War.gov/UFO - Department of War Releases UAP Files - 2026 Release 1

[Ann K]

I'm thinking specifically how this fits the old pattern relating to UFO-transparency. This will not convince anyone, only make people angry and annoyed with all secrecies and games.

We have long realized that no "disclosure" will satisfy the UFOlogy crowd unless it reinforces what they already think.
No disclosure? Angry response: "They're hiding stuff from us!!!1!
Disclosure? Angry response: "They're hiding the GOOD stuff from us!!!!1!11!"

I know, it's comforting for people with an evidence-free fixed opinion to have a one-size-fits-all canned answer, so they never have to contemplate the possibility that the government simply doesn't have any compelling evidence of alien visitations and their own presuppositions are wrong. I can't help thinking that mommy should have told them "no" more often when they were young.

 

[Onyx]

All sensors have a LIZ

What is a LIZ?

I'm sure experience and training helps people using IR devices or examining IR imagery to become more accurate at interpreting what is shown, but it is still a matter of interpretation, and it is perhaps more difficult than interpreting visible spectrum imagery that we are much more familiar with, and which is so much closer in nature to our own primary sensory modality.

While I don't doubt this, it still doesn't explain to me why these cameras need to be of such bad quality. Of all the videos posted in this thread, there were many moments where it was very difficult to distinguish whether or not the camera was moving, tracking an object over land or sea, or the object it claims to be tracking had vanished entirely into the slurry of smeared monochrome pixels.

I'm just trying to understand the military's logic in using such poor quality optics and equipment, and why they continues to put up with it. Granted, I have indeed seen IR footage that is of a decent FPS, and doesn't look like it was recorded by a camera from the mid 20th century, but even then, details are lost and it might be still hard to distinguish what is even being observed.

The US Military has more money than God; these videos shouldn't be the best they have, regardless of what the object(s) in these videos are.

 

[flarkey]

What is a LIZ?

It is the Low Information Zone, its a part of the range of images that a sensor can capture, just well enough to determine that something is there, but not well enough to determine what it is. This is why unidentified objects are often captured with advance technology sensors- we think that they are so good that that they should be able to capture high quality imagery of anything at any range, but all sensors have a limit.

 

[flarkey]

DOW-UAP-PR35 geolocated in Greece...


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1t8nyby/dow_files_i_found_where_the_uap_video_in_greece/

 

[JMartJr]

I'm just trying to understand the military's logic in using such poor quality optics and equipment, and why they continues to put up with it. Granted, I have indeed seen IR footage that is of a decent FPS, and doesn't look like it was recorded by a camera from the mid 20th century, but even then, details are lost and it might be still hard to distinguish what is even being observed.

What if it is great equipment, but the UAP is so far away that even the best equipment cannot resolve it well enough to see what it is or get a sharp focus?

The US Military has more money than God; these videos shouldn't be the best they have, regardless of what the object(s) in these videos are.

These are not the best they have -- the best they have show clearly that what is being imaged is a balloon, or a bird, or a drone, or another plane. The best they have don't get released in a dump of images of things that are unidentified, because you can see what is being imaged well enough to identify it.

So what about the ones that are close enough to be seen well, and show aliens spaceships, why do those never get released?

A possible reason is, there aren't any. You can get some really nifty structured UFOs/UAP from civilian sources, because civilians can hang a model from a string and take a sharp picture, or can toss one in the air for a photo That's much, much harder to do with a camera or imaging system attached to a fighter plane or reconnaissance balloon or other piece of military gear, plus you can get in more trouble for doing that!

 

[Onyx]

It is the Low Information Zone, it's a part of the range of images that a sensor can capture.

Ah I see.

we think that they are so good that that they should be able to capture high quality imagery of anything at any range, but all sensors have a limit.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting high-quality immaculate videos and images, and I'm not that naive to think that military cameras have borderline magical properties, just something of a better image quality than what we were shown.

 

[jarlrmai]

Ah I see.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting high-quality immaculate videos and images, and I'm not that naive to think that military cameras have borderline magical properties, just something of a better image quality than what we were shown.

The UFO contradiction is that the better quality images are recognisable and thus never end up in the UFO pile, it's a self selecting subset.

 

[NoParty]

Ah I see.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting high-quality immaculate videos and images, and I'm not that naive to think that military cameras have borderline magical properties, just something of a better image quality than what we were shown.

The UFO contradiction is that the better quality images are recognisable and thus never end up in the UFO pile, it's a self selecting subset.

I started to type, and then realized that jarlrmai largely beat me to it:

Before we had cameras and lenses as good as we do now (I'm not even a photographer, and I have a 200-800mm lens)
we had great, interesting, clear UFOs described to us by all manner of farmers & rural police & school kids.

But now that our ability to actually document these amazing sights (heck, everyone has a camera on them at all times!)
is relatively awesome...the truly "unidentified" seem to be nothing more than weak, distant lights (orbs!?) that aren't
completely known at first blush...and may or may not be worth putting some effort into trying to explain. Very, very weak sauce...

 

[Todd Feinman]

Very, very weak sauce...

You must slowly cook the sauce to concentrate its flavors; takes a lot of patience, perhaps too much. Cooking it down is an essential part of preparing Skepticus Metabunkus, which must marinate for a long time so it is tender and the sauce finally sinks in. They're going to thrash around in the pot a bit—this is natural, do not be alarmed. Anyway, I just used the canned sauce to save time. Time…
Heh. This stuff writes it own dagnab self! Thank you aliens.

 

[Onyx]

These are not the best they have -- the best they have show clearly that what is being imaged is a balloon, or a bird, or a drone, or another plane. The best they have don't get released in a dump of images of things that are unidentified, because you can see what is being imaged well enough to identify it.

So what about the ones that are close enough to be seen well, and show aliens spaceships, why do those never get released?

A possible reason is, there aren't any. You can get some really nifty structured UFOs/UAP from civilian sources, because civilians can hang a model from a string and take a sharp picture, or can toss one in the air for a photo That's much, much harder to do with a camera or imaging system attached to a fighter plane or reconnaissance balloon or other piece of military gear, plus you can get in more trouble for doing that!

The UFO contradiction is that the better quality images are recognisable and thus never end up in the UFO pile, it's a self selecting subset.

I feel like there is possibly a miscommunication going on based on what I am saying, probably due to me not wording it properly.

When I talk about "better quality images", I am not talking about any material that supposedly show a NHI-built vehicle, I'm talking about any literal image or video that aren't in (for example) IR monochrome, sometimes with a frame rate of less than 30 FPS, and less than 720p.

The only time I've actually seen a video that, while is relatively low resolution and low frame rate, isn't in the usually extremely blurry and fuzzy IR monochrome is that one short video of the Middle East UAP from 2022.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/..._Footage_from_the_USG_for_Public_Release.webm

Regardless of what this object even is (I don't know if Mick did a video on this one, but I'll just assume its something unremarkable, mundane, and conventional), the fact that its in color, and pretty clearly shows something resembling a flying metallic sphere is quite notable among the sea of terrible, black-on-white infrared videos.

Despite the amount of resources the US military has access to, the fact that there doesn't appear to be any more material like the Middle East UAP video is frustrating.
However, yes, if more videos were in color, one would be able to identify any anomalous object way easier, and therefore might not be classified as a UAP in the first place. This is absolutely possible.

(I don't know if this makes any more sense than what I've said previously, or if I've been repeating anything I said. but I needed to write this down before I forget it.)

 

[Onyx]

But now that our ability to actually document these amazing sights (heck, everyone has a camera on them at all times!)
is relatively awesome...the truly "unidentified" seem to be nothing more than weak, distant lights (orbs!?) that aren't
completely known at first blush...and may or may not be worth putting some effort into trying to explain. Very, very weak sauce...

I agree.

 

[Ann K]

The only time I've actually seen a video that, while is relatively low resolution and low frame rate, isn't in the usually extremely blurry and fuzzy IR monochrome is that one short video of the Middle East UAP from 2022.

Do a Metabunk search on the word "UFO" in the thread title (or other suitable terms) and I'm sure you'll see plenty of examples ...and plenty of unproven claims. The metallic spheres have been discussed at length. This latest dump of images and videos seems to be mostly as you describe, though.

 

[Bruce M]

While I don't doubt this, it still doesn't explain to me why these cameras need to be of such bad quality. Of all the videos posted in this thread, there were many moments where it was very difficult to distinguish whether or not the camera was moving, tracking an object over land or sea, or the object it claims to be tracking had vanished entirely into the slurry of smeared monochrome pixels.

I'm just trying to understand the military's logic in using such poor quality optics and equipment, and why they continues to put up with it. Granted, I have indeed seen IR footage that is of a decent FPS, and doesn't look like it was recorded by a camera from the mid 20th century, but even then, details are lost and it might be still hard to distinguish what is even being observed.

The US Military has more money than God; these videos shouldn't be the best they have, regardless of what the object(s) in these videos are.

Do you have an example of IR footage online that meets your expectations?

This is a link to the MX25, on par with the best airborne cameras available to any military.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImAYRHbWaC8

The footage at 1:20 shows typical IR, and this is a target that they were deliberately filming. Isnt that clear, and imagine if you added in unknown movement. And most systems out there are using smaller/less capable cameras than this.
A big issue probably is operator fatigue and experience - if you dont know you are about to record something significant, you may not be ready for IMAX level stability and focus.

 

[boringrealit]

Do you have an example of IR footage online that meets your expectations?

This is a link to the MX25, on par with the best airborne cameras available to any military.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImAYRHbWaC8

The footage at 1:20 shows typical IR, and this is a target that they were deliberately filming. Isnt that clear, and imagine if you added in unknown movement. And most systems out there are using smaller/less capable cameras than this.
A big issue probably is operator fatigue and experience - if you dont know you are about to record something significant, you may not be ready for IMAX level stability and focus.

Those are crystal clear in comparison. What distance are they filmed from?
Only explanations I can see is if the UFO-clip is filmed at a very far distance or that the camera serves some other purpose than creating videos (such as tracking for weapons or something, dunno.)

 

[jarlrmai]

Yes distance puts stuff in the LIZ, poor settings does the same, the camera might be setup more to detect presence or movement of an expected target, rather than as to perform general id of various types of things, so over exposure and over sharpening might make things look odd if say you were setup to detect the movement of people and a flare for imaged for example.

 

[flarkey]

Those are crystal clear in comparison. What distance are they filmed from?
Only explanations I can see is if the UFO-clip is filmed at a very far distance or that the camera serves some other purpose than creating videos (such as tracking for weapons or something, dunno.)

The issue might be more to do with data transmission. Cameras like the MX-15 (as used in Aguadilla) and this MX-25 (a bigger version with better optics) are generally used by manned surveillance platforms and will have a HD video feed displayed on an airborne operators screen and also recorded to local disk. Unmanned platforms like the Reaper have their video feed datalinked via satellite back to groundbased operator workstations and may have bandwidth restrictions on the link. This could require significant reduction in video resolution down to a level that is required by the mission. If this requirement is to see large areas of contrast like buildings and roads then we could expect that small areas of contrast (balloons, birds, quadcopters) might be hard to recognize or identify.

 

[jarlrmai]

Must feel pretty amazing getting Congress and the Department of Defence to do your marketing for you

https://nypost.com/2026/05/09/us-ne...r-in-new-doc-ahead-of-their-official-release/

 

[Onyx]

Do you have an example of IR footage online that meets your expectations?

Yes. The Puerto Rico Aguadilla UAPs, and the so-called "Jellyfish" UAP.

Even if the true nature of the objects are mundane, the footage is interesting and clear enough to want to dig deeper.

 

[JMartJr]

Do a Metabunk search on the word "UFO" in the thread title (or other suitable terms) and I'm sure you'll see plenty of examples ...and plenty of unproven claims. The metallic spheres have been discussed at length. This latest dump of images and videos seems to

Not totally surprising, maybe. A person with access to the files and intent to leak UFO stuff would tend leak the best stuff first ("best" being relative) leaving a pool of cases from which the best stuff has already been removed to be available for the next round of disclosure.

 

[Rick Robson]

You must slowly cook the sauce to concentrate its flavors; takes a lot of patience, perhaps too much. Cooking it down is an essential part of preparing Skepticus Metabunkus, which must marinate for a long time so it is tender and the sauce finally sinks in. They're going to thrash around in the pot a bit—this is natural, do not be alarmed. Anyway, I just used the canned sauce to save time. Time…
Heh. This stuff writes it own dagnab self! Thank you aliens.

.

 

[NorCal Dave]

However, yes, if more videos were in color, one would be able to identify any anomalous object way easier, and therefore might not be classified as a UAP in the first place. This is absolutely possible.

Absolutely. This seems to get lost often in all this UFO talk. How many surveillance drones, aircraft, areostats and other devices are on station right now all over the world. On any given day, I would imagine terabytes of information are being recorded and analyzed from a variety of sensor suites, all with their own special objectives and requirements. And all of these have limitations at some point.

In the end it's a very small subset of all of this that may include something anomalous looking. For the UFO world, that becomes the focus (pun intended). I've suggested before the whole notion is to twist "unidentified", a perfectly normal conclusion given some of the videos, into "identified" as unidentified. That is, something unidentified is identified as alien, not because it's actually identified, but precisely because it's unidentified. It's a cute trick.

It's also the classic reversal of the burden of proof. Anything unidentified MUST be unequivocally identified by the skeptic, or it's aliens. A unidentified blurry blob is claimed to be otherworldly, because it's unidentified, and the burden of proof is transferred to the skeptic to prove it's not.

Thus these rare and occasional videos gain great importance.

 

[Eburacum]

That is, something unidentified is identified as alien, not because it's actually identified, but precisely because it's unidentified.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22,' he observed.
'It's the best there is,' Doc Daneeka agreed.

 

[MonkeeSage]

NASA Audio — Low Earth Orbit (12/5/65)

This audio recording contains air to ground communications and the NASA Public Affairs audio feed with commentary, recorded during the flight of the Gemini VII mission. In this excerpted segment of audio, Astronaut Frank Borman reports to NASA mission control in Houston his sighting of an unidentified object, which he referred to as a "bogey." This sighting occurred on December 5, 1965. The dialogue includes Borman's initial report, as well as additional comments by Astronaut Jim Lovell, Borman's fellow crew member.

• NASA-UAP-D3, Gemini 7 Transcript, 1965 (Moon, 1965) — Gemini 7 was the tenth crewed American spaceflight. This document is a transcript of communications between the flight crew, Astronauts James "Jim" Lovell and Frank Borman, and the Manned Flight Center (now known as Johnson Space Center) in Houston, Texas. The transcript begins with Borman's report of a "bogey," contemporary nomenclature for an unknown aircraft, as well as a debris field. Borman described the debris field as consisting of "very, very many […] hundreds of little particles." He estimated the particles' distance from the spacecraft to be four miles. Lovell described observing a "brilliant body in the sun against a black background with trillions of particles on it."
  This document also includes handwritten notes documenting the encounter, annotated with the phrase "UFO Sighting by Borman" in the top right corner. [inferred]
• 255_t_763_r1b_transcripts (Low Earth Orbit, 12/5/65) — This is an excerpt from the complete transcript of the Gemini VII mission, highlighting the segment in which Astronaut Frank Borman reports seeing an unidentified object. It includes identification of the NASA recording number, and hand written notes documenting which portions of the mission audio appear on the accompanying recording. [inferred]

Source CSV: https://www.war.gov/Portals/1/Interactive/2026/UFO/uap-csv.csv · Page: https://www.war.gov/UFO/

The particles sound similar to the "fireflies" seen by astronaut John Glenn during Mercury-Atlas 6 in February 1962, and later identified as ice crystals by astronaut Scott Carpenter during Mercury-Atlas 7 in May 1962.

Mercury-Atlas 7 Transcript:

04 19 22.5 P Sunrise. Ahhhhh! Beautiful lighted fireflies that time. It was luminous that time. But it's only, okay, they--all right, I have--if anybody reads, I have the fireflies. They are very bright. They are capsule emanating. I can rap the hatch and stir off hundreds of them. Rap the side of the capsule; huge streams come out. They--some appear to glow. Let me yaw around the other way.
04 20 25 P Some appear to glow but I don't believe they really do; it's just the light of the sun. I'll try to get a picture of it. They're brilliant. I think they would really shine through 9 on the photometer. I'll rap. Let's see.
04 21 39.5 P Taking some pictures at F 2.8 and bulb. The pictures now, here, one of the balloon. The sun is too bright now. That's where they come from. They are little tiny white pieces of frost. I judge from this that the whole side of the capsule must have frost on it.

Source: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/ma07-tec.pdf p.108

Audio (timestamped to 4:24:46):

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zkOg27kHtP4&t=15886s

Regarding the image above, it is AS17-147- 22469. A higher resolution version can be found as part of the NASA's release of imagery on Flickr (amongst other places) in the Apollo Image Gallery.
flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/21687952681/in/album-72157658627https://tothemoon.im-ldi.com/data_a70/AS17/processed/AS17-147-22470.png346820

This is the highest resolutuion available from there.
View attachment 90196

In the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, it's only mention is under some communcation listed as starting at 115:09:03 between the Command Module Pilot (Evans) and CapCom, regarding his attempts to identify the landing site of the Lunar Module from orbit.
apollojournals.org/alsj/a17/a17.postland.html

The mention is "[The photographs taken out Jack's window are AS17-147- 22469 to 22478. He began with a normal horizon sequence and then lowered his aim and took a second sequence showing the near surface.]

Unfortunately, the photos of that sequence are not directly identified in terms of the timeline of events on the surface, only in a comment in relation to Evan's communication about his landing site identification from orbit.

Edit: Link to the release page about the image: https://www.war.gov/UFO/#NASA-UAP-VM6-Apollo-17-1972

The specific image is actually the next frame, AS17-147- 22470.

The original film scan is available here (~300MB): https://tothemoon.im-ldi.com/data_a70/AS17/processed/AS17-147-22470.png

That frame is captioned in the Apollo 17 Image Library as

Pre-EVA-1 LM window pan...

Source: https://apollojournals.org/alsj/a17/images17.html#22470

It is captioned in Figure 4-16 in Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report (p. 50)

A view of the Taurus-Littrow area from the LM window taken just after touchdown on the lunar surface...

Source: https://an.rsl.wustl.edu/apollo/data/A17/resources/preliminary_science_report_17.pdf

Given that this is taken from inside, looking out the LM window, they could be reflections of something like instrumentation lights inside the module.

 

[Eburacum]

Source: https://apollojournals.org/alsj/a17/images17.html#22470

If we look at the highest resolution version of this image, we can compare the granularity of the photo at the edge of the Moon's horizon, and the sharpness of the 'triangle' itself. The Moon image looks fuzzy and granular when seen in close-up, but the 'triangle' looks sharp and well-defined.

To me this suggests that the 'triangle' is not a true part of the photographic image; these marks are the result of a different process, some kind of flaw in the emulsion or something that occurred in the development process.

 

[MonkeeSage]

If we look at the highest resolution version of this image, we can compare the granularity of the photo at the edge of the Moon's horizon, and the sharpness of the 'triangle' itself. The Moon image looks fuzzy and granular when seen in close-up, but the 'triangle' looks sharp and well-defined.
View attachment 90289
To me this suggests that the 'triangle' is not a true part of the photographic image; these marks are the result of a different process, some kind of flaw in the emulsion or something that occurred in the development process.

Lending support to that hypothesis, there are other frames from the various Apollo missions showing blue artifacts, sometimes in areas of the film outside of the exposure window.

Frame AS14-66-9274 from Apollo 14 is a good example, where two blue dots appear below and to the right of the exposure area, suggesting some other cause than an actual object in the scene.

Full film scan of AS14-66-9274: https://tothemoon.im-ldi.com/data_a70/AS14/processed/AS14-66-09274.png