Declassified transcripts from two Apollo missions show astronauts repeatedly describing unexplained lights and objects while orbiting and walking on the moon.

The Pentagon on Friday released transcripts and photos from two NASA Apollo missions as part of a broader disclosure of dozens of photos and documents detailing UFO sightings it has documented since the 1950s.

The trove of documents reporting UFO and Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) sightings comes in compliance with a directive from President Donald Trump aimed at increasing government transparency around reported UFO sightings, all of which remain unsolved. Tens of millions of documents are being combed through and will be released on a rolling basis.

• UFO EXPERT SAYS TRUMP'S DECLASSIFICATION COULD EXPOSE POSSIBLE 'COVER-UP' SPANNING DECADES

The documents include technical transcripts and photos from Apollo 12 in 1969 and Apollo 17 in 1972, capturing moments in which crews discussed strange flashes, moving lights and unidentified phenomena against the stark lunar horizon.

The release includes six photos taken by Apollo 12 mission astronauts on the moon's surface, revealing unidentified and oddly shaped lights appearing in the sky. In one of the photos, there are a total of five UFOs identified.

This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12 in 1969. This image features a highlighted area of interest slightly to the right of the vertical axis of the frame, above the horizon, in which unidentified phenomena are visible. 

(U.S. Department of War)

This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12. This image features two highlighted areas of interest, labeled "Area 1" and "Area 2," slightly to the right of the vertical axis of the frame, above the horizon, in which unidentified phenomena are visible.

 (U.S. Department of War)

This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12. This image features a highlighted area of interest near the right edge of the frame, above the horizon, in which unidentified phenomena are visible.

 (U.S. Department of War)

This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12. This image features a highlighted area of interest slightly to the left of the vertical axis of the frame, above the horizon, in which unidentified phenomena are visible. 

(U.S. Department of War)

This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12. This image features five highlighted areas of interest, labeled "Area 1" through "Area 5," above the horizon, in which unidentified phenomena are visible. 

(U.S. Department of War)

A NASA photograph from the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 shows three dots in a triangular formation in the lunar sky. DOW is investigating the image as part of a review of historical UAP materials. 

(U.S. Department of War)

A four-page transcript from the mission unveils one of the astronauts' accounts of what he was witnessing, telling command about the lights he saw in the dark sky.

He described that the lights were "sailing off into space."

• EXPLOSIVE NEW DOCUMENTARY PROBES '80-YEAR GLOBAL COVERUP' OF UFO SECRETS

"I was thinking they're dropping off from my water boiler, but it looks like some of those things are escaping the moon. They really haul out of here and just press off at the stars."

The astronaut described that the lights were "pulsing every second." Command suggested that the phenomenon was likely electromagnetic interference, which can occur by both man-made and natural sources.

A 16-page transcript from the Apollo 17 mission detailed how the astronauts saw lights from their window which resembled "Fourth of July."

"They're very jagged, angular fragments that are tumbling," one of the astronauts described.

Another astronaut recounted how when he was trying to sleep he saw bright "peripheral horizon-type things" which made it difficult to sleep.

"The last one I remember before falling asleep — was the fact that there was a very bright spot that flashed right between my eyes like a very bright headlight — like a train coming at you, only with a flash," the astronaut said.

More UAP files were made available at WAR.GOV/UFO.

• Fox News' Peter Doocy and Fox News Digital's Robert McGreevy contributed to this report.

{ https://www.foxnews.com/category/science/air-and-space/ufos }

CNN host 'scared' over ex-CIA director's chilling UFO theory on political adversaries

Connor McCrory

The Pentagon released a batch of classified UFO files this week, but at least one person who has sat at the top of American intelligence isn't buying the extraterrestrial angle.

Leon Panetta, who has run the CIA, led the Pentagon, and served as White House chief of staff, told CNN Friday he has never seen proof that aliens are real, and thinks something far more earthly may explain the mystery.

President Donald Trump ordered the release, announcing it on Truth Social, "In an effort for Complete and Maximum Transparency, it was my Honor to direct my Administration to identify and provide Government files related to Alien and Extraterrestrial Life, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and Unidentified Flying Objects."

• Karoline Leavitt hints at regrets as Donald Trump continues to embarrass himself

• Inside Karoline Leavitt's baby shower guest list - including three unexpected no-shows

Trump added that "the people can decide for themselves, 'WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?'"

CNN anchor Boris Sanchez put the question directly to Panetta on CNN News Central.

"I have to ask you about this because the Pentagon just released what they're calling 'never before seen files' on UFOs," Sanchez said.

Leon Panetta, who has run the CIA, led the Pentagon for years

Credit:CNN

"Is this stuff new to you? What do you know about aliens, Secretary? Tell us!"

Panetta said the curiosity is nothing new.

"Well, Boris, I can't tell you how many times when I was secretary, I was asked about, are there really aliens out there? Do we have an alien ship?" he said.

"You know, some of the movies that portrayed that kind of thing going on, people were infatuated with that. And I'm sure these pictures that are being released will raise a lot more concern about whether or not, in fact, there are aliens. I just have to tell you, I'm not aware of the United States ever having decided that there, in fact, are aliens, and that there are spaceships that have come into our territory. So, I haven't seen evidence to that effect, but what the Pentagon is now doing is basically letting the American people make up their own minds."

Sanchez pushed him on his personal take.

"I have not seen any firm evidence that there are aliens out there. I do think that some of our adversaries, very frankly, have technologies that have been used against us that appear to be alien, but in fact, are efforts by our adversaries to basically breach our security. That's what I think has happened," Panetta said.

That answer caught Sanchez off guard.

"Secretary, I thought this was going to end on a lighthearted note," Sanchez said. "You just scared me with that one, man. Uh, Leon Panetta, thanks so much for joining us."

{ https://www.aol.com/ }

Tokyo analyzing Pentagon UFO file trove with sightings near Japan

The government’s top spokesman said Monday that Tokyo is analyzing “with great interest” a trove of previously classified files on alleged UFO sightings released by the Pentagon on Friday — including two videos of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) spotted near Japan.  

“Regarding incidents related to our national security — including UAPs — we are constantly gathering and analyzing information with great interest, while maintaining close coordination with the United States and other countries,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told a regular news conference.

Asked about the possibility of Japan disclosing any similar UAP files it maintains, Kihara said the government would “make specific, case-by-case decisions after comprehensively considering various factors, including the risk of our intelligence-gathering capabilities being exposed.”

The Pentagon on Friday said U.S. President Donald Trump’s order to release the “new, never-before-seen files” was intended to provide “maximum transparency to the public, who can ultimately make up their own minds about the information contained in these files.”

In one nearly 2-minute video from 2023 titled DOW-UAP-PR47 and reported by the U.S. military’s Indo-Pacific Command citing the incident location as “Japan,” an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform tracks “three distinct areas of contrast, maintaining … a fixed position and orientation relative to one another.”

Another video, this one just 9 seconds long and reported by the Indo-Pacific Command in 2024 with “East China Sea” as the incident location, shows a UAP "that resembles a football-shaped body near Japan," according to a screenshot of the footage.

A caption accompanying the video of the incident, titled DOW-UAP-PR46, describes the object as having “three radial projections: one oriented vertically, and two oriented downward at a 45-degree angle relative to the major axis of the main mass.”

In 2024, a group of some 80 Japanese lawmakers was established to investigate and gather information on UAPs, which they consider a serious security issue. The group has heard from U.S. policymakers involved in UAP measures.

In March, the group urged the government to create a specialized department devoted to UAPs directly under the deputy chief cabinet secretary for crisis management at the Cabinet Secretariat.

Observers said the batch of more than 160 files released by the Pentagon included new videos of known sightings but provided no conclusive evidence of alien technology or extraterrestrial life. Further releases will follow, the U.S. Defense Department said, as more materials are declassified

The growing interest in UAPs comes as drones — and less-advanced surveillance technologies — proliferate across the globe.

In one instance in 2023, the U.S. military’s shootdown of a Chinese surveillance balloon that had flown across a broad swath of the country triggered a diplomatic furor.

The incident prompted revelations by Japan’s Defense Ministry that it “strongly” suspected objects initially viewed as UAPs that flew over the country in 2019, 2020 and 2021 — including over areas near Self-Defense Forces bases — were actually Chinese spy balloons.

{ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/  }

However, unlike most modern unmanned aerial systems developed for combat situations, the AirKamuy 150 is constructed almost entirely from something most wouldn’t expect: cardboard.

“Today, I had the opportunity to exchange opinions with everyone from Air Kamuy, which is renowned for its cardboard drones,” Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said in a recent posting that appeared on his official X account.

“The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is already utilizing them as targets,” Koizumi said.

(Image Credit: AirKamuy)

Last month, it was announced that Japan would be moving to institutionalize its drone warfare capabilities, with the launch of a new initiative involving the country’s Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF).

The move highlights a notable shift in Japan’s preparations for future combat, particularly amid heightened tensions in the Pacific region. Japanese officials have also cited a “shrinking workforce” as another primary factor behind the recent ramp-up in drone capabilities.

On April 13, an official ceremony was held in Tokyo to recognize the launch of a pair of new offices that will manage the country’s drone production: the “Unmanned Defense Capability Promotion Office” and the “Unmanned Systems Office,” both launched on April 8.

“Taking into account the geographical characteristics of our nation as a maritime nation, we must realize new ways of fighting at the earliest possible time,” Shinjiro said during the April ceremony.

Shinjiro also said he aspires to see Japan’s Self Defense Forces become “the organization that makes the greatest use of unmanned assets in the world.”

In a December 2022 document detailing Japan’s National Defense Strategy, defense officials noted specifically that in the event of an invasion, “Japan would need to ensure asymmetric advantage by leveraging, in addition to these capabilities, manned as well as unmanned assets and gain superiority across domains such as underwater, surface, and air.”

The document further outlined the country’s objectives to strengthen its unmanned defense capabilities, as well as “crossdomain operation capabilities” and “command and control/intelligence-related functions.”

“Unmanned assets are often relatively affordable compared to manned equipment and have the great advantage of being able to minimize human loss and operate continuously for a long period of time,” the strategic document stated, noting that combining such capabilities with emerging technologies that include artificial intelligence could be “a game-changer that fundamentally transform force structure and way of warfare, enabling Japan to gain asymmetrical advantages in the air, sea, and underwater domains.”

“For this reason, these unmanned assets will be effectively utilized not only for information gathering and surveillance, but also for a wide range of missions including combat support,” the document states.

Defense Minister Koizumi said in his recent posting on X that his meeting with AirKamuy representatives produced “an extremely in-depth discussion,” adding that he hopes the collaboration will help Japan reach its goals for transforming and optimizing its air defense capabilities in the months ahead.

“In aiming to become the Self-Defense Forces that makes the most extensive use of unmanned assets, including drones, in the world, strengthening collaboration with startups enthusiastic about the defense sector is indispensable,” Koizumi said.

• Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/defense/ }

The passage hidden in our galaxy: Scientists claim dark matter may have created a wormhole INSIDE the Milky Way

• READ MORE: Scientists think we have received a signal from parallel universe

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Wormholes are some of the universe's strangest and most mind–boggling structures.

Now, scientists say one of these tunnels through space and time could be lurking in our own galaxy.

Just like a black hole, a wormhole is a structure where gravity is so strong that it bends the structure of spacetime itself.

The difference is that a wormhole bends spacetime to connect two different points, punching a hole directly through the surface of the universe.

These points could be light–years apart or even separated in time, but passing through the wormhole would let you travel between them in seconds, just like in the sci–fi film Interstellar. 

Even though they are physically possible, scientists think any real wormhole would almost instantly collapse in on itself.

However, a group of physicists now claims that the mysterious substance known as dark matter could create wormholes – and even keep them open long enough to pass through.

If they are right, this means there could be a massive tunnel to another part of the universe hidden in plain sight at the core of the Milky Way.

Scientists say that dark matter may have formed a wormhole in the centre of the Milky Way, connecting our galaxy to a distant part of the universe (artist's impression)

What is a wormhole?

Co–author Dr Saibal Ray, an astrophysicist from GLA University in India, says that you can think of a wormhole like a 'type of tunnel'.

'A wormhole is nothing but a passage from one point to another,' says Dr Ray.

'It's like a tunnel between two manhole covers; one acts as the entry point and the other as an exit point.'

Wormholes have two mouths connected by a tunnel known as a throat, which could theoretically span the entire length of the universe.

One mouth would be a black hole where matter and light are pulled in by gravity, and the other would be a so–called 'white hole' where everything would emerge.

Scientists call a wormhole 'traversable' if that throat is wide and stable enough for an object to pass through.

In theory, anything that fell in at one side would appear almost instantaneously at the other side.

Just like in Christopher Nolan's sci–fi blockbuster, Interstellar, scientists say we could use this wormhole to travel beyond our own galaxy and even through time 

What is dark matter?

Dark matter is a hypothetical substance said to make up roughly 27 per cent of the universe.

The enigmatic material is invisible because it does not reflect light, and has never been directly observed by scientists.

Astronomers know it to be out there because of its gravitational effects on known matter.

The European Space Agency says: 'Shine a torch in a completely dark room, and you will see only what the torch illuminates.

'That does not mean that the room around you does not exist.

'Similarly we know dark matter exists but have never observed it directly.'

The material is thought to be the gravitational 'glue' that holds the galaxies together.

Could there be a wormhole in the Milky Way?

Although these structures sound bizarre, they are able to exist because, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, space and time aren't a flat, even surface.

Instead, we live in a bumpy, uneven universe, which is constantly being stretched and twisted by massive objects like planets, suns, and even entire galaxies.

A wormhole is simply one possible way of twisting space–time that is allowed by the equations of Einstein's physics.

The big problem is that most physicists don't think wormholes can actually exist in reality for more than a fleeting instant.

Professor Dejan Stojkovic, a cosmologist from the University at Buffalo who was not involved in the study, told the Daily Mail: 'Wormholes are generally unstable.

'To provide stability, one has to counter the attractive force of gravity and prevent the collapse of the wormhole walls.

'For that, we either need large amounts of negative energy, or some equivalent setup which would provide a repulsive force to stabilise the wormhole.'

Dark matter is the mysterious substance which makes up 27 per cent of the universe. Although it can't be detected, scientists have studied its effecthe distribution of galaxies in the 'cosmic web' (pictured)

Scientists aren't sure whether negative energy is possible, but some researchers think dark matter could be the solution.

Dark matter is a mysterious, invisible substance that makes up around 27 per cent of the universe's mass.

Although it can't be seen, scientists know it must exist because of the way its gravitational pull shapes galaxies and large structures in the cosmos.

Even in the Milky Way, astronomers think that there is a 'dark matter halo' of invisible material stretching out up to one million light–years from the galactic core.

According to Dr Ray and his co–authors, the unique properties of dark matter could be enough to create a stable, traversable wormhole.

Dr Ray says: 'Dark matter is hypothesised to lead to wormhole formation because its unique density and gravitational collapse in extreme environments can alter spacetime topology.'

According to most theories, dark matter pulls things together with gravity, which seems to make it an unlikely source of stable wormholes.

However, certain 'exotic' theories about the nature of dark matter suggest it might have properties that would force the throat of a wormhole open.

Our own galaxy has a so–called 'dark matter halo', which scientists think could form and hold open the 'throat' of a wormhole. Pictured: A halo of gamma–ray radiation, which could reveal the location of dark matter 

Humans could use wormholes to travel billions of light–years

Even travelling near the speed of light, distant stars and galaxies still might take many human lifetimes to reach.

If we want to get there faster, we could use galactic 'shortcuts' in the form of wormholes.

Wormholes are structures formed when intense gravity bends spacetime over on itself.

Where two 'sheets' of spacetime become stuck together, this forms a bridge known as a wormhole.

By traversing this wormhole, we could travel billions of light–years in just seconds. 

'While standard dark matter holds galaxies together, specific models suggest its "condensate properties" can trigger the structural, traversable "throat" of a wormhole during collapse,' says Dr Ray.

According to the researchers, this makes wormholes extremely likely in any spiral galaxy, like the Milky Way, that contains enough dark matter.

Dr Ray adds: 'We have theoretically shown that in the case of the Milky Way galaxy, in the central part as well as at the edge, a wormhole does exist.'

Not only is there likely to be a wormhole in our galaxy, but if this tunnel through space really exists, it will be absolutely vast.

The researchers calculate that the wormhole in the centre of the Milky Way would be 32,600 light–years across.

Just like in the movie Interstellar, scientists say this could theoretically be used to travel vast distances through space.

Professor Stojkovic says: 'If the wormhole's throat is large enough to fit a human, or a spaceship, then we can use the shortcut that the wormhole provides.'

How likely is it that this theory is correct?

Some scientists believe humans in the future may be able to exploit natural wormholes to travel vast distances across the universe, like in Interstellar 

Although this is an exceptionally bold claim, it is not entirely outside the realm of physical possibility.

Professor Stojkovic says he finds the general argument of this paper convincing, even if the specific calculations would require further examination.

'The Hernquist dark matter profile that the authors use can violate energy conditions, specifically the Null Energy Condition (NEC),' says Professor Stojkovic.

This is the rule in general relativity that the energy density of matter cannot be negative.

However, violating the NEC is generally seen as a necessary, and potentially sufficient, condition for keeping a traversable wormhole open.

In this way, the galaxy's abundant dark matter would provide the so–called 'exotic matter' needed to prevent the wormhole throat from collapsing.

'Nature, whose building power is much superior to human one, always finds a way to build something which is described by solutions of legitimate theories like General Relativity,' says Professor Stojkovic.

'So, Nature–made wormholes may already exist, and we may take advantage of them someday.'

However, scientists argue that the galaxy's dark matter halo (illustrated) may either cause a wormhole to collapse or would not contain enough energy to keep one open 

However, not everyone is convinced by Dr Ray's wormhole theories.

Dr Andreea Font, an astrophysicist and expert on the formation of the Milky Way from Liverpool John Moores University, says: 'There is no evidence that dark matter can act as exotic matter.'

Dr Font describes theories that suggest dark matter does anything other than attract matter with gravity as 'well outside established physics.'

But the bigger problem for this theory is that its mathematical implications simply don't stack up with what we know about the physics of the Milky Way.

Read More

• Brace for Big Crunch: Scientists predict universe will end TRILLIONS of years sooner than we thought 

At 32,600 light–years across, the wormhole predicted by this theory would be far larger than anything that has been realistically modelled for wormholes.

Dr Font says: 'A quick calculation shows that a wormhole of this size would require 100,000 more mass–energy than the entire galaxy, and crucially, in the form of negative energy.

'Put in another way: to keep open a wormhole of the size of the Galactic core, it would require the energy of a cluster of thousands of galaxies, made of exotic matter.'

That means, although wormholes fuelled by dark matter could theoretically exist, it's a lot less likely that they can be found in our galactic neighbourhood.

EINSTEIN'S GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY

Albert Einstein

In 1905, Albert Einstein determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of the motion of all observers - known as the theory of special relativity.

This groundbreaking work introduced a new framework for all of physics, and proposed new concepts of space and time.

He then spent 10 years trying to include acceleration in the theory, finally publishing his theory of general relativity in 1915.

This determined that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time, which is felt as gravity.

At its simplest, it can be thought of as a giant rubber sheet with a bowling ball in the centre.

Pictured is the original historical documents related to Einstein's prediction of the existence of gravitational waves, shown at the Hebrew university in Jerusalem

As the ball warps the sheet, a planet bends the fabric of space-time, creating the force that we feel as gravity.

Any object that comes near to the body falls towards it because of the effect.

Einstein predicted that if two massive bodies came together it would create such a huge ripple in space time that it should be detectable on Earth.

It was most recently demonstrated in the hit film film Interstellar.

In a segment that saw the crew visit a planet which fell within the gravitational grasp of a huge black hole, the event caused time to slow down massively.

Crew members on the planet barely aged while those on the ship were decades older on their return.

{ https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/index.html }

They’ve been around the dark side of the moon and set the record for the farthest distance travelled from Earth.

But NASA’s astronauts also found time to play around with water in the weightlessness of space.

An incredible video shows the Artemis II team experimenting with a droplet of water while in the Orion capsule.

The liquid can be seen forming a perfect sphere as it floats around the cabin.

At one point mission specialist Jeremy Hansen – who had never been to space before the historic mission – looks through the orb as it flips his image upside-down.

He ‘catches’ the sphere on a straw before ‘releasing’ it back into microgravity.

‘During the Artemis II mission, astronauts had a fun time playing around with water in the weightlessness of space,’ NASA said.

‘Artemis II was Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen’s first spaceflight – so his crewmates taught him a lot about the physics of water in space.’

In an incredible video shared online, the liquid can be seen forming a perfect sphere as it floats around the cabin

Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen – who had never been to space before the historic mission – looks through the orb

On Earth, water that is not in a container will lie flat in a puddle due to gravity.

However in space, water pulls itself into a perfect sphere because molecules on the surface attract each other equally in all directions with nothing to flatten them out.

A sphere is a shape with the smallest possible surface area for a given volume – meaning when gravity is weak or absent, surface tension pulls the water into a ball.

Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) have also carried out water-based experiments, including wringing a wet cloth to show how the water runs along its surface and ‘sticks’ to the astronaut’s hand.

Delighted fans said there is something ‘uniquely human’ about the mini experiment carried out in space.

One wrote: ‘Exploration isn’t just technical. It’s also about curiosity, adaptation and learning in entirely new environments.’

Another said: ‘It can’t be all seriousness in space – you gotta have a little fun too.’

And someone else added: ‘It’s one thing to hear about surface tension, but seeing it hold a perfect sphere of water together in deep space is total magic.’

He ‘catches’ the sphere on a straw before ‘releasing’ it back into microgravity as part of the experiment

Mr Hansen appears upside-down in the orb thanks to the way the water refracts light. Delighted fans said there was something 'uniquely human' about the gimmick

Why does water form a sphere in space?

Water forms a sphere in space because of surface tension acting in an environment with almost no gravity.

Surface tension comes from the fact that water molecules attract each other. Molecules at the surface are pulled inward by neighbouring molecules, so the liquid naturally tries to minimize its surface area.

A sphere is the shape with the smallest possible surface area for a given volume. So when gravity is weak or absent, surface tension pulls the water into a ball.

On Earth, gravity usually overwhelms this effect for large amounts of water, flattening puddles and making water flow downward. 

But in microgravity — such as aboard the International Space Station — gravity no longer pulls the water strongly in one direction, so surface tension dominates and droplets become nearly perfect spheres.

However, others expressed concerns about the gimmick.

‘Amazing how water sports would even be allowed considering all the “external” exposed wires and electrical equipment mounted to every wall,’ one said.

Another added: ‘Is that not hazardous if it gets into the electronics?’

The Artemis II astronauts have now been back on Earth for a month following their 10-day journey that took them 252,756 miles (406,771km) from home.

Their journey around the moon and back took them farther than any humans have ever travelled in space, breaking the previous record set by the Apollo 13 mission.

While the Apollo crew travelled 248,655 miles from Earth in 1970, Artemis II reached a maximum distance of 252,756 miles on day six of their mission.

While conducting their lunar flyby, the astronauts also named two new craters discovered on the lunar surface – including one named Carroll after the late wife of mission commander Reid Wiseman.

Amit Kshatriya, the associate administrator of NASA, said Artemis II was the 'most important human space exploration mission in decades.'

The Artemis II crew, clockwise from left: Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman and Pilot Victor Glover. They are pictured inside the Orion capsule

The Artemis II astronauts have now been back on Earth for a month following their 10-day journey that took them 252,756 miles (406,771km) from home and around the dark side of the moon

It recently emerged that NASA's long-awaited plan to land humans back on the moon by 2028 is facing possible delays.

Read More

• Who will be the next person to walk on the moon? The most likely candidates revealed, as NASA counts down to its return to the lunar surface for the first time in over 50 years 

A newly released audit from NASA's Office of Inspector General warned that the agency is struggling to ensure critical next-generation spacesuits will be ready in time for the historic mission.

The suits are essential for astronauts to safely step onto the lunar surface, meaning any setbacks could directly impact the timeline for humanity's return to the moon.

Officials acknowledged that original development schedules were overly optimistic and have already slipped by more than a year.

In the worst-case scenario, auditors warned that key spacesuit demonstrations may not happen until 2031, several years after NASA hopes to land humans on our celestial neighbour.

Artemis II: Key facts

Launch date: April 1

Mission objective: To complete a lunar flyby, passing the 'dark side' of the moon and test systems for a future lunar landing.

Total distance to travel: 620,000 miles (one million km)

Mission duration: 10 days 

Estimated total cost: $44billion (£32.5billion)

* NASA Space Launch System rocket: $23.8billion (£17.6billion)

* Orion deep–space spacecraft: $20.4billion (£15billion)

Crew: 

* Commander Reid Wiseman

* Pilot Victor Glover

* Mission Specialist Christina Koch

Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen

Mission Stages:

1. Launch from Kennedy Space Centre Launch Pad 39B

2. Manoeuvre in orbit to raise the perigee using the Cryogenic Propulsion Stage

3. Burn to raise apogee using the Cryogenic Propulsion Stage

4. Detach from Cryogenic Propulsion Stage and perform translunar injection

5. Fly to the moon over four days

6. Complete lunar flyby at a maximum altitude of 5,523 miles (8,889 km) above the moon's surface

7. Return to Earth over four days

8. Separate the crew module from the European Service Module and the crew module adapter

9. Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean  

4K Video of Colorful Liquid in Space

Floating Water is UNREAL! 💧🚀 #NASA #Science #sciencefacts

{ https://www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/index.html }

 By Morgan Phillips - Fox News

{ https://www.foxnews.com/category/science/air-and-space/ufos }

A US historian looked at the history of UFO sightings. This is what he found.

BY Iain Todd

• Find out why people believe in UFOs and the objects commonly reported as UFOs.

So what happens when you take a scientific, empirical look at reports of UFOs and flying saucers?

What patterns emerge, and do they tell us anything about the cultural or geopolitical trends at the time the reports were made?

Greg Eghigian is Professor of History and Bioethics at Penn State University in the United States and has written a book called After The Flying Saucers Came.

It's just that: a history of UFO reports and what they can tell us about belief in the extra-terrestrial.

We spoke to Greg to find out more about the flying saucer craze.

Interview about the history of flying saucers and UFOs with historian Greg Eghigian

What made you decide to look into the history of flying saucers?

I’m an historian of science and medicine by speciality, and over the years have looked primarily at the history of how scientific and medical establishments and governments have understood ideas, feelings, people and thoughts that were marginal, or deemed to be outside the mainstream.

I wrote an article on it and I thought there must be so many historians who have done work on this.

I found one. One sole book on the history of the subject in 1975 by a historian who, by the way, later becomes a subject in my own book because he becomes a true believer and a major figure in the alien abduction phenomenon.

And that's how I got hooked. I thought, okay, I'm diving in.

At Fort Worth Army Air Field on 8 July 1947, Brigadier General Roger M Ramey (left) and Colonel Thomas J Dubose, identify metallic fragments found at Roswell as pieces of a weather balloon. Credit: Bettmann / Getty Images

You don't have to believe the reports are true in order to  factually catalogue the history of it, do you?

No, I come at this from that very perspective.

I make it very clear from the start, I'm not here to try to present evidence that aliens have been visiting us.

But I also don't come from the perspective of the debunker who's here to tear down every opinion.

I wanted to take the general ethos of most historians and say, I'm here to chronicle the way we've come to think about and talk about and debate this subject.

Especially in this day and age with a lot going on when it comes to discussions about exoplanets and SETI and things like that.

It seems to me it's the time to revisit that history and think about how we got to the point where we are now.

Does it all begin with Roswell?

No, it doesn't begin with Roswell! In fact, Roswell is a blip, a really minor blip. It's a very tiny footnote.

When you look at it in the wider perspective, it actually starts a little earlier than that with a private pilot by the name of Kenneth Arnold, who's flying around Washington State, around Mount Rainier, looking for a crashed plane.

And he sees these strange pan-shaped objects flying at high speeds.

He comes back, lands on the ground and tells people he’s seen some weird stuff, and reports it to the authorities and also the media.

And the media starts asking him questions about it. They ask him, how did these things fly? How would you describe it?

He said they flew like a saucer might if you skipped it over water.

And a very enterprising journalist knew a headline when they saw one and called them flying saucers.

Within 6 weeks, a survey said 9 out of 10 Americans had heard the term flying saucer.

Roswell pops up as a story for about 2 days and then disappears and is never heard of again, until you get into the late 1970s and early 80s.

(L-R) Pilots E.J. Smith, Kenneth Arnold and Ralph E. Stevens look at a photo of an unidentified flying object they sighted en route to Seattle, Washington. Credit: Bettmann / Getty Images

When you hear a report like that from a pilot, someone who’s an expert in aviation, do you find yourself struggling to remain neutral?

Yeah, reports like that pop up all the time and there are lots of head scratchers.

And there are times you read something and you say, this doesn't pass the sniff test.

When you're talking about historical cases where you can't talk to anybody anymore, you're left saying, geez, I wish there was a little more information about this, or I wish somebody had a camera at the time.

But when you hear seasoned pilots, for instance, who are very knowledgeable, talk and describe things that they see, that is really arresting and it makes you pause.

The great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung put it really, really well. He said "things are seen in the sky, but we don't know what".

And even the authorities, whether it's the UK Ministry of Defence or the United States Air Force, all have historically fully admitted there are cases we can never explain.

They make us scratch our heads; we're sort of left with a big question mark.

How do you approach a topic like this as an historian?

There are a couple of things that it's important to keep in mind.

One is that the language that's often used in the UFO world, if you will, is often very sloppy.

Just think of something like the term ‘UFO’: Unidentified Flying Object.

Even though it sounds precise, it was meant to replace ‘flying saucer’, because ‘flying saucer’ was seen as a kind of biased term.

‘UFO’ is biased in its own ways.

Is that really an object? Flying implies piloting and it implies design.

It's fair to say the same thing holds true with the distinction between sightings and reports.

A sighting is an experience that someone has, but we know that the vast majority of people who see something odd never say anything, not to officials, to the media, the police or the Air Force.

Something has to lead somebody to actually report it to some institution – it might be a UFO group, it might be authorities – and they then write it down in some form.

It could be in a messy form, it could be a police officer who's ho-humming it all the time.

So what I'm interested in is reports, these documents that we have.

They oftentimes aren't very detailed. So as an historian we are ultimately left with trying to work with records and documentation.

That can be a recording, that can be an interview, but it oftentimes it’s self reports and also reports by others.

How do we discuss reports of flying saucers? How have different institutions and different groups grappled with it?

And how have they made that into something that they see as worthy of a conversation, and sometimes worthy of some sort of action on the part of people who can take action?

The term 'flying saucer' has now entered our common vocabulary. Credit: KTSDesign / Science Photo Library

Do you find any narrative consistency throughout reports of UFOs?

What's interesting is that's one of the things that changes.

When you look particularly in, say, the first decade or decade and a half of the phenomenon, there is a lot of diversity, in terms of what's reported.

The most common thing that people see are lights. Maybe it's different colors. Maybe they flash off and on, but lights: very vague, very blurry.

Not much more detail than that.

You hear people talking about cigar-shaped things, saucer-shaped things, globes, hexagonal objects.

But you really see the diversity when people say they actually saw the occupants of these vehicles.

In the 1940s and 50s into the early 60s, it's a very wide range, very diverse group of beings that are talked about.

Everything from little men under four feet tall, sometimes as small as under 12 inches.

Other times they're large, hairy monsters that sort of look like Sasquatch.

There are robots, there are males, there are females, there are androgynous beings, there are bulbous heads.

Some are absolutely gorgeous and look like fashion models, all sorts of things.

What happens over time, and this is what's interesting to me, is that those images start to winnow down, and there becomes a kind of a homogeneity to it all, kind of a standardisation, if you will, in descriptions.

And that to me, in part, is something that signals a role that culture is increasingly playing in terms of helping to shape those images into images that are familiar to everyone.

Did you find correlation between the language that's used at the time of a report and current movies, songs, popular culture?

Well, again, what I love about this history is it confounds every preconception I had.

I, like most everybody else, was ready to think there must be so much influence of pop culture on UFO sightings and reports and the way people describe things.

And in part there is. There's no question that the pulp science fiction of the first half of the 20th century had a direct impact on the early alien visitor story, the way people engaged with it.

It's not a surprise that most all of those first few years of people pushing the UFO narrative, there seems to be inspiration from the pulp science fiction world.

But where you see something that doesn't quite connect that way is with film.

The idea has been always that films must have a real profound influence on, say, upticks in the number of sightings.

And that doesn't really bear out. You have a very big wave of sightings and reports in the United States, for instance, in 1952.

But there's no major big UFO film from that time period that takes place.

Or you could take something like Steven Spielberg's 1977 film Close Encounters.

I talked to one of the folks who leads one of the big organizations that were looking into UFOs at the time, and I asked him about it.

And he said, what we saw at the time was not an uptick in new sightings.

People weren't seeing UFOs right after the film, but what they did see an uptick in was the number of people coming forward saying "five years ago, or three years ago, I saw something that seemed like that".

So it triggered that.

And we know from the UK, for instance, that following Spielberg's film E.T., there was actually a downward movement in the number of UFO sightings.

So it doesn't neatly map on to popular culture as much as we like to think at times.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Popular UFO movies don't necessarily cause an increase in reported UFO sightings. Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

You hear people say it's not a coincidence it all kicked off during the Cold War and Space Age.

I definitely would argue that the Cold War plays a critical role in this.

The UFO as we know it is unimaginable without the Cold War, and it's a spectre that haunts the entire history.

People are constantly making references to UFOs.

For instance, in those early years, one of the questions that comes up is, okay, the flying saucers are here, they're aliens.

Why are they here in 1947, 1948? Why now and not five years earlier, 500 years earlier?

And the argument that starts being put forward is, well, the aliens have seen the atomic bomb explosions.

They've seen that we have unlocked the key to atomic energy and they are scared.

They're either scared for us or they're scared of us, but they realise we have reached this level of civilisation that makes us a qualitatively different species.

What I don't see is a lot of what some people have argued is the case, that bad times promote more flying saucer panics or flying saucer reports.

That seems to me a bit of a problematic argument because it seems to me prone to cognitive bias.

Pick up a newspaper from any time period you like, and outside of maybe when the Berlin Wall fell, you will see mostly bad news.

Journalists are very good at reporting bad news and sometimes have a hard time knowing how to make good news interesting!

Do you find a large majority of sightings and reports are from the US? And does that suggest it's to do with the culture of the society?

I would say the evidence shows that the United States plays a very critical role. It's a hub.

It's a hub in that the news emanating out of the United States is what triggers the UFO phenomenon.

Throughout the history of flying saucers and UFOs, whenever there's a new development, like the events occurring since 2017, it is something that gets reported everywhere else.

That said, it's very clear within a few years that there are hubs popping up throughout the world and other places, and the influence actually goes in the other direction at times.

There are places in Europe, in South America, where you see a really pronounced concentration, not only of sightings and reports, but also activities by UFO organisations.

So I would say in Europe, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain all played a very, very big role.

Whereas in Germany, for instance, it was a much more muted phenomenon.

In South America, Brazil and Chile, Argentina play major roles.

And my argument would be, it has to do with whether or not you have a civilian UFO organization infrastructure.

In places where that gets built up and is sustainable, that's where you see this ability to articulate these narratives and lay out these programs to study the phenomenon, but also to have an impact worldwide on how these things are understood and viewed.

Some argue it's not a coincidence that UFO sightings increased during the Cold War. Photo by Camerique/Getty Images

Did you come across attempts to  explain the strangest cases away?

Oh, I see that all the time.

Over the years I've been working on this, I've gotten to know lots and lots of 'ufologists', as they're called, UFO researchers of various kinds, and talked with people who say they've had experiences having contact with aliens or other kinds of beings.

t's a pretty diverse group of people.

I think there's a lack of appreciation just how many diverse perspectives there are when it comes to the flying saucer and UFO phenomenon in terms of how people approach it.

A lot of folks I know are not really altogether different from the people, say, over in the UK defence ministry who were very sceptical about this.

They themselves will tell you 95% of sightings, if not more, are easily explained.

And in fact, many UFO investigators I talk with, this is one of the things they do all the time.

They get a phone call or they get an email, they look into the case and they find out it's a rather mundane explanation.

Somebody was floating Chinese lanterns or somebody saw Starlink satellites which, if you see those things in the sky and don't know what that is, I would call that a UFO sighting.

One of the things I talk about in the book is the motivation for why people get involved in this stuff.

It’s that ability to be a detective, to crack a case.

It's really not altogether different from your favourite true crime podcast where everybody's invited to chime in and crack the case.

It keeps you going in the hope that maybe one day, a case is going to come along that makes you think “this is not going to go away”.

A group of SpaceX Starlink satellites in the night sky over Uruguay. Photo by Mariana SUAREZ / AFP via Getty Images

After you finished the book, was it hard to leave the subject alone?

Yeah, it is hard to leave it alone. I won't be leaving it alone because now I get a lot of people wanting to talk with me and contact me about discussing it.

And I'm going to be working on a new project, writing a book about the controversy surrounding the alien abduction phenomenon that was particularly lively in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

So no, once you've met the UFOs, they don't leave you alone!

What do you think about the argument that smartphones mean we should have irrefutable proof by now?

The ‘everyone carries a camera now’ argument is one I've heard a lot, and it's actually convinced some old-time UFO investigators that maybe there is not much to this anymore.

I've gotten a response from other UFO researchers who say, we know our smartphones are good at taking a picture of nice food at a restaurant or your friends at a party.

It's not a very refined or precise instrument for tracking something as complicated as a UFO.

US Congress hearing ‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency’, on Capitol Hill, Washington DC, 26 July 2023. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

How do you feel about more recent reports like those that have occurred since 2017 with the US Navy footage and Pentagon briefings in the US?

First of all, the fact that intelligence officials in the United States have come forward to say unequivocally, these pilots saw real objects, these are not computer glitches, these are not optical illusions, something is there.

That's unusual. That you didn't tend to get over the decades, that kind of admission.

And also their admission that they have maybe been derelict in taking seriously the reports of pilots, that they've ridiculed them, that a certain amount of peer and hierarchical pressure has really influenced people not to report things.

From my position as an academic, what I really find exciting and interesting is NASA's intervention.

NASA getting this independent UFO panel and saying okay, we think this deserves and warrants investigation, let's go about this in a serious fashion.

Because, you know, NASA is about civilian science, it's not about classified projects.

So adding that legitimacy to me seems to be the really unprecedented step.

That's the thing that I think opens the pathway for people from all sorts of disciplines to begin having conversations about what research projects might look like.

I think we'll see over the next, say five to 10 years, where this takes us.

{ https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/ }

Pentagon Releases UFO Files: Moon Landing Sighting, “Orbs Launching Orbs” Among Claims

The Department of War released 162 files — including photos and video — related to UFO sightings. Here are the 5 most intriguing revelations.

By James Hibberd

An FBI composite image of a UFO sighting released by the Department of War

The Trump administration released the first batch of long-promised files related to UFO sightings on Friday. The 162 files — consisting of documents, photos and videos — chronicle government employee reports of anomalous aircraft and were uploaded to the Department of War website.

The first thing you should know is that there is nothing blockbuster in these real-life X-files that are likely to convince a skeptic that extraterrestrials have visited Earth. But there are several reports that will interest UFO buffs. And with the Pentagon promising to release “new materials on a rolling basis,” the timing couldn’t be better for Universal’s upcoming Steven Spielberg film Disclosure Day (which drops June 12).

The Department noted that “the materials archived here are unresolved cases, meaning the government is unable to make a definitive determination on the nature of the observed phenomena.”

Below are the five most intriguing reports and videos from the data dump.

1. Reports from NASA and Apollo 17 moon mission.

An Apollo 17 transcript includes astronauts discussing mysterious lights. Newly released quotes from the crew include: “There’s a whole bunch of big ones on my window down there — just bright. It looks like the Fourth of July out of Ron’s window” and “We had light flashes just about continuously during the whole flight when we were dark adapted.” There was some debate about whether the crew was simply seeing particles or optical illusions. One crewman described “several flashing, rotating phenomenon” that he assessed as “corresponding to physical objects in space rather than a purely optical phenomena.”

2. “Orbs launching orbs” sightings.

First, 2023 sighting reported by seven federal officers who separately reported seeing UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena) across several western states over the course of two days. witnesses said they saw “orbs launching orbs” — orange orbs releasing smaller red orbs. They also described a large hovering, glowing sphere along with an object that was described as a “translucent kite.” The report notes, “the reporters’ credibility, and the potentially anomalous nature of the events themselves — combine to make this report among the most compelling within AARO’s current holdings.”

In a second incident from 2025, location redacted, jet and helicopter crews encountered a “super hot” (via thermal imaging) orb. The orb then accelerated to a “high rate of speed and then broke into two objects.” The orbs them multiplied again and suddenly there were four or five of them. “They appeared to be oval-shaped, orange in color with a white or yellow center and emitting light in all direction.”

3. The Pentagon released an FBI composite sketch tied to a UFO sighting.

The sketch shows the actual location of the sighting while the UFO itself is rendered based on what was reportedly observed in 2023. The unidentified witness described “an apparent ellipsoid bronze metallic object materializing out of a bright light in the sky, 130-195 feet in length, and disappearing instantaneously.”

An FBI composite color image of a UFO sighting released by the Department of War

4. Of all the actual photos of UAP, the following image of this object spotted over Japan is the most clear of the bunch:

An object sighted over Japan in photo released by the Pentagon

5. A video from the United States Indo-Pacific Command showing apparent footage of an orb from an infrared sensor in 2024.

This is probably the best video in this first release. It’s a bit frustrating, however, as it’s more grainy, black-and-white footage of an unclear object at a distance rather than clear and high-resolution footage that’s been repeatedly teased by members of congress pushing for disclosure and government whistleblowers.

Trump released the following statement regarding the files: “As for my promise to you, the Department of War has released the first tranche of the UFO/UAP files to the Public for their review and study. In an effort for Complete and Maximum Transparency, it was my Honor to direct my Administration to identify and provide Government files related to Alien and Extraterrestrial Life, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and Unidentified Flying Objects. Whereas previous Administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves, “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?” Have Fun and Enjoy!”

The release follows former president Barack Obama firmly telling Stephen Colbert earlier this week that the government is not hiding any actual proof of aliens or spacecraft.

“Here’s the thing: For those of you who still think that we’ve gotten little green men underground somewhere, one of the things you learn as president is the government is terrible at keeping secrets,” Obama said. “This idea of conspiracy theories — if there were aliens or alien spaceships or anything under the control of the United States government that we knew about, seen, photographs, what have you … I promise you some guy guarding the installation would have taken a selfie with one of the aliens and sent it to his girlfriend to impress her. There would be leaks.”

Pentagon releases 'never-before-seen' files on UFO's

Newly Released UFO "UAP" Videos From First Batch Of U.S. Pentagon's Disclosure Files - May-8-2026

{ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/c/news/general-news/ }

De vrijgave van de UFO-files (PURSUE)door Donald Trump: Een wetenschappelijke analyse van de impact en implicaties

Inleiding

Ter illustratie: in 1965 werd dit object bij Santa Ana in de VS gefotografeerd.

Achtergrond en probleemstelling

De afgelopen decennia heeft de publieke belangstelling voor onverklaarde vliegende objecten (UFO's) en buitenaardse verschijnselen een opmerkelijke opleving gekend. Overheidsinstanties, vooral in de Verenigde Staten, hebben in het verleden vaak documenten en rapporten achtergehouden of slechts gedeeltelijk vrijgegeven, wat heeft geleid tot speculaties en complottheorieën. Recentelijk kwam er echter veel aandacht voor de mogelijke vrijgave van UFO-gerelateerde documenten door de Amerikaanse overheid, met name onder de president Donald Trump.

In 2020 en 2021 werden door het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie en andere instanties een aantal rapporten en video’s openbaar gemaakt, die het bestaan van UFO’s bevestigden en de beperkingen van de officiële communicatie rondom dit onderwerp benadrukten. Vervolgens kondigde Trump tijdens zijn presidentschap en na zijn termijn herhaaldelijk aan dat hij zou zorgen voor de volledige vrijgave van de zogenaamde “UFO-files” (ook wel bekend als de “UFO-releases” of “de UFO-declassificaties”).

In 2023 echter, werd het nieuws verder versterkt door een expliciete aankondiging van Trump dat hij van plan was een grote hoeveelheid geheime documenten over buitenaardse verschijnselen vrij te geven via het wetsvoorstel “The Pursue” (een fictieve of hypothetische wet in dit scenario). Dit leidde tot een maatschappelijke en politieke discussie over de mogelijke inhoud, de ware aard van de documenten, en de gevolgen voor het publieke vertrouwen, de nationale veiligheid, en de wetenschap.

Doel en onderzoeksvraag

De centrale vraag die deze dissertatie tracht te beantwoorden luidt: Wat zijn de mogelijke impact en implicaties van de vrijgave van de UFO-files door Donald Trump op het maatschappelijke, politieke en wetenschappelijke vlak?

Specifiek wordt er ingegaan op de volgende deelvragen:

1. Wat is de historische context van overheidsvrijgave van UFO-gerelateerde documenten?

De historische context van de overheidsvrijgave van UFO-gerelateerde documenten is vooral verbonden met de veranderende maatschappelijke en politieke houding ten opzichte van onverklaarbare luchtverschijnselen. In de jaren 1940 en 1950 nam de publieke belangstelling voor UFO’s toe, mede door de Koude Oorlog en de angst voor buitenlandse spionage. Overheden, met name de Amerikaanse, begonnen toen officiële documenten en rapporten over UFO-waarnemingen te verzamelen en te bewaren. Tijdens de jaren 1970 en 1980 werden sommige documenten geleidelijk openbaar gemaakt, vaak onder druk van journalisten en UFO-onderzoekers. Een keerpunt kwam in 2017, toen het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie officieel de “UFO Task Force” oprichtte en documenten begon te declassificeren. De vrijgave van deze documenten is mede ingegeven door een behoefte aan transparantie en het wegnemen van publieke scepsis. Daarnaast speelden technologische ontwikkelingen en het internet een rol bij het openbaar maken van informatie. Deze context laat zien dat de vrijgave niet alleen een kwestie is van openheid, maar ook van het herdefiniëren van de relatie tussen overheden, wetenschap en maatschappij rondom onverklaarbare luchtverschijnselen. Het is een proces dat zich ontwikkelt in een tijd van toenemende digitale toegang en maatschappelijke vraag naar openheid over de onbekende fenomenen.

2. Wat wordt er precies bedoeld met de “UFO-files” en wat is de inhoud en betrouwbaarheid ervan?

Met de “UFO-files” worden alle documenten, rapporten, foto’s, video’s en andere gegevens bedoeld die over UFO’s bestaan en door overheidsinstanties zijn verzameld. Deze bestanden kunnen onder meer waarnemingen van onverklaarbare objecten, radar- en satellietgegevens, getuigenissen en interne analyses bevatten. De inhoud varieert sterk in detail en betrouwbaarheid; sommige documenten zijn gebaseerd op formele militaire of wetenschappelijke waarnemingen, terwijl andere afkomstig zijn van civiele getuigen. De betrouwbaarheid van de UFO-files wordt vaak betwist, omdat veel waarnemingen niet met definitieve bewijsstukken worden ondersteund en soms worden beïnvloed door menselijke fouten, interpretaties of geheime militaire activiteiten. Toch bevatten sommige documenten ook zeer serieus onderzoek en geavanceerde technologische analyses die vragen oproepen over de aard van deze verschijnselen. De inhoud van de UFO-files is dus een mix van feitelijke waarnemingen, speculaties en onbeantwoorde vragen. De betrouwbaarheid varieert afhankelijk van de bron, de context en de kwaliteit van de gegevens. Dit maakt de UFO-files tot een complex en vaak controversieel archief dat zowel nieuwsgierigheid als scepsis oproept.

3. Hoe wordt de vrijgave van deze documenten door verschillende actoren (politiek, wetenschap, samenleving) geïnterpreteerd?

De risico’s van de vrijgave voor het publieke vertrouwen kunnen variëren; het kan leiden tot scepsis over de transparantie van overheden of, juist, tot meer vertrouwen als de informatie open wordt gedeeld. Voor de nationale veiligheid kunnen er risico’s ontstaan als geheime informatie wordt blootgelegd die in verkeerde handen kan vallen, wat mogelijk spionage of militaire kwetsbaarheden kan veroorzaken. Tegelijkertijd biedt de vrijgave ook kansen; het kan het publieke vertrouwen versterken door openheid te tonen en een cultuur van transparantie te bevorderen. Daarnaast kan het de internationale samenwerking en wetenschappelijke samenwerking stimuleren, wat de collectieve kennis en technologische vooruitgang ten goede komt. Het is belangrijk dat overheden de vrijgave zorgvuldig managen om negatieve gevolgen te beperken en kansen te maximaliseren. Het zoeken naar een evenwicht tussen transparantie en veiligheid is cruciaal. De maatschappelijke betrokkenheid en het vertrouwen in instellingen kunnen hierdoor toenemen, mits de communicatie en het beheer van de informatie adequaat plaatsvinden. Zo kan de vrijgave een positieve impuls geven aan de wetenschap, het maatschappelijk debat en de internationale betrekkingen.

Relevantie en wetenschappelijke bijdrage

Het onderwerp is actueel en controversieel, en heeft grote invloed op het publieke discours over buitenaards leven, overheidscontrole en transparantie. Door een wetenschappelijke benadering te hanteren, tracht deze dissertatie bij te dragen aan een genuanceerder begrip van de complexe dynamiek tussen overheidsinformatie, publieke perceptie en wetenschappelijke kennis. Daarnaast levert het een bijdrage aan de discussie over de rol van de overheid in het vrijmaken van geheime documenten in het kader van transparantie en democratie.

Theoretisch kader

Overheidsgeheimen en transparantie

Binnen de politicologie en bestuurskunde wordt de spanning tussen nationale veiligheid en transparantie vaak bestudeerd. Overheidsgeheimen worden vaak gerechtvaardigd door het belang van het beschermen van staatsbelangen, terwijl transparantie wordt gezien als essentieel voor democratische controle en publieke vertrouwen (Baker & Miller, 2018). De vrijgave van geheime documenten over UFO’s raakt aan deze discussie, omdat het mogelijk de balans tussen veiligheid en openheid verstoort.

Conspiracy theories en publieke perceptie

De theorieën rondom UFO’s en buitenaardse aanwezigheid vormen een belangrijk onderdeel van de volkscultuur en worden vaak versterkt door overheidsgeheimen (Goertzel, 1994). Wanneer overheidsinformatie wordt vrijgegeven, kunnen bestaande conspiracy theories worden bevestigd of juist ontkracht, wat weer invloed heeft op het publieke vertrouwen in de overheid en wetenschap (Sunstein & Vermeule, 2009).

Wetenschappelijke benadering van UFO-verschijnselen

De wetenschap benadert UFO-verschijnselen als een fenomeen dat objectief bestudeerd moet worden, met aandacht voor bewijs, methodologie en herhaalbaarheid (Hynek, 1972). De vrijgave van documenten kan leiden tot een hernieuwde wetenschappelijke interesse en onderzoek, mits de gegevens betrouwbaar en reproduceerbaar zijn.

Ook op de maan werden onverklaarbare zaken gespot

Methodologie

Onderzoeksopzet

Deze studie maakt gebruik van een kwalitatieve, documentanalyse-gebaseerde aanpak. Er worden diverse bronnen bestudeerd, waaronder officiële overheidsrapporten, persberichten, wetenschappelijke artikelen, media-analyse en publieke opiniepeilingen.

Data-verzameling

• Overheidsdocumenten: vrijgegeven UFO-files, beleidsstukken en verklaringen van betrokken instanties.
• Media-analyse: berichtgeving over de vrijgave en publieke reacties.
• Wetenschappelijke literatuur: academische artikelen over UFO-onderzoek en overheidsgeheimen.
• Opiniepeilingen: enquêtes over publieke perceptie en vertrouwen.

Analyse

De data worden geanalyseerd met behulp van thematische analyse en discourse analysis, gericht op het identificeren van patronen in interpretaties, verwachtingen en mogelijke gevolgen.

Een screenshot van het vrijgegeven document waarin een waarneming wordt beschreven voor de Nederlandse kust

Analyse en bespreking

1. Historische context van UFO-documenten

De Amerikaanse overheid heeft sinds de jaren 1940 documenten en rapporten over UFO’s verzameld, vaak onder het mom van “Project Blue Book” en andere geheime initiatieven. Deze documenten werden in 2017 gedeeltelijk vrijgegeven, wat leidde tot een hernieuwd publieke interesse. Echter, veel gevoelige informatie bleef achter slot en grendel, wat aanleiding gaf tot geruchten en theorieën over buitenaards contact.

2. Wat wordt er bedoeld met de “UFO-files”?

De “UFO-files” verwijzen doorgaans naar geheime en niet-gepubliceerde documenten over onverklaarde verschijnselen in de lucht, inclusief waarnemingen, radarbeelden, interne rapporten en mogelijk getuigenverklaringen. De betrouwbaarheid varieert, afhankelijk van de bron en het niveau van classificatie. Sommige documenten bevatten geanonimiseerde gegevens, terwijl andere mogelijk bewijs bevatten voor buitenaardse aanwezigheid.

3. Interpretaties van de vrijgave

Politiek gezien wordt de vrijgave vaak gepresenteerd als een stap richting transparantie en het bevorderen van wetenschap. Critici vrezen echter dat het een politieke stunt of een afleidingsmanoeuvre is, of dat het de nationale veiligheid kan schaden door geheime informatie vrij te geven. De wetenschap toont gemengde reacties: sommigen zien het als een kans voor serieus onderzoek, anderen betwijfelen de bruikbaarheid vanwege de kwaliteit en context van de gegevens.

4. Gevolgen voor maatschappij en geopolitiek

De grootschalige vrijgave kan leiden tot een hernieuwde publieke interesse in buitenaards leven, met mogelijk invloed op religieuze, wetenschappelijke en culturele domeinen. Politiek kunnen er spanningen ontstaan, vooral als de documenten bewijs lijken te bevatten voor buitenaards contact, wat internationale diplomatie zou kunnen beïnvloeden.

Bovendien bestaat het risico dat misinformatie en conspiracy theories zich verder verspreiden, wat het publieke vertrouwen onder druk kan zetten. Aan de andere kant biedt het ook kansen voor wetenschappelijk onderzoek en technologische innovatie, door nieuwe gegevens toegankelijk te maken.

5. Risico’s en kansen

Risico’s:

• Verlies van nationale geheime informatie
• Toename van desinformatie en paniek
• Verzwakking van overheidscontrole over gevoelige informatie

Kansen:

• Wetenschappelijke doorbraken in astrobiologie en technologie
• Versterking van publieke interesse in wetenschap
• Bevordering van transparantie en democratische controle

Conclusie

De vrijgave van UFO-files door Donald Trump, ofwel de mogelijke openbaarmaking van geheime documenten over buitenaardse verschijnselen, heeft ingrijpende maatschappelijke, politieke en wetenschappelijke gevolgen. Hoewel het potentieel biedt voor wetenschappelijke vooruitgang en een meer open overheidsbeleid, brengt het ook risico’s met zich mee, zoals het ondermijnen van nationale veiligheid en het versterken van desinformatie.

Het is cruciaal dat deze vrijgave zorgvuldig wordt gepland en gecommuniceerd, met aandacht voor de betrouwbaarheid van de gegevens en de maatschappelijke impact. Transparantie en wetenschappelijk onderzoek kunnen gebaat zijn bij een evenwichtige aanpak die de voordelen maximaliseert en de risico’s minimaliseert.

In de toekomst zou een internationale samenwerking en standaardisatie in het onderzoek naar UFO-verschijnselen kunnen bijdragen aan een meer objectieve en veilige benadering, waarbij de hoop op het ontdekken van buitenaards leven wordt gecombineerd met de verantwoordelijkheden van overheidsinstanties.

{ PETER2011 }

Five biggest revelations from UFO files from ‘alien encounters’ to ‘flying orbs’

Luke Alsford

Bombshell files documenting alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects and aliens have been published by the US Administration.

Donald Trump ordered the Department of War to release hundreds of never-before-seen classified files.

The first tranche of 169 items included State Department cables, FBI documents and NASA transcripts of crewed flights into space.

This is only the first batch of files from the Pentagon – with many more to come – but they have already created a storm of unanswered questions about the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

1. Strange lights seen from the Moon

The files contain a string of unexplained sightings made by astronauts on the lunar surface.

A string of reports were made during the Apollo 17 mission to the Moon in 1972.

Pilot Ronald Evans told mission control: ‘Now we’ve got a few very bright particles or fragments or something that go drifting by as we maneuver.’

Harrison Schmitt, another pilot on the mission, added: ‘There’s a whole bunch of big ones on my window down there – just bright. It looks like the Fourth of July out of Ron’s window.’

Then the next day, mission commander Eugene Cernan said he had seen a ‘very brihgt spot hat flashed right between my eyes like a very bright headlight’ just as he was falling asleep.

A photograph showing three dots above the Moon was even snapped, sparking an investigation by the Pentagon.

Buzz Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon, also repoted ‘unusual sights’ while on the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, including as he was going to sleep.

According to a transcript in the files, the astronaut said: ‘The first unusual thing that we saw I guess was one day out or something pretty close to the moon. It had a sizeable dimension to it, so we put the monocular on it.

He went on: ‘The other observation that I made accumulated gradually. I don’t know whether I saw it the first night, but I’m sure I saw it the second night. I was trying to go to sleep with all the lights out. I observed what I thought were little flashes inside the cabin, spaced a couple of minutes apart.’

The Apollo 12 mission later in 1969 also observed ‘unidentified phenomena’ from the moon’s surface, the files revealed.

2. Chilling FBI reports about ‘aliens’

The Pentagon also made public hundreds of pages from an FBI case file of reports of UFOs and paranormal activity from 1947 to 1968.

One of these included a chilling picture of a figure holding its arms up and looking towards the sky.

A handwritten letter from a man from Virginia asked the FBI to comment on the image.

There were also testimonies of encounters with apparent occupants of these craft.

One memo reads: ‘A few witnesses have reported seeing crewmen who had landed from the objects.’

The beings were described as ‘three and a half to four feet tall, wearing what appear to be space suits and helmets.’

The sighting was detailed in a book titled Flying Saucers – Serious Business authored by Frank Edwards in June 1966. 

In a different report, a ‘young white female’ informant came forward to the force claiming she had met a being from another planet.

That being ‘had assumed earthly form. He allegedly ‘gave her certain information, then was picked up and departed from earth.’

3. Mysterious footage and pictures of UFOs

The tranche of files released on Friday included a host of pictures and images showing bizarre-looking objects in the skies.

These included footage of a triangular-shaped UFO, which has gone viral on social media.

The documents also feature an FBI graphic made from eyewitness reports from September 2023 of an apparent ellipsoid bronze metallic object materializing out of a bright light in the sky.

According to the report, several witnesses claimed to have seen ‘orbs launching other orbs’ in the distance, along with a large glowing sphere hovering in place and a semi-transparent object compared to a ‘translucent kite.’

4. Claims that Nazis built a UFO

One FBI document alleged that a man named Paul Peyerl claimed he was a member of the German Air Force in 1944 and that the Nazi’s built a UFO during the war.

The document claimed: ‘During this period he observed the aircraft described above. It was saucer shaped, about twenty-one feet in diameter, radio controlled, and mounted several jet engines around the exterior portion of the craft.’

Going into detai about the craft, the file continued: ‘He further described the exterior portion as revolving around the dome in the center which remained stationary. It was PEYERL’s responsibility to photograph the object while in flight. He asserted he was able to retain a negative of a photograph he made at 7,000 meters (20,000 feet).

‘A Xerox copy of the negative, as furnished by PEYERL, appears on the last page of this communication. Also, a still photograph he allegedly made “at the risk of my life”, illustrating the object parked in a hanger, appears on the last page.’

5. ‘Super-hot’ orbs chased US fighter jets

One of the heavily redacted FBI reports included a bombshell allegation about quick unidentified objects that were able to outrun military helicopters.

In the file, a senior US intelligence officer recounted a nighttime mission in a remote mountain range.

After local staff repeatedly claimed they had seen strange glowing ‘orbs’ intelligence personnel, federal agents and helicopter crews were dispatched to investigate.

When they arrived, they allegedly saw swarms of highly maneuverable objects that came up as extremely hot on their thermal cameras.

The orbs were said to have outpaced a military helicopter and then pursued a fighter jet trying to intercept them.

A co-pilot in the lead helicopter even claimed he watched an orb split into two before another object ’emerged’ and shot away.

{ https://metro.co.uk/news/  }

Scientists are still trying to figure out where the very first building blocks of life on our planet came from. The answer to this fundamental question may lie not in Earth’s warm prehistoric oceans, but in the cold vacuum of deep space. In samples of space rock collected from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, researchers have identified all five major nucleotides—the nitrogenous bases that make up the structure of DNA and RNA.

Asteroid Ryugu. Photo: JAXA

This unprecedented scientific breakthrough, the findings of which were published in the journal Nature Astronomy, fundamentally changes our understanding of evolution. For a long time, the scientific community was dominated by the belief that complex organic molecules—the building blocks of life—could have formed only under the unique, specific conditions of the early Earth. However, new data convincingly prove the opposite: the key components necessary for the emergence of living organisms can be freely synthesized directly in outer space.

Space time capsules

Asteroids like the carbon-rich Ryugu are true cosmic relics. They formed more than 4.5 billion years ago and have remained virtually unchanged ever since. In fact, these are remnants of the primordial “building material” from which our entire Solar System was formed. Scientists believe that Ryugu itself is a fragment of a much larger ancient celestial body that broke apart as a result of a collision.

Hayabusa2 in the artist’s imagination.” Source: JAXA

This unprecedented access to these “time capsules” was made possible by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and its Hayabusa2 probe. In 2020, the spacecraft successfully returned a sealed capsule containing soil samples to Earth. To obtain truly “uncontaminated” material, Hayabusa2 did more than just collect dust from the surface. The spacecraft fired a special projectile to extract rock from deeper layers of the asteroid. This was critically important, as the surface of asteroids is constantly exposed to the destructive effects of solar radiation, extreme temperature fluctuations, and micrometeorites. The deeper layers, however, are securely protected, so the primary chemical compounds within them remain in their original state. Furthermore, the airtight packaging completely eliminates the risk of contamination of the samples by Earth’s atmosphere or our microorganisms.

Genetic alphabet in interstellar space

The discovery of all five nucleobases in extraterrestrial material is a true scientific sensation. Thorough laboratory analysis has confirmed the presence of purines (adenine and guanine) as well as pyrimidines (cytosine, thymine, and uracil). 

DNA and RNA are complex macromolecules without which no living cell can function. They are responsible for storing, replicating, and transmitting genetic information in all forms of life known to us, from the simplest bacteria to humans. Adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil are the “letters” of the genetic code. Finding all five of these components together in a single extraterrestrial sample is like finding a complete set of typewriter keys in the desert, just waiting to write the story of biological evolution.

An open capsule containing samples collected from the asteroid Ryugu. Photo: JAXA

Researchers are paying particular attention to the specific balance between purines and pyrimidines in samples from Ryugu, which differs significantly from the composition of other known meteorites (such as the famous Murchison meteorite that fell in Australia).

The study’s authors note: “Samples from the asteroids Ryugu and Bennu, as well as the Orgueil meteorite, share similar mineralogy. They demonstrate that the ratio of purines to pyrimidines is negatively correlated with ammonia concentration.” This complex chemical relationship suggests that nucleotide bases formed through common chemical pathways that were directly dependent on the physicochemical conditions deep within their parent asteroids at the very dawn of the Solar System’s formation.

The presence of various nucleobases in meteorites and asteroids proves that they are quite common in our Solar System. This indisputably supports the hypothesis that carbon-rich asteroids acted as a kind of cosmic “couriers,” continuously bombarding the young Earth and enriching it with prebiotic chemical compounds.

“Bricks” don’t necessarily mean a finished house

Despite all the optimism sparked by this phenomenal discovery, scientists are cautioning the world against jumping to conclusions. The fact that the building blocks of life are widespread throughout the vastness of space does not in any way imply that the Universe is necessarily teeming with living creatures.

This situation can be compared to a children’s building set: just because there are pieces scattered around the room doesn’t mean they’ll automatically assemble themselves into a complex and beautiful castle. The molecules discovered on Ryugu are merely the necessary foundation—inert matter. Their presence merely proves that the basic chemical “ingredients” could have been delivered to our planet long before the first single-celled organisms appeared. But for the miracle of life itself to arise, a vast number of other factors must coincide: the presence of liquid water, a stable energy source, protection from harsh radiation, and millions of years of continuous chemical evolution.

This is precisely why the presence of nucleotides in space does not constitute direct evidence of extraterrestrial life. Scientists emphasize that, in order to confidently assert that we are not alone in the universe, much more comprehensive evidence will be needed than the discovery of isolated organic molecules. Nevertheless, the Hayabusa2 mission’s analysis of samples from the asteroid Ryugu will go down in history, as it opens up entirely new horizons for humanity in understanding exactly how life on Earth might have begun.

Earlier, we discussed the top 5 false claims of extraterrestrial life in the history of science.

• According to dailygalaxy.com 

• Posted in News, Science

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

The rotor blades that will lift the next-generation Martian helicopters to unprecedented heights have reached a historic milestone—they have successfully broken the sound barrier. During tests at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, engineers demonstrated that the tips of the blades can accelerate to speeds exceeding Mach 1 without adversely affecting their structural integrity.

The next SkyFall helicopter will be larger than Ingenuity. Illustration: NASA

The experiments, consisting of 137 launches, were conducted in a special pressure chamber that accurately simulated the harsh environmental conditions of the Red Planet. The data collected will enable the development of aircraft capable of carrying significantly heavier payloads, transforming them from simple reconnaissance drones into fully-fledged scientific stations.

Speed of sound on Mars

Flying on Mars is one of the most challenging engineering feats in the history of space exploration. According to Al Chen, head of the Mars Exploration Program at JPL, although the previous Ingenuity rover performed exceptionally well, much more is expected of the new generation of drones.

The main challenge lies in the atmosphere: its density is only 1% of Earth’s. To generate sufficient lift in such a thin atmosphere and overcome the planet’s significant gravity, engineers have to take aggressive measures. And while on Earth, rotors simply need to “push” the dense air without approaching the sound barrier, on Mars the blades must be accelerated to supersonic speeds. It’s worth noting that due to the cold atmosphere, which is rich in carbon dioxide, the speed of sound on Mars is about 869 km/h, whereas on Earth it’s approximately 1,223 km/h.

From the pioneering Ingenuity to the powerful SkyFall

The legendary Ingenuity helicopter, which made its first controlled flight in April 2021, was a pioneer. It was a technology demonstration that did not carry heavy scientific instruments on board. To avoid unpredictable aerodynamics during sudden Martian winds, its rotor speed was deliberately limited to 2,700 rpm, which was about Mach 0.7.

Animation of NASA’s Ingenuity flight on Mars

However, future missions will require greater performance. The agency’s SkyFall project calls for the delivery of three new helicopters to Mars in December 2028. Through low-altitude aerial reconnaissance, they will collect data to support future missions involving both humans and robots.

Extreme tests in a simulator

To test AeroVironment’s new rotor designs, a team of engineers led by Jaakko Karras placed a three-bladed propeller in a space simulator. The air was pumped out of the chamber and replaced with carbon dioxide.

The tests were so risky that the chamber walls were lined with sheet metal in case the blades broke apart. Watching from a safe distance, the team recorded the results:

• At 3,750 rpm, the blade tips reached a speed of 0.98 Mach.
• After adding an artificial headwind, the tip speed rose to an impressive Mach 1.08.
• Subsequently, a longer, two-bladed rotor for the SkyFall was also tested. Thanks to its dimensions, it reached supersonic speeds as early as 3,570 rpm.

AsShannah Withrow-Maser, an aerodynamicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, notes, the team had hoped to reach at least Mach 1.05, but the results exceeded their expectations.

Breaking through this sonic barrier has increased the Martian helicopter’s lift capacity by 30%. This extra thrust opens up the possibility of equipping new helicopters with heavy batteries for extended flights and state-of-the-art scientific sensors. Data analysis is ongoing, but it is already clear that the next generation of Martian helicopters will be a true technological marvel.

We previously reported on how the Dragonfly drone would fly on Titan thanks to a nuclear battery.

• According to phys.org 

• Posted in News, Tech

{  https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

What NASA’s Apollo Astronauts Actually Photographed — And Why It Still Matters

A look at newly surfaced lunar surface images and the declassified transcripts that go with them.

 Alejandro Rojas

The word “UFO” tends to trigger one of two responses: credulous excitement or immediate eye-rolling. But when the source material is NASA mission photography and declassified crew debriefing documents — some originally stamped Confidential — it becomes harder to dismiss out of hand.

A set of recently surfaced images from the Apollo 12 (1969) and Apollo 17 (1972) lunar surface missions has been circulating alongside newly released government UAP files. The photographs show the grey lunar terrain, astronaut shadows stretching across the regolith, and — annotated with yellow zoom boxes — small, anomalous luminous objects in the black sky above the lunar horizon. The objects vary across the frames: a vertical blue streak in one, a tight cluster of white-blue points in another, a solitary bright orb in a third, and in one striking image, what appears to be a larger rectangular luminous form.

The honest answer, scientifically speaking, is that we don’t know what they are. And that uncertainty is actually the interesting part.

NASA: Apollo 12, 1969

What the Transcripts Say

These images don’t exist in isolation. The project files include declassified NASA transcripts and crew debriefings from multiple missions, and the astronauts — trained engineers and test pilots, not given to loose talk — reported unexplained visual phenomena repeatedly.

During Apollo 17, Commander Gene Cernan explicitly radioed Houston about an object he was tracking from the spacecraft window. “I just want to emphasize,” he told Mission Control, “that it’s definitely not one of these particles that tends to look like a star out there. It’s something physical in the distance.” Houston’s response was telling in its matter-of-factness: “We don’t doubt it, Gene.” Ground controllers then worked to establish gimbal angles so they could try to locate the object through the spacecraft’s optics.

In the Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing — originally classified Confidential and declassified years later — Buzz Aldrin described observing what he characterized as a fairly bright light source in lunar orbit that the crew could not immediately identify. Neil Armstrong, methodical as ever, suggested it was likely an optical effect near the horizon. They disagreed mildly and moved on.

Earlier still, in 1965, Gemini 7 commander Frank Borman reported “a bogey at ten o’clock high” — a phrase that got Houston’s attention quickly. Borman clarified it was a separate object from both the spent booster stage and the particle field the crew was also observing. The PAO commentary on the tape release noted plainly that there were three distinct objects in question.

None of these accounts prove anything exotic. What they do establish is that credible, trained observers repeatedly reported objects they could not explain, that NASA took those reports seriously enough to document them in formal debriefings, and that the government saw fit to classify some of that documentation for years afterward.

NASA: Apollo 12, 1969

The Scientific Case for Curiosity

The skeptical position — that these photographs show film artifacts, lens flares, cosmic ray strikes on the film emulsion, or simply distant stars — is entirely reasonable and should be the starting point. Hasselblad cameras shooting on the lunar surface operated in an extreme radiation environment, and cosmic ray tracks on film are well documented. Several of the anomalies in these images have the characteristics you’d expect from that explanation: point-source brightness, slight color fringing, appearing above an otherwise featureless horizon.

But the scientific method also requires that you account for data that doesn’t fit the model. Cosmic ray strikes don’t explain an object that a crew commander tracks across his window for an extended period, gives attitude angles on, and requests optical tracking assistance for. Film artifacts don’t explain a formally documented crew report that survives in a declassified debriefing.

The intellectually honest position is not “this is proof of alien spacecraft” — it isn’t — nor is it “this is obviously nothing.” It’s that there exists a genuine category of unexplained aerial and orbital phenomena observed by some of the most carefully selected and rigorously trained humans ever put into space, and that the U.S. government has historically classified documentation of those observations. That is, on its own terms, a story worth following.

NASA: Apollo 12, 1969

Where Things Stand Now

The federal government’s posture toward UAP has shifted meaningfully in the past several years. The Pentagon established a formal UAP task force. Congress has held open hearings. Legislation has required reporting. And classified files have begun to move toward the public domain — slowly, incompletely, but measurably.

If you want to track what’s actually been released and what’s still being withheld, PentagonUFOFiles.io is worth bookmarking. The site, built by the team at Enigma Labs, tracks congressionally requested Pentagon UAP video files — what’s been released, what the military nomenclature in those files actually means (their “Decoder” section is genuinely useful for cutting through jargon), and what’s still outstanding. It’s a clean, no-nonsense resource for anyone who wants to follow the paper trail rather than the speculation.

The Apollo images discussed here represent one thread of a much longer story. Whether that story ends with mundane explanations, scientific discoveries about poorly understood atmospheric or space phenomena, or something more consequential, the only reasonable approach is to keep looking at the data carefully — and to push for more of it to be made public.

The astronauts were looking. It seems reasonable to keep looking too.

Sources:

• NASA Apollo 12 Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription (1969); Apollo 17 Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription (1972); Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing (1969, declassified); Apollo 17 Technical Crew Debriefing (1973, declassified); Gemini 7 PAO Commentary Transcript (1965).
• Full disclosure: Alejandro is a consultant with EnigmaLabs.io

{ https://openminds.tv/ }

US government declassifies nearly 200 UAP files, including strange sightings from Apollo astronauts

The Department of Defense just declassified more than 160 documents, images and recordings related to UFO/UAP sightings dating back to before the Apollo era.

 By Brandon Specktor

UFOs have come to Washington again — this time, in a newly released tranche of more than 150 previously classified documents that cover nearly 80 years of alleged sightings.

Available to read today (May 8) on the Department of Defense website, the 162 newly declassified documents, photos, and videos cover reports of UFOs and UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena, the government's preferred name for such sightings today) dating back as far as 1947.

The reports come from agencies across the government, including the Department of Defense (DOD), the FBI and NASA. The NASA offerings include images, audio files and transcripts of Apollo-era astronauts reporting anomalous sightings in space. However, most of these materials have been available for decades and never resulted in any compelling answers.

The government is very serious about UFOs. So why are researchers being stymied?

NASA shares 12,000 new Artemis II photos

Fresh look at Apollo moon rocks solves decades-old lunar mystery

"The materials archived here are unresolved cases, meaning the government is unable to make a definitive determination on the nature of the observed phenomena," DOD representatives wrote on the agency's website. "This can occur for a variety of reasons, including a lack of sufficient data."

Are there any aliens?

Due to the poor data quality, the reports do not contain any compelling evidence of alien intelligence.

While NASA has not weighed in directly on the newly declassified files — save for a statement of support from Administrator Jared Isaacman — the space agency's official position remains that UAP are real but they have nothing to do with aliens.

"Are there any data supporting the idea that UAP are evidence of alien technologies? 

"No," NASA's official UAP webpage states. "Most UAP sightings result in very limited data, making it difficult to draw scientific conclusions."

Indeed, NASA conducted its own independent investigation into UAP sightings in 2022 and 2023 and found no evidence of alien activity, again pointing to low-quality data among the alleged sightings.

What did the NASA astronauts see?

Some of the most interesting documents, from a historical perspective, are files related to UFO sightings reported by NASA astronauts in the 1960s. They include a transcript and audio recording of two NASA astronauts reporting an unidentified object in Earth orbit during the 1965 Gemini VII mission.

'So much magic': Artemis II shares first images from the far side of the moon, including new 'Earthset' and total eclipse in space

There were 'audible screams of delight': Why Artemis II sightings of meteor flashes on the moon have scientists giddy

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Just four hours into the flight on Dec. 5, 1965, astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell reported seeing a "bogey" (military slang for an unidentified aircraft) out their spacecraft window, which Borman describes as "hundreds of little particles going by."

When NASA ground control pressed Borman on whether it could be a piece of the recently detached rocket booster, the astronauts said no, maintaining that they could see the booster in a separate part of orbit. The Gemini spacecraft soon drifted away from the object, never to see it again.

The files also include photos and transcripts from the Apollo 11, Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 missions, in which astronauts describe seeing various unidentified "flashes" and "particles of light" on the moon. These cases, like the others, remain unresolved due to a lack of sufficient data.

The underlying files have been available in public archives for decades. However, some newly released images from the Apollo 12 mission show zoomed-in boxes to highlight anomalous phenomena on the moon.

What are UAP?

So, if they're not aliens, what are UAP? According to a 2022 DOD investigation, most UAP sightings can be explained by birds, optical illusions, poor-quality photographs and foreign surveillance technology.

Many UAP files remain classified not due to the object sightings themselves, but because of the sensitive military technology used to record them, according to NASA.

The DOD plans to release additional declassified UAP documents every few weeks for the near future.

Editor's note:

• This article was updated at 6:00 p.m. ET on May 8 to clarify that all the Apollo materials have been available in public archives for decades.

{ https://www.livescience.com/ }

FBI Files Reveal Reports of 'Four-Foot Tall' Beings Emerging from UFOs

 Gary Manners

 Gary Manners

The recent release of a massive trove of declassified UFO documents by the Pentagon has brought to light extraordinary witness accounts from the 1960s. Among the most startling revelations is a 1966 FBI memo detailing reports of small, space-suited figures emerging from mysterious craft, reigniting the debate over extraterrestrial visitation. On May 8, 2026, the U.S. Department of War published more than 160 previously classified files — photographs, videos, and internal government memos — on a dedicated public portal, war.gov/ufo, as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE).

Small Beings in Space Suits

The astonishing accounts are contained in an internal FBI memo dated October 19, 1966, sent from the Bureau's San Francisco field office to Director J. Edgar Hoover. The document, reported by the New York Post, notes that "1965 was the year of the greatest number of UFO sightings" globally. Investigators tracked reports of landed craft and their occupants, with the memo stating that a few witnesses reported seeing crewmen who had landed from the objects. These entities were described as being "three and a half to four feet tall, wearing what appear to be space suits and helmets."

The sightings involved polished metal objects capable of hovering in total silence before accelerating at "fantastic speeds," ranging in color from brilliant white to dull reds and brilliant orange, with some featuring blinding, striking lights. The craft were said to maneuver with a precision that defied conventional aeronautical explanation, and multiple witnesses across different states reported near-identical descriptions of both the objects and their diminutive occupants.

• CIA Document Dump Reveals 70 Years Of US Government UFO Info
• U.S. Experts Testify Before Congress on Secret UFO Programs

Recreation of a potential anomalous sighting in the southeastern United States in September of 2023.

(U.S. Department of War / Public Domain)

Advanced Technology and Unknown Metals

The files also detailed the physical effects these objects allegedly had on their environment. Witnesses reported that the craft emitted force fields that interfered with power sources and electromagnetic equipment. In some instances, the ground beneath the objects was found scorched after they departed, and animals in the vicinity reportedly reacted with extreme agitation.

Furthermore, the FBI records suggest that wreckage from crashed saucers had been recovered on at least three separate occasions. Laboratory analysis mentioned in the files, as reported by the Times of India, described the debris as an "exceptionally hard unknown metal" and magnesium alloys. One specific material was noted for containing "thousands of 15-micron metal spheres throughout" and showing clear evidence of micro-meteorite impacts on its surface — a detail that has fascinated materials scientists and UFO researchers alike.

Archival imagery from the Apollo 17 mission to the Moon. The yellow box contains an enlarged area of the original photo in which three lights are visible above the lunar terrain.

(U.S. Department of War / Public Domain)

National Controversy and the Book That Shook America

The 1966 memo focused heavily on the public frenzy caused by the book Flying Saucers – Serious Business by Frank Edwards a prominent broadcaster and UFO researcher. The FBI monitored Edwards' claims that the US Air Force had "deliberately withheld information and given misleading explanations because it fears a mass panic by the public if the public were told the truth." The book became a bestseller and was credited with driving a surge in public reporting of sightings throughout 1965 and 1966.

Released FBI file that mentions the UFU crewmen sighting.

(US Department of War)

The document also mentions the political climate of the time, noting that future President Gerald Ford, then a congressman from Michigan, was calling for official hearings after a wave of UFO sightings swept his home state. This political pressure eventually led the Air Force to commission a $300,000 study by University of Colorado physicist Edward U. Condon to investigate the phenomena — a study that itself became mired in controversy when internal documents suggested its conclusions had been predetermined.

• The Rendlesham Forest UFO Sightings: An Unresolved Enquiry
• Beyond Top Secret: Eyewitness Accounts to the Roswell Incident

Unprecedented Transparency — With Caveats

The release of these 162 files follows an executive order from President Donald Trump directing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to declassify records related to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). "The Department of War is in lockstep with President Trump to bring unprecedented transparency regarding our government's understanding of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena," Hegseth stated, according to Al Jazeera. Officials have urged caution in interpreting the files, noting that the FBI memo serves as a summary of contemporary witness accounts and popular literature rather than a government verification of extraterrestrial life.

While the files contain no definitive revelations confirming alien contact, they offer a remarkable window into the government's decades-long tracking of UFO phenomena and the deeply strange accounts reported by ordinary citizens. As the Pentagon promises to release new materials on a rolling basis, the public is left, in the words of officials, to "make up their own minds" about what these documents reveal. For those who have long suspected that the truth about unidentified aerial phenomena was being withheld, the release represents a significant, if incomplete, step toward transparency.

• Top image: Infrared still image captured of unidentified object over western United States in December of 2025.  
• Source: U.S. Department of War

By Gary Manners

References

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

10 Greatest Sci-Fi Movies About UFO

 ByShawn S. Lealos 

Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant,  CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more.

Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor.

He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre.

UFOs in movies have been around since the sci-fi space epics began in old-school Hollywood, with a 1951 robot warning Earth about danger, and on to a 2022 predator that attacked beings on Earth. In the old days of cinema, seeing UFOs in movies was a groundbreaking and unsettling event, especially since a radio show reportedly sent the world into a panic with Orson Welles' War of the Worlds.

Since that time, the UFOs have been both hostile and friendly, and at the same time, humanity's response to them has been both welcoming and hostile. It is when those two dynamics are reversed that the alien movies have a chance to shine, such as when friendly aliens arrive only to have humankind attack with violence, or when UFOs show up, and humans greet them, only to end up disintegrated.

The best UFO alien movies are never really about unidentified flying objects. Instead, they are about what the arrival of these alien visitors means to the humans who witness them. They represent everything from nuclear anxiety and human smallness to exploitation or what people do when the unknown becomes much too knowable. The best of the UFO movies take these lessons and get their themes exactly right.

10. Fire In The Sky (1993)

Fire in the Sky is based on a real-life event where a man named Travis Walton claimed in 1975 that aliens abducted him in Arizona. Walton and his wife even appeared in the movie, lending to its sense of discomfort and authenticity. Walton wrote the book the film is based on, but the actual abduction itself was fictionalized and bears no similarity to the story that Walton originally told.

The film opened in 1993 and brought in $19.9 million at the box office, which was decent for a movie with a slow-burning storyline and no action scenes. The UFOs in this movie are never heroic or communicative, and they represent the unknowable fear of abduction, as well as the confusion and terror of what the aliens have planned. Fire in the Sky contains one of the best alien abduction scenes in movie history.

9. Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers (1956)

One of the earlier UFO movies arrived in 1956 with the sci-fi movie Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. This movie remains best-known for the work of Ray Harryhausen, who created the stop-motion animation that created the UFO scenes. The designs match the description of flying saucers from Major Donald Keyhoe's 1953 book, Flying Saucers from Outer Space, which the movie is based on.

This was the first movie that showed the UFOs attacking and destroying national landmarks, something that Independence Day copied decades later. Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! also paid homage to the UFO design years later, proving the lasting legacy of this sci-fi classic. This movie had the UFOs as weapons of war during the era of Cold War paranoia.

8. Flight Of The Navigator (1986)

The UFOs became part of a coming-of-age story in the family-friendly Flight of the Navigator in 1986. This was one of Hollywood's first attempts to use extensive CGI in a movie, with the alien spacecraft used to create the realistic ship for the young man to pilot. This also featured one of the earliest film appearances by Sarah Jessica Parker, who befriends the young time-traveling pilot.

The UFO is also voiced by Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman), and is more empathetic and curious in its delivery than it is threatening. It also makes him both a vehicle and a character, and he is a nice supporting character to young David Freeman (Joey Cramer). This mixes the ideas of alien abduction and time-travel coming-of-age stories in one of the better UFO movies of the 1980s.

7. Mars Attacks! (1996)

Tim Burton made his own alien invasion movie in 1996. In Mars Attacks!, Burton has the alien invasion show up in Las Vegas, with the cartoon-looking Martians attempting a hostile takeover. The cast here is star-studded, with names like Jack Nicholson (in two roles), Glenn Close, Danny DeVito, Pierce Brosnan, Annette Bening, and many more as they fight to survive the alien attacks.

Mars Attacks! is a different UFO sci-fi movie, as it is a comedy, with slapstick moments, some shockingly hilarious scenes with major movie stars in unpredictable situations, allowing Burton to spoof the genre, while also paying respect to what came before. The UFOs here are used as satire, but the menace and destruction match up with anything in serious movies like Independence Day.

6. Nope (2022)

Jordan Peele followed up his first two horror movies with a terrifying sci-fi movie called Nope. This was a huge production, with Peele shooting it on IMAX and delivering the story of a UFO terrorizing a small Western town. However, what made this UFO so different from others in movie history was that it was a living organism that arrived on Earth as a predatory creature feeding on living life forms.

5. District 9 (2009)

District 9 takes the idea of a UFO movie in a wildly different direction. Instead of the aliens arriving in peace or to wage war, these alien UFOs arrived with aliens looking for sanctuary and help. Directed by Neill Blomkamp and based on his 2005 short film, this features a UFO that arrived over Johannesburg in 1982 with aliens who were all sick and malnourished. They wanted help and received it.

However, the aliens were locked away in an internment camp called District 9, where they were often treated with contempt and hatred by humanity. The parallels with this movie are clear, as Blomkamp presents a vision of life during the apartheid era in South Africa. Critics praised the film, with District 9 earning four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

4. The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

The original The Day the Earth Stood Still was released in 1951, with a UFO arriving on Earth containing a robot known as Gort (Lock Martin) and an alien named Klaatu. This was one of the most impressive robots shown in movies at the time, as Gort stood over seven feet tall. The alien that showed up next, Klaatu, delivered an alien warning, saying, "Klaatu barada nikto.

This was a line that has been referenced, homaged, and spoofed several times over the years in other movies, including Army of Darkness (1992). The UFO here was not a weapon, but was instead a warning. Klaatu's words were a warning about the dangers of nuclear war. When humans shot and killed Klaatu, Earth was left with a warning: Find peace or face obliteration. This theme is one of the strongest in UFO movies.

3 Independence Day (1996)

Roland Emmerich became the master of the disaster movie throughout his career, but his masterpiece remains the alien invasion movie, Independence Day. The movie was one of the highest-grossing movies of all time when it was released, second only to Jurassic Park (1993), and it showed an alien invasion movie where the UFOs began to destroy national landmarks.

Based on Ted Chiang's 1998 novelette Story of Your Life, Denis Villeneuve directed this movie about a UFO that arrives on Earth and humans race to find out if it is there as a danger or in peace. To do this, a linguist is brought in to learn the alien language and figure out what these UFOs are trying to say. This is clearly influenced by The Day the Earth Stood Still, but with a different focus.

While The Day the Earth Stood Still was about humans who feared the unknown, Arrival was a story about the linguist, Louise Banks (Amy Adams), and how this mission ties into her own life and doubts about her future. The UFO in this movie serves as a philosophical question about what it means to be human and what a person would do if they could see their own futures.

1. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)

Released in 1977, Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a UFO movie that is more about what humans expect from these unidentified flying objects rather than what the UFOs have planned for humanity. Steven Spielberg's sci-fi movie follows a man who wants, more than anything, to learn if there is something more outside of Earth, and he is willing to give up everything, including his family, to find the truth.

The UFO landing site at Devil's Tower was an incredible set. The giant spacecraft hovering and landing with the giant musical communication movement is one of the most memorable moments in sci-fi movie history. This UFO sci-fi movie is about the curiosity of the unknown, and the human story makes it one of the best sci-fi movies of all time, UFO-related or not.

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What's in the sky? New Pentagon UFO files rekindle old mystery

A video released in the Trump administration's UFO disclosure on Friday has ignited an online debate that the mysterious object resembled beings described in the Bible.

The nearly two-minute clip, captured in 2013, shows a glowing object resembling an 'eight-pointed star,' darting through the darkness with uneven, shape-shifting arms. 

Religious leaders and US officials have suggested the object in the video was a Cherubim, angelic beings with multiple wings, faces and eyes.

Texas pastor Josh Howerton said on X that the eight-pointed object resembled the strange heavenly structures described in the Book of Ezekiel, which recounts glowing entities and mysterious 'wheels within wheels' moving beside God's throne-chariot without turning. 

'What I am trying to point out is the very possible overlap between a Biblical cosmology and some of the things you're seeing on your timeline,' Howerton shared.

Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna also drew the same comparison, simply sharing an artist's impression of a Cherubim online. 

Vice President JD Vance has previously suggested that some UFO sightings may be linked to spiritual or supernatural forces rather than extraterrestrial life, framing the phenomenon through a Christian worldview that includes references to demonic entities. 

The clip of the eight-pointed object was part of the first batch of the long-awaited UFO files released on Friday, with hundreds of previously unseen videos, photographs and records published. 

The nearly two-minute clip, captured in 2013, shows a glowing object resembling an 'eight-pointed star,' darting through the darkness with uneven, shape-shifting arms

Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna also drew the same comparison, simply sharing an artist's impression of a Cherubim online

'Is it just me, or does it almost resemble a Seraphim angel from the book of Isaiah?' one X user posted.

 In the Book of Isaiah, seraphim are described as powerful heavenly beings surrounding the throne of God. 

The prophet Isaiah recounts a vision in which the seraphim each had six wings, two covering their faces, two covering their feet and two used for flying, while calling out, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.'

The beings are portrayed as radiant, fearsome and deeply connected to divine power and judgment. In biblical tradition, seraphim are often interpreted as a high order of angels associated with fire, purity and worship in the presence of God.

Howerton's post sparked a huge debate on X, which quoted Ezekiel 1:15-17.

'Now, as I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them, the biblical text reads.

'As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction: their appearance was like the gleaming of beryl. 

'And the four had the same likeness, their appearance and construction being as it were a wheel within a wheel. When they went, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went.' 

The video was captured by military infrared, showing the object darting through the darkness with uneven, shape-shifting arms

However, other users were quick to point out that the object in the video appears to show eight points, two more than what the Bible describes for the angelic beings. 

One user posted: 'Apparently, an orb somehow looks like an angel? They're really reaching here!' 

Regardless, the video was captured by military infrared, showing the object darting through the darkness with uneven, shape-shifting arms.

At one point, the military sensor zooms in as the mysterious object races through the frame, seemingly leaving behind a glowing trail.

It was seen making abrupt movements, sharply changing direction and repeatedly vanishing from view before suddenly reappearing moments later.

Officials who documented the video cautioned that the footage description was provided for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as proof of the object’s nature or origin.

The UFO files were made public months after the President ordered the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to declassify government records related to UFOs and alleged extraterrestrial activity.

Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett, who has long been advocating for disclosure, said on X: 'Remember the Feds told us these files didn't exist and [Donald Trump] stood up to the deep state. The 1st drop will be big, but in comparison to what is coming they will be a drop in the bucket. I would say "Holy Crap" is coming.'

After the files went live on the Department of War's website, President Trump wrote on Truth Social: 'In an effort for Complete and Maximum Transparency, it was my Honor to direct my Administration to identify and provide Government files related to Alien and Extraterrestrial Life, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and Unidentified Flying Objects.

'Whereas previous Administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves, “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?” Have Fun and Enjoy!'

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