THE PENTAGON OPENS THE UFO FILES — AGAIN
The Pentagon has opened another door into America's long and complicated history with unidentified anomalous phenomena.
On September 18, the Department of Defense released its sixth batch of UFO and UAP records in 2026 — a collection containing 71 files spanning material dated from 1952 through 2025.
The release includes 55 PDF documents, 15 videos and one audio file. Sixty-seven of the files came from the Defense Department, while four originated with local law enforcement in Colorado.
Most contain at least some redactions.
But the newest disclosure is notable not simply for its size. Buried among the records are military studies dealing with subjects that sound more at home in science fiction than government paperwork: warp drives, wormholes, antigravity, negative-mass propulsion and even invisibility cloaking.
That does not mean the Pentagon has confirmed any of those technologies exist. The Defense Department specifically cautioned that the studies should be understood as reference and synthesis documents rather than proof that the concepts were successfully developed or validated.
Still, the files provide another unusual glimpse into the questions government researchers have been willing to investigate — and into encounters that, in some cases, remain unexplained.
Warp Drives, Wormholes & the Military
Thirty-seven documents in the release are Defense Intelligence Reference Documents associated with the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, better known as AAWSAP.
The Defense Intelligence Agency established the program in 2008 to examine potential aerospace threats and technologies stretching decades into the future. The program ended in 2012.
Subjects explored in the papers include wormholes, warp drives, antigravity, negative mass propulsion and invisibility cloaking.
Many of the papers had previously become public through Freedom of Information Act releases. The newly released versions, however, include some information that had earlier been withheld.
The important distinction is easy to lose beneath sensational headlines: studying a theoretical technology is not evidence that the technology exists.
What the documents do establish is that such ideas were considered worthy of formal examination within a program tasked with looking far beyond conventional aerospace technology.
The Human Cost of an Unknown Encounter?
One particularly unusual study examined reports of physical injuries following anomalous aerospace encounters. The paper discussed three previously healthy individuals who reportedly experienced symptoms after an unusual aerospace-related event, including skin heating and redness, hair loss and signs described as consistent with radiation illness. The document did not establish what caused the exposure, and the cases should not be treated as proof of extraterrestrial contact. They do, however, reveal that researchers seriously examined whether unusual aerospace systems could produce measurable effects on human observers.
Fifteen Videos — And Some Questions Remain
The September disclosure also includes 15 videos, many showing the grainy military-camera footage that has become familiar in modern UAP investigations.
One unresolved 2022 incident reportedly shows an object traveling at speeds estimated between 80 and 180 miles per hour. Military personnel conducting a mission in the Middle East reported observing multiple objects at unknown altitudes, with estimated sizes between one and two meters.
Another recording shows approximately six small spherical objects moving together. According to the accompanying report, the objects appeared agile and repeatedly changed direction.
That incident remains unresolved.
Four additional videos came from local law enforcement officers in Colorado. The cellphone footage dates to October 2023 and includes reports of silent phenomena displaying flashing red, blue and green lights.
Unexplained, of course, does not automatically mean extraterrestrial. It means precisely what the word says: investigators have not established an explanation from the information available.
Before UAPs, There Were Flying Saucers
Not everything in the latest release comes from the modern era.
Among the historical material is an audio recording and transcript of remarks made in 1952 by Air Force officer Edward Ruppelt, who would go on to lead Project Blue Book — the Air Force program responsible for investigating UFO reports from 1952 until 1969.
At the time, Ruppelt discussed hundreds of reports investigated by the Air Force and acknowledged that a portion of the cases had resisted explanation.
More than seven decades later, the vocabulary has changed. “Flying saucers” became UFOs. UFOs became UAPs.
Yet the central question remains remarkably familiar:
What exactly are people seeing up there?
Seventy-one more files have entered the public record. Some have ordinary possibilities. Others remain unresolved. None, by themselves, prove visitors from another world.
But after more than seventy years of official investigations, one thing certainly hasn't disappeared:
the mystery.
CBS News — Stefan Becket, “Pentagon releases more UFO files, including documents on secretive military program,” updated September 18, 2026.
Read the CBS News report and view coverage of the newly released files
True Hauntings of America
Where history leaves the lights on.
