Pentagon drops 72 new UFO files with spinning discs, glowing orbs and a potato craft

The Pentagon has released 72 new UFO files detailing eyewitness accounts of mysterious objects in the sky including a spinning disc shooting beams of light, glowing red orbs, and a potato-shaped craft

by Kelly Williams - Content Editor

new UFO Files have been released

(Image: Getty Images)

Fresh UFO documents have been unveiled by the Trump administration, featuring several striking accounts of enigmatic aerial phenomena. One involved a spinning disc that emitted beams of light.

Another described a glowing red sphere of a colour the witness had never encountered before. Then there was the object likened to a potato, and also a bean, but covered in glistening, fish-like scales.

These were amongst the UFOs detailed in papers published on Friday by the Pentagon, marking the third disclosure since President Donald Trump instructed his administration to provide the public with complete transparency regarding what it understands about extraterrestrial life and puzzling sky objects.

The 72 documents unveiled on Friday

The 72 documents unveiled on Friday don't contain the sort of bombshell revelation that Mr Trump has hinted at. There's no definitive proof of alien existence or governmental conspiracies.

However, the papers unveil fresh particulars about some recent encounters, alongside the government's attempts to clarify what many consider baffling.

Consider, for example, the potato. It occurred in 2022, during a crisp February morning in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Five US Army personnel at Fort Carson emerged from an office building and spotted something peculiar suspended above Cheyenne Mountain, several miles to the west.

The papers unveil fresh particulars about some recent encounters

(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

"The object was 'potato' shaped with distinct edges and appeared to look painted in a creamy/whitish opalescent color," according to an account in an FBI document. It comprised "articulating fish scales or panels that were non-symmetrical, non-overlapping and irregular shaped".

It remained stationary, glistening, for approximately two minutes, the men recalled to the FBI. Then it disappeared in an instant.

None of the men carried phones with them. There is no footage and there are no photographs.

Officials charged with examining the incident stated they couldn't account for it readily. Their report concluded – with "low confidence" – that it might have been "backscattering of sunlight".

Dim light from the emerging sun could have bounced off the mountain's snow and lit up low clouds overhead, it suggested.

There's no definitive proof of alien existence or governmental conspiracies

(Image: Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF)

The men maintained it was a bright, cloudless day. No aircraft or balloons were thought to be in the vicinity.

The four-page report, extensively censored and credited only to an "intelligence community partner", stated it didn't seem to be technology from a foreign adversary.

An FBI illustration appears exactly as one might expect – resembling a scaly, pale potato hovering above a low mountain. The case remains unresolved.

A similarly inconclusive report scrutinised a sequence of sightings in October 2023, this time by six federal law enforcement officers.

On multiple occasions, the officers reported, they witnessed a brilliant orange orb materialise above a ridgeline and produce two to four smaller red orbs.

The files have been released under the Trump administration

(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

The orbs vanished rapidly most of the time, but in one instance, the officers claimed an orb remained suspended motionless in the sky for several hours. The report stated there is no video or photographic evidence of the sightings.

An assessment dated this month examines a range of potential explanations. Military aircraft were carrying out training exercises in the region, with some deploying flares.

There may have been additional testing of experimental US technology in the vicinity, the report noted. It described these as "plausible" though not definitive explanations.

However, it didn't dismiss the possibility that it involved some "unrecognised technology".

With comparatively scant evidence available, it urged further investigation into the incident. The assessment was carried out by the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, established by Congress in 2022 to examine reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).

Earlier reports from the agency indicate it has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial life. Amongst the latest files is an FBI report from February outlining a sighting in an undisclosed location in the north east United States.

An individual whose identity is redacted reported returning home to witness an intense light hovering beneath the trees in their rear garden. It was characterised as a sphere of "brilliant and beautiful" red, unlike anything the person had previously observed.

"Inside the red sphere, at the centre, there appeared to be what (redacted) described as a 'white plasma sun' about the size of a basketball," according to the FBI file.

A second sphere materialised, and both silently departed from view, the file states. Mobile phone footage captures two glowing red orbs drifting across the heavens.

The White House posted the video on social media on Friday with no accompanying message beyond the file's title: "'NORTHEASTERN ORB SIGHTING,' 2025."

Thus far, the Trump administration's openness initiative has resulted in the publication of roughly 300 files spanning back to the 1940s, some entirely fresh to the public and others providing additional details on previously known incidents.

The latest collection features a 2008 CIA document from Zimbabwe marked as "never before released".

On a July afternoon above the nation's primary airport, witnesses allegedly observed something resembling a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster: it was "disc-like in shape with a hollow center, and had a series of rotating lights on the underside of the airframe".

"At one point during observation, 'beams' were observed emanating from the object," the CIA document stated.

The illumination shifted colours, and the craft climbed high beyond sight, the document reveals.

Discussion arose regarding its origins, according to the document, with some proposing a foreign government while others suggested "extraterrestrial origins".

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FBI 302: senior U.S. intel official reports seeing “super-hot” orb-like UAP

Overview

A newly circulated FBI 302 interview report is drawing attention in UFO/UAP circles after it described an alleged late-2025 encounter involving orb-like aerial objects at a U.S. military site in the Western United States. According to the document, a senior U.S. intelligence official—identified in the source as USPER—gave a first-hand account of seeing a “super-hot” orb hovering near the ground before it accelerated away at a speed that reportedly outpaced a helicopter sent to track it. The report has begun circulating through recent declassified-intelligence discussions, adding another case to the growing archive of government-sourced UAP material.

This is an FBI 302 interview conducted with a senior US intelligence official regarding his first-hand account of a UAP encounter at a US military facility. USPER relayed to FBI agents that he and other federal and state personnel conducted searches to where orbs had been searching the area with a helicopter, they found a “super-hot” orb hovering over the ground. The orb is reported to have travelled for 20 miles at a speed too fast for the helicopter in pursuit.

An additional “swarm” of lights were seen moving in all directions. A total of four or five additional orbs were seen shortly thereafter for a short time, flaring up and then down. This pattern of four or five orbs flaring up, then down continued over the next thirty minutes across the area. Redactions have been made to protect the identity of eyewitnesses, the location of government facilities, or potentially sensitive information about military sites not related to UAP.

No redactions have been made to any files released under President Trump's directive concerning information about the nature or existence of any encounter reported as a UAP or related phenomena.

What the Document Says

The source material, hosted in a UAP-focused archive and presented as an FBI-collected statement, says the official and other federal and state personnel searched an area where orb-like objects had previously been seen. After that search, a helicopter was deployed and the team reportedly located a high-temperature orb positioned low over the ground. The account says the object then traveled roughly 20 miles, moving too quickly for the helicopter in pursuit. The same statement also describes an additional “swarm” of lights moving in multiple directions, suggesting a broader, multi-object event rather than a single isolated sighting.

The report further states that four or five additional orbs appeared shortly afterward, briefly flaring up and then dimming down, with that pattern repeating over a period of about 30 minutes across the area. According to the document, the encounter involved multiple government personnel and a range of observation methods, including night-vision equipment, ground observers, and personnel in aircraft. The source also says other pilots in separate aircraft observed the objects, while some of the linked images in the archive allegedly come from the same incident and were captured through night-vision devices.

Why It Matters

What makes the case notable is not simply the presence of unusual lights, but the provenance of the account. The document is presented as an FBI 302 interview, a format used to record witness statements and investigative interviews. In the UAP field, that makes the report relevant as a piece of primary-source documentation, even as the underlying explanation for the observations remains unresolved. For researchers, the key issue is separating what was reported from what was concluded. The document describes sighting conditions, perceived movement, and apparent heat signatures, but it does not by itself establish the nature of the objects.

The account also comes amid broader public interest in recently released and declassified intelligence-related UAP material, much of which has fueled debate about how military and intelligence agencies record unexplained events. Cases involving multiple witnesses, sensor overlap, and night-vision imagery are especially significant because they offer more data points than a single anecdotal report. Still, even in such cases, unusual aerial behavior can stem from a range of possibilities, including misidentification, sensor artifacts, classified technology, or genuinely unexplained phenomena.

Broader Context

As with many UAP disclosures, the document is likely to be scrutinized for timing, chain of custody, and corroborating evidence. The archive identifies the file as USPER-Statement-Redacted.pdf and notes it as a late-2025 incident connected to a sensitive government testing installation. For now, the report adds to the record of government personnel describing orb-like UAP in ways that suggest speed, heat, and coordinated movement—details that continue to keep the case in the center of ongoing UAP investigations and public discussion.

{ https://uaps.world/ }

Overview

Fox News aired a special report, “Unexplained Encounters,” that revisited the United States’ longest‑standing mystery: unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). Anchored by Bret Baier, the segment linked contemporary congressional efforts to protect whistleblowers with a historical record of sightings that stretches back to World War II. The program highlighted recent legislative talks, declassified documents from the Trump administration, and testimonies from former military officials, underscoring a shift from routine dismissal toward systematic inquiry.

UFO FILES: Search for answers returns to earliest UAP sightings

Legislative Push and Whistleblower Protections

House leaders are preparing to meet White House officials to request explicit immunity for individuals who disclose classified information about UAP. Senator Mark Kelly (D‑AZ) stressed that “scientific research must be free from retaliation if these phenomena represent advanced technologies, possibly from foreign adversaries.” The proposed safeguards aim to encourage pilots, intelligence analysts, and other insiders to come forward without fear of career repercussions. Lawmakers argue that a transparent pipeline of data is essential for national‑security assessments and for evaluating any potential technological threats.

Early Sightings: The “Foo Fighters” of WWII

The report devoted considerable attention to the “Foo Fighters” reported by Allied aircrews in the 1940s. One of the most detailed accounts came from Polish Air Force Flight Lieutenant Roman Sobinski, who, on a 1942 bombing run over Germany, described an object “almost the size of the moon” that remained unmoved when his rear gunner fired. After landing, Sobinski’s crew was initially mocked by military officials, who suggested the pilot might have been intoxicated. Subsequent declassified records, released during the Trump administration, catalogued fourteen similar incidents between December 1944 and January 1945, describing orange‑colored, cylinder‑shaped lights that followed aircraft with “perfect control.” These documents reveal that the phenomenon was not isolated to a single squadron but was reported across multiple units.

Military and Government Investigations

Former Army Director for the UAP Task Force, Col. Karl Nell (Ret.), appeared on the program to assert that the phenomenon is “100 % real.” He recounted how wartime reports reached the White House, prompting the Office of Scientific Research and Development to launch investigations—efforts that later discovered German pilots were observing comparable lights. Anthropologist Peter Skafish, co‑founder of the SOL Foundation, traced the post‑war surge in sightings to 1947, noting that reports became “near‑daily” across the United States. Skafish characterized the Air Force’s Project Blue Book as largely a public‑relations operation designed to “mollify” the public by offering conventional explanations such as weather balloons or cosmic‑ray research, rather than conducting a rigorous scientific analysis.

Outlook and Implications

The Fox News segment concluded that the convergence of historic eyewitness accounts, newly released government documents, and growing legislative interest marks a turning point in how the United States addresses UAP. While past administrations often dismissed or “debunked” sightings, the consistency of reports from trained military personnel now compels a more serious scientific and security‑focused approach. Experts cited in the report suggest that, statistically, the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is increasingly plausible. As Congress moves toward protecting whistleblowers and as intelligence agencies continue to evaluate the data, the nation appears poised to transition from speculation to structured investigation—potentially reshaping both defense policy and our broader understanding of the skies.

{ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApIGY58p6jY }

Scientists Have Detected Something Deeply Alarming at the Bottom of the Ocean

Shutterstock / Futurism

Mysteries of the Deep

Something is stirring in the waters off the coast of Greenland, and it isn’t a submarine fleet sent by Donald Trump.

According to reporting by the New Scientist, evidence is mounting that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation — a massive system of deep sea currents that acts like a conveyor belt for the world’s oceans known as AMOC — is starting to slow its gears. As it does, cold waters from the Greenland ice sheet are allowed to pool in the North-Atlantic, creating a “cold blob” that’s only getting colder as the rest of the world warms up.

This in turn has a major impact on jet streams, fueling extreme weather across the world. Should it collapse, the New Scientist notes that the AMOC could act as a climate tipping point, setting off a chain reaction resulting in much colder weather for some, and much drier weather for others by as early as 2040.

“The cold blob can disturb the atmospheric jet stream and storm activities, so it has implications for extreme weather events in North America and Europe,”  Laifang Li, assistant professor of meteorology and atmospheric science at Penn State explained in a press release announcing an earlier study on the AMOC.

Identifying how severe this cold blob ends up being may depend on the cause for the weakening AMOC — a topic which has researchers split. Some, like Li, say it’s caused by atmospheric forces, while others have identified oceanic conditions as the culprit.

In the latter camp is Stefan Rahmstorf, researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, whose team found evidence that heat loss from the ocean surface has been slowly shrinking since 1955, meaning whatever’s happening is driven by ocean currents. As Rahmstorf plainly told the New Scientist: “even if, in some modelling approaches, it seems possible that the cold blob is caused by the atmosphere, in fact, the data show it is caused by the ocean.”

One thing that’s sure is that the AMOC is definitely weakening, as troubling data from deep-ocean buoys shows crucial ocean currents slow at various points throughout the Atlantic. What this ultimately means remains to be seen — but rest assured, it isn’t good.

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NASA has taken a step toward quiet supersonic flight. The X-59 experimental aircraft broke the sound barrier for the first time without producing the deafening sonic boom typically associated with supersonic aircraft. This confirmed that the concept works and that the mission is proceeding according to plan.

The NASA X-59 aircraft completed its first supersonic flight as part of the Quest mission. Credit: NASA / Lori Losey

How the test was conducted

Pilot Jim Less took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California and accelerated the X-59 to approximately 1,148 km/h, which is 1.1 Mach—ten percent faster than the speed of sound. The flight altitude was about 13,230 m. The test lasted 81 minutes, during which the team evaluated flight characteristics in subsonic and supersonic modes.

An F-15 fighter jet flew alongside for observation. Its loud sonic boom drowned out any sounds from the X-59, so it was not possible to assess the aircraft’s quietness during this flight.

NASA’s X-59 aircraft completed its first supersonic flight as part of the Quest mission.

Source: NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center

The next milestone

The next step will be a flight under mission conditions. The X-59 is scheduled to reach a speed of Mach 1.4, or approximately 1,489 km/h, and climb to an altitude of about 16,760 meters. These parameters form the basis for the final phase of testing.

Following this, the X-59 will conduct test flights over several communities in the United States. NASA will collect data on how people perceive the noise from the aircraft and will share it with U.S. and international regulators to help develop new noise standards.

Mission objective

The X-59 aircraft is central to the Quest mission, which aims to demonstrate that supersonic commercial flights over cities are possible without causing noise pollution for people on the ground.

As part of the program, NASA is developing methodologies and technologies for designing supersonic airliners. American manufacturers will be able to build new aircraft with the confidence that they will meet quiet flight requirements, and passengers on international routes will reach their destinations faster.

• According to nasa.gov 

• Posted in Business, News, Science

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

On Wednesday, the Archdiocese of Washington removed Father Stephen Rossetti from his position as exorcist due to his public statements claiming that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are demonic in nature. From now on, the only demons he will have to contend with are his own.

UFO Phenomenon. Stock photo: Unsplash

The decision to revoke the decree was made by the Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Robert McElroy. He emphasized that Rossetti’s statements contradict the official doctrine of the Catholic Church.

According to The New York Times, the archbishop emphasized in his statement that Rossetti’s attempts to link UFOs to demonic activity, as well as his recent posts on social media, are causing serious harm to the Church’s clear teachings on the devil, evil spirits, and the rite of exorcism.

A threat from the sky

Stephen Rossetti is an ordained priest, a licensed psychologist, and the author of several books detailing his experiences with exorcism. This time, however, his public reflections went too far. 

Monsignor Stephen Rossetti. Photo from the AP archives

During his live streams on Facebook and YouTube, he told viewers about the “dangers” of UFO sightings and speculated on their demonic undertones.

According to The Associated Press, Rossetti said, “As an exorcist, I’ve tried to warn people about this threat. The thing is, demons love to hide. They don’t want to reveal their actions, because they’re much more effective when we don’t even suspect they’re there.”

“I am personally convinced,” added the exorcist, “that a significant portion—and perhaps even the majority—of UFO sightings are actually manifestations of demons.”

Contrary to the doctrine

It is worth noting that the idea that aliens have a demonic origin is becoming increasingly widespread among Christians.

According to Christopher Baglow, director of the Science and Religion Initiative at the University of Notre Dame, the Church does not formally have an official position on the possibility of extraterrestrial life. However, as Baglow explained to the NYT, Rossetti crossed a line by attempting to present his own views as a new doctrine that all Catholic believers are supposedly required to accept.

After his dismissal, a dejected Rossetti reacted in the traditional Catholic spirit: he felt deeply guilty and asked for forgiveness.

“I ask forgiveness for any ways that I have not been faithful to the teachings of the Church’s Magisterium,” said the exorcist in his final statement.

• According to CNBC 

• Posted in News, Science

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

El Nino has arrived: Scientists warn global phenomenon is primed to match catastrophic event that killed 50 million

By CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR

El Nino has arrived, and weather experts fear the global climate phenomenon may be primed to match a deadly event that led to the deaths of more than 50 million people.

The natural climate pattern occurs when warmer-than-usual waters in the Pacific change the weather around the world for a minimum of several months.

Ocean conditions have now warmed to the point where El Nino is active and will likely continue well into next year, officials declared on Thursday. 

A spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said: 'El Nino conditions are present and expected to strengthen into the Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27.'

The declaration means the agency has found that sea surface temperatures are at least +0.9°F above average and are expected to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

Climate scientists fear this frequent weather event will become a 'Godzilla' or 'Super' El Nino by the end of the year, meaning sea surface temperatures rise to 3.6°F above normal or even higher - which NOAA classifies as 'strong.'

The agency confirmed those fears on Thursday, stating that there is a 63 percent chance of El Nino becoming 'very strong' between November 2026 and January 2027.

Climate officials added that this El Nino will likely be one of the strongest since 1950, and there is a fear it could match an event from 1877, which triggered severe droughts and crop failures around the world, contributing to more than 50 million deaths globally.

Scientists warn that a so–called 'super El Nino' could push global temperatures (above) to record–breaking highs 

Many climate historians think the 1877 event reshaped world history, and some consider it one of the first 'truly global climate disasters.'

Just a 4.86°F increase in sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean wreaked havoc across several continents.

Parts of Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia experienced severe drought and forest fires. India saw its normal monsoon rains disappear, while Northern China suffered devastating dry spells that led to harvest failures. In Brazil, rivers dried up and agriculture collapsed.

There were also outbreaks of malaria, plague, dysentery, smallpox and cholera across already weakened populations.

Researchers have estimated that the resulting scarcity of food and disease outbreaks killed up to 4 percent of the Earth's population at the time. That would be the equivalent of at least 250 million people dying if El Nino caused that to happen today.

While every El Nino is different, in the US, it typically brings warmer-than-normal temperatures across the northern half of the country and parts of Alaska. Cooler conditions are more common across the southern states, especially from Texas through the Southeast.

The climate pattern also tends to shift storm tracks, increasing the chances of wetter-than-average weather across California, the Southwest, the Gulf Coast and much of the Southeast. 

Meanwhile, drier conditions are often seen in parts of the northern Rockies, the Ohio Valley, the Great Lakes and sections of the Mississippi Valley.

Drought-stressed wheat plants near parched ground in a field in Kansas last month. Scientists fear El Nino will lead to more droughts, especially in the northern US

Thursday's announcement revealed that the area of the central Pacific where scientists actively monitor sea surface temperatures for El Nino was 1.3°F above normal - breaking the El Nino threshold of 0.9°F.

However, NOAA also revealed that ocean waters in the eastern Pacific have already risen to 3.8°F above average. This pattern, where warmer water is detected in the east, is typical when a strong El Nino is developing.

AccuWeather senior meteorologist Chad Merrill said in a statement: 'Most El Ninos begin in the fall, so this is developing much earlier and faster than expected.'

El Nino often disrupts global rain patterns, making the climate wetter in the southern US and drier in the north

(stock image)

In the US, El Nino has a major impact on the natural jet stream, which flows from west to east over the middle of the country.

As El Nino heats the Pacific, this pushes the jet stream farther south, so it flows over the southern and Gulf states.

This brings wetter weather to the South, drier weather to the Midwest and warmer weather to the Pacific Northwest and Northern Plains.

'It will intensify drought in the Northwest and northern Rockies and lessen drought intensity and coverage in the Southwest,' Merrill added.

'It won’t do anything to eliminate the long-term drought in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic until we get to late fall and early winter.'

Deepti Singh, associate professor at Washington State University, told the Washington Post: 'Simultaneous multiyear droughts similar to those in the 1870s could happen again.'

'What is different now is that our atmosphere and oceans are substantially warmer than they were in the 1870s, which means the associated extremes could be more extreme.'

Climate forecasts show that 2026's temperatures in the Pacific Ocean are already well above average - triggering El Nino

While Super El Ninos have had a catastrophic impact on the globe in past years, meteorologists have noted that it may help the East Coast avoid a devastating Atlantic hurricane season.

Overall, AccuWeather is now predicting a below-average hurricane season, with fewer named storms and fewer tropical cyclones developing into major hurricanes.

However, AccuWeather's Lead Long Range Forecaster Paul Pastelok told the Daily Mail that this does not mean Americans should let down their guard in 2026, as a major hurricane can still reach land despite the presence of El Nino.

'It only takes one storm, and then boom! We're not saying that El Nino is going to weaken and dampen the Atlantic Basin season completely,' he said.

'There's still a lot of warm water, a lot of potential there. So, [I] just wanted to make sure [if] people were saying, "Oh, we don't have to worry about anything this year." That's not true. It only takes one storm.'

Pastelok noted that the devastating Hurricane Andrew, which made landfall in Southern Florida as a Category 5 storm in 1992 and killed 65 people globally, developed during an El Nino summer.

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

What’s Behind Steven Spielberg’s Lifelong Obsession With Flying Saucers and Extraterrestrial Visitors?

Half a century after “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” the director returns to the subject of UFOs with “Disclosure Day.” His science fiction films are informed by his fascination with alien encounters in American suburbia

Jake New | Freelance Writer

Director Steven Spielberg on the set of Disclosure Day, his latest UFO-inspired film Niko Tavernise / Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment

Two deputies were hot off a coffee run when they first crossed paths with the cosmic unknown.

Near the end of a late-night patrol in Portage County, Ohio, the men stumbled across an abandoned vehicle facing the wrong direction. One of them cautiously approached the driver’s side before scanning the nearby woods. Nothing. Suddenly, a bright light emerged directly above the treetops, filling the air with a heavy electric hum.

The glow appeared to come from a strange egg-shaped object as “big as a house,” the officers later recalled. Back in their cruiser, they radioed the sheriff’s office. A sergeant instructed them not to let the unidentified flying object out of their sight.

The pair chased the UFO across some 70 miles of eastern Ohio and Pennsylvania. Two more officers from neighboring towns joined the pursuit, which lasted nearly an hour. At daybreak, the four men stood together outside a gas station in Conway, Pennsylvania, watching in disbelief as the craft shot into the sky and vanished from view.

If this scene sounds familiar, that’s because Steven Spielberg borrowed it for an early sequence in his 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Portage County incident was one of several purported UFO encounters that inspired the movie, for which Spielberg drew on decades of reports and research.

“If you believe, it’s science fact; if you don’t believe, it’s science fiction,” Spielberg told Sight and Sound ahead of the film’s release. “I’m an agnostic between the two beliefs, so for me it’s science speculation. It’s not ten light-years away. It’s right in the heart of American suburbia.”

Close Encounters cemented Spielberg as one of Hollywood’s pre-eminent directors and laid the foundation for his lasting association with stories about aliens and UFOs. Nearly 50 years later, he has built one of the most successful careers in American cinema—and it’s populated with visitors from the stars.

Now, Spielberg’s latest project, Disclosure Day, revisits the subject once again. Arriving in theaters on June 12, the director’s new movie imagines humanity receiving definitive proof of alien life and discovering the measures that powerful groups have taken to keep this fact hidden.

“He wanted to make a film about What’s the truth, and how does it come out?” David Koepp, the film’s screenwriter, tells Smithsonian magazine. “He viewed this as the summation of what he had to say on what is perhaps the single most important subject to him.”

Flying saucers

June 14, 1947. Morning.

America’s most famous UFO case began just after a spring storm swept across the high plains outside Roswell, New Mexico. Rancher W.W. Brazel had driven out to inspect his property for damage, but what he found scattered across the sand didn’t look like storm debris.

Brazel decided that the expansive pile of metallic scrap might be worth reporting to the nearby Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF). On July 8, the Roswell Daily Record published the Army’s assessment under the headline “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region.”

The military ultimately concluded that the wreckage was a weather balloon. But the Roswell incident was far from the only UFO encounter reported that summer. On June 24, a pilot spotted nine objects in the skies near Washington’s Mount Rainier, setting off a frenzy of similar reports. Newspapers called them “flying saucers.”

Spielberg had been born just six months earlier, in December 1946. During the first year of his life, Americans reported more than 800 UFO sightings.

“Carl Jung suggested that a belief in UFOs stems from ‘an emotional tension having its cause in a situation of collective distress or danger, or in a vital psychic need,’” film historian Joseph McBride writes in Steven Spielberg: A Biography. “The Cold War and collective anxieties about the dangers of nuclear war helped stimulate that tension in Spielberg’s formative years.”

McBride also points to other tensions that may help explain Spielberg’s affinity for aliens. The director’s father, Arnold, was a workaholic electrical engineer who helped design early computers. His mother, Leah, was an eccentric concert pianist with a love of the arts. Both were the children of Jewish immigrants. More than a dozen of Arnold’s relatives died during the Holocaust.

“Spielberg is always interested in the rewards and problems involved in the meeting of cultures,” McBride tells Smithsonian. “With his immigrant family background, that comes naturally to him, and growing up Jewish in progressively more WASPish communities heightened that concern for him. UFOs and other forms of aliens fascinate him for that reason.”

For a kid growing up in the 1950s, those anxieties came packaged as flying saucer movies. Spielberg devoured UFO classics like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and It Came From Outer Space (1953). But for the would-be director, movies weren’t simply something to be watched. After seeing Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) in theaters, he began making his own films with his father’s eight-millimeter camera. Arnold often assisted behind the scenes, building miniature sets and designing lighting rigs.

When Spielberg was 17, he produced his first feature-length film, Firelight. Made on a budget of about $500, the science fiction thriller follows a group of scientists investigating strange lights in the skies above Arizona. Spielberg screened the movie during a sold-out, one-night run at a local theater, ultimately earning $1 in profit.

After graduating from high school, Spielberg enrolled at California State University, Long Beach, but grew restless and dropped out before earning a degree. Soon after, in 1969, he became the youngest director ever signed to a long-term studio contract.

Kindred seekers of truth

October 18, 1973. Night.

As far as UFO witnesses go, the men inside the helicopter were unusually credible: four United States Army reservists, all experienced air crewmen and self-described flying saucer skeptics.

Captain Lawrence Coyne was flying the crew to Cleveland when he nearly collided with a cigar-shaped craft with a red light on its nose. The object stopped directly above the helicopter, bathing the cockpit in an eerie green glow. The crew attempted to descend but instead found themselves rising more than 3,500 feet into the sky. Then, the object released the helicopter and vanished.

By the early 1970s, UFO reports had fallen sharply in the U.S. Aliens had become the domain of amateur investigators and sensationalist tabloid publications like the National Enquirer. In a 1971 essay for the Saturday Evening Post, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay for the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey, declared that “flying saucers are dead.”

As it turns out, Clarke’s assertion arrived too early. The Coyne incident was part of a wave of UFO reports in 1973 that revived interest in the strange events.

“There’s this absolutely stunning spate of sightings that comes out of nowhere and kind of shocks everybody,” says Greg Eghigian, a historian at the Pennsylvania State University and the author of After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon. “That ushers in a renaissance in the UFO world. There’s this generation of young people starting to get into UFOs.”

Spielberg was an enthusiastic member of this new generation of UFO devotees. By then a professional filmmaker, he hoped to return to the ideas he’d first explored in Firelight. But he found that, wunderkind or not, he lacked the clout to get such an unusual movie off the ground. Even after striking a deal with Columbia Pictures in 1973 to direct a science fiction feature, he struggled to secure the creative freedom required to make a serious-minded UFO film. “Everybody thought, ‘What, you want to make a movie about the National Enquirer?’” Spielberg recalled earlier this year.

The studio changed its tune after Spielberg released Jaws (1975), a movie so successful that it created the summer blockbuster. Columbia gave the director free rein to make his passion project.

Spielberg pored over magazine and newspaper articles about UFOs and interviewed people who claimed to have seen them. He also sought access to the classified archives of Project Blue Book, a government program tasked with investigating reports of UFOs, and studied the work of J. Allen Hynek, the project’s famous defector.

Hynek, an astronomer, had joined the program as a skeptic, but he grew increasingly troubled by how easily the military dismissed cases that he believed were credible. He went public with his doubts, publishing The UFO Experience in 1972. The book describes the Portage County chase as “a fine example … of a Close Encounter of the First Kind.”

Under Hynek’s system, a First Kind encounter refers to a UFO observed at close range. A Second Kind encounter involves a UFO that leaves behind physical evidence. Close Encounters of the Third Kind concern sightings that feature “animated creatures.” Spielberg cribbed the phrase for the title of his new UFO film.

When Hynek learned that his work was being used without permission, he wrote to the director. Spielberg apologized and pledged to make The UFO Experience required reading for his creative team. The production later hired the astronomer as a technical consultant and gave him a cameo in the film.

“That shows that Spielberg’s heart was in the right place,” says Mark O’Connell, Hynek’s biographer. “I strongly believe that Hynek perceived Spielberg as a fellow traveler, a kindred seeker of truth.”

J. Allen Hynek on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind  Columbia Tristar / Getty Images

The Hopkinsville goblins

August 21, 1955. Dusk.

After spending an evening playing cards with family and friends near Kelly, Kentucky, Billy Ray Taylor stepped outside to gather some water from the backyard well. When he returned, he claimed that he’d seen something “real bright, with an exhaust all the colors of the rainbow,” pass over the farmhouse.

Taylor and his companions later said that they saw a small figure emerge from the thick darkness outside. About three and a half feet tall, it had long arms and large, luminous eyes. Another followed. And then another. The creatures circled the property, appearing at the farmhouse’s windows, floating among the trees and easily avoiding gunfire.

During a break in the chaos, the group fled to the nearby Hopkinsville police station to report what they’d seen. But officers found no evidence of the so-called Hopkinsville goblins.

An artist's rendering of a so-called Hopkinsville goblin  Tim Bertelink via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0

“The Kelly-Hopkinsville case, if considered entirely apart from the total pattern of UFO sightings, seems clearly preposterous, even to offend common sense,” Hynek wrote in The UFO Experience. “The latter, however, has not proved a sure guide in the past history of science.”

When Columbia Pictures asked for a follow-up to Close Encounters, Spielberg once again mined Hynek’s case files for inspiration, gravitating toward the Hopkinsville incident. The proposed sequel, titled Night Skies, would have focused on a group of aliens terrorizing a rural family.

An emphasis on families in peril was emerging as a recurring motif in the director’s films. When Spielberg was a teenager, his parents’ marriage began to unravel, and they divorced in 1966.

In a 1999 interview on “Inside the Actors Studio,” host James Lipton theorized that Close Encounters’ famous musical exchange between humans and aliens was an attempt to resolve the tensions within Spielberg’s own family. “Your father was a computer scientist. Your mother was a musician,” Lipton said. “When the spaceship lands, how do they communicate? They make music on their computers, and they are able to speak to each other.”

Spielberg poses with E.T. in 1982.  Mark Sennet / Getty Images

Spielberg eventually abandoned the sequel to Close Encounters—but he salvaged one major element. The cadre of evil aliens included a gentle being named Buddee who befriended the family’s son. Buddee became the basis for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), which would prove to be another hit for Spielberg.

E.T. stars a lonely boy named Elliott who helps a stranded alien find his way home. The plot follows a family in peril, but this time, the danger comes from something more personal: the fallout of a divorce. The movie begins with Elliott and his siblings mourning the collapse of their family. The audience never meets the children’s father, but his presence looms large, haunting conversations around the dinner table.

“How do you fill the heart of a lonely child, and what extraordinary event would it take to fill Elliott’s heart after losing his dad?” Spielberg said in a 2017 documentary. “It would take something as extraordinary as an extraterrestrial coming into his life.”

ET The Extra Terrestrial (1982) Official 20th Anniversary Trailer Movie HD

Ancient aliens and absent fathers

3500 B.C.E. The dawn of civilization.

In Mesopotamia, the Sumerians told stories of benevolent gods who emerged from a cosmic ocean to share their knowledge. Ancient Indian texts described surreal encounters with flying machines powered by quicksilver.

In his 1968 book, Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past, Swiss author Erich von Däniken argued that such myths were the consequence of encounters with aliens. He proposed that these beings were responsible for much of human progress, from the construction of Egypt’s pyramids to the creation of Peru’s Nazca Lines. Mainstream scientists, including Carl Sagan, dismissed von Däniken’s theories. Nevertheless, his pseudoscientific books sold nearly 70 million copies.

When Spielberg and fellow filmmaker George Lucas started developing the Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), they briefly considered drawing from von Däniken’s book. What if the Ark of the Covenant was not a biblical miracle, Lucas mused during early story sessions, but rather “some kind of super high-powered radio from one of Erich von Däniken’s flying saucers?”

The pair scrapped the concept but returned to it decades later, with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). In the film’s mythology, the titular skull once sat inside the head of an ancient interdimensional alien. Spielberg had flirted with the idea elsewhere. War of the Worlds (2005), his adaptation of the 1898 H.G. Wells novel of the same name, features alien machines buried beneath the earth long before modern civilization arose.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers

But a deeper connection links Spielberg’s alien films beyond von Däniken’s theories and Hynek’s research.

Fractured families and distant fathers continued to haunt the director’s filmography. When Spielberg’s parents announced their separation, Arnold claimed responsibility for the breakup. Years later, Spielberg realized that the gesture was meant to protect Leah from her children’s anger. “I simply took him at his word when he said, ‘It’s my idea that we separate,’” Spielberg recalled in 2022. “And I lived with that, and I blamed my dad for that, for years.”

In Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), an archaeologist who was once estranged from his father, discovers that he has unwittingly repeated the pattern with his own son. In War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise plays a divorced dad named Ray who tries to keep his children alive during an alien invasion. In both films, the fathers make amends.

Close Encounters’ protagonist (Richard Dreyfus) abandons his family to explore the stars, whereas Indy builds a relationship with his son, and Ray goes to great lengths to keep his children safe. These artistic choices reflected events in Spielberg’s own life: In the intervening decades, he’d married and become a father himself.

“Today, I would never have the guy leaving his family and go on the mothership,” Spielberg said in 2005. “I would have the guy doing everything he could to protect his children.”

An age of disclosure

July 26, 2023. Morning.

In a packed hearing on Capitol Hill, lawmakers listened to witnesses describe the existence of “nonhuman biologics” and objects in the sky that could outfly any American jet. Another 100 people crowded into the overflow room, gasping at each revelation.

The House Oversight Committee had convened the hearing to examine what the U.S. government refers to as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The Senate and NASA were conducting similar inquiries. For decades, UFO reports had been treated as fodder for tabloids and trade paperbacks. Now, they were the subject of sworn testimony before Congress and front-page headlines in the New York Times.

Eghigian, of the Pennsylvania State University, credits the heightened attention to a 2017 Times article about a secret government program investigating UAPs. The article helped kick off an “age of disclosure,” in which UFO truthers anticipate that the U.S. government will finally reveal what it knows. Spielberg has said that the same story rekindled his own interest in UFOs after years spent working on other projects.

“We’ve gone in a straight line back to the beginning,” Eghigian says. “It’s very much akin to the late 1940s and early ’50s, a time in which you get a lot of discussion about the military knowing this information but not sharing it with us.”

L to R: Colman Domingo, Tommy Martinez, Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor in Disclosure Day  Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment

Disclosure Day builds on this renewed interest, following a whistleblower (Josh O’Connor) running from a shadowy government contractor while carrying a backpack filled with evidence that aliens have visited Earth. A TV weather reporter in Kansas City (Emily Blunt) is pulled into the conspiracy after she inexplicably begins speaking an alien language live on air.

The film mines 70 years of UFO mythology, including famous episodes like the 1947 Roswell crash. But it also features deeper cuts, such as a supposed incident in which President Richard Nixon showed actor Jackie Gleason the recovered bodies of dead aliens.

“We were looking for a unified theory of the UAP phenomenon,” says screenwriter Koepp, who also wrote War of the Worlds and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. “So we decided consciously to include as much of the lore as possible and not debunk or cherry-pick, but figure out, ‘How does this all go together?’”

Much of the material was drawn from Spielberg’s lifelong study of the subject. As he tells Empire magazine, he has “seven solid decades of a vast personal interest in what lies beyond our atmosphere, in the cosmos, and what is within our atmosphere right here on planet Earth.”

“There’s Something Out There” - Steven Spielberg on Alien Visitors, and an “E.T.” Sequel

The director’s thinking about UFOs has evolved over those decades. During a 2023 episode of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” the television host pressed Spielberg to theorize what these mysterious objects could be. “What if they’re not from an advanced civilization 300 million light-years from here,” the director mused, but rather human anthropologists from the future who are exploring the past?

Spielberg could very well have been describing his own career. Throughout his filmography, he has used cinema to revisit moments in history, from the abolishment of slavery to the horrors of the Holocaust. In 2022, he turned this anthropological lens toward himself in the semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans, a project he has described as “$40 million of therapy.”

But Spielberg hardly needed a biopic to excavate his past. His UFO films have always given this impulse a particularly vivid form, pairing broken families and absent fathers with the realization—as terrifying as it is comforting—that we are not alone in the universe.

A first encounter

The 1950s. Before dawn.

Depending on the telling, the story sometimes takes place in a field in New Jersey. Other times, it’s a desert outside Phoenix. Sometimes Spielberg is 5 or 6. Other times, he’s 10 or 11. But the emotion of the moment is always the same.

Spielberg’s father wakes him in the middle of the night and rushes him to their car without explanation. This wasn’t like his dad. Arnold was a reserved man, a calm counterpoint to his free-spirited wife. “My heart was beating,” Spielberg told critic Roger Ebert in 1998. “I didn’t know what he wanted to do. He wouldn’t tell me, and he put me in the car and we went off.”

The pair drove until the warm lights of the suburbs faded into darkness. At their destination, Arnold spread a blanket on the ground, and the two lay down. He pointed to the stars as a meteor shower streaked across the sky. Suddenly, the young Spielberg was aware of the vastness of outer space. Before him stretched a universe of immense scale and endless possibility.

The Fabelmans | Official Trailer [HD]

“I think he was just overcome with wonderment, and that influenced his storytelling—not just in this film, but in all his films,” Koepp says. “Nobody captures wonderment quite the way he does.”

Many have speculated about Spielberg’s lifelong fascination with UFOs. With the impending release of Disclosure Day, online conspiracy theorists have added to the pile, proposing that the director is quietly working with the government to “soft launch” the existence of aliens to a public that might otherwise panic. But the real reason may be simpler.

Perhaps Spielberg returns to stories about aliens and UFOs not because he’s in on an intergalactic secret, but because they transport him to a powerful moment from his childhood—the night his father told him to look up and handed him a key to the cosmos.

{ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/ }

Steven Spielberg says 'we are not alone' as ET director shares alien belief

Steven Spielberg is behind some of the biggest alien movies of all time, including E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the director has shared why he now truly believes aliens exist

BY Yasmin Vince - TV Reporter and Claudia Trotman - Assistant Showbiz Editor

Steven Spielberg has shared his thoughts on aliens 

(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Steven Spielberg has declared he genuinely believes in extraterrestrial life ahead of launching his newest sci-fi blockbuster. The Oscar-winning filmmaker, responsible for beloved classics E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, insisted "we are not alone".

The 79-year-old director's fresh offering Disclosure Day centres on a weather presenter, portrayed by Emily Blunt, who encounters a baffling alien incident while on air. The conspiracy thriller also features Pride And Prejudice star Colin Firth, Euphoria's Colman Domingo and Challengers actor Josh O'Connor, who takes on the role of a tech-savvy whistleblower attempting to leak classified government documents about extraterrestrial existence to the masses.

The picture arrives nearly five decades following the debut of Oscar-nominated Close Encounters, which linked three individuals who encounter alien experiences, reports the Mirror.

Steven Spielberg has opened up 

(Image: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

Prior to Disclosure Day's arrival, Spielberg revealed his conviction that aliens exist somewhere out there. He revealed: "I do believe that we are not alone in the cosmos, in the universe. As far as whether I believe that aliens are here and have been here, 50 years ago, when I made Close Encounters, I would have said seeing is believing.

"And I haven't seen one. I've not even seen a UFO. But today, with all the smartphones that are out there, and all the things that I've seen, and all the people who I believe, I believe the believers. I am absolutely ready to say that I do believe we are not alone here on this planet," he told the The Rest is Entertainment podcast.

At the UK premiere of the film, the director told the BBC that he reckons aliens will be uncovered during our lifetime. He explained: "I've become more optimistic that people are going to be able to discover things that we have not been allowed to discover."

His leading man Josh O'Connor concurred that there was "something out there" but insisted he didn't reckon we'd be encountering extra-terrestrial life anytime soon. Meanwhile Emily Blunt declared it was "mathematically insane to imagine we are the only civilisation".

Spielberg is renowned for his alien-focused films. In 1982, he unleashed E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, chronicling a young lad who assists an alien marooned on Earth to return home.

Just like Close Encounters, that picture secured Spielberg a best director nod at the Oscars, plus a nomination for best picture. ET became his most successful box office triumph after 1993's Jurassic Park.

Elsewhere in the podcast, the filmmaker disclosed his repeated efforts to helm a James Bond film over the years, confessing his rejection ultimately led him to another enormously successful franchise in Indiana Jones.

A new trailer was unveiled for Disclosure Day

(Image: Universal Pictures)

He explained he approached Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli, the iconic American producer who co-founded and developed the James Bond franchise following Jaws becoming a smash hit for him in 1975.

"I'd always wanted to make a James Bond film from the day I saw Dr. No, so I called Cubby after Jaws and volunteered. I said, 'If you need a director, I would love to direct one.' And he said no. Then Cubby called me again after Close Encounters came out, which was another big hit. A few years later, he said, 'We'd like to use the five notes in Moonraker.' And I said, 'I'll make you a deal. I'll give you permission to use the five notes if you let me direct a Bond film.' And he said no. But I gave him the five notes anyway.

"So they consistently turned me down - at least, Broccoli did. He never explained why he wasn't letting me into the Bond family. But when I told that story to George Lucas in 1977, when we were in Hawaii together getting ready for the release of Star Wars: A New Hope, he said, 'I have something better than Bond. It's called Indiana Smith,' which is what it was called at the time. He told me the premise of the Indiana Jones series, and that's how I got that job. So if they ever asked me to make a Bond film now, my answer would be: 'You can't afford me.'"

RELATED

{ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/showbiz/  }

We are not alone in space – and maybe not even on Earth. At least that's what the public believes.

Most Americans believe intelligent life exists on other planets, and one in five think they've already made contact with us. 

For those who don't think that's happened yet, many expect contact at some point in the future. 

If such face-to-face encounters were to take place on Earth, Americans say they would greet the alien visitors with more fascination than fear, along with some unease. 

The government's recent release of UFO files has some Americans saying we've already been visited by extraterrestrial life. This is especially the case among those who have watched the videos in the UFO files.

And people suspect there's still more to come. Eight in 10 think the government knows more about UFOs than it is telling.

The percentage who believe intelligent life exists on other planets has become more widespread in recent years. Looking back just to 2010, fewer than half of Americans believed that. Since that time, higher numbers of men, women and people across age groups and education levels now believe in the existence of intelligent life.   

People say they would be more curious than scared about the prospect of meeting extraterrestrials should they come to Earth. But such contact also generates some anxiety — more would be nervous than calm.

Ever seen a UFO?

The debate about whether UFOs have visited Earth continues. 

Seventeen percent of Americans report having personally seen something they thought was a UFO. This is similar to what Gallup polling has shown in recent years, but a higher percentage than what their polling found in the 1970s.

More men than women report having seen a UFO. 

People who say they have seen what they believe was a UFO overwhelmingly think intelligent life exists, and most would be curious upon meeting such beings, with many also saying they would feel nervous and excited about the prospect. 

So, what are they?

Americans are split on whether reports of UFOs might sometimes be caused by alien spacecrafts visiting Earth, or are always the result of human or natural activity that comes from Earth. 

Those who believe intelligent life exists out there overwhelmingly think reports of UFOs are at least sometimes the result of alien spacecraft visiting. But those who don't believe in intelligent life think the more likely explanation is human or natural activity.

Most Americans have heard or read at least something about the federal government's release of files and videos related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAP, also known as Unidentified Flying Objects, and four in 10 report watching videos that were released. 

Three in 10 say this material has made them more likely to believe that aliens visited Earth, a figure that rises to four in 10 among those who have watched videos. 

Americans still think the U.S. government knows more.

A big majority says the government is not telling all it knows about UFOs. It's the predominant opinion among those who believe in extraterrestrial life, as well as those who do not. And there is agreement across party lines on this: Most Democrats, Republicans and independents don't think the government is telling the public all it knows.

This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,023 U.S. adults interviewed between June 2-4, 2026. The sample was weighted to be representative of adults nationwide according to gender, age, race, and education, based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as 2024 presidential vote. The margin of error is ±2.8 points. CBS News polls cited in this analysis from 1997, 2010, 2017 and 2021 were conducted by phone.

link CBS News poll - June 2-4

• https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/cbsnews_20250608_1_updated.pdf

{ https://www.cbsnews.com/politics/ }

Watch every video released in the Trump admin's first big dump - PART II

Can You Find the UFOs in These Newly Released Pentagon Videos? - PART I

A UFO whistleblower pointed to a declassified intelligence assessment that he said contains evidence of a decades-long government effort to conceal the truth.

Air Force veteran David Grusch stood on the steps of Capitol Hill on Tuesday and called on the White House to release what he described as the 'smoking gun' proving UFOs are real.

During his speech, Grusch was asked which documents people should study to better understand what he calls the American Legacy UFO Program.

He pointed to a 1971 Australian intelligence review, which argued that US officials believed some UFOs may have been extraterrestrial craft and secretly sought to understand their propulsion systems.

'I encourage people to read pages seven through 16, and that was the nuclear branch chief of the Australian government discussing the US cover-up and involvement of the CIA back in the 70s,' he said.

The report states that between 1948 and 1952, a government agency staffed by rocket, nuclear and intelligence specialists studied UFO reports in an effort to gather information about the design and propulsion of what investigators believed could be 'interplanetary spaceships.'

The document repeatedly suggests that the agency was 'almost certainly the CIA.'

The report argues that the government's interest in UFO propulsion systems reflected a belief among some intelligence officials that the objects were not Soviet technology, but vehicles of possible extraterrestrial origin. 

Air Force veteran David Grusch stood on the steps of Capitol Hill on Tuesday and called on the White House to release what he described as the 'smoking gun' proving UFOs are real

Grusch spent 14 years in the Air Force before working as an intelligence officer for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds and launches surveillance satellites for the Pentagon.

From 2019 to 2021, he represented NRO on the UAP Task Force, but eventually became a whistleblower after allegedly learning that elements of the US government had prevented Congressional oversight on matters related to extraterrestrials.

In 2023, he testified before Congress, claiming that secret government departments had been running UFO retrieval and reverse-engineering programs for decades.

On Tuesday, Grusch stood in Washington DC to pressure officials to tell the American people the truth about UFOs, and used the Australian document to argue that intelligence agencies had long believed some sightings could be extraterrestrial in origin. 

The report was prepared by O H Turner, Head of the Nuclear Branch in Australia's Joint Intelligence Organization.

An early Air Force intelligence analysis concluded that some UFO sightings involved real objects displaying flight characteristics far beyond known US aircraft, leading investigators to consider an extraterrestrial origin. 

The document further alleged that the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence studied the reports in an effort to understand the propulsion methods behind the unexplained craft. 

The Australian intelligence review traced the US government's involvement with UFO investigations back to 1947, when the Air Technical Intelligence Center near Dayton, Ohio, began examining the first wave of 'flying saucer' sightings.

He pointed to a 1971 Australian intelligence review, which argued that US officials believed some UFOs may have been extraterrestrial craft and secretly sought to understand their propulsion systems

Investigators initially suspected the objects could be advanced Soviet technology. But by the end of that year, many working under Project Sign had shifted toward a far more extraordinary possibility that the craft originated beyond Earth.

Project Sign was the first official U.S. government study of UFOs, initiated by the Air Force in late 1947 and active primarily in 1948. 

Their conclusions were compiled into a formal estimate and sent to the Pentagon in September 1948. 

According to the review, senior officials rejected the extraterrestrial explanation because there was insufficient evidence, triggering a retreat from attempts to solve the mystery.

In February 1949, Project Sign was replaced by Project Grudge, which the review described as an effort to discredit UFO reports and dampen public acceptance of the phenomenon. 

The Air Force may have been motivated by fears of public panic or embarrassment over its inability to explain the sightings, Turner suggested.

Meanwhile, another agency staffed by rocket, nuclear and intelligence specialists continued examining UFO reports. 

The review identified that organization as 'almost certainly the CIA' and claimed its objective was to collect design and propulsion data from what some investigators believed were 'interplanetary spaceships.'

Despite efforts to dismiss the phenomenon, sightings continued to rise. By 1952, the Air Force had launched Project Blue Book, restoring funding and personnel to analyze thousands of reports.

That summer brought a dramatic surge in sightings, including the famous incidents over Washington DC. 

Some intelligence officials reportedly concluded the objects could be extraterrestrial craft, prompting the release of 41 previously classified cases that contradicted earlier explanations dismissing UFOs as simple misidentifications.

'I encourage people to read pages seven through 16, and that was the nuclear branch chief of the Australian government discussing the US cover-up and involvement of the CIA back in the 70s,' Grusch said

The CIA viewed the situation differently, as rather than focusing on the origin of the objects, officials were said to be concerned that the flood of reports was overwhelming military communications networks and distracting defense forces from monitoring potential Soviet threats.

In January 1953, the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence convened the Robertson Panel to determine how the government should respond. 

While the panel recommended continued investigation, the review argued that the agency ultimately favored publicly downplaying UFOs while quietly expanding intelligence collection behind the scenes.

Under that approach, Project Blue Book was gradually transformed from a significant investigative effort into a small public-facing office whose primary purpose was supplying explanations for sightings. 

More sensitive intelligence work, according to the review, was moved elsewhere within the military structure.

Turner further argued that studies conducted under Blue Book showed the most credible sightings were often the hardest to explain, and that officials privately regarded the unexplained cases as fundamentally different from known aircraft, astronomical objects or conventional phenomena.

The review also linked intelligence interest in UFO performance characteristics to government support for advanced aerospace projects, including the Avrocar flying-saucer prototype and anti-gravity research programs. 

It suggested that some officials believed the technology behind UFOs was real and feared the Soviet Union might master it first.

Turner ultimately criticized Australia's own handling of UFO reports, arguing that the country had largely adopted the Air Force's public position while neglecting serious scientific analysis of the phenomenon.

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

{ PETER2011 }

I’ve spent five decades researching UFOs and speaking to highly confidential sources. This is what I’ve discovered about the CIA, China and aliens, writes top barrister JONATHAN CAPLAN KC. You may scoff, but the evidence is undeniable

By JONATHAN CAPLAN KC

To most people, the idea that the US, China and other countries are in possession of crashed alien spacecraft is preposterous. Any suggestion that these craft have been recovered with non-human intelligences inside, dead or alive, stretches credulity to breaking point. But the evidence is overwhelming.

I have been pursuing the truth about this phenomenon since I was a teenager, when I first saw a television report about a ‘flying saucer following a passenger plane’.

For five decades, I have conducted intensive research, combing through a vast body of material and interviewing many of the key people in this twilight area, some highly confidential sources.

I have applied the same rigorous analysis that I would as a lawyer to the evidence. I use in my new book Not For Disclosure only material that I have determined to be both honest and reliable, and which I can credibly and confidently present. I have discarded a great deal. I have also received very sensitive information from many whom I trust and who have placed their trust in me.

My concern about these extraordinary objects – once termed UFOs but now known as UAPs or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – has been shared by many influential figures.

When I was on the editorial board of the leading international journal, Flying Saucer Review, Buckingham Palace requested that a copy of every edition was delivered to the Duke of Edinburgh’s equerry. Prince Philip, of course, was a highly experienced pilot who quietly followed this subject, even having some witnesses interviewed at the Palace.

My professional life has been spent as a barrister, a King’s Counsel, evaluating evidence in very complex cases. I have done my best to bring that experience into this more anomalous arena, and my legal reputation has sometimes meant that I have been able to open doors that were closed to other researchers.

The shocking evidence that I have amassed proves beyond any doubt that not only are UAPs real, but they are undeniably evidence of alien technology. The sources of these non-human intelligences is still not known even by the intelligence services of the world.

My concern about these extraordinary objects – once termed UFOs but now known as UAPs or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – has been shared by many influential figures

The shocking evidence that I have amassed proves beyond any doubt that not only are UAPs real, but they are undeniably evidence of alien technology, writes Jonathan Caplan

More than that, the United States, China and Russia have been competing to reverse engineer and replicate these technologies, including anti-gravity, free energy and the real relationship between space and time.

I am fully aware how extraordinary this sounds. The principal motive for writing my book was to enable a wider and informed debate to take place without stigma or embarrassment. This subject is not on any educational syllabus and it is difficult to know where to access reliable material.

The ridicule surrounding the subject has not arisen by accident. A deliberate policy of denial and fabrication has been implemented by the US government and others, which has ended the reputations and even the lives of many people who have tried to lift the veil.

That is changing. In July 2023, a former Air Force intelligence officer named David Grusch went public under oath on live television before the US Congress, declaring that the United States was in possession of crashed NHI (non-human intelligence) craft.

Senator Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state and a probable contender to be the next president, told political website The Hill in July 2024: ‘Either what they are saying is partially true, or entirely true – or we have some really smart educated people with very high clearances and very important positions in our government who are crazy and are leading us on a wild goose chase. 

‘What incentive would so many serious people have to make something up?’

Grusch did not say how many crashed NHI craft had been recovered, only that it was ‘in double digits’. One was seen by Lance Corporal Jonathan Weygandt. He was a US Marine posted to Peru in 1997, when he was sent with his unit one night to secure the site of a crashed aircraft, close to a radar tracking station.

‘We found the area real easy,’ he said, ‘because there was a huge gash in the land. It was like something had almost cut warm butter with a knife. It was a huge ship, buried in the side of a cliff. And when I first saw it I was scared.

David Grusch did not say how many crashed non-human intelligence craft had been recovered, only that it was ‘in double digits’

One was seen by Lance Corporal Jonathan Weygandt. He was a US Marine posted to Peru in 1997 when he was sent with his unit one night to secure the site of a crashed aircraft close to a radar tracking station

‘It was dripping a syrup-like liquid – about 10 metres in width, 20 metres in length, like something between an egg and a teardrop.’

Whatever it was, this craft was not manmade. As far as Weygandt could work out, it had not crashed but was shot down, apparently by a Hawk surface-to-air missile. And something was still inside it, something alive.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘the creatures inside were trying to communicate with me telepathically.’

A US military unit in plain black fatigues arrived with a Nuclear Energy Support Team from the Department of Energy to recover the entities and the craft. Weygandt was arrested and taken by helicopter to a US Navy Medical Research Unit nearby.

Here, anonymous officers told him he was witness to something that he was not supposed to have seen. ‘I thought they were going to kill me. They threatened to take me up in a helicopter and kick me out into the jungle.’

His story might seem a hallucination, if it did not tally so closely with what we know about other crash retrieval operations. Unidentified craft are tracked in the United States through various agencies, including North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

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•  UFO and alien 'evidence' to take center stage on Capitol Hill in just DAYS 

If a UAP is detected to have crashed, then special paramilitary units are sent to the scene together with the Office of Nuclear Energy in order to secure the area – just as Weygandt describes.

The CIA is also closely involved, and has recovered craft within US borders and from foreign territory both on land and under the sea. They have also engaged in operations to bring down craft.

When craft have been too large to recover, they have allegedly been left in place, buried under a building or structure while a facility is constructed underground to study it: This is said to have happened in the 1970s in the mountains outside Seoul, South Korea.

In January 1996, NORAD warned Brazilian authorities that a UAP was in their airspace. A cigar-shaped craft was seen by residents to be flying erratically and low before it crashed.

Multiple reports were made of strange beings with dark oily skin, large red eyes and three bony protuberances on their heads in the vicinity of the town of Varginha. Witnesses included three young women as well as military personnel and firefighters. A US plane arrived at the army base in Campinas to collect the wreckage and entities. Two of these creatures were captured. A military officer, Marco Chereze, who came into physical contact with one died soon after.

We do not know what happened to one of the beings but the other was taken to the regional hospital. The head of neurosurgery, Dr Italo Venturelli, attested last year that he went to consult with one of the beings for several minutes.

He said: ‘He was magnificent and very tranquil. I wondered if he was suffering but he was not. It was like he understood everything I was thinking entirely.’

Many suppose the history of crashed spacecraft begins with the 1947 Roswell incident in New Mexico, when a ranch foreman named Mac Brazel discovered wreckage scattered across a wide area. This included metal beams covered in hieroglyphic symbols.

A police officer in Roswell holds debris of an alleged flying saucer found by ranch foreman Mac Brazel

At a second crash site, the main part of the craft was found with five small, non-human bodies inside. The official explanation was that the debris came from a ‘weather balloon’.

But a crash in Magenta in northern Italy pre-dates that by more than a decade. In 1933, a bell-shaped object was recovered from a site near Milan, though no bodies were found inside. A secret group known as Cabinet RS/33 was established to safeguard the craft and it reported directly to dictator Benito Mussolini.

Telegrams and notes from June 1933 have been discovered, ordering a Press blackout and establishing a detailed protocol for dealing with the object’s recovery. 

At the end of the Second World War, the Office for Strategic Services (the OSS, which was the first US intelligence agency), with the assistance of the Vatican, arranged for the US government to take possession of the craft and to transport it back to an American facility.

Beyond any dispute, the international operations carried out across almost a century to keep this technology away from public sight amount to the world’s greatest ever cover-up. But the technology is only part of it. Even more disturbing is the non-human intelligence behind it.

Five alien species are commonly described in the literature but there are many more that have been reported. Paul Hellyer, the former defence minister of Canada, told me that he had been officially notified that more than 40 different species have been recorded visiting Earth. 

The five main observed types include ‘greys’ which are most commonly depicted in popular culture, described as about 4 ft tall with large, teardrop-shaped heads, wraparound black eyes, no nose or ear protuberances and a straight line for the mouth.

The four other most commonly observed body types include small humanoids; larger, well-built reptilian-like beings; tall, fair Nordic types; and those with a mantid or insectoid appearance.

Dr Eric Davis, an astrophysicist who has worked for the US Department of Defense, confirmed his knowledge of these species at a Congressional event held by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on May 1, 2025.

Many researchers suspect the ‘greys’ are actually androids, arguing they are synthetic beings built to carry out tasks for the real NHIs.

There is a strong argument that today’s UAP encounters echo the content of our fairy tales and folklore, and even of some religious visions. Instead of coming across goblins and fairies, today it is aliens and spaceships.

Witnesses are often deeply affected by what they have seen, but prefer to say little, either for fear of being mocked or in many cases because they have been directly threatened. Sometimes though such events cannot be contained and become breaking news. 

On July 1, 1965, a French lavender farmer named Maurice Masse, in Valensole in the French Basses Alpes, was smoking a cigarette just before starting his tractor for the day’s work when he heard a whistling noise. On the other side of his field, he saw an egg-shaped object resting on four legs.

On July 1, 1965, a French lavender farmer named Maurice Masse, in Valensole in the French Basses Alpes, was smoking a cigarette just before starting his tractor for the day’s work when he heard a whistling noise

Two small boys were squatting nearby in grey-green overalls, looking at the ground. They stood up when he approached. They were about 4 ft tall with bald heads and large slanted eyes. Their mouths had no lips and resembled a small hole.

He claims there was a telepathic exchange, then they pointed a ‘pencil’ at him causing temporary paralysis.

The craft took off at speed and, once he was free to move, he inspected the place where it had stood. The legs of the craft had left indentations in the ground. The local gendarmerie from Digne came to investigate and alerted government agents who concluded that Masse was not lying.

From then on the landing site, damaged and charred, would only grow weeds. Madame Masse told investigators that her husband thought about these beings every day and that it was a profound experience, something that should not be discussed with anyone. He shied away from media attention but his story quickly spread and was reported in the Washington Post four days later.

A UAP investigator named Jacques Vallee who interviewed Masse wrote: ‘The Valensole case is the best authenticated close encounter incident in continental Europe. It involved hard traces, botanical data, physiological data, and detailed descriptions of beings associated with the object.’

There are also claims of official contact, the most common being that arrangements were made for US president Dwight D Eisenhower to meet a group of extraterrestrials in 1954 at Edwards/Muroc Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert in California.

On another occasion president George HW Bush was informed, when he became director of the CIA, that a craft had landed at Holloman Air Force Base and a tall humanoid of Nordic appearance emerged and met with several uniformed and CIA officers. The Holloman contact was filmed but Bush was not allowed to view it.

The astronaut Gordon Cooper (who flew on the 1963 Mercury-Atlas 9 mission and 1965’s Gemini 5) was present on another occasion when a saucer allegedly landed at Edwards base in May 1957.

He and a crew had set up a Cinetheodolite precision-landing system on a dry lakebed – a system that could take pictures at the rate of 30 frames per second – for an exercise that had nothing to do with UAPs.

Later in the morning they saw a saucer hovering above them. It landed 160 ft away using three extended landing gears. As they approached to get a better view, the landing gears were retracted and the craft took off. Cooper, who was very familiar with experimental aircraft, had never seen technology like this.

When Cooper held the negative print up to the light, he observed that the quality of the photography was excellent. The film was speedily collected by an agent who arrived by special plane. Cooper never heard any more about the matter.

As Marco Rubio has said, why should a highly trained man like that, or his colleagues, lie about such an incident?

But perhaps the accounts that are hardest to dismiss are the mass sightings. On September 16, 1994, more than 60 children at a private elementary school in Ruwa, 12 miles outside Harare in Zimbabwe, were taking a mid-morning break while their teachers were in a staff meeting.

Suddenly, several silver spheres came out of the sky and seemed to vanish and reappear. The largest object came down, hovered and landed on a hill by some gum trees just outside their schoolyard.

The children, aged six to 12, saw one or two small men, about 3 ft tall, dark grey with long black hair, large black almond eyes and tight black suits, atop the craft.

Next day, the headmaster Colin Mackie asked them to draw what they had seen. He received 35 drawings, all very similar.

The BBC’s Zimbabwe correspondent, Tim Leach, was the first to arrive to film interviews. Leach later said: ‘I could handle war zones, but I could not handle this.’

He edited his report and sent the tape to London for BBC News but the tape went missing and he had to prepare a further one – but not before, he said, he had received veiled threats to ‘be very careful’ from a source whom he suspected was working with the CIA.

Several children said they had received telepathic information from the visitors. Lisel, 11, said: ‘I received through the being’s eyes the message that we are not taking care of the planet.’

That message could not be more benign. But the implications for humankind may not be. These craft are present in our skies and oceans in increasing numbers and no government today has any real idea of their agenda.

A race is underway between the superpowers to unlock their scientific secrets which may alter our worldview and our concepts of consciousness and reality.

China is known to have advanced UAP programmes with fewer restrictions on funding and better co-operation between scientists dealing with different projects.

In December 2012, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev was recorded off-air telling a journalist that Vladimir Putin receives a regular report prepared by the special service ‘devoted to the strangers who visit our planet’.

This secret government agency concerns ‘the control of aliens in our country’. He said he could not talk about how many were among us because ‘panic will begin’.

He did not appear to be joking.

• Adapted from Not For Disclosure by Jonathan Caplan (Century, £22), to be published June 11. © Jonathan Caplan 2026. To order a copy for £19.80 (offer valid to 13/06/26; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.

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NASA has named the four astronauts selected for a mission that will bring humans one step closer to returning to the moon. 

Artemis III, scheduled for 2027, will test rendezvous and docking operations between the Orion spacecraft and commercial human landers in low-Earth orbit as part of preparations for future lunar exploration.

But the reveal of the crew quickly drew criticism on social media, where users pointed out that none of the astronauts selected for the historic mission are women.

NASA's Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andrew Douglas will join European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano in orbital tests ahead of the lunar landing.

The announcement, made in a press conference, sparked outrage on X, where many users deemed the lack of women was a 'real shame.'

One user posted: 'Not a single woman flying on Artemis III is an insane choice.'

'What a huge blow to those who were inspired by Christina on Artemis II,' another shared, referring to Christina Koch, who was the first woman to fly to the moon earlier this year when she and three men soared around the dark side of the lunar surface. 

While the announcement has sparked frustration, it takes Americans one step closer to returning to the moon in 2028.

NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik (left), Frank Rubio (second from right) and Andrew Douglas (right) will join European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano for Artemis III

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said: 'To the Artemis III crew, we wish you Godspeed on the journey ahead.'

The Artemis III mission is expected to last about two weeks, roughly four days longer than the Artemis II mission around the moon earlier this year. 

This is the Artemis program's final testing mission, and if it's successful, NASA then plans to land a crew on the moon with Artemis IV.

What was intended as a moment of celebration quickly sparked criticism, with many pointing out that no women were selected for the mission. 

One X user shared: 'I’m kinda mind-blown that there’s no woman on the Artemis III crew, bro. You, as NASA, saw so many people hyping up Christina going to the moon because it means a lot to people that a woman is doing things that are inspiring and cool.'

Another posted: 'Artemis II was so big on point with Christina being a capable woman, showing others we can do whatever we put our minds to. Disappointed, NASA.'

Isaacman addressed the concerns following the announcement: 'I don’t think anyone should be reading into this.'

He added that NASA 'put forth the best astronauts to undertake and complete the mission’s objectives,' but did not provide details on how the astronauts were chosen.

'We are certainly humbled as a crew to be able to be your crew that executes this Artemis III mission in space,' said Bresnik, Artemis III commander.

Douglas, mission specialist, added: 'My brain... it is going a mile a minute right now. But my heart, it is so warm. It is so full.' 

Many of the critics pointed to how Artemis II's Christina Koch showed women are more than capable of going on such missions

The Artemis III mission is expected to last about two weeks, roughly four days longer than the Artemis II mission around the moon earlier this year

The crew brings a wealth of experience to the mission.

Bresnik has flown on both the Space Shuttle and International Space Station, while Rubio holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by an American after spending 371 consecutive days in orbit.

Parmitano, one of Europe's most experienced astronauts, has completed two missions and multiple spacewalks. 

Douglas, a former US Coast Guard officer selected by NASA in 2021, will be making his first trip to space. 

NASA's Artemis III mission will see the agency's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket launch the Orion spacecraft and its crew from Kennedy Space Center in Florida into low-Earth orbit.

Once there, Orion will perform a series of tests never attempted before, including rendezvous and docking maneuvers with experimental lunar landers being developed by Blue Origin and SpaceX.

The mission will unfold as a carefully choreographed sequence involving multiple launches of some of the world's most powerful rockets. NASA will test how Orion interacts with the commercial landers, including communications, software, propulsion systems and docking interfaces.

Blue Origin's lander pathfinder will launch first and remain in orbit awaiting the crew. Orion will then carry the astronauts into space, where they will rendezvous and dock with the vehicle for roughly two days of testing and technology demonstrations, including entering the lander itself.

After separating from Blue Origin's spacecraft, Orion will remain in orbit while SpaceX launches its Starship pathfinder. 

The two vehicles will then dock for about a day of additional evaluations before Orion begins its journey home. 

The mission will conclude with the crew splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, where they will be recovered by teams from NASA and the US Navy.

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Paracas Skulls: Alien Mystery or Human Ingenuity?

mariusalbertsen

The desolate, wind-swept desert of the Paracas Peninsula on the southern coast of Peru holds one of the most enduring mysteries of the ancient world. In 1928, the renowned Peruvian archaeologist Julio Tello made a staggering discovery beneath the harsh sands. He unearthed a massive and complex graveyard, a sprawling necropolis containing hundreds of elaborate mummy bundles. While the intricate textiles wrapping the dead were marvels of ancient craftsmanship, it was the skeletal remains hidden within that would capture the world's imagination.

Tello had discovered the remains of the Paracas culture, a civilization that flourished from approximately 800 BC to 100 BC. But the skulls of these individuals were profoundly unusual. Over three hundred crania were unearthed, displaying extreme, sweeping elongation that radically altered the natural shape of the human head. For nearly a century, these enigmatic remains have sparked fierce debates, inspiring fantastical theories of extraterrestrial visitation and unknown hominid species.

•  Initial DNA analysis of Paracas elongated skull released
•  How DNA Testing Revealed European Ancestry in Elongated Skulls

Anatomy of an Anomaly: Beyond Human Limits?

A slightly wider shot showing three actual Paracas elongated skulls lined up in the Museo Regional de Ica. It provides a great sense of scale and proves this wasn't an isolated anomaly. (Jonski/CC BY-SA 4.0)

The sheer physical presence of the Paracas Skulls is startling. When compared to a standard human cranium, the morphological differences are immediately apparent and deeply perplexing. Proponents of alternative history often point out that some of these skulls possess a cranial capacity up to 25 percent larger than a conventional human head. Furthermore, the bone density and overall weight of certain specimens are reported to be significantly heavier than average.

These startling volumetric anomalies are the primary reason the Paracas Skulls have become central to "ancient alien" hypotheses. Critics of the mainstream archaeological narrative argue that while you can alter the shape of a skull through mechanical pressure, you cannot fundamentally change its total volume or mass. Additionally, some researchers have noted the apparent absence of a sagittal suture, the connective tissue joint that runs down the center of the skull, in some of the most extreme Paracas specimens.

These anatomical quirks have led to bold declarations that the beings buried on the Peruvian coast were not entirely human. The position of the foramen magnum, the opening at the base of the skull where the spinal cord attaches, has also been cited as anomalous. In some Paracas skulls, this opening appears to be positioned further back than in typical humans, suggesting a completely different center of gravity and, consequently, a unique method of bipedal locomotion.

The Science of Artificial Cranial Deformation

Another angle of the elongated skulls at the Regional Museum of Ica, showing the distinct shape of the cranial vault.

(CC BY-SA 4.0/Marcin Tlustochowicz)

Despite the sensational claims of extraterrestrial origins, the broader scientific community provides a thoroughly terrestrial, culturally rooted explanation. The extreme shapes seen in the Ica Museum specimens are widely recognized by bioarchaeologists as the result of artificial cranial deformation. This intentional body modification practice was astonishingly common across various ancient global cultures, from the Huns in Eurasia to the Maya in Mesoamerica.

In the ancient Andes, artificial cranial deformation was a highly formalized practice. According to foundational studies in geometric morphometrics, the process began shortly after birth. An infant's skull is highly pliable, as the cranial plates have not yet fused. The Paracas people would bind a newborn’s head between wooden boards, using tight woolen textiles to direct the growth of the bone upward and backward.

This extreme and arguably painful process was not a random act of cruelty, but a deeply significant cultural tradition. Intentional cranial modification served as a potent, visible marker of identity and social status. In the highly stratified Paracas society, an elongated head was a permanent crown, instantly identifying the individual as a member of the ruling elite or a specific noble lineage. It was a physical manifestation of power and divine connection, literally separating the nobility from the common populace.

Controversial DNA Claims: "Not Human"

An intricate, ancient Paracas textile. Since the skulls were found inside elaborate mummy bundles wrapped in these exact textiles by Julio Tello, this provides crucial archaeological context.

(Metropolitan Museum of Art/Public Domain)

The debate surrounding the Paracas Skulls reached a fever pitch in 2014 when preliminary DNA testing results were announced to the public. Independent researchers and authors, notably Brien Foerster, commissioned genetic analysis on samples of hair, bone, and teeth taken from several skulls. The initial findings broadcast across alternative media were nothing short of explosive.

The geneticists involved reportedly stated that the mitochondrial DNA, inherited solely through the maternal line, featured mutations that were entirely unknown in any human, primate, or animal species known to science. The narrative quickly shifted from cultural body modification to the sensational idea of a new, unknown hominid. Some reports even suggested the DNA indicated the beings were "not human, Neanderthal, or Denisovan," fueling wild speculation that a separate, perhaps unearthly, race had governed ancient Peru.

These claims generated a whirlwind of media attention and cemented the Paracas Skulls as a cornerstone of modern fringe mythology. For believers, the DNA results were the ultimate vindication, definitive proof that mainstream history was concealing a massive secret about human origins. However, the academic community met these dramatic announcements with intense skepticism, demanding peer-reviewed data, transparent methodologies, and rigorous contamination controls.

Paleogenomics and the Terrestrial Truth

A sweeping aerial photograph of the dramatic golden cliffs and Pacific Ocean coastline at the Paracas National Reserve in Ica, Peru, the exact coastal desert region where Julio Tello excavated the Paracas Necropolis in 1928 and unearthed the elongated skulls.

(masT3rOD/CC BY 2.0 )

To understand the truth hidden within the ancient bones, one must look to the rigorous field of modern paleogenomics. Extracting ancient DNA (aDNA) is an incredibly delicate process. Remains that have been handled by archaeologists, museum curators, and independent researchers for decades are highly susceptible to modern genetic contamination. Without highly sterilized clean-room environments, the DNA sequenced is often that of the people who recently touched the artifact, leading to confused or "anomalous" data sets.

Recent advancements in population genetics have painted a much clearer, albeit entirely human, picture of pre-Columbian Peruvian populations. Modern, peer-reviewed sequencing has consistently shown that the individuals buried on the Paracas Peninsula were of distinct Native American ancestry. However, as noted in recent articles detailing the DNA analysis, there are fascinating, complex genetic markers that hint at vast, ancient migration patterns, possibly including distant European or Eurasian admixture that challenges our standard timeline of global exploration.

While the DNA does not point to the stars, it does point to a human history that is far more dynamic and interconnected than previously imagined. The Paracas people were master weavers, sophisticated engineers, and survivors in a harsh, unforgiving coastal desert. They developed complex societal structures and religious beliefs that drove them to literally reshape the bodies of their children in pursuit of the divine.

A Legacy Written in Bone

One of the most extraordinary surviving Andean textiles in the world, this Nasca/Paracas-era mantle (100–300 AD) features ninety intricately needle-knitted figures along its border.

(Brooklyn Museum/Public Domain)

Ultimately, stripping away the extraterrestrial mythos does not diminish the profound wonder of the Paracas Skulls; rather, it elevates the ingenuity and resilience of ancient humanity. These elongated craniums are a testament to the lengths to which a culture will go to define itself, to assert its power, and to connect with the spiritual realm. They are a permanent, physical record of an ancient society's deeply held beliefs.

The necropolis discovered by Julio Tello continues to yield secrets, offering vital insights into the health, genetics, and daily lives of a lost civilization. The textiles that wrapped these modified elites remain some of the most complex and beautiful woven artworks ever created in the ancient world. The true magic of Paracas lies not in an alien intervention, but in the astonishing capabilities of the human hands that carved out a civilization on the edge of the Pacific.

As paleogenomics continues to evolve, we will undoubtedly learn even more about the intricate lineage of the Paracas people. For now, their elongated skulls remain safely housed in museums, silent sentinels of a bygone era. They serve as a powerful reminder that human history is wildly diverse, infinitely complex, and deeply fascinating all on its own.

• Top image: A dramatic, atmospheric close-up of a single elongated Paracas child skull resting on a museum display block. AI-generated image created to illustrate the mysterious and striking appearance of the Paracas elongated skulls.

By Marius Albertsen 

FAQs

1. Why did the Paracas people elongate their skulls? The Paracas culture practiced artificial cranial deformation as a visible, permanent marker of high social status, elite lineage, and group identity. It visually separated the ruling class from the common people.
2. How did they achieve the elongated skull shape? The process began during infancy when the cranial bones were still soft and pliable. The baby's head was tightly bound using wooden boards and heavy textiles to force the skull to grow upward and backward over several months.
3. Did DNA testing prove the Paracas Skulls are alien? No. While early, unverified claims suggested unknown mutations, rigorous scientific ancient DNA (aDNA) testing has confirmed that the skulls belong to human beings of Native American descent, with some tests indicating complex ancient migration patterns.

References

• Blom, D.E. 2006. Artificial Cranial Deformation in South America: A Geometric Morphometrics Study. Journal of Archaeological Science. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com
• Fehren-Schmitz, L. et al. 2025. Paleogenomics of Ancient Peru: North Coast Population History. Nature Scientific Reports. Available at: https://www.nature.com/srep/

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