviously balloons. No hint, no evidence whatsoever of anything artificial and alien.” Astronomer Michael Narlock noted that the documents were largely eyewitness transcripts — which are “notoriously unreliable” — while the videos lacked the context needed to assess them.
This is precisely the problem. The government has now proven it is capable of declassifying and releasing UAP imagery. The fact that everything released so far is ambiguous, low-resolution, or easily explained raises a question that the PURSUE portal does not answer: is that because the unambiguous evidence does not exist — or because it has not been released?
The Deliberate Pace of Disclosure
Elizondo offered a charitable interpretation of the government’s approach: a “gradual disclosure strategy,” described as “dipping your toe in the water before you decide to take a high dive and cannonball into the deep end.” By this reading, the PURSUE releases are a necessary psychological bridge — easing the public into the reality of UAP before delivering evidence that would be genuinely destabilizing.
The less charitable reading is harder to dismiss: the releases are calibrated to create a specific public narrative. Show enough to claim transparency. Withhold the rest. Let scientists call the blurry videos balloons, let skeptics declare the disclosure a non-event, and allow the most significant claims to remain unaddressed and therefore deniable. It is a strategy that has the dual advantage of appearing open while remaining closed.
Coulthart put it plainly: the government has never directly addressed the crash retrieval claim. Not in the PURSUE portal. Not in any public statement. The closest it has come is the carefully worded non-denial that characterized official responses to Grusch’s testimony. For an effort described as historic transparency, that absence is conspicuous.
What to Watch
The PURSUE portal is a live archive. Future tranches may — or may not — contain more substantive material. Several pressure points are worth watching:
- The UAP Disclosure Act — if passed, it would mandate the release of a broader category of records and establish an independent review board, limiting the executive branch’s ability to filter what gets published
- Congressional pressure — Burchett, Luna, Moskowitz, and Burlison have been explicit that the current releases do not satisfy their demands
- Corbell’s threatened independent release — if he follows through, the contrast between what he publishes and what the government has released will be instructive
- Grusch’s continued public presence — his June 9 Capitol press conference made clear that he does not consider the PURSUE releases adequate disclosure
The books that have traced this story from the inside — Imminent, In Plain Sight, UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record — all arrive at the same conclusion: the government knows more than it has shown. The PURSUE portal is the most transparent the U.S. government has ever been on UAP. It may also be nowhere near enough.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the PURSUE portal?
PURSUE — the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters — is the U.S. government’s official public repository for declassified UAP documents, hosted at war.gov/UFO. It was launched by the Trump administration on May 8, 2026, and contains hundreds of documents spanning incidents from 1944 to the present.
What UFO files has the U.S. government released in 2026?
As of June 2026, the government had published hundreds of declassified UAP documents through the PURSUE portal, including approximately 162 documents in the first release (May 8, 2026) and 72 more in the third batch (June 12, 2026). The files include records from the FBI, CIA, NASA, and Department of Defense.
What is missing from the declassified UFO files?
Experienced UAP investigators note that the releases represent the “least threatening version of the truth.” Material relating to crash retrieval programs, reverse-engineering facilities, and non-human biological remains — topics raised under oath by multiple whistleblowers — has not appeared in any public release.
Where can I access the government’s declassified UAP documents?
Declassified UAP documents are publicly available at war.gov/UFO through the PURSUE portal. These are official U.S. government records, freely accessible without registration.
