Is the truth out there? US registers aliens.gov as Trump pledges UFO files release

Web domain added to government registry a month after president directed agencies to release files relating to UAPs

It was a gift to conspiracy theorists.

Last week, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency registered the alien.gov and aliens.gov web domains, adding both to the official government website registry.

But the move also comes at a time when official US government interest in UFOs – or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), as officialdom prefers to call them – has never been higher and is firmly rooted in fears over national security in the age of drones, terrorism and international conflict.

The registrations were logged just a month after Donald Trump pledged to release UFO‑related files in the US government’s possession. It also follows on multiple congressional hearings and reports on the issue of UAPs in the last few years, most of which have dismissed evidence of alien activity – but which have also tantalizingly left some sightings unresolved, while also platforming the views of true believers in alien conspiracies.

White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly did little to discourage fringe beliefs when asked about the coming websites. “Stay tuned!” she wrote, together with an alien emoji, in response to one journalist’s request for clarification.

Michael Gold, Nasa’s former associate administrator of space policy and partnerships and a member of the organization’s independent UAP study team, says he’s optimistic about what the government may release, even if it doesn’t resolve outstanding questions.

“The fact that we’re discussing that the administration is reviewing files, releasing data via websites is a real accomplishment,” says Gold, who testified in 2024 about the stigma that had prevented much needed study and public discourse on the issue. “We should thank the administration for supporting transparency and taking the issue seriously. It’s an accomplishment we should celebrate.”

The president has directed government agencies “to begin the process of identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matter”.

Trump has previously said he couldn’t say he was a believer in alien life, “but I have met with people that are serious people that say there’s some really strange things that they see flying around out there”.

Nor is Trump alone. Senior Trump administration officials have also expressed interest in the issue. JD Vance has taken a neutral stance on UAPs, saying he doesn’t believe or disbelieve. “I’m a big believer that there are things out there that we can’t explain”, the vice-president said last year.

Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, has expressed concern over reports of unknown aircraft operating over restricted US nuclear sites. He said in December: “Navy pilots, admirals, generals … would come forward and say there are programs in the US government that not even presidents are made aware of.” Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, has said she “believes in the possibility” of alien life.

Nor is it just Republicans. Former president Barack Obama told a recent podcast that aliens “are real but I haven’t seen them” and added: “They’re not being kept at Area 51 … unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president.” Hillary Clinton vowed in 2016 that she would “get to the bottom” of the alien conspiracies if elected.

But, in truth, much of the official interest is driven by security concerns. ABC News reported on Friday that Barksdale air force base in Louisiana ordered a shelter-in-place order earlier this month “a report of an unmanned aerial system operating over the installation” that comprised of “multiple waves” of UAPs.

While Gold says that he can’t predict any revolutionary information in the coming files, the UAP question is only growing and spreading through both political parties.

“It has united figures like congressman Tim Burchett [a Tennessee Republican, a sponsor of the UAP Transparency Act] and Anna Paulina Luna, and someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and [Senate minority leader] Chuck Schumer,” he says. “Only UAP could bring politicians with such divergent views together.

“Any effort in this area is inherently positive,” he says, adding that the studies and testimonies on the issue over the past few years had to push back against stigmatization of a topic that had held it back for decades.

“Even investigating represented a threat to academic and professional careers,” Gold says. “Now we’re seeing administration people coming it’s beginning to stretch credulity that something isn’t occurring.”

Of course, what exactly that is is where the real debate happens – and where national security fears still meet conspiracy theorists and believers in little green men.

UFO historian Greg Eghigian, author of After The Flying Saucers Came, says it is always crucial to view any release of documents in context of wider society. “We’ve been down this road before, particularly in the mid-1970s and mid-1990s when a lot of stuff came out.”

A CIA study found that over half UFO reports in the 1950s and 60s were in fact manned reconnaissance flights that “led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project’’.

The needs of the current political environment, Egharian says, “leaves me very reserved about how to take all this and what it’s going to add up to”.

But, amid all the fears of drones and foreign state actors, the hopes for aliens still linger on in popular culture and people are willing to put their money where their mouths are.

The prediction market site DuelBits Predict says the betting on where aliens will first make contact places New Mexico and Nevada and Arizona top because “they are the two most iconic locations in UFO folklore”. Polymarket finds there’s a 19% chance the government will confirm the existence of aliens before 2027.