“LOOK at that thing, dude. My gosh. There’s a whole fleet of them. They’re all going against the wind … look at that thing. It’s rotating.” While this may sound like a scene from a sci-fi film, these were the voices of US Navy aviators reacting to an object detected by military sensors, in footage later known as Gimbal. The Pentagon formally released that video, along with two others, in 2020, confirming that they showed what it described as unidentified aerial phenomena.
In May 2026, the Pentagon began releasing more declassified UAP material in batches through the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, known as PURSUE — hundreds of files and more than 50 videos, including historical records of “green orbs”, “discs” and “fireballs”, as well as newer military-linked footage. This, in its simplest form, is known as the unidentified anomalous phenomena.
‘UAP’ is the modern bureaucratic term for what the world once called Unidentified Flying Objects, UFOs. The shift in language is deliberate. UFO came carrying decades of cultural baggage: flying saucers, little green men, crashed discs, secret hangars, conspiracy radio and late-night documentaries. The term ‘UAP’ gives the state a way to talk about the mystery without surrendering to the mythology.
But the public does not hear it that way. For UAP enthusiasts, an object trained pilots cannot identify, detected by military systems, moving against the wind or rotating in unusual ways, is not a neutral bureaucratic category. It is the oldest question in a new form: are we alone? And, perhaps, for good reason.
The existence of UAPs does not automatically mean they are alien. It means they are unresolved.
For decades, the question of UFOs, now UAPs, was made ridiculous before it was examined. The official history of UFO inquiry is full of this contradiction. Governments investigated sightings because they could not ignore them, but often spoke about them as if only the foolish would take them seriously. The infamous ‘Project Blue Book’, the US Air Force’s programme to study and debunk UFOs, became the symbol of this uneasy posture: investigate the unknown, but reassure the public that nothing extraordinary is happening, all the while hundreds of those sightings or cases remained ‘unexplained’. This is the strange irony of the alien question.
Hollywood has spent more than half a century making extraterrestrial life profitable. We are culturally fluent in fictional aliens, yet when real pilots, soldiers, radar operators or civilians describe something strange in the sky, the same culture suddenly becomes embarrassed. With all of the newly declassified files, that ridicule is now becoming harder to sustain.
Yet as UAPs have moved from the margins into congressional hearings, official reports and military disclosure, the official position has remained cautious. The Pentagon has released videos and records, while its All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, continues to examine cases. Nasa, too, has entered the conversation, arguing for better data, better sensors and less stigma. Yet both remain careful: they acknowledge that some cases are unresolved, while Nasa’s independent study team has stated that there is no conclusive evidence in peer-reviewed scientific literature suggesting an extraterrestrial origin for UAPs, and that many cases remain difficult to resolve because the data is often incomplete, inconsistent or not collected scientifically.
This is where the debate often polarises. One side treats every unexplained sighting as evidence of alien visitation. The other treats every mention of aliens as foolish claims. But both positions are oversimplified. The more honest position is harder. UAPs exist in the limited but important sense that there are sightings, sensor records, and official cases that remain unidentified. That does not automatically mean they are alien. It means they are unresolved. The difference matters.
There is a ladder of probability. At the bottom are ordinary explanations: aircraft, balloons, birds, drones, satellites, debris, weather effects, optical illusions, camera artefacts and sensor errors. Many UAP cases eventually fall here. A distant object may appear impossibly fast because of camera angle; a sensor may misread distance; a pilot may misjudge size or speed. A classified aircraft may be unknown to the observer but not to the state.
Higher up are more troubling possibilities: advanced surveillance systems, experimental military technology, unknown atmospheric phenomena, or limits in our sensors and perception. Only then does one arrive at the most dramatic explanation: non-human technology. That explanation is not impossible. It is simply not yet proven.
The strongest argument for taking UAPs seriously is not that they prove aliens. It is that serious institutions now admit that some cases cannot be fully explained with the data available. That alone is significant.
This is also why the release of Pentagon files should not be mistaken for an admission of first contact. A government disclosure is not the cinematic moment where the state finally confesses that visitors have arrived. It is more likely controlled transparency: a response to congressional pressure, public mistrust, national security uncertainty, and decades of secrecy.
The alien question survives because both sides have something to explain. The believers must explain why there is still no public, verifiable physical evidence of extraterrestrial technology. The sceptics must explain why trained observers, military systems, and official institutions keep encountering cases that cannot be dismissed as fantasy. Between those two failures is where the real mystery lives.
So, the million-dollar question: are we really alone?
The universe is too vast for certainty to belong only to sceptics. It would be arrogant to assume life emerged only once, on one small planet, around one ordinary star. But it would also be careless to turn every unknown light in the sky into a visitor from another world.
Even as a lifelong ‘believer’ and a UAP enthusiast who has consumed everything from official press conferences to Netflix documentaries on the subject, I suspect first contact may not arrive as a Spielberg-style landing on Earth. It may come more quietly: from one of Nasa’s missions to Europa, hidden in the chemistry of an ocean beneath ice.
The writer is the founder of Media Matters for Democracy.
Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2026
