PURSUE, the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, is the interagency program that publishes declassified UAP records at war.gov/ufo. Its first release was May 8, 2026.

How many PURSUE releases have there been?

Five releases through August 7, 2026: May 8, May 22, June 12, July 10, and August 7, totaling more than 530 files.

What does unresolved mean in the UAP files?

It means the government cannot make a definitive determination about what was observed, most often because the available data is insufficient. It is not a confirmation that the object was anomalous.

Do the PURSUE files prove aliens exist?

No. No agency has presented any released file as evidence of extraterrestrial or non-human technology, and AARO's annual reports say it has found no such evidence.

PURSUE UAP Files: A Guide to Every Pentagon Release So Far

Bottom Line

PURSUE is the U.S. government's rolling public release of UAP records. Through August 7, 2026, it has published five batches totaling more than 530 files from the Pentagon, NASA, the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Energy, and other agencies. The files are real government records, and many are genuinely strange to look at. But the government describes them as unresolved cases, not as confirmed anomalies, and nothing released so far has been presented by any agency as evidence of non-human technology.

What PURSUE Is

PURSUE stands for the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. It is an interagency effort, run through the Department of War (the Pentagon's current name), that publishes declassified records at war.gov/ufo.

The program traces to February 19, 2026, when the White House posted President Trump's statement that he would direct "the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs)." Some later news coverage refers to the directive as an executive order; the public starting point is that February announcement.

The first files went online on May 8, 2026. The Pentagon has said additional material will be added "on a rolling basis."

Release-by-Release Timeline

Release	Date	Size	What stood out
1	May 8, 2026	More than 160 files	Historical reports, witness accounts, photos and videos spanning the 1940s to 2025, plus astronaut transcripts from Gemini 7 and Apollo 11, 12, and 17.
2	May 22, 2026	222 files	The largest batch so far, with dozens of videos and audio recordings from military sensors.
3	June 12, 2026	72 files	53 documents, 10 images, 6 videos, and 3 NASA audio recordings, including reports of glowing orbs and FBI case material.
4	July 10, 2026	40 files	14 documents, 19 videos, 4 audio files, and 3 images, including an aviator's account of an object "unlike anything" seen in a long military career.
5	August 7, 2026	41 files	Records from 1950 to 2026 from the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, State Department, and Executive Office of the President, including a 2021 Gulf of Oman gunship recording.

File counts come from the release announcements as reported by NBC News, CBS News, and other outlets. Agencies sometimes count a video, its transcript, and its case summary as separate files, so totals are best read as approximate.

Release 1: The Historical Foundation (May 8)

The opening batch leaned heavily on history. According to NBC News, it covered more than 400 incidents from the 1940s to 2025, drawn from military, NASA, and civilian reports. The most-shared items were not new military videos but astronaut transcripts: Buzz Aldrin describing "little flashes" during Apollo 11, Alan Bean's Apollo 12 account of "flashes of light sailing off into space," the Apollo 17 crew describing bright particles, and Frank Borman's Gemini 7 exchange about "hundreds of little particles."

Context matters here. Light flashes seen by astronauts have been discussed in the scientific literature for decades, and several researchers pointed out that some material in the first release had already been public for years. The Pentagon itself noted that many files "have not yet been analyzed for resolution of any anomalies," even though they had cleared security review.

Release 2: Volume (May 22)

The second release was the largest, at 222 files. It shifted the emphasis toward modern sensor material: infrared and electro-optical video from U.S. military platforms, often short, low-resolution, and stripped of the positional data an analyst would need to estimate distance or speed. That limitation runs through the whole collection and is the single most important thing to remember when watching the clips.

Release 3: Orbs and FBI Records (June 12)

The third batch contained 72 files: 53 documents, 10 images, 6 videos, and 3 NASA audio recordings, with material from the CIA, FBI, NASA, and the Pentagon. Coverage focused on reports of glowing orbs, including law-enforcement and security-site observations in the western and northeastern United States, and on FBI records that included a digital recreation of a reported incident.

Release 4: Aviator Accounts (July 10)

The fourth release was smaller, 40 files, but video-heavy: 19 videos alongside 14 documents, 4 audio files, and 3 images. CBS News highlighted a military aviator's description of an object "unlike anything I had seen." Many of the videos in this batch follow the Pentagon's case-file naming, such as "DOW-UAP-PR116," with a location, year, and the status "Unresolved UAP Report."

Release 5: The Gulf of Oman Gunship Video (August 7)

The fifth release added 41 files spanning 1950 to 2026 from the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, State Department, and Executive Office of the President. CBS News reported that the most notable case came from a Special Operations AC-130J gunship over the Gulf of Oman in September 2021, which recorded roughly 25 UAP instances with estimated speeds of 250 to 1,300 mph. Other items included a former pilot's account of a large silent triangle over Bagram, Afghanistan, in 2002, U.S. Central Command footage from the Middle East in 2025, and FBI infrared footage from the western United States in 2026. All were listed as unresolved.

Speed estimates in cases like the Gulf of Oman video deserve caution. AARO's published analyses of earlier military videos, including "Go Fast," found that apparent high speeds came from parallax: a sensor moving fast relative to a slow, distant object. That does not mean the same explanation applies here, only that speed claims from single-sensor video need range data to be meaningful.

What "Unresolved" Means

Every PURSUE file carries a status, and almost all of them say unresolved. The Pentagon has described these as cases where "the government is unable to make a definitive determination on the nature of the observed phenomena."

That is a narrower claim than it sounds. In AARO's experience, most cases stay open because the data is too thin, not because the data shows something extraordinary. In its fiscal 2024 annual report, AARO placed 444 of 757 new reports in an archive for lack of sufficient data and flagged 21 for further analysis based on reported anomalous characteristics. Its fiscal 2025 report, released in July 2026, flagged 9 of 319 new reports. Both reports state that AARO has found no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology.

So an unresolved label tells you the government cannot close the case. It does not tell you the government has confirmed an anomaly.

How to Read a PURSUE File

Find the metadata. Date, location, platform, and sensor type decide what questions the file can answer. A clip without them can rarely be analyzed.
Ask about range. Without a distance to the object, size and speed cannot be calculated from video, no matter how fast the object appears to move.
Check whether it was already public. Several items, especially historical ones, circulated long before PURSUE.
Separate the record from the claim. A witness form proves someone reported something. It does not establish what they saw.
Look for a resolution report. AARO publishes case resolutions for some well-known videos. If one exists, read it alongside the raw file.

What Comes Next

Releases have so far arrived every two to four weeks, and no end date has been announced. Other channels will keep adding context: AARO's annual reports, its case resolution reports, and the National Archives' UAP Records Collection (Record Group 615), which Congress created to hold agency UAP records. UAP Radar will update this guide as new batches are published.

Key Points

PURSUE has published five batches, more than 530 files, between May 8 and August 7, 2026.
The files come from the Pentagon, NASA, FBI, CIA, Department of Energy, State Department, and White House.
"Unresolved" means the government cannot make a determination, usually because of missing data.
No agency has presented any released file as evidence of non-human technology.
Speed and size claims from single-sensor video require range data to be meaningful.

Primary Sources

This guide summarizes official releases and reporting about them. File counts are as announced and reported; UAP Radar has not independently audited every file.