President Trump announced the upcoming release of government UFO files last week, directing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to oversee the operation. The order covers files related to aliens, UFOs, and "all other information connected to" what Trump described as the "highly complex" subject matter.
There has been no official word on what will be released or when. But according to Christopher Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense intelligence during the Clinton and Bush administrations, the government's trove of UFO documents is massive. And what it contains, if his claims hold up, would rewrite the public's understanding of what Washington has been sitting on for decades.
Mellon told The Post that the federal collection includes satellite imagery, photos, and videos. He identified what he called the "most compelling piece of data": clear satellite photos of craft in space above the Earth that, in his words, are obviously not manmade.
"We have satellite imagery of craft that sure don't look like anything that we have built or constructed."
He didn't stop there. Mellon said additional videos are sitting on government hard drives, similar in nature to the three now-famous US military radar images he helped bring to public attention in 2017. Those clips, known as "Tic Tac," "GOFAST," and "Gimbal," became some of the most widely viewed and debated pieces of UFO evidence in modern history.
According to Mellon, more footage from the same types of sources, including gun cameras on F-18s and Forward Looking Infrared Radar systems, was judged unclassified in 2018. None of it has been released to the public.
"There's a significant number of videos from the same sources that were judged unclassified in 2018 — gun cameras on F18s, [Forward Looking Infrared Radar] videos — that have been withheld from the public."
He confirmed he has personally seen some of them.
"And there's no rational reason that I can think of why those videos are being withheld."
That's a former deputy assistant secretary of defense intelligence saying the government is holding unclassified footage of unidentified aerial phenomena and refusing to let the public see it. Not classified footage. Unclassified.
Trump issued the order. Hegseth has been put in charge of the operation. But Mellon is not holding his breath for a swift or thorough response from the agencies involved.
"I have a feeling bureaucracy is going to react slowly and I don't think they're gonna put the best stuff out quickly, if they do at all."
This is a pattern that should be familiar to anyone who has watched the federal government respond to presidential directives it finds inconvenient. The JFK files. The Russia investigation documents. The COVID origins material. Every time a president orders transparency, the permanent bureaucracy finds ways to delay, redact, and slow-walk until the news cycle moves on.
Mellon named multiple departments and agencies that hold relevant UFO files:
That's a sprawling web of classification authorities, each with its own institutional incentives to keep things locked down. Mellon's warning was direct:
"Congressional vigilance is needed to ensure a thorough and effective process."
This is one of the rare issues where members of both parties have pushed in the same direction. Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican and senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced the UAP Disclosure Act with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in 2023. Rounds told The Post he supports the broadest release possible.
"As much disclosure as we can get with regard to just being honest to the American people about what we see that we either don't know about or that we're learning about."
He added a reasonable caveat, noting his concern that whatever is released should not compromise US military capabilities. That's a fair guardrail. But it also happens to be the exact argument that agencies have used for years to justify keeping everything under wraps. The question is whether "national security" is being invoked to protect genuine capabilities or to protect the bureaucracy from embarrassment.
John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence and current CIA director, referenced convincing images of craft engaging in "actions that are difficult to explain" during a 2021 Fox News interview. That was four years ago. The public still hasn't seen what he was describing.
Whether you think UFOs are alien spacecraft, advanced foreign technology, or classified American programs, the underlying issue is identical: the federal government has been withholding information from the citizens it serves, and no one in the bureaucracy has faced consequences for it.
This is a transparency story before it is a UFO story. The same agencies that couldn't shoot straight on COVID origins, that redacted documents about their own surveillance abuses, that slow-walked congressional subpoenas for years, are now being told to hand over their files on one of the most sensitive subjects in their vaults. Forgive the skepticism about whether they'll comply in good faith.
Trump's order puts the question squarely in front of the permanent government: release what you have, or explain why unclassified material is being treated like state secrets. Mellon has seen the footage. Ratcliffe has described it publicly. Rounds and Schumer wrote legislation demanding it.
The American people are the last ones in the room who haven't been shown what their own government recorded. That changes now, or the agencies responsible for the delay will have confirmed exactly what their critics have always suspected: that the classification system exists to protect institutions, not the nation.
