WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The federal government released another batch of anticipated “UFO files” Friday, containing dozens of videos of unusual aerial encounters, but still no conclusive proof Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials.
The latest material has been uploaded to a dedicated Pentagon website, as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing declassification of once-secret records pertaining to “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP), more popularly known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, in the name of government transparency and satisfying national curiosity.
READ: Trump administration releases files about alleged UFO sightings
ABC News reports that the files include more infrared footage of vague objects in the sky, some near planes or over populated areas. According to the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), none of the materials have been concluded to be from outer space, but what they are remains “unresolved.”
The most significant incident, highlighted by the New York Post, concerns an object that appeared to be “chasing” fighters near a U.S. military facility in late 2025. A senior intelligence official maintains an object flew within ten feet of their helicopter before seeing “two large orbs flare up side by side, close to the helicopter,” which were “oval-shaped, orange with a white or yellow center, and emitted light in all directions.” A third and fourth orb later appeared, making a “T” formation before “they dimmed in reverse order, remaining stationary until they vanished from view. The entire event lasted 10-15 seconds.”
“After landing, I briefly spoke with [the crew] – mostly to express thanks,” the officer said. “We were virtually speechless after these observations.”
The releases so far have been abundant fodder for dramatic headlines and provocative social media posts, primarily eyewitness reports and even video clips purporting to show flying objects moving in strange ways not readily explainable by obvious natural phenomena. But some have argued the truth is less than meets the eye, fueled more by technical ignorance and conspiratorial tendencies than genuine bombshells.
Writing May 11 at The Spectator, David Whitehouse argued that the “new files are a dull selection, many not even new to space historians and watchers of the skies,” with “nothing that would remotely lead one to think twice about their implications.”
“Other files show fuzzy dots. The problem with fuzzy dots is that they are … fuzzy dots. Another shows a pointed star-like object that has the striking symmetry of a snowflake. Some are saying it’s a craft of some sort. But far from being new this is a well-known observation and is an optical diffraction effect,” Whitehouse wrote. “It’s not the first time the U.S. government has shown itself to be dumb when it comes to UFOs. In the first Congressional hearing on UFOs for over 50 years that took place in 2022, officials fawned over a fuzzy blue triangle. It took just seconds for others to realize it was an out of focus star, the triangular shape being due to the aperture of the camera.”
The question of UFOs and whether any of them carry intelligent alien life has long been a subject of American fascination and speculation, and in recent years has enjoyed a renewed interest through testimony and video about suspicious phenomena taken by pilots with greater credibility than past material typically relegated to speculative circles.
Still, a smoking gun turning science fiction into incontrovertible fact has yet to emerge, although alternative theories abound, ranging from the mundane to the divine.
In April 2021, The War Zone’s Tyler Rogoway posited that many of the UFOs seen in declassified Air Force footage are in fact deceptively low-tech spy drones deployed by foreign governments, and that the Pentagon was exploiting the public’s alien fascination to draw attention away from its failure to stop America’s enemies from “making off with what could be the biggest intelligence haul of a generation.”
Meanwhile, Catholic philosopher Daniel O’Connor has warned for years of a forthcoming alien deception that will serve as a significant trial for the Church. He and many others believe the UFO phenomena – which in some cases appear to defy physics – are demonic in origin.
He has cited 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 as an indication that demons can deceive human beings with “wonders” such as that of apparent UFOs: The lawless one comes “with all power and with pretended signs and wonders … with all wicked deception”; God sends a “strong delusion” so that people “believe what is false.” O’Connor says we may understand this to include a great end-times deception involving aliens/UFOs.
O’Connor emphasizes that the Genesis creation account shows that God created the physical universe for man and earth alone: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) Everything the account describes thereafter is for man on earth, with the exception of an allusion to angelic beings, some of which fell and became demons.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Of all visible creatures, only man is able to know and love his Creator,” and “he alone is called to share” in “God’s own life” (CCC §355–356); and that the universe is “destined for and addressed to man” (CCC §299).
Nevertheless, Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett of North Carolina, a vocal UFO enthusiast, has claimed that what he calls genuine “holy crap” material is still coming, against which the initial batch was a mere “drop in the bucket.”