WASHINGTON (TNND) — The Defense Department on Friday released its fourth batch of declassified Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), or UFO, records, continuing the Trump administration’s transparency initiative.
The latest tranche is smaller than the previous releases on May 8, May 22 and June 12, consisting of 40 files, including 14 documents, 19 videos and several audio recordings from agencies such as the Pentagon, NASA, the CIA, the FBI and the Energy Department.
“The Department of War and our agency partners are actively working on the next release of UAP files,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said.
Among the most notable records are documents from a 1949 Atomic Energy Commission conference in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where federal officials gathered to examine reports of mysterious “green fireballs” seen near the laboratory during the early Cold War. According to the documents, investigators never reached a consensus on what caused the sightings, though one leading theory suggested they were meteors entering Earth’s atmosphere at a shallow angle.
The newly released files also include hand-drawn witness sketches of unusual objects and investigative reports documenting sightings authorities were unable to explain because of limited or inconclusive evidence.
Also included are military infrared images showing unidentified heat signatures recorded by defense sensors, along with photographs taken during NASA’s 1996 Space Shuttle Columbia mission that depict an unidentified object in low-Earth orbit. According to officials, astronauts captured a series of three images of the object during the STS-80 mission between Nov. 19 and Dec. 7, 1996.
Officials stressed that the cases remain classified as “unresolved” because investigators lacked sufficient information to determine a definitive explanation—not because they have been linked to extraterrestrial activity.