UFO files release 1, May 8, 2026

The first batch of government UFO files, published by the Department of War on May 8, 2026. It opened war.gov/UFO and started the rolling release.

The short answer

Release 1 of the UFO files came out on May 8, 2026. The Department of War published it at war.gov/UFO as the first batch under PURSUE, the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. NBC News counted more than 160 files. The department said many of them had not yet been analyzed, and nothing in the release says any object was non-human.

This release set the rules the later ones followed: files posted on war.gov/UFO, grouped by release, with downloads for documents and videos. Every release also sits in the Disclosure Ledger, and the program is set out on the PURSUE files page.

Release 1 at a glance

Date: May 8, 2026
Released by: The Department of War, as the first release under PURSUE. The department named the White House, ODNI, the Department of Energy, AARO, NASA, the FBI and other parts of the intelligence community as partners.
Where: war.gov/UFO, filed as Release 01
Files: More than 160 files covering more than 400 incidents, according to NBC News. Stars and Stripes counted 162. The department’s release page gives download sizes, not a file count.
Download size: Documents 1.2 GB, videos 1.3 GB, as listed on war.gov/UFO
Program: PURSUE, the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters

What the department said

The release statement framed the batch as a transparency effort that follows the President’s direction to identify and declassify UAP files. It said the collection would grow on a rolling basis. It also carried the line that matters most for anyone reading the files: while every file was reviewed for security, “many of the materials have not yet been analyzed for resolution of any anomalies.”

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the files had “long fueled justified speculation.” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said NASA would stay candid about what it knows and what it has yet to understand. None of the statements from the department, ODNI, the FBI or NASA makes a finding about what any object was.

Department of War statement (source, opens in a new tab)war.gov/UFO (source, opens in a new tab)

What was in release 1

These are the files news outlets singled out on the day. They are a sample, not the whole batch, and the descriptions are the outlets’ summaries of the records.

Reports tied to the Apollo 11, 12 and 17 moon missions (NBC News), including Apollo 12 photographs said to show unidentified phenomena (Stars and Stripes).
An unexplained object reported by Gemini 7 astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell in December 1965 (TIME).
Older civilian and police reports: a Pan Am airliner crew describing a gold cylinder in August 1947, and Philadelphia police describing a six-foot object that broke apart in September 1950 (TIME).
Unresolved military cases from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Central Command and U.S. European Command, including a football-shaped object near Japan in 2024 (Stars and Stripes).
Military infrared footage from 2024 and a September 2023 FBI interview with a drone operator (NBC News).

nbcnews.com (source, opens in a new tab)stripes.com (source, opens in a new tab)time.com (source, opens in a new tab)

Exhibit · Release 1 claim checked

The claim, checked

The line about this release that travels furthest, set against what the record supports.

FALSE AS WORDED
“The first release proved the government has been hiding alien contact.”
What the record shows
No statement in the release says so. NBC News reviewed the batch and reported that the documents do not suggest a wide-ranging government cover-up and show “no indication” of any government interaction with beings from other planets. That is a newsroom’s reading, not a government finding. The department itself describes the whole archive as unresolved cases: reports it cannot explain, which is different from reports it has explained as alien.
nbcnews.com (source, opens in a new tab)war.gov (source, opens in a new tab)

Reading release 1

Much of this batch is old. A 1947 airliner report and a 2024 infrared clip sit side by side, and the release date tells you nothing about when the event happened. Check the incident date on each record before you compare it with anything else.

The Apollo material draws the most attention. A photograph or transcript that mentions something unidentified is a record that someone could not identify it at the time. It is not an official finding about what it was.

What it does not show

It does not show an official finding that any object was non-human, and it does not show finished analysis: the department said many files had not been analyzed for resolution. For the claims made about all six releases together, read did the UFO files confirm aliens?

Sources

File counts are news tallies, credited to the outlet that made them. The department’s own pages were read through a mirror of its release text and a copy of war.gov/UFO, because war.gov blocked direct requests.

The other releases

PURSUE has published six releases so far. The next one came out on May 22, 2026. This was the first.

All PURSUE releases Release 2, May 22, 2026 →

Files are not the first minute.

If something shows up over your street tonight, no archive will tell you what to do. Ten questions find your role.

Find your role All PURSUE releases