Pilots and astronauts detail unexplained aerial encounters in declassified UFO files

National SecurityPilots and astronauts detail unexplained aerial encounters in declassified UFO filesIt’s the second batch of files released under the Trump administration’s mandate. The government doesn’t draw any conclusions about the origins of UFOs. Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Add NBC News to GoogleVideos released in latest UFO batch show unexplained aerial occurrences01:44Get more newsLiveonShareAdd NBC News to GoogleMay 22, 2026, 1:55 PM EDTBy Laura Strickler, Colleen Long, Justin Goldman and Mosheh GainsWASHINGTON — Late last year, a senior U.S. intelligence officer on a helicopter mission to investigate “thuds” heard in an unnamed mountain range saw a mysterious orange orb — an object that split in two and changed direction. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.“The ground team suddenly radioed that the object had risen from the ground, approached within ten feet of the helicopter, dropped below us and sped away,” the officer wrote after the 2025 encounter, according to government documents released Friday. The strange encounter was detailed in a memo from the Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence, which is included in a second batch of declassified documents on unidentified anomalous phenomena — previously and more infamously known unidentified flying objects, or UFOs — released this year by the Trump administration. The U.S. government has been holding onto the files for decades.A user uploaded this video to a classified network in June 2024.U.S. Defense DepartmentQuestions about whether humans are alone in the universe and whether alien life has ever visited Earth have captivated Americans since at least the late 1800s, buoyed by science fiction and urban myths of strange sightings and even purported alien abductions. Those ideas, once given little widespread credibility, have in more recent years taken on more serious scrutiny as video footage — some of it...