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 U.S. Department of War announced on September 15, 2026, a new legal waiver creating an authorized, legally protected disclosure mechanism for current and former government and military personnel to provide UAP-related National Defense Information (NDI) to designated representatives of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The waiver offers targeted relief from certain civil and administrative enforcement provisions contained in Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and Special Access Program Indoctrination Agreements (SAPIAs), and applies to Department of War service members, veterans, civilian employees, and contractors who hold or previously held access to UAP-related NDI.
The announcement represents a significant procedural development in UAP disclosure policy, addressing longstanding concerns from potential whistleblowers about legal and professional repercussions for discussing protected information. Critically, the waiver does not declassify any information; material submitted to PURSUE will undergo security review before any potential public release. The PURSUE initiative, launched earlier in 2026 by the Trump administration, is distinct from investigative bodies such as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and is focused specifically on identifying, reviewing, declassifying, and releasing UAP-related records held across U.S. federal agencies.
Four days before Release 06, the Department of War announces a targeted legal waiver: all current and former service members, civilian personnel and contractors who hold or once held UAP-related National Defense Information may disclose it directly to designated PURSUE representatives. The waiver supersedes the civil and administrative enforcement provisions of their non-disclosure agreements and Special Access Program indoctrination agreements — for communications to the PURSUE team only.
The Department of Defense issued a formal waiver on September 14, 2026, providing targeted legal relief to past and present civilian personnel, service members, and contractors who wish to disclose UAP-related information to representatives of the Trump administration's Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The waiver explicitly supersedes civil and administrative enforcement provisions in Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and Special Access Program Indoctrination Agreements (SAPIAs) executed in the United States, authorizing covered disclosures to PURSUE representatives without triggering breach-of-agreement penalties or standard NDA violations.
The action represents a significant policy development in the federal government's ongoing UAP transparency effort. PURSUE, which President Trump unveiled earlier in 2026, directs all federal agencies and military branches to aggregate internal UAP records for potential declassification and public dissemination. The waiver addresses longstanding concerns among potential whistleblowers — cited in the Pentagon's own press release — that legal liability, loss of clearances, or administrative prosecution under standard NDA and SAP indoctrination terms have historically prevented individuals from coming forward with UAP-related knowledge.
The fifth tranche of the Trump administration's PURSUE program: 41 files — 22 documents, 16 videos, 3 images — published 28 days after Release 04 and bringing the public corpus to 375 files. The organizing theme is triangles: four FBI interviews, each paired with a 2026 digital rendering, spanning a 2002 sighting over Bagram Air Force Base to two independent October 2023 reports from Colorado Springs. The release also contains the first FBI-captured video in the program's history and the first-ever State Department and Executive Office of the President files, tracking a 1963 Brazilian crashed-sphere claim to a fabrication within eleven days.
The fourth tranche of the Trump administration's PURSUE program: 40 files — 14 documents, 3 images, 19 videos, 4 audio files — bringing the public corpus to 334 files. Where Release 03 was the FBI's tranche, Release 04 is the historical one: a 1955 CIA debrief of four observers (one a sitting U.S. Senator) watching an object over the Soviet Union, the 1949 Los Alamos conference on 'green fireballs' attended by Manhattan Project physicists, Project Sign's founding 1948 progress report, and three NASA photographs of an unidentified object shot from Space Shuttle Columbia in 1996. Nineteen AARO sensor videos and four Apollo-era 'light flash' audio segments round out the release.
Harvard University theoretical physicist and Professor of Science Avi Loeb announced the formation of a new UAP Science Advisory Council on or around June 17, 2026, disclosing early details to DefenseScoop. The multidisciplinary council, comprising twelve named expert researchers spanning physical sciences, biology, psychology, and anthropology, is chartered to provide scientific guidance to the U.S. government's unidentified anomalous phenomena investigations and to advise on whether unexplained sightings constitute national security threats or represent novel discoveries. The council will report to a newly established interagency UAP Governance Board, co-established by ODNI, the FBI, and the Department of Defense, which held its first meeting on June 16, 2026.
The council's formation follows President Donald Trump's February 2026 directive instructing the Defense Secretary and relevant agencies to begin identifying and releasing government files related to UAP, aliens, and UFOs. Three batches of UAP files were released under that initiative on May 8, May 22, and June 12, 2026. AARO Director Jon Kosloski signed the most recent report, dated June 5, 2026, which described law enforcement officials observing an orange "mother" orb launching smaller red orbs during two days in October 2023, with approximately 40 percent of reported phenomena remaining unresolved. All data provided to the science council will be unclassified.
The third tranche of the Trump administration's PURSUE program: 72 files — 53 documents, 10 images, 6 videos, 3 audio files — bringing the public corpus to 294 files. The FBI dominates with 29 files, anchored by two modern American case clusters: a four-year series of orb sightings in the northeastern U.S. that the Bureau's own agents witnessed first-hand, and the first-person record of the October 2023 Western US Event. Also included: the CIA's 1953 Robertson Panel report in less-redacted form, NASA's Gemini-era crew debriefings, and the 1962 Cronkite–Cooper interview audio.
On June 9, 2026, UAP whistleblower David Grusch joined a bipartisan group of House members on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to demand that the federal government declassify and publish its records on unidentified anomalous phenomena. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, Eric Burlison, Tim Burchett, and Jared Moskowitz appeared alongside investigative journalist Leslie Kean and documentary filmmaker James Fox, pressing Congress to pass the UAP Disclosure Act and to ensure that career intelligence officials do not obstruct the administration's declassification directive. At the lectern Grusch went further than usual on the nature of the phenomena, telling reporters the government is aware of 'several' kinds of non-human life, ranging from 'corporeal bipedal type life' to what he called 'sentient plasma life.'
Exactly 14 days after PURSUE Release 01, the U.S. Department of War publishes a second tranche of declassified UAP records through war.gov/UFO: 51 sensor videos (the DOW-UAP-PR050–PR099 series), 7 NASA crew audio files, and 6 documents. The centerpiece is a first-person USPER narrative from a currently-serving senior U.S. intelligence officer describing a one-hour, multi-witness UAP encounter from a U.S. military helicopter in late 2025.
The Trump administration launches PURSUE — the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters — and the Department of War publishes 160 declassified UAP-related files in the first tranche: 117 PDFs, 29 sensor videos, and 14 photographs spanning 1944 to 2026. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth says the goal is 'maximum transparency.'