Administration

Trump teases upcoming release of UFO documents at Turning Point USA event

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by Ryan Mancini - 04/17/26 7:58 PM ET

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by Ryan Mancini - 04/17/26 7:58 PM ET

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President Trump on Friday teased at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix that he will direct Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to release government files on UFOs and unexplained aerial phenomena (UAPs).

“I recently directed the Secretary of War … to begin releasing government files relating to UFOs and unexplained aerial phenomena,” Trump said. “And I figured this was a good crowd because I know you people –– you’re really into that, I don’t know if I am.”

He added that “this process was well underway and we’ve found many interesting documents, I must say, and the first releases will begin very, very soon.”

The Hill reached out to the Department of Defense (DOD) for comment.

Trump in February wrote on Truth Social that he was directing the DOD to release files “related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”

He made the announcement after he slammed former President Obama for allegedly revealing classified information about whether alien life exists.

The remarks in Phoenix come days after Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said the president should release the government’s files on extraterrestrials and UFOs. Burchett led several UAP hearings since 2023, including the first where former intelligence official David Grusch testified to lawmakers that the U.S. operated a “multi-decade” program collecting alien spacecraft to be reverse-engineered. The government has denied this claim.

The House Republican urged Trump to “peel back the layers of that onion, let America decide if we can handle it. I think we can handle it.”

“It’s not about little green men, it’s not about dadgum flying saucers,” Burchett said on “The Big Weekend Show” on Fox News on Sunday. “It’s about what are we spending tens of millions of your dollars on when some alphabet agency tells me they don’t exist and then again, another department within that department tells me they do exist.”

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) told The Hill’s sister network NewsNation that she used subpoena authority after the Pentagon failed to turn over dozens of classified UAP videos ahead of an April 14 deadline.

The Florida Republican, who is the chair of the House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, told the outlet that she will work with Hegseth to obtain the footage. She added that she is confident that there will be cooperation to release the requested videos.

She asked in a March 31 letter to the Pentagon for 46 videos of UAP formations taken over Iran, the Persian Gulf, the East China Sea and near U.S. domestic airports.

“The lack of disclosure regarding the very real threat posed by UAPs in and around U.S. restricted airspace is concerning,” Luna wrote. “The presence of UAPs in and around the sensitive airspaces of U.S. military installations poses a threat to the security of the armed forces and their readiness.”

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