Harvard says nothing extraordinary. MTG says she has better things to do. Joe Rogan says it's a distraction from Iran. Thomas Massie called it the "ultimate weapon of mass distraction." The files contain an FBI interview about a "linear object" that vanished in 5-10 seconds. America has been waiting 70 years for this. America is processing its feelings.
The files contained approximately 41 minutes of video. Cold War reports of rotating saucers. A football near Japan. An orange blob over Syria that lasted two seconds. An FBI interview with a drone pilot who saw a "linear object" for five to ten seconds before it vanished. Three dots over the moon from Apollo 17. A Greek radar anomaly with 90-degree turns at 80 miles per hour.
They did not contain aliens.
The internet — which had been waiting for this moment for seventy years, or at least since the last congressional UAP hearing, or at minimum since Trump's Truth Social post in February — has responded to the absence of aliens by concluding that the aliens are definitely there and that the files are specifically designed to hide them. This is called the conspiracy theory immune response: when reality does not confirm the theory, the theory expands to incorporate reality as further evidence of the theory. It is airtight. It cannot be falsified. It is, from an epistemological standpoint, perfect.
The Files, Translated From Government Into English
| File / Record | Official Description | What It Actually Is |
|---|---|---|
| Apollo 17 Moon Photo, 1972 | "Three dots in triangular formation. New preliminary analysis indicates could be a physical object. No consensus on nature of anomaly." | Three dots. On a photo. From 1972. Classified for 54 years. The classification of these specific dots is the most baffling bureaucratic decision since someone decided the DMV needed its own theme song. |
| Football-shaped object, Japan, 2024 | "U.S. Indo-Pacific Command reported UAP resembling football-shaped body." | A football. In the sky. Near Japan. Moving. Still unresolved. American football or association football has not been specified. This detail matters and nobody has addressed it. |
| Syria orange blob, 2024 | "Two semi-transparent, irregularly shaped orange areas each appearing for two seconds." | Two orange things. For two seconds each. Over Syria. In 2024. Where many other things were also happening. This was deemed worth classifying, reviewing, declassifying, and posting on war.gov/UFO with white typewriter font. |
| Greece radar anomaly, 2023 | "Object making multiple 90-degree turns at approximately 80 miles per hour." | This is the genuinely interesting one. 90-degree turns. At 80mph. No known drone or aircraft does this. Avi Loeb says it could be a reflection in the camera optics. The Greeks were not notified it happened. |
| FBI interview, drone pilot, Sep 2023 | "Reported seeing a linear object with a light bright enough to see bands within the light. Visible for 5-10 seconds then vanished." | A bright line. In the sky. For a maximum of ten seconds. The FBI interviewed someone about this. The FBI, which also investigates organised crime, terrorism, and financial fraud, sat down and asked a drone pilot about a line that disappeared. |
| Cold War rotating saucer reports | "Historical records from the Cold War era describing mysterious rotating disc-shaped objects." | The 1950s were a different time. The Soviets had rockets. The Americans had paranoia. Everything in the sky was potentially hostile. Some things were balloons. Some things were Soviet. Some things were, apparently, saucers. Nobody can say which. |
| Iraq military memo, 2022 | "One possible small UAP." | "Possible." "Small." This is a classified military memo in which the author hedges twice in four words. This document was held for four years. It describes something that might have been small and possibly unidentified. |
The people can decide for themselves, "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" Have Fun and Enjoy! 🇺🇸
"I really don't care about the UFO files. I just don't. I'm so sick of the 'look at the shiny object' propaganda... Unless they roll out live aliens and test demo UFOs or actually admit what we know this really is then I have way better things to do on this Friday."
[Called the release the "ultimate weapon of mass distraction"]
[Questioned whether the file release was a distraction from the Iran war "that's not going very well"]
"The initial analysis of these 161 records does not find any extraordinary evidence of non-human origins... all images could be explained as reflections in the camera optics or human-made objects."
"The most transparent administration in history still hasn't released all the Epstein files or arrested anyone, but rolled out some UFO files today so you would get so excited that you forgot you are paying over $4.50/gallon... Happy Friday everyone!"
Multiple commentators — Thomas Massie, MTG, Joe Rogan, and a significant portion of the internet — have suggested the UFO release is a deliberate distraction from the Iran war, Epstein files, $4.50/gallon petrol, and general geopolitical chaos. This theory deserves examination.
It is entirely possible. Governments have historically released interesting information during bad news cycles. It is also possible that Trump, who has publicly expressed genuine enthusiasm about aliens since at least 2020, simply wanted to do the alien thing and the timing is coincidental. It is also possible that the man who told the public to "have fun and enjoy" his declassified military intelligence files does not have a sophisticated communications strategy and simply thought aliens were cool this week. All three possibilities exist. Only one of them is funnier than the others. This reporter has chosen to believe whichever one produces the best paragraph. [Read Part 1 HERE]
The UFO Files — Notable Absences
- Aliens. The files contain zero aliens. Zero alien technology. Zero alien contact. Zero evidence of non-human intelligence. The Department of Defense confirmed in 2024 it had "no information pertaining to the existence of extraterrestrial life." The 2026 files do not update this position.
- Roswell. Area 51 adjacent material is noticeably absent. UFO fans who attended the 2019 "Storm Area 51" event — which ultimately became a music festival attended by 6,000 people — will note the irony of the government finally releasing files that contain less than what the festival attendees suspected.
- Explanations. The files are the "unresolved" cases. The government has stated explicitly that resolved cases are reported elsewhere. This means they released everything they cannot explain and kept everything they can. This is either responsible classification or the most ironic transparency exercise in American history, depending on your priors.
- The Epstein files. MTG wants them. They are not here. The aliens and Epstein documents remain in separate classification universes, which, given the general state of things, feels about right.
- Answers. There are no answers. There are 162 questions, formatted in government memo style, with some redactions, on a website with white typewriter font, hosted at war.gov/UFO, under the acronym PURSUE. The answers are in the next tranche. The next tranche arrives in a few weeks. This is a serialised mystery. America has subscribed.
India has not officially commented on the UFO files. This is the correct response. India has its own unresolved aerial phenomena — the Lights of Hessdalen have never appeared over Hyderabad, but there are enough unidentified lights over Delhi during smog season that an entire UAP office could be kept busy through November.
ISRO, to its credit, has been conducting genuine space research. Chandrayaan-3 landed on the moon's south pole in 2023. India's astronauts are heading to space. If there are three dots in the lunar sky, India's cameras will be pointed at them with considerably better resolution than a 1972 Apollo photograph.
The more relevant Indian observation is this: the United States government spent 70 years classifying these files, built an entire bureaucracy to manage them, created a programme called PURSUE with a backronym that took a senior official meaningful working hours to construct, launched a website with white typewriter font and dramatic scrolling, held multiple congressional hearings, prompted three presidents to comment, generated international news coverage — and the contents are: some dots, a football, an orange blob, and a drone pilot who saw a line for eight seconds.
India's response to this should be: we also have bureaucracies that generate enormous activity for minimal output. We call this the municipal corporation. It is not aliens. It is just how large governments work. The Americans have simply given theirs a cooler aesthetic. [Read Part 1 HERE]
The Pentagon has committed to releasing new batches of files "every few weeks." This reporter, having now studied 162 documents worth of government UFO thinking, offers the following forecast for upcoming releases: more infrared smudges, at least one additional football-shaped object, possibly a triangle, several more instances of the phrase "unresolved," at least one document where the most interesting part is redacted, and a Truth Social post from Trump that says something like "VERY INTERESTING STUFF. THE BEST ALIENS. ENJOY!"
The aliens themselves will continue to not appear. If they are watching — and if they are as intelligent as their supposed technology implies — they are watching MTG's "Happy Friday everyone!" post and reconsidering their flight path entirely.
Honestly. Can you blame them. [Read Part 1 HERE]
