Avi Loeb Analyzes the First UFO File Release
The United States government has released here its first batch of newly public files on Unidentified Objects (UFO/UAP). These are objects that the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies cannot identify. If they are real and not spurious, there are two possible interpretations: either these are familiar human-made or natural objects or these are non-human-made objects. Either way, the matter is of great importance for national security or for basic science.
The biggest impact of today’s release is psychological: this topic deserves to be within the mainstream of public or scientific discourse. Like any detective story, the mystery can be resolved with high-quality evidence. Knowing the distance, velocity and acceleration of these objects would address the question of whether any of them lies outside the performance envelope of human-made technologies. This is the goal of the Galileo Project under my leadership. We are triangulating many objects in the sky and are using artificial intelligence to ascertain their nature.
But the annual defense budget is a million times larger than the annual budget of the Galileo Project. The Department of War and the U. S. intelligence apparatus has been using state-of-the-art sensors to monitor the sky and the oceans over decades. As a result, these sensors might have detected rare anomalies that escaped the attention of scientists. It is the civil duty of scientists like myself to help the government solve the mysteries of these unidentified objects. At the very least, I would feel that my research time was not wasted since it contributed to national security. Finding an extraterrestrial visitor would be the icing on the cake and the biggest scientific discovery ever made. It will likely change our perspective away from local conflicts to a cosmic perspective. If probes are visiting our backyard we might aim to visit the backyard of their senders.
There is no doubt that we could be visited because it would take a billion years for the Voyager spacecraft to cross the Milky-Way galaxy and most stars formed billions of years before the Sun. There was plenty of time for probes to arrive into our cosmic backyard even at the speed of our existing rockets. Science is the privilege of staying curious and taking risks. Enrico Fermi asked in 1950: “Where is everybody?” This is not a philosophical question. It is a scientific question that can be addressed based on data. The answer might be: “Right here”. We should be open minded to this possibility rather than ridiculing or sidelining it.
The new release will be followed by additional installments in the coming weeks. The best is yet to come, because higher quality data will take more vetting by layers of government bureaucracy before it is released.
It is remarkable to find within the released files a letter from 1947 (available here), addressed to the chief of staff of the Air Force, discussing flying discs. Serious military and government officials have been documenting unidentified objects across agencies, across decades, across the world.
President Trump referred to the UFO file release today with the words: “Have fun and enjoy!” Indeed, this is exactly what the Galileo Project research team under my leadership did today. Altogether there were 161 total records released on May 8, 2026, with 82 records from the Department of War; 56 records from the FBI; 12 records from NASA; 8 records from the State Department; 28 video records and 14 image records. The 46 videos requested by congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna will likely be released in future batches.
After reviewing the new files, my research team concluded that none of the objects is sufficiently extraordinary to require an exotic origin. Interesting details regarding the videos are unfortunately redacted, and all images could be explained as either reflections in the camera optics or human-made objects.
Apollo mission images show lights above the lunar surface, but these light sources could be flashes from asteroid impacts (as reported by the Artemis II astronauts) or optical artifacts.
My day was filled with two dozen TV interviews where I explained the above points. In one of them with Newsmax (available here), I was asked to represent humanity in a future encounter with aliens. I am excited to take part in a blind date of interstellar proportions because it offers me an opportunity to find a dating partner who is more intelligent than anyone on Earth. “Are we alone?” is both the most romantic and the most impactful question in science.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.
Professional website:
https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/
Social media:
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https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessorAviLoeb
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