By Jarrett Renshaw
PHOENIX, April 17 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Friday that his administration’s review of UFO-related material uncovered a number of “interesting” documents, adding that an initial tranche of records is expected to be released soon.
“We found many very interesting documents, I must say, and the first releases will begin very, very soon so you can go out and see if that phenomena is correct,” Trump told a group of supporters at an event hosted by conservative group Turning Point USA.
Trump in February directed U.S. agencies to start releasing government files on UFOs, unidentified aerial phenomena, and possible extraterrestrial life, citing strong public interest in the issue.
Trump ordered the review after accusing former President Barack Obama of improperly sharing classified information when Obama said aliens were “real” in a podcast interview.
Obama later clarified he had seen no evidence of extraterrestrial contact during his presidency, though he said the statistical likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe is high.
Trump, for his part, has said he also has not seen evidence of aliens and remains uncertain about their existence.
In recent years, the Pentagon has investigated reports of UFOs, and senior military leaders said in 2022 they found no evidence to suggest that aliens had visited Earth or crash-landed here.
A 2024 Pentagon report said U.S. government investigations since the end of World War Two had found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology and most sightings were misidentified ordinary objects and phenomena.
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw in Phoenix; Editing by Michelle Nichols, Matthew Lewis and Alistair Bell)
