The Pentagon has released its sixth batch of UFO files, and this one carries something unusual: documents from a secret military program that studied advanced aerospace systems as if they were already here.
Friday’s release includes 71 files, mostly PDFs, videos and one audio recording. The Defense Department contributed 67 files; four come from local Colorado law enforcement. The documents cover a period stretching from 1952 to 2025, with most containing redactions.
The Secret Program That Ended in 2012
At the center of the release is the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, or AAWSAP. Established by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2008, the program ran until 2012 and was designed to study future aerospace threats out to 2050.
One document states the program’s goal is to “understand the physics and engineering of these applications as they apply to the foreign threat out to the far term.” The Pentagon says the files should not be read as confirmation of anything in them.
The DIRDs and What They Contain
Among the 71 files are 37 Defense Intelligence Reference Documents, or DIRDs. These are public records that have been available through Freedom of Information Act requests for years, though Friday’s versions include details that were previously withheld, such as the names of the agency offices that produced the documents.
The DIRDs cover topics like warp drives, wormholes, antigravity, negative mass propulsion and invisibility cloaking. The Pentagon says the DIRDs are “best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research” and that they “should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed.”
The Injury Study From 2010
One 38-page study from 2010 focuses on “evidence of unintended injury to human observers by anomalous advanced aerospace systems.” Researchers recount that “three previous fit and active individuals experienced an anomalous [‘irregular, incongruous and inconsistent with their domain’] aerospace-related event” and suffered a range of medical symptoms in the aftermath, including heat and redness on their skin and hair loss. One of the individuals showed “signs of radiation illness” and “over several years developed signs of malignant transformations.”
The document did not identify the source of the exposure that led to the symptoms, but said the three individuals were “antennae engineers.” The author compared the cases to 42 published and roughly 300 unpublished incidents of conventional radiofrequency injury where the source of the radiation was known.
“Sufficient incidents/accidents have been accurately reported, and medical data acquired, as to support a hypothesis that some advanced systems are already deployed, and opaque to full US understanding,” the author found.
Video Files Show Objects Over the Middle East
The video files include footage of unexplained objects traveling at 80 to 180 miles per hour in one incident. Another shows six small spherical objects flying in tandem over the Middle East.
Four videos from Colorado law enforcement, captured in October 2023, are described as “silent” with “red, blue, and green flashing lights.” The audio recording and transcript include remarks from Air Force officer Edward Ruppelt, who led Project Blue Book.
Ruppelt’s 1952 Remarks on Unexplained Reports
Ruppelt’s remarks from 1952 reveal that about 20 percent of 800 UFO reports remained unexplained. He said, “We’ve gone through these reports and come up with the fact that about 20% are very good reports offered by very reliable people and … just absolutely no conclusions can be drawn.”
The release also includes additional Project Blue Book files. The Pentagon’s announcement on Monday added a legal waiver allowing current and former employees bound by nondisclosure agreements to share UAP-related information with the government.
What This Release Actually Tells Us
The files do not prove anything about advanced systems. They show the Pentagon took the idea seriously enough to fund a program that studied technologies that, at the time, belonged to science fiction.
The DIRDs are reference documents, not classified studies. The fact that the Pentagon is releasing them, along with the injury study and the video footage, is notable.
The injury study raises questions the files do not answer. If some systems are already deployed, and if they can cause harm to humans, the questions remain open.
Key Facts Box
- Files released: 71 total, 55 PDFs, 15 videos, 1 audio
- Sources: 67 from the Defense Department, 4 from Colorado law enforcement
- Redactions: 64 of 71 files contain redactions
- Dates: Documents range from 1952 to 2025
- Program: AAWSAP, established 2008, ended 2012
- Injury study: 38 pages, 2010
- Ruppelt remarks: 1952, 20% of 800 reports unexplained
The release is a reminder that the government has been investigating UFOs for decades. The questions remain open.
See the video the story is built around at CBS News.
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