WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The Pentagon on Friday released a first batch of previously secret files documenting reported sightings of unidentified flying objects — some as far back as the 1940s — a move sought for decades by some Americans.

“These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation — and it’s time the American people see it for themselves,” Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement.

More than 160 files were released Friday on the website of the Defence Department, which officially refers to UFOs as “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena,” or UAPs.

One file — from December 1947 — contains a series of reports on “flying discs.”

An Air Force intelligence report — marked “top secret” — from November of the following year features information on reported sightings of “unidentified aircraft” and “flying saucers.”

And another file documents a 2023 incident in which three teams of federal law enforcement special agents independently described “seeing orange ‘orbs’ in the sky emit/launch smaller red ‘orbs.'”

President Donald Trump directed United States (US) federal agencies in February to begin identifying and releasing government files related to UFOs and aliens, saying the move was “based on the tremendous interest shown.”

The Republican president also claimed the same day he issued the release order that one of his Democratic predecessors, Barack Obama, had revealed “classified” information in viral podcast remarks about the existence of extraterrestrial life.

“They’re real, but I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in… Area 51,” Obama told host Brian Tyler Cohen, referring to the top-secret US military facility in Nevada at the heart of many UFO conspiracy theories.

Trump told reporters at the time that Obama “gave classified information, he is not supposed to be doing that,” while saying of his own beliefs: “I don’t know if they are real or not.”

No evidence has been produced of intelligent life beyond Earth.

Interest in UFOs has been renewed in recent years as the US government probed numerous reports of seemingly supernatural aircraft, amid worries that adversaries could be testing highly advanced technologies.

In March 2024, the Pentagon released a report saying it had no proof that UAP were alien technology, with many suspicious sightings turning out to be merely weather balloons, spy planes, satellites and other normal activity.