Pentagon unseals reports of apparent UFO sightings in northeastern U.S. – National
The Pentagon has released a new batch of previously classified files on alleged UFO sightings, which include reports of luminous red orbs reportedly spotted by people in the northeastern United States.
This follows the release of other unsealed files, which were made public on May 8 and May 22. President Donald Trump is the latest in a line of U.S. presidents to release government files documenting UFO sightings, a process that began in the 1970s, and which Trump has pledged to uphold in the interest of transparency.
“This is an unprecedented, historic undertaking that requires coordination between dozens of agencies and the review of tens of millions of records, many existing only on paper, spanning many decades,” the U.S Department of War wrote, adding that given the scale of the task, it will continue to release materials on a rolling basis.
Files on UFOs, released May 8, 2026, by the Pentagon, are photographed in Washington. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick).
Friday’s release included 72 files from the FBI, CIA and Pentagon, including testimony, videos and illustrations of what the government referred to as “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP).
Several files detail sphere or orb sightings in the same general area of the American northeast.
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One February entry cites FBI interviews with two individuals, whose identities have been redacted, who reported witnessing an intense beam of bright light in their backyard one evening.
One person described a red colour as being “brilliant and beautiful,” The FBI report said, adding that the individual noted they had “never seen anything that colour of red before.”
The person described a red sphere, about three feet wide, that contained a “white plasma sun” the size of a basketball at the centre, it said.
Another interview from July 2025 referred to previous reports of glowing orbs in the region, which the FBI report called the ‘Triangle Orbs,’ ‘Red Orb Rotation’ and ‘Orbs Over the Pond.’
A sighting from October 2024 details a light source glowing from below the horizon, hovering above a pond.
“The luminous object resembled a ‘plasma-like sphere’ intermittently changing shape and luminosity. At times, the primary light source appeared to separate into smaller luminous points,” the report said.
In a statement about the release of the files, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled speculation — and it’s time the American people see it for themselves,” Reuters reported.
The Trump administration has made a habit of releasing swathes of previously classified government files for the purpose of transparency, it says, including documents related to JFK and Martin Luther King Jr., which activist groups, including some of King’s family, maintained were unsealed in an attempt to quell last year’s mounting pressure to release case files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
— with files from Reuters
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