Inside the UFO files released by Pentagon - Apollo photos to UAP sightings

DoW has released the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena files on May 8, Friday. Here is what inside the ufo files.

The US Department of War (DoW) has released its first batch of declassified files on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), commonly known as UFOs as part of a new initiative called the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, or PURSUE. The announcement was made via a post on X on Friday, May 8.

The US government has made 162 classified UFO files public for the first time, including military videos, Moon photographs, and decades-old FBI records. (AFP)

The files are now publicly available at war.gov/UFO and will be released on a rolling basis. For the first time, citizens can browse photos, videos and related documents without needing any security clearance.

So what's inside the UFO Files?

The first batch which is released is named “Release 01” and it contains 162 newly declassified files. According to the Pentagon, these are all “unresolved” cases, which means that government was not able to determine what the observed objects actually were.

The full releases has approximately, 120 PDF documents, 28 videos and around 14 images

The files come from multiple government agencies, including the FBI, Department of Defense, NASA, and the State Department. They cover eyewitness accounts, photographs, and reports of unexplained sightings dating back several decades, from locations around the world.

Out of the 162 files, 108 contain some redactions. The Pentagon clarified that information was withheld only to protect the identities of eyewitnesses, the locations of government facilities, or sensitive information about military sites unrelated to UAP. The Pentagon also stated: “No redactions have been made to any files released under President Trump's directive concerning information about the nature or existence of any encounter reported as a UAP or related phenomena.”

Several infrared photographs of unidentified objects captured over the western United States in September and December of 2025.

One of the strangest incidents in the declassified FBI UFO files involved a Virginia man named James C Collins, who reported seeing a “large oblong-shaped object” land in front of him in Chesapeake on January 17, 1967. Collins claimed he was taken inside a transparent craft “made of a glass like substance” and saw “undersized creatures” about “4 feet tall” wearing “regular trouser pants and T-Shirts.” However, The FBI memo noted that Collins “spoke in a coherent manner” but appeared to be under “emotional strain.

Six photographs taken by NASA astronauts during the Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 missions, showing unexplained lights and objects above the surface of the Moon.

A video from Syria showing two semi-transparent, irregularly shaped orange areas that each appear for just two seconds.

A sighting reported by the US Indo-Pacific Command near Japan in 2024, showing a football-shaped object.

A video from near Greece in October 2023. According to the accompanying report, the object was making multiple "90-degree turns" at approximately 80 miles per hour.

One of the most notable inclusions is the FBI's historical case file, numbered 62-HQ-83894,covering reports of unidentified objects and "flying discs" from 1947 to 1968. This spans 18 separate documents and includes high-profile incident accounts, photographic evidence from sites like Oak Ridge, Tennessee, technical proposals about potential propulsion systems, convention programs, researcher accounts, and extensive media coverage from that period, as per CBS News.

The Pentagon noted that while portions of this file had been released before, Friday's version includes fewer redactions and “several newly declassified pages.”