The sixth tranche of the Trump administration's PURSUE program: 72 files — 56 documents, 15 videos, 1 audio recording — bringing the public corpus to 447 files. Forty-four are the paper trail of AAWSAP, the DIA program behind the 'warp drive and wormhole' studies: 37 of its 38 Defense Intelligence Reference Documents, the 2008 Statement of Objectives, the solicitation and five contract modifications, each published with the Department's own assessment. Also new: the 1952 Tremonton, Utah film and its Project Blue Book case file, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt's March 1952 presentation on tape, the first local law enforcement files in the program, and ten CENTCOM and INDOPACOM sensor videos and stills.
The Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) has moved to issue a sole-source contract to the National Unidentified Flying Object Historic Records Center (NUFOHRC), a New Mexico-based nonprofit that holds what a Defense Department source described as the world's largest private collection of UAP-related historical records. Details of the planned commercial data subscription were first disclosed in a Defense Department contracting notice reported by DefenseScoop on September 2, 2026. The subscription would grant AARO digital access to NUFOHRC's proprietary data, metadata, and analytical products, with particular emphasis on materials predating 1990.
The move represents AARO's latest step to fulfill congressional mandates requiring a comprehensive review of U.S. government UAP involvement dating back to 1945, as directed by the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. NUFOHRC, founded and led by UAP historian David Marler, holds hundreds of thousands of unique case files — including the complete archives of early civilian scientific UFO research groups and personal files of Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who worked on the Air Force's Project Blue Book. The proposed contract structure includes a one-year base period with four one-year option periods; the total estimated cost was not disclosed.
A New Hampshire teenager and two Exeter, New Hampshire, police officers report a large, silent, brightly lit object hovering at low altitude over a residential field. The Air Force initially attributes the sighting to a high-altitude refueling mission, then revises the case to 'unidentified.'
Eleven members of an extended family in rural Kentucky report being besieged through the night by small, silver-coated humanoid figures. The Hopkinsville Police, Kentucky State Police, and U.S. Air Force investigate.
Three-volume Air Force Office of Special Investigations dossier (Box 7) containing 233 incident summary reports from 1955. Released by the Department of War as part of PURSUE Release 01.
PURSUE Release 03 publishes the CIA's 1952-1953 Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects — the Robertson Panel — in less-redacted form, with the Department of War's own transmission copy to the Secretary of Defense. The panel found no direct physical threat but warned that public fascination could clog intelligence channels and that a 'morbid national psychology' could be exploited by adversaries — and recommended an official policy of 'debunking' to 'strip the UFO subject of its mystery.'
Across two consecutive weekends, multiple radar installations and visual observers track unidentified objects above the restricted airspace surrounding the U.S. Capitol and White House. The Air Force convenes its largest press conference since World War II to address the events.
On July 2, 1952, Navy Chief Warrant Officer Delbert C. Newhouse — a Photographer's Mate with more than 1,000 hours of aerial-photography experience — filmed 12 to 14 bright, reflective objects near Tremonton, Utah, on 16mm Kodachrome. The Air Force assessed him as honest, reliable and expert, and never conclusively identified the objects: birds, balloons and mirage early on; 'pillow balloons' after a December 1952 review with General Mills; seabirds reflecting sunlight in later assessments. PURSUE Release 06 publishes the National Archives digitization of the film, the Blue Book case file, the balloon photo file, Newhouse's personnel record, and the Air Force's late-1952 'Flying Discs' compilation.
Three months before the Washington, D.C. flap, the head of the Air Force's reorganised UFO investigation told a Boston audience that roughly 20 percent of about 800 historical cases remained unexplained after technical analysis, that reports concentrated around Los Alamos, Albuquerque and Oak Ridge, and that radar had logged unconfirmed speeds between 1,000 and 3,500 miles per hour. PURSUE Release 06 publishes the transcript and a 65-minute audio recording of the presentation.
Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Capt. Thomas Mantell is killed when his P-51 Mustang crashes during the pursuit of a large, slow-moving object reported above Godman Field. The Air Force eventually attributes the object to a Skyhook research balloon.
PURSUE Release 04 publishes six U.S. Air Force files tracing the government's institutional handling of UFO reports from 1948 to 1967. The centerpiece is Project Sign's first progress report on 100 sightings from 1947-48, alongside both surviving drafts of Air Intelligence Division Study No. 203. Rounding out the file: records of the Avro 'Project Y2' saucer-shaped-aircraft assessments, 1955 correspondence relating to Project Blue Book, and the 1966-67 Scientific Advisory Board review that led directly to the Condon Committee and, eventually, Blue Book's closure.
Civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold reports nine crescent-shaped objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier at speeds he estimates at more than 1,200 mph. His description gives rise to the term 'flying saucer' and is widely treated as the start of the modern UFO era.