Q&A: The Pentagon’s new UFO files in the age of drones and AI

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The U.S. Department of Defense released new batches of never-before-seen UFO files, including photos and video, on May 8 and 22. Greg Eghigian, professor of history and bioethics at Penn State and author of “After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon,” unpacked the releases and what historians and UFO enthusiasts can take away from the recently declassified information in the following Q&A.

Q: What is in these UFO — or unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) — reports that the Pentagon released?

Eghigian: The Pentagon released more than 100 new files, and we expect more to come out. The files include newly declassified video footage, photographic images and documentation involving multiple agencies, such as the FBI and the Air Force, from 1947 to 2025.

These files give us insights into what were reported by civilians and members of the military, and how the agencies received this information. Some of these images and film come without any context. So, we don't know quite what we're looking at or what we're expected to surmise from this information. Some of it has to be filled in for us. But the documents are along the lines of what we've seen before.

Q: Are there any surprises?

Eghigian: We do not see anything terribly surprising. But, people are still digging through the files. I think most people are excited about the images. Photographs and film are kind of the gold standard when it comes to UAPs. But, without context for some of these files — identities of the witnesses, their backgrounds, the origins of the material — it's difficult to figure out what we're supposed to make of it all. I think a lot of what we see in there, to be honest, is going to be of interest mostly to historians of UFOs and ufology.

I have looked into some of the files involving the FBI. The FBI has had people writing about UFOs dating back to, I think, at least the 1950s, if not earlier. What's intriguing is the FBI's mantra was always, “We don't work in this area. We don't investigate this.” But that didn't stop ordinary citizens from contacting them. I looked at one letter from the mid-1960s from a police chief who sat there and said, “Look, I'm not one of these crazy people. I'm just telling you, I've seen one before, and I think this is something that should be of interest to the FBI.”

As a historian, I'm always interested in the general public. I like to see those instances of how the general public has understood this phenomenon and seen it as something important. For example, in the FBI files, there's one fellow who writes and says he doesn’t think these things are extraterrestrial but Russian, and if they're Russian, shouldn't we be doing something about this? Should we allow them to be flying these aircraft around and surveilling us? You get a sense of the concern that people had during the height of the Cold War.

Q: In this age of artificial intelligence (AI), in which AI can generate a grainy image or video, do people still look at these materials and believe what they see is real?

Eghigian: People still look at photos and film and say, “That's absolutely real.” Or at the very least, they sit there and start debating, discussing and analyzing to reach some conclusion about their reality. At the same time, without question, with the capabilities of AI, Photoshop, you name it, we live in a world in which we're saturated by fraud and hoax. So, in that sense, it's made it in many ways even more difficult for us to really accept visual images of things like UFOs. It's reminiscent of what it must have been like back in the late 19th century with the introduction of photography. People started claiming their photographs captured ghosts — ghosts, apparitions, something extraordinary or paranormal. And then people questioned photography and its potential for manipulation, errors and mistakes. I think we live in a similar world where, on one hand, we tend to believe that things shown on film and in photography are more real than hearsay. At the same time, we recognize that it's something that is incredibly open to manipulation.

Q: How are new technologies like drones impacting UAP sightings?

Eghigian: Drones have radically increased the number of sightings. I've talked with UFO investigators, and they've said the introduction of drones has made their lives more interesting, but also more difficult because now they're interested in blocking out the noise and finding real signals of sightings and reports. Drones make that way more complicated.

On the other hand, more academic researchers are interested in using AI to explore the UAP phenomenon. AI technologies and detectors can learn as they go and block out certain kinds of phenomena that are natural or clearly manmade. Over time, these technologies get better at blocking out noise and homing in on real signals.

Q: Why are we so fascinated with UAPs?

Eghigian: I think that what we see over the decades with UFOs and UAPs and flying saucers, the original term for them, is this sense that we're not alone. There’s this prospect that maybe the human species is not the only intelligent form of life out there in the universe. Not only might there be other civilizations out there, but the other civilizations are interested in meeting us.

The prospect of these alien civilizations, with the capabilities of flying these huge distances and coming here, would indicate that they have enormous scientific and technological capabilities. It makes us start to ask questions about our future. Are we ourselves capable of those kinds of advancements? Can we reach the kind of pinnacle that we see in things like Star Trek, for instance? Or are we beholden to our science and technology such that it might be our undoing in the end?