NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the Trump administration’s newly declassified UAP files are exposing years of strange aerial sightings that government agencies failed to seriously dig into — even if the records do not point to recovered alien remains or ships.
“What’s being surfaced isn’t crashed ships or alien bodies, but real unexplained phenomena,” Isaacman told Fox News Digital in an interview Friday.
The disclosures come after the Trump administration released two waves of declassified UAP files as part of a broader transparency effort directing agencies to search internal databases for decades-old reports involving unexplained aerial activity after years of public skepticism surrounding government secrecy and UFO investigations. Officials say additional file releases from agencies including the CIA could soon follow.
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Isaacman framed the disclosures less as proof of extraterrestrial life than as a public test of unexplained evidence, saying modern cameras, military sensors and newly released government records are giving Americans more material to examine than ever before.
“Everybody’s got a camera phone, a doorbell camera. Every military aircraft flying has a million sensors,” Isaacman said. “You’re gonna pick up things. Pick up things that flew at a different angle, you know, across the lens that maybe if you had a better angle on, you’d be like, oh, that’s a balloon, or that might be a missile in a combat region. But because we caught it at an angle, it’s an unexplained phenomenon.”
Isaacman said the biggest surprise was not evidence of extraterrestrials, but how little attention federal agencies had historically given to unexplained aerial records, calling the renewed disclosure effort under the Trump administration “citizen science.”
“Government agencies really didn’t take this quite as seriously in the past until President Trump put out the tweet, basically giving an order to government agencies and going out and saying, look, this time you better go through the files, you better start searching your databases and bring things up,” said Isaacman.
“I think the president has really got government agencies now taking this seriously, to go look at the files and bring the data to light, and he’s putting it all out for everyone to analyze,” he added. “This is citizen science right now. Take a look at our files, tell us what you think.”
The newly surfaced material includes infrared footage from 2023 that appears to show a U.S. F-16 shooting down a diamond-shaped object over Lake Huron, along with reports documenting unexplained aerial objects spotted near military operations in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Greece and other parts of the Middle East. The records also include astronaut and NASA-related accounts from the Apollo and Gemini eras describing strange lights and unidentified objects observed in space.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Trump administration is directing agencies to revisit long-buried UAP records in the name of transparency, while Isaacman said additional “big file tranches” from intelligence agencies could soon become public.
“There’s nothing I’m aware of in terms of alien bodies or spaceships,” Isaacman said. “But observations from decades past — from some of our adversaries and potentially some of our allies — essentially saying, ‘We saw something, we documented it, and we kept it buried in a file somewhere,’ are now being made public.”
The documents also contain testimony from intelligence officers and military pilots who said they could not explain encounters they witnessed during operations and training exercises.
Isaacman said he personally believes life likely exists elsewhere in the universe and argued that searching for it remains central to NASA’s long-term mission.
“I think if we go and bring samples back from Mars, you’ve got better than a 90% chance of former microbial life,” he said.
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Isaacman also pointed to Saturn’s moon Titan and Jupiter’s moon Europa as locations scientists believe may contain conditions capable of supporting microbial life or biosignatures — chemical indicators associated with living organisms.
“Things that could indicate perhaps that there was microbial life there or some other form there of which it changes the whole equation from surely there is life out there somewhere to what if it’s everywhere,” said Isaacman.
Isaacman also argued that broader public disclosure could help reduce skepticism at a time when advances in artificial intelligence and digital manipulation are making it increasingly difficult for people to distinguish authentic footage from fabricated material.
“I would say that some of the most interesting data that NASA has provided as part of the UAP disclosure was taken on the surface of the moon from Apollo 12 and 17,” he said. “You can’t be a moon landing denier and also believe that those photos captured unexplained phenomenon.”
Officials say additional UFO and UAP files will continue to be released in future batches as part of the administration’s ongoing disclosure effort.