Pentagon Begins Releasing UFO Files

The US government released its first tranche of UFO files to the public on Friday, and, alas, "there are no clear photos of little green men or flying saucers," reports Axios. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson predicted in advance the release would be "anticlimactic," and he might have been on the mark. Here is how the New York Times describes things: "The initial files are murky still images that show what could be anything. In one, a cluster of dots appear on the screen. In another, there are some strangely shaped objects."

• The site: You can see for yourself at a newly launched website here. More files will be added on a rolling basis, notes NBC News. For the record, the the government typically uses the term Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAP, instead of UFO.

• Among the files: The first batch includes 120 PDFs, 28 videos, and 14 images, per CBS News. They include accounts from federal employees describing glowing orbs spotted at dusk in the Western US on two separate days, along with photographs of odd visual artifacts from the Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 moon missions. For example, Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmitt reported seeing "a flash on the lunar surface north of Grimaldi (crater)."
• Example: One video, here, is from an infrared camera "tracking a white object that appears just as a speck on the screen moving through the air," per CBS.

• Not all analyzed: The Pentagon said all newly public documents were screened for security concerns—but noted that "many of the materials have not yet been analyzed" to determine whether the oddities they describe have mundane explanations. "These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation—and it's time the American people see it for themselves," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement.