Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

Authorities in the United States are using the release of confidential UFO files as a story that serves political purposes. In this way, they fulfill the desire of a segment of the electorate that is very proactive on this topic, while US President Donald Trump scores some points and perhaps also covers up some issues, as many people would rather choose a science fiction thriller than the bitter reality.

The documents were released as part of the White House’s UFO Transparency Initiative, a declassification program implemented by President Trump’s administration. In addition to reviewing reports from the 1960s, a period of peak UFO sightings worldwide, the documents also include eyewitness accounts.

In addition to statements about spacecraft, there are also testimonies of beings about a meter tall emerging from them. Among the testimonies are descriptions of unknown metallic materials and the alleged remains of crashed “flying saucers.”

Among the hundreds of pages of documents and photographs are new videos released as part of a broader declassification program that also includes military reports and NASA archives.

Although they are presented in a bombastic manner, this is not the first time that, under pressure from the American public, federal services, NASA, the Pentagon, and various other agencies have opened their files. This has been happening at intervals since the 1950s.

This is a very common case in the US because there is a large community of people who believe that aliens exist and have visited Earth. They also believe that the US government is hiding this from them. Under pressure from these voters, congressmen and various organizations have been pressuring the government to open documents for decades.

Although this is a legitimate request, Trump is using this established practice to show that he is unlocking some documents that have been hidden from the American public.

The US is not the only country to possess such documents, but it has addressed this topic more than any other country, and very seriously, through the Department of War and the US Air Force. They funded projects not only to archive such evidence or recordings but also to actively collect material, including the famous Project Blue Book, which collected people’s testimonies and recordings for more than a decade. Simply put, at some point, there was a political and economic decision to launch a project to collect it in one place.

In the 1970s, at the request of Congress, a group of researchers examined the material collected up to that time. They found no credible evidence that the objects were of extraterrestrial origin and found no physical explanation for what was happening there.

Celestial phenomena explain the newly unlocked footage. These images are mostly forms of diffraction. The diffraction image on the screen is a natural phenomenon that physics has explained for a long time. When light passes through a narrow opening, a diffraction image can appear, and some cameras, whether on airplanes or from the ground, have recorded them. Most experts are certain that it is not alien.

Nonetheless, for a large portion of the unlocked material, the exact origin and the circumstances and conditions under which it was recorded are unknown.

Another important point is that Americans would never admit or accept the possibility that another country has a spacecraft over their territory or in a zone they control. It is a very sensitive issue, so some Americans might be more likely to believe it is aliens than a spacecraft from another country. So there are more possible explanations for something unusual in the sky.

The diffraction pattern in the FBI footage is a natural phenomenon that physics has long explained, so simple, logical thinking should be applied in this case. It is reasonable to assume that a civilization so highly advanced as to travel light-years would reveal itself after making such an effort.

It also makes sense that aliens are a good topic to distract from other issues, such as the disaster that is the Iran War and the cost-of-living crisis in the US.

Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene stated on X, “I really don’t care about the UFO files. I just don’t. I’m so sick of the ‘look at the shiny object’ propaganda while they wage foreign wars, let rapist and pedophiles run free, and ruin the value of our dollar.” 

In a follow-up post less than an hour later, she noted, “The most transparent administration in history still hasn’t released all the Epstein files or arrested anyone, but rolled out some UFO files today so you would get so excited that you forgot you are paying over $4.50/gallon because they are fighting another foreign war they said they would no longer fight.”

It is evident that the Trump administration faces many challenges ahead, including the upcoming midterm elections. What is certain is that the Trump administration is using the UFO files release as political PR, particularly to UFO enthusiasts. With this move, the US president is fulfilling the wishes of a good part of his constituency.