On Friday, May 8, 2026, the Department of Defense began releasing classified and previously unpublished files related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). The documents are hosted on a new dedicated government repository at war.gov/UFO, and will be added to on a rolling basis.
The initial release comprises 162 documents spanning 1942 to 2025, including audio recordings, photographs, transcripts, and eyewitness reports drawn from NASA, the FBI, and the Department of Defense. The release was carried out under the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters — designated PURSUE — at the direction of President Donald Trump, who had publicly stated in February 2026 that UAP files would be declassified.
The Gemini VII Recording
Among the materials in the first release is original audio from the Gemini VII mission, which launched December 4, 1965, carrying astronauts Frank Borman and James Lovell. Approximately four and a half hours into the flight, during the second orbital revolution near Antigua, Borman radioed Mission Control with a report that has remained a point of reference in UAP documentation for six decades.
"I have a bogey at 10 o'clock, high," Borman reported. After Mission Control asked him to repeat, he confirmed: "I have a bogey at 10 o'clock, high." When pressed further, Borman stated: "I would like to agree on the actual sighting."
The audio makes clear that Mission Control and the crew distinguished three separate objects during the exchange: the mission's own Titan II rocket booster, a field of small particles at an estimated distance of three to four miles, and the unidentified object Borman described as a "bogey." Lovell independently confirmed that the booster was also visible — ruling out a misidentification between the two.
At the conclusion of the recording, a Mission Control commentator addressed the press directly: "The reference in that conversation to the third unidentified object — of course the third object was the bogey. This is the unidentified object, in addition to particles which appear to be headed in a polar orbit."
Both Borman and Lovell, who died in 2024 and 2023 respectively, maintained throughout their lives that they believed they were observing rocket debris. The Pentagon release does not offer any revised conclusion. The significance of the publication lies in its official status: the recording is now part of a formal government declassification, rather than archival material circulating outside official channels.
Scope of the First Release
The 162 documents cover incidents from across the United States military, intelligence community, and space program. The collection includes materials from the Apollo 11, Apollo 12, and Apollo 17 moon missions. In a 1969 post-mission debriefing following Apollo 11, astronaut Buzz Aldrin described observing "little flashes inside the cabin, spaced a couple of minutes apart," while attempting to sleep.
The archive also includes military infrared footage from 2024 and 2025, a report from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command consisting of one minute and thirty-nine seconds of infrared sensor footage from a military platform, and eyewitness testimony from military personnel reaching back to 1942. Several files are partially or fully redacted.
Pentagon Public Affairs stated in the accompanying press release that the declassified material represents documents "from across the entire United States government" and that additional files would follow on a rolling basis. The repository URL — war.gov/UFO — is operated by the Department of Defense.
Source Note
All material described in this article is drawn directly from the Department of Defense's official release and the audio transcript published by the Pentagon on May 8, 2026. The primary repository is war.gov/UFO. No conclusions about the nature of the objects described are offered or implied by this archive.