UFO files release 5, August 7, 2026

The fifth batch of government UFO files, published on August 7, 2026. It includes six clips of a 2021 encounter filmed from a gunship over the Gulf of Oman.

The short answer

Release 5 of the UFO files came out on August 7, 2026. The Department of War published it at war.gov/UFO. CBS News counted 41 files from five agencies, with records from 1950 to 2026. Several of its incidents could not be resolved by AARO, and nothing in the release says any object was non-human.

Its newest record is from 2026: FBI infrared footage from the western United States. Every release also sits in the Disclosure Ledger, and the program is set out on the PURSUE files page.

Release 5 at a glance

Date: August 7, 2026
Released by: The Department of War, in a statement from chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.
Where: war.gov/UFO, filed as Release 05
Files: 41 files, according to CBS News, from the Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA, the State Department and the Executive Office of the President, with records dated from 1950 to 2026. The department’s release page gives download sizes, not a file count.
Download size: Documents 130 MB, videos 513 MB, as listed on war.gov/UFO
Program: PURSUE, the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters

What the department said

Sean Parnell’s statement confirmed the fifth release, said files would keep coming on a rolling basis, and said the department and its partners were working on the next one. CBS News reported that several of the incidents in the batch could not be resolved by AARO, the Pentagon’s UAP office.

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

What was in release 5

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.

September 2021, Gulf of Oman: an AC-130J gunship crew reported about 25 UAP during a live-fire exercise, described as cold orbs at lower altitudes that appeared to react to the aircraft firing its main cannon. The batch holds six clips, recorded on phones pointed at the gunship’s sensor screens (CBS News).
Eight FBI 302 witness interview forms, redacted, many with artist drawings of the objects described (CBS News).
2002, Afghanistan: a former military pilot describing a huge triangle blacking out the stars over Bagram (CBS News).
October 2023: a pilot on a flight from Massachusetts to Ireland reporting strange lights at high altitude (CBS News).
2025, Middle East: military footage of an object crossing the screen over a populated area, still unresolved; and 2026 FBI infrared footage of two slow “black-hot” shapes in the western United States (CBS News).

cbsnews.com (source, opens in a new tab)

Exhibit · Release 5 claim checked

The claim, checked

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

UNRESOLVED
“The Gulf of Oman video shows craft reacting to a gunship’s fire.”
What the record shows
The report exists and says what the claim says, in careful words: the objects “appeared to react” to the cannon fire. CBS News reported that AARO could not resolve the encounter. So the record confirms a crew report and six clips of screens. It does not confirm what the objects were or that they responded to anything. That question is open.
cbsnews.com (source, opens in a new tab)

Reading release 5

The Gulf of Oman clips are phone recordings of sensor displays, not the raw sensor data. That matters: a phone video of a screen loses resolution, timing and the readouts analysts would need.

The FBI 302 forms are interview summaries. They record what a witness told an agent, sometimes with a drawing. They are evidence of a report, which is the first step of an investigation, not its end.

What it does not show

It does not show what the Gulf of Oman objects were, and it does not show raw sensor data for that case. It does not show any finding that an object was non-human. 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 September 18, 2026. The one before came out on July 10, 2026.

← Release 4, July 10, 2026 All PURSUE releases Release 6, September 18, 2026 →

Files are not the first minute.

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