New UFO files offer no answers—but something is happening in the skies | Popular Science
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New UFO files offer no answers—but something is happening in the skies
Even experts don't know what's flying in these images.
By James Dwyer / The Conversation
Published
May 17, 2026 12:01 PM EDT
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The U.S. government has been looking for unidentified flying objects for decades.
Image: US Department of Defense
This article originally appeared in The Conversation.
The US Government has released a new trove of documents on various cases of “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAPs) – many of which would have been described in the past as Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs – including photos, videos and reports of unexplained events sighted in the sky and in space.
The files detail “unresolved cases” where “the government is unable to make a definitive determination on the nature of the observed phenomena”.
As a researcher of military strategy, national security, and weapons and technology capabilities, I find several examples of UAPs intriguing in what they reveal and the questions they raise.
Taking this new release together with other reports from the past few years, a picture of what might be behind UAPs – and the current state of our understanding – begins to emerge.
The easy ones
Not everything in the new release seems inexplicable. Some images, like those that appear to show unidentified lights recorded by astronauts from the surface of the Moon, are most likely just visual noise or other image artefacts.
A photo taken during the Apollo 12 lunar mission appears to show unidentified light in the sky, with the area of interest magnified. Image: NASA
Astronauts have also reported seeing bright lights with the naked eye. These may be flashes from high-energy cosmic rays, which are more prevalent outside Earth’s protective magnetic field.
Likewise, video recordings showing bright lights zipping may be explained by insects flying by the camera at close proximity – they would be out of focus, and appear to move at high speeds.
Something is happening
Other cases are more difficult to immediately dismiss. Some recent examples demonstrate that something is occurring, even if we do not know what.
In 2020, the US Navy declassified three videos recorded by F/A-18 Super Hornets, showing mysterious “Tic Tac” objects flying in ways that defy current understanding of technology, without any obvious propulsion. The US Navy stated it did not know what the objects were.
Advanced sensors on fighter aircraft detected and tracked these phenomena, which suggests they were some kind of real objects rather than due to equipment errors or erroneous noise.
An image of a ‘diamond-shaped’ object moving at an estimated 800 kilometres per hour detected by a US aircraft in 2024. Image: US Department of Defense
One of the most intriguing recordings was shared in a US congressional hearing in 2025. It appeared to be recorded by an MQ-9 Reaper drone, which was tracking a UAP.
The drone fired a Hellfire missile at the object and appeared to have successfully hit it. The object seemed to be deflected from its direction of travel momentarily, suggesting it was a real physical thing, but it appeared to suffer no damage and continued on its course.
Drone swarms and mystery objects
Over the past decade, there have also been multiple reports of unidentified groups of UAPs around US and European military bases.
In several cases, US Navy Destroyers apparently met mysterious “drone swarms”. While these may have been conventional drones, there were no apparent launch vessels nearby which could have allowed these relatively small drones (with presumably short range) to be where they were.
We also know that in 2023, the US used an F-22 fighter to shoot down a Chinese high-altitude spy balloon over the continental US. Another similar incident occurred over Hawaii the same year, although the US reportedly did not consider this one to be from China.
Also in 2023, the US engaged several other objects over North America, but both the US and Canadian governments have refused to provide any information on what they were.
So what exactly are these objects?
There is no easy explanation for these incidents.
Some leap to the idea that non-human intelligences are at work. However, there is no evidence for this. It may be fun to think of aliens or interdimensional beings, but this is not really a satisfying answer to the UAP question.
Perhaps the “best” explanation we have is drones, or other known technologies. This still seems partial,...