UFO files: 13 fighter jets chased flying object, star-shaped entity seen

Thirteen fighter jets were scrambled to chase down an unidentified flying object (UFO), according to newly released files.

The Disclosure Foundation, an advocacy group for unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), released more than 300 pages of intelligence reports from the National Security Agency (NSA) on UFO sightings following a Freedom of Information Act request. It follows the Trump administration’s release of more than 160 files relating to UFOs earlier this month.

In one of the files—which were heavily redacted—a witness described a mysterious star-shaped object as “impossible to be an aircraft.” The report said the object moved quickly in vertical motions at high altitude and “kept turning around.” The object was described as having “white luminous light” and being slightly “bluish” in color.

The Disclosure Foundation said many of the records were once classified as “TOP SECRET UMBRA”—a designation used for highly sensitive signals intelligence.

Newsweek has contacted the NSA and Disclosure Foundation for comment via online contact form.

Other documents detail an object with two yellow lights seen flying at a low altitude, silently changing directions from north to west, and another with “luminous radiation of 22 meters extending in a spiral pattern from a black center.”

Another file bearing the “TOP SECRET UMBRA” marking detailed a “spherical or disc-like” UFO described as brighter than the sun and about half the moon’s diameter.

How the Records Were Obtained

The Disclosure Foundation said the records were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and subsequent appeal, after the NSA initially denied access to the materials. According to the group, its legal team sought underlying documents tied to a previously known classified NSA memo. Following a prolonged challenge, the agency’s appeals authority determined that the blanket denial was improper, leading to the release of hundreds of pages of records, Disclosure Foundation said.

“Despite this historic document release, the NSA still asserts considerable redactions and exemptions for UAP-related material that dates back to the 1960s. Our legal team is completing its review of the NSA’s asserted exemptions, and we will mount all appropriate challenges to these withholdings,” wrote Hunt Willis, the organization’s chief legal officer.

“It is simply unacceptable for security classification exemptions to remain on government documents that predate the Civil Rights Act. We are committed to having the courts review the legitimacy of these redactions and holding these agencies accountable to the public transparency that Congress intended,” Willis continued.

What Was in the Pentagon’s UFO Files?

Earlier in May, the Defense Department, which the administration calls the Department of War, published more than 160 UFO-related files after President Donald Trump announced in February that he would direct Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to do so.

“President Trump directed the Department of War to identify and release government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena, and unidentified flying objects because he is the most transparent president in history,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told Newsweek previously.

“While past administrations have sought to discredit or dissuade the American people, the President is focused on providing maximum disclosure to the public, who can ultimately make up their own minds about the information contained in these files,” she continued.

These documents included numerous reported sightings of UFOs in the sky, including accounts from several Apollo missions.

One file outlines a technical crew debrief from Apollo 11, the mission that first landed humans on the moon in 1969. Others included transcripts of astronauts reporting seeing unexplained lights, particles and flashes during flights to the moon.

Also included was a 1957 FBI report summarizing an interview with Wladyslaw Krasuski, who said he saw a large, circular craft rising vertically in 1944 near a German military site.

A video from June 2024 showed a UFO consisting of an “object with a vertical pole or bar attached to the bottom of the object,” according to the U.S. Northern Command.

“An area of contrast visually resembling an inverted teardrop with a vertically linear trailing mass suspended below remains generally within the center of the sensor field-of-view throughout the video,” the agency’s description of the video said.

The release also included numerous photos purporting to show UFOs. Among them is a cluster of FBI images from an event that took place over the Western United States, an undated Defense Department photo taken in Iraq and a composite sketch of a 2023 incident shared by the FBI.

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