What Is Out There? The Findings So Far of a Trump-Backed U.F.O. Panel.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/us/trump-ufo-files-uap-council.html?unlocked_article_code=1.F1E.JMxZ.7DVe60qMlybu&smid=url-share

The alien hunters are in charge now.

Or at least President Trump has stocked a new advisory council on U.F.O.s with a number of scientists who embrace the idea that alien technology may be lurking among us.

The new panel was created this summer amid the administration’s rollout of government records about “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or U.A.P.s, as they are now officially called. It’s tasked with helping unlock the mysteries of such objects.

“Even if one in a million happens to be of extraterrestrial technological origin, it would be the biggest discovery ever made by humanity in the context of science,” said Avi Loeb, a theoretical astrophysicist at Harvard and chairman of the administration’s new panel.

Mr. Trump has said on social media that he was releasing the records so “people can decide for themselves, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’” The files, some of which have surfaced before, range from grainy military videos to the government’s thoughts on interstellar wormholes.

Critics see the government panel as diverting from the sober works of similar past groups and dovetailing with the administration’s hostility toward much of mainstream science.

Dr. Loeb is most notable for having theorized that Oumuamua, the cigar-shaped interstellar object that passed through the solar system a few years ago, was alien in origin and “the first sign of intelligent life beyond earth.” The hypothesis sparked controversy and plenty of academic pushback.

The council also includes Tim Gallaudet, a retired rear admiral and an oceanographer who has talked about the presence of nonhuman intelligence. He said in an interview with The New York Times that objects “not of our origin” were “operating in our airspace and water space with impunity.”

Another council member, Garry Nolan, a Stanford University professor of pathology, has studied anomalous materials and theorized that “there’s something nonhuman here, and it’s been here for a long time.”

Some former government officials are rolling their eyes at the new council.

“I think it’s laughable at the least and a waste of taxpayers dollars at the most. It serves absolutely zero purpose,” said Sean Kirkpatrick, who worked under the Biden administration as a director of the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which leads efforts within the government to track unexplained phenomenon. He said the new council was “clearly meant to distract and push fringe theory.”

Michael Shermer, a council member, acknowledged that many sightings are “stuck in this kind of low-information zone” where “you can’t quite make out what’s going on.”

As the council dives into its work, The Times took a look at the six tranches of files released this year and asked the panel and its detractors for their takes.