Pentagon releases new files on UFOS, Harvard professor helps us understand them

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Right now, online, you can check out what the Pentagon is calling never-before-seen files on UFOs. Anyone can access them. No clearances needed.

[00:00:07]President Trump ordered the release earlier this year. Now, the Defense Department says more materials will be declassified and released on a rolling basis every few weeks. The Pentagon says the public can draw their own conclusions about these files, but we want to get an expert's opinion tonight.

[00:00:22]Joining us right now is Avi Loeb, professor of science at Harvard University. He is a renowned theoretical physicist. He also leads the Galileo Project to search for extraterrestrial technology. Professor Loeb, thank you for being here with us tonight. Good to see you.

[00:00:36]Thanks for having me. It's a great pleasure. Yeah, so what do you make of these new files? Is this any proof of extraterrestrial life?

[00:00:43]Well, first it's a very important psychologically to bring this subject to the mainstream because apparently the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies are seeing objects that they cannot figure out, they cannot identify. And then there are two possible interpretations. Either it's a matter of national security, we need to know if adversarial nations are flying things in our sky.

[00:01:05]And or of course if it happens to be extraterrestrial in origin any of these objects, that'll be the biggest discovery ever made by humanity.

[00:01:15]And so in both cases it's a win-win situation and I would not feel that I wasted my time as a scientist if I were to help the Pentagon figure out the nature of objects. And so I'm leading the Galileo Project. We built three observatories trying to collect new data, but there is this question of what past data was about and that's where the release is extremely important. And so today we saw the very first batch of released videos, images, as well as documents from all kinds of sources. There were 162 records released, 82 of which were from the Department of War, 56 from the FBI, 12 from NASA, eight from the State Department. So, plenty of data, and together with my research team, we went through all the these files. Some of the information was redacted, so we couldn't really figure out the, you know, the the kind of the distance of the camera from the object, or what the camera was attached to.

[00:02:24]But, in all cases, you can potentially explain what was seen as either human-made or natural. There were some images from the Apollo 12 and 17 missions to the moon that show sources of light above the surface of the moon. And those could be explained either as reflections within the optics of the camera, or perhaps impacts by asteroids on the surface of the moon, the type of flashes of light that were observed by the Artemis 2 astronauts just recently as they passed near the moon. So, I would argue that in in the current release, there is nothing alarming or particularly unusual, but the best is yet to come. The highest quality data probably requires more vetting before it will be declassified, and so we will see it later on. Yeah, so with that said, Professor Loeb, you mentioned that some of the objects that have been classified as unidentified, but talk to me how significant about the significance of having the government openly joining this conversation.

[00:03:33]It's extremely important because just for 2026, defense budget was close to a trillion dollars. You know, that's bigger by two orders of magnitude than the budget we allocate for science nationally. And so, over the decades, the US government collected a lot of data, and they have the ability to detect rare objects, phenomena that do not happen very often, and and perhaps with much better sensors than are available to us otherwise, including satellites nowadays that can resolve inches on the ground. So, if any of this data shows evidence for something that we cannot understand, we should look into it more closely, build new sensors, and figure it out. You know, it's a matter of science. It's not a matter of opinion. Has nothing to do with politics. These are objects that are observed, and we need to figure them out. And here I am happy to help government figure it out. Yeah, we know you are. The work continues, Professor Loeb. Thank you so much for being here with us tonight. We appreciate it.

[00:04:42]>> Thanks for having me. Thank you.