Before the internet existed, before anyone could record the sky with a mobile phone, the United States army was already seeing things it couldn't name. It recorded them. It classified them. It archived them. And for decades, no one outside those facilities knew they existed.
That changed on Thursday, May 8, 2026.
That day, the Department of War —the former Department of Defense, renamed by the Trump administration— published on war.gov/UFO the first installment of what it calls PURSUE: the Presidential System for the Declassification of UAP Encounters. Without password. Without accreditation. Without filter. Anyone with an internet connection can now access declassified videos about OVNIs that for years were state secret.
We have reviewed the files one by one. Most have an explanation: balloons, migratory birds, commercial airplanes misidentified by military infrared sensors. But there is a handful that do not. And these are them.
What is a military infrared video and why it matters
Before getting into the cases, one must understand what is being seen in these recordings. FLIR sensors —Forward Looking InfraRed— do not capture visible light but temperature. What is hot appears intense white or black depending on the configuration, and what is cold in gray tones. They are the same systems that F/A-18 fighters and MQ-9 drones use to identify targets in combat.
When a pilot or a drone operator reports a UFO, what usually exists as proof is exactly this: a black and white recording of thermal variations in the sky. Not a sharp photograph. Not a color image. A heat signature that someone, at some point, could not explain.
With that in mind, this is what the declassified files that remain open show.
The Gimbal: the UFO that spins without propulsion
It is probably the most discussed UFO video in recent history. Recorded in 2015 by the crew of a U.S. Navy F/A-18F. For years it circulated in restricted circles until it was leaked to the New York Times in 2017. Now it is official and declassified.
What the FLIR sensor shows is an object of elliptical shape that moves at a constant speed and, at a certain moment, rotates on itself. There is no trace of propulsion. There is no gas tail. There is no thermal wake. The object simply… rotates.
The pilots who recorded it are heard in the audio: ”Are you seeing that?” “It's turning.” They don't sound like men who are looking at a misidentified drone.
The AARO, the Pentagon office responsible for investigating these phenomena, keeps the case as unresolved. Eleven years after the recording, they have no explanation.
Declassified official video: https://d34w7g4gy10iej.cloudfront.net/video/2503/DOD_110891172/DOD_110891172.mp4
The FLIR: the UFO that flies against the wind
Another declassified Navy video, another F/A-18. This one recorded off the east coast of the United States. The object appears as a white spot that moves with a fluidity that does not fit with any known conventional flight pattern.
What worries analysts is not the speed but the direction. The object seems to move against the wind, without apparent acceleration, without sudden changes in altitude, without reactive behavior. As if atmospheric conditions did not affect it.
The AARO keeps it unresolved.
Official declassified video: https://d34w7g4gy10iej.cloudfront.net/video/2503/DOD_110872545/DOD_110872545-1920x1080-9000k.mp4
PR-011: Europe, 2021. Four years of analysis and nothing
This is one of the declassified files that is most striking precisely because of what the official report does not say.
The United States European Command reported a UFO to AARO. The recording lasts two minutes and eight seconds, taken by an infrared sensor aboard an American military platform operating in Europe. The official document states that "the analysis of the object's physical attributes and its performance characteristics is ongoing."
Ongoing. In January 2026, when the file was published. Four and a half years after an American military sensor recorded something over Europe that the Pentagon's best analysts have not yet been able to identify.
The file is there. The declassified video is accessible. The explanation does not exist.
Declassified official video: https://d34w7g4gy10iej.cloudfront.net/video/2601/DOD_111469069/DOD_111469069.mp4
Middle East 2023: eight minutes that no one can explain
An MQ-9 drone operates over the Middle East. The infrared sensor records for eight minutes and fifteen seconds an area of thermal contrast that behaves consistently with the presence of a physical object.
The AARO report is brutally honest about what it doesn't know: they cannot determine if what the sensor is seeing is a real OVNI, a thermal reflection, a temperature differential in the atmosphere or, directly, an error of the sensor itself.
What they do say: the available data do not allow for a conclusive analysis. And there is no additional data because no one sent more sensors to confirm it.
Eight minutes of declassified video. No answer.
Declassified official video: https://d34w7g4gy10iej.cloudfront.net/video/2505/DOD_110982722/DOD_110982722.mp4
The Navy 2021 “Flyby”: when a fighter gets close to a UFO
This declassified video was not recorded by an external sensor. It was recorded by a Navy pilot from inside the cockpit of his own fighter jet, with the camera pointing forward.
What is seen lasts barely seconds: something passes at a speed that the AARO's own document describes as “the typical speed at which military aircraft approach an unknown object”. It is not identified what that something is. The object passes and disappears from the frame before the sensor can register anything useful.
The AARO publishes it without resolution. The most disturbing thing about the case is not the video but the footnote: they publish it so that the public understands how quickly these encounters with UFOs occur. As if they were explaining why they have so little evidence of something they see frequently.
Official declassified video: https://d34w7g4gy10iej.cloudfront.net/video/2205/DOD_108981629/DOD_108981629.mp4
What the declassified files say between the lines
There is a phrase that is repeated in almost all reports about unresolved UFOs and that, read carefully, is more disturbing than any infrared image. It says thus, in different variations: “AARO will continue investigating this case if additional information becomes available that allows a more conclusive attribution.”
If available. Not when. Yes.
What the Pentagon is recognizing, in the aseptic language of its official reports, is that there are UFOs that its most advanced sensors have recorded, that its best analysts have studied for years, and about which they have no answer. And that they also have no guarantee of ever having one.
The United States government has declassified and opened to the public files about UFOs that had been closed for decades. The declassified files remain available at war.gov/UFO. The next installment, in a few weeks.
There are answers that take time to arrive. We still don't know everything.
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