Federal officials have made public dozens of new documents detailing unexplained aerial sightings, marking the third batch of files released following President Donald Trump’s directive for complete transparency regarding mysterious sky objects and potential alien encounters.
The Pentagon disclosed 72 cases on Friday, featuring accounts of spinning craft emitting light beams, brilliant red spheres unlike anything witnesses had seen, and one peculiar object resembling a potato covered in shimmering, scale-like panels.
While the documents don’t contain the major revelations Trump has hinted at, they provide fresh insights into recent encounters and government attempts to understand these puzzling incidents. No definitive proof of extraterrestrial visitors or official cover-ups emerged from the files.
Consider the potato-shaped incident.
During a cold February 2022 morning at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado, five U.S. Army personnel exited an office building and spotted something unusual suspended above Cheyenne Mountain several miles away.
An FBI document described the object as having “distinct edges and appeared to look painted in a creamy/whitish opalescent color.” The craft featured “articulating fish scales or panels that were non-symmetrical, non-overlapping and irregular shaped.”
The soldiers told FBI investigators the object remained stationary and gleaming for approximately two minutes before disappearing instantly. Without phones available, no photographic or video evidence exists.
Investigators struggled to provide a clear explanation for the encounter. Their assessment concluded with “low confidence” that the phenomenon might have been “backscattering of sunlight.” Early morning light could have bounced off mountain snow and lit up low-hanging clouds, they theorized.
The witnesses maintained weather conditions were clear without clouds. No aircraft or balloons were thought to be operating nearby. The four-page assessment, heavily censored and credited only to an “intelligence community partner,” determined it likely wasn’t foreign adversary technology. An FBI illustration depicts exactly what one might expect — a scaled, pale potato floating above a small mountain.
The incident remains without resolution.
Another inconclusive investigation examined multiple October 2023 sightings involving six federal law enforcement officers. The agents reported repeatedly observing a bright orange sphere emerging above a ridge and creating two to four smaller red spheres.
Most times the spheres vanished quickly, but during one occurrence, agents said a sphere remained motionless overhead for several hours. No photographic or video documentation of these encounters exists, according to the assessment.
A recent analysis explores various potential causes. Military personnel were running training operations in the region, deploying flares during exercises. Additional testing of experimental U.S. technology might have occurred in the vicinity, the evaluation noted. Officials labeled these explanations as “plausible” without reaching definitive conclusions.
However, investigators didn’t dismiss the chance of “unrecognized technology.” Given limited available evidence, they recommended additional investigation into the matter.
The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office conducted the evaluation. Congress established this office in 2022 to examine reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP. Earlier agency reports state no evidence of extraterrestrial life has been discovered.
The recent files include an FBI account from February describing a sighting in an unnamed Northeast United States location. An individual whose identity is redacted reported returning home to find an intense light floating beneath backyard trees. They characterized it as a sphere of “brilliant and beautiful” red unlike anything previously witnessed.
“Inside the red sphere, at the center, there appeared to be what (redacted) described as a ‘white plasma sun’ about the size of a basketball,” the FBI file states.
A second sphere materialized, and both silently departed from view, according to the document. Mobile phone video captures two luminous red orbs moving across the sky. The White House posted the footage on social media Friday with only the file designation: “‘NORTHEASTERN ORB SIGHTING,’ 2025.”
The Trump administration’s disclosure initiative has resulted in approximately 300 released files spanning back to the 1940s, including some never before made public and others adding details to known cases.
The latest collection features a 2008 CIA assessment from Zimbabwe marked “never before released.” Above the nation’s primary airport on a July day, witnesses reportedly observed something resembling a Hollywood production: “disc-like in shape with a hollow center, and had a series of rotating lights on the underside of the airframe.”
“At one point during observation, ‘beams’ were observed emanating from the object,” the CIA assessment stated.
The lights shifted colors as the craft climbed high beyond sight, the document indicates. Discussion arose regarding its origin, with some suggesting foreign government involvement while others proposed “extraterrestrial origins.”
