Flying saucers, lights in space, and floating orbs: what do the documents contain on…

On Friday, May 8, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that it had released 160 documents classified as defense secrets on UFOs. Among them are reports of individual UFO sightings, space mission reports, and images from the military.

The U.S. Defense Department publicly released a first batch of previously classified documents on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) on Friday, May 8, a subject that has fascinated even Donald Trump, who was behind this publication. By announcing this release, the Department estimated that the public can now “form their own opinion.”

On the Department’s website, 160 documents are listed on a futuristic-looking page. They come from the Pentagon, as well as from the FBI, the State Department, and NASA. Dating from the 1940s to 2026, some are written documents, sometimes scanned pages of typewritten reports, while others are photos or videos. These documents include military memos, reports from Apollo missions, and numerous sightings of individuals claiming to have seen UFOs – often suspecting them to be of extraterrestrial origin.

In one category, there is a 143-page report from 1949 entirely dedicated to sightings of “flying discs,” and another file from 1948 from the Air Force intelligence services of the following year, which lists sightings of “unidentified aircraft” and “flying saucers.”

###Orbs in the sky resembling the Eye of Sauron

Another file contains reports from seven government employees who claim to have witnessed “unidentified abnormal phenomena” – one of the “most convincing reports” on the subject, according to the accompanying note. In one incident, three federal police teams separately claimed to have seen “orange orbs in the sky emitting or launching smaller red orbs.”

In another case, two federal agents reported observing “a bright orange orb (…) positioned near a rocky peak.” Their testimony is accompanied by a drawing depicting a red-orange circle with a yellow streak. The object was described as resembling “the Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings, but without the pupil.”

Among the many reports of abnormal events, there is also a photomontage created by the FBI supposedly reconstructing a scene witnessed by “multiple eyewitnesses.” Overlaid on a photo of the site in question, the agency tried to reproduce the event described by witnesses, namely “a metallic bronze ellipse object materializing from a bright light in the sky, measuring 130 to 195 feet [approximately 40 to 60 meters, Ed.], and disappearing instantly.”

###Lights seen in space

The Department also released several transcripts of reports from the Apollo 11, Apollo 12, and Apollo 17 mission astronauts who landed on the Moon. For the Apollo 11 mission – during which Man set foot on the Moon for the first time – astronaut Buzz Aldrin reported observing several phenomena that he couldn’t explain.

“On attempting to sleep with lights off. I observed what I presumed to be some star flashes in the cabin, at approximate 4- to 5- second intervals,” the astronaut begins, proposing several hypotheses in the interview, including some on sunlight reflections or static electricity.

On another occasion, he said he saw “double flashes,” but also a “bright light we attributed tentatively to a possible laser.”

In the Apollo 12 mission report, astronaut Alan Bean described particles and flashes of light seen in space, seeming to escape from the Moon. Two Apollo 17 mission astronauts also reported seeing flashes of light – which they believe could have been reflections of ice particles.

###Military Images

Many documents on the government website are also reports of unidentified abnormal phenomena observed abroad and held by the Department of Defense. These mainly consist of videos or photos taken by U.S. military infrared sensors, showing various flying shapes moving at different speeds.

Among them, a 21-second video captured in the United Arab Emirates in 2024 shows a round shape moving above the water with “a rod or circular bar” hanging underneath, described in the accompanying note as possibly a “reflection of an immersed object.”

In another video taken in the Middle East (the site does not provide further information) in 2022, a shape swiftly passes from left to right on the screen – it could be a missile or a bird, notes the caption. While some documents provide explanations, others do not.

Several documents stand out, such as a 1963 government memorandum written by Maxwell W. Hunter II, a renowned aerospace engineer, on the lack of U.S. preparedness in the event of an encounter with aliens, or like the COMETA report, published by a French association in 1999 in the magazine VSD.