Unexplained Flying Discs and Green Orbs: Pentagon Releases New Batch of Declassified UFO Files And Videos

The Pentagon has released a fresh cache of declassified UFO files in Washington on Friday, 22 May 2026, unveiling more than 50 videos and documents that show unexplained green orbs, flying discs, and other strange objects in the sky under an order from President Donald Trump.

For context, the new material forms part of an ongoing declassification push that Trump has presented as a transparency drive on what the US military now calls 'unidentified anomalous phenomena', or UAPs.

According to the Pentagon, the first batch of documents and footage, some dating back to the late 1940s, attracted more than a billion views worldwide and fuelled a new, and often confused, public conversation about what exactly the government knows.

Declassified UFO Files Show Orbs, Discs And 'Instant Acceleration'

The latest declassified UFO files include infrared footage from a US Coast Guard sensor recorded in April 2024. The clip appears to show a small, bright object moving close to an aircraft somewhere over the south-eastern United States, though officials have not specified an exact location. The object does not resemble any conventional aircraft in the grainy imagery and is listed as unexplained.

Another recording in the release, labelled 'Syrian UAP instant acceleration,' was captured by an infrared sensor aboard a US military platform in 2021 and then uploaded to a classified network in 2024. The Pentagon has not provided a detailed breakdown of what 'instant acceleration' means in this context, and nothing in the documents offers a firm technical assessment of the manoeuvre, which leaves outsiders guessing how unusual the movement really was.

There is also footage from an undisclosed site in the area covered by US Central Command, recorded in 2020. In that clip, officials say, a spherical object appears to move steadily over a populated area before climbing higher and vanishing into the sky. The Pentagon does not identify the country or city, and there is no independent verification of when or where the video was taken beyond the military's own description, so those particulars should be treated with a degree of caution.

Despite the dramatic descriptions, US defence officials are still officially in the realm of mystery rather than aliens. The Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which has been tasked with cataloguing and assessing UAP reports, acknowledges that many of the incidents in the declassified UFO files remain 'unresolved' and resist easy explanation. At the same time, the office says it has not found evidence that any of the objects are linked to extra-terrestrial life.

Trump's Transparency Push Behind The New Declassified UFO Files

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth framed the release as overdue openness, saying the unidentified anomalous phenomena had long generated conjecture and adding: 'It's time the American people see it for themselves.'

Trump, who ordered the declassification effort, has leaned into that language. In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said it was his 'Honor' to instruct his administration to 'identify and provide Government files related to Alien and Extraterrestrial Life, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and Unidentified Flying Objects.'

He contrasted his approach with what he described as the failures of 'previous Administrations' to be transparent and told followers that, with the new documents and videos, 'the people can decide for themselves, 'WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?' Have Fun and Enjoy!'

That pitch to public curiosity has clearly worked on one level. Pentagon spokespeople say the earlier tranche of material drew global attention on a scale they had not anticipated, with more than a billion views across platforms. Whether the new files provide much clarity is another matter.

One of the more striking written accounts in the latest documents comes from a senior US intelligence official who reported seeing 'two large orbs flare up' alongside a helicopter during a mission last year. The orbs were described as 'orange with a white or yellow centre, and emitted light in all directions.'

According to the report, fighter aircraft were scrambled in an attempt to identify the objects, but failed. The same orbs instead reportedly began 'chasing' the fighters before disappearing. 'We were virtually speechless after these observations,' the official said.

Here again, the paperwork offers no final explanation. There are no disclosed radar tracks, no engineering analysis, and no follow-up photographs that might resolve whether the orbs were some sort of atmospheric effect, a misidentified human-made system, or something stranger. Without that data, readers are left, as so often with these declassified UFO files, with vivid testimony and scant corroboration.

The Pentagon insists that each case has been logged and investigated through formal channels within AARO. Officials repeat that no extra-terrestrial activity has been substantiated, yet they also concede that a portion of sightings sit in a grey zone where current information is simply insufficient to draw confident conclusions. In other words, the government is finally showing its workings, but the equations still do not always add up.

Given that key technical details, such as sensor specifications, exact coordinates, and full-length videos, are not being released, outside analysts cannot independently verify most of the claims. Nothing in the newly public material confirms alien craft, and nothing conclusively debunks that possibility either. On the central question Trump posed, the honest answer for now is that not everything is confirmed, and some of it has to be taken with a grain of salt.