President Donald Trump announced at a Turning Point USA rally in Phoenix, Arizona, that a Pentagon UFO review he ordered has turned up many interesting documents, and that the first releases will come soon.
He directed agencies to release government records on “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.”
The directive came after former President Barack Obama told a podcast that he believed aliens exist based on statistics, though he said he never saw any evidence during his time in office, reports USA Today. A government document reported over 750 new UAP sightings between May 2023 and June 2024. Sean Kirkpatrick, the former top government UFO investigator, says people hoping to see proof of alien life on Earth may end up disappointed.
Scientists urge caution but welcome deeper inquiry into UFO documents
“There are going to be unsatisfied people,” Kirkpatrick said. “You’re going to have a bunch of people who are going to continue to cry conspiracy, they’re going to say there’s a cover-up.” He views Trump’s order as a “distraction for the administration” and believes “the probability that extraterrestrial intelligent life is here is little to none.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, said he is looking for “an actual alien” in the files. “If one is presented, then no documents are necessary at all,” Tyson said. He explained that many people who report mysterious objects in the sky are simply unfamiliar with optical, weather-related, and astronomical phenomena.
He called this tendency “aliens of our ignorance,” saying the urge to find quick answers leads people to assume they are seeing visiting aliens from across the galaxy. Some Republicans in Congress have also been vocal about UFOs, with a GOP congressman making surprising claims about government UFO secrecy that may not sit well with his colleagues.
Tyson also pointed out that hiding an alien visit would be nearly impossible in today’s world. “Billions of photos and a million hours of video are uploaded daily to the internet, and none of them contain images of actual aliens,” he said.
Shelley Wright, an observational and experimental astrophysicist at the University of California San Diego, said that scientific study of unidentified phenomena often creates a “giggle factor” among people. However, she believes more serious scientific inquiry is needed, noting that the public has a deep curiosity about the topic and often asks, “Are we alone out here?”
Avi Loeb, a theoretical physicist at Harvard, said the key is to study the documents through the lens of known physics. He told CBS News that he spoke with members of Congress and hopes they will consult scientists like himself when reviewing the files. He said that in most cases of unidentified phenomena, “something mundane might explain the data,” but he plans to look for anything that cannot be explained when he gets access to the files.
Reports also suggest that Trump may have an alien contact speech ready to deliver, though there is said to be one major problem standing in the way. CBS News contributor Dr. Janna Levin, a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University, said that even as we learn more about the universe, “life still seems rare.”
She said astronomers are “very excited” about what the released documents might reveal, but they are not really looking for little green men. Instead, they are most interested in potential evidence of microbes, the tiny organisms that were responsible for starting life on Earth.
Kirkpatrick summed up the mood among those who have spent their careers searching for answers: “Nothing would have made me happier in that job but to have discovered alien technology and rolled it out.” Whether the released documents will reveal anything new remains to be seen, but scientists are urging the public to approach the topic with both curiosity and a clear, critical mind.
Published: Apr 18, 2026 12:15 pm