Apollo 12 crew described seeing mysterious ‘streaks of lights’: What second tranche of Pentagon UFO files reveals | Today’s news
The Pentagon on Friday (local time) released its second tranche of declassified UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) files, including audio from the Apollo 12 crew describing how they once saw mysterious “streaks of light” while trying to sleep in deep space.
The New York Post reported that audio from a 1969 medical examination captured astronauts, including Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon and Alan Bean, detailing how they experienced bizarre flashes despite their eyes being closed.
According to the report, “each of the astronauts reported that these experiences occurred in the dark while they were trying to sleep.”
A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) medical team later stated that the unusual phenomenon observed by the Apollo 12 crew was likely related to the astronauts’ visual responses rather than any external light source.
Read also | US releases secret UFO files, releases images as early as 2026
Pentagon releases UFO files
The 222 files released Friday were part of a second series of documents posted on a dedicated War Department UFO website. The first tranche of documents was released on May 8 after US President Donald Trump ordered the release of government reports on UFOs.
According to a statement from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: “The Department of War is working closely with President Trump to bring unprecedented transparency to our government’s understanding of unidentified anomalous phenomena. These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled legitimate speculation — and it’s time for the American people to see for themselves. This release of declassified documents demonstrates an unprecedented serious commitment by the Trump administration.”
In one of the newly released files, 116 pages of documentation were linked to a series of alleged sightings and probes at the top-secret facility at Sandia, New Mexico, between 1948 and 1950. The Department of Defense said: “This file contains 209 sightings of ‘green balls’, ‘discs’ and ‘fireballs’ reported near the military sphere.”
Read also | US has recovered ‘4 extraterrestrial species’ from crashed UFOs, claims former CIA-linked physicist
The Pentagon has reportedly worked for years to declassify documents related to UFOs. Hegseth said documents, photos and videos of what are officially known as “unidentified anomalous phenomena” have long fueled speculation.
“It’s time for the American people to see this for themselves,” he said in a statement.
What did the first batch contain?
According to a Reuters report, experts said the first batch contained new videos of known sightings but did not provide any conclusive evidence of alien technology or extraterrestrial life. The first tranche, which included 160 files, contained new videos of known sightings.
The first tranche included a report on “flying discs” from 1947, as well as grainy photographs of “unidentified phenomena” taken from the lunar surface during the Apollo 12 lunar mission in 1969, and a transcript by the Apollo 17 crew describing unidentified objects seen from the Moon in 1972.
According to the transcript, Apollo 17 pilot Ronald Evans reported “some very bright particles or debris or something passing by as we maneuver.”
Trump administration releases UFO files
A sitting US president is the last president to release government reports on UFOs, a disclosure process that originally began in the late 1970s. In early February, Trump said he had ordered his administration to release files on UFOs and any “extraterrestrial and extraterrestrial life,” an issue that has drawn decades of public fascination and spawned more than a few wild theories, CBS News reported.
In a Truth Social post in February, Trump told Hegseth and other agency heads to “begin the process of identifying and releasing” all relevant files.
The US president’s announcement came days after one of his predecessors, former President Barack Obama, attracted attention when he suggested in a podcast that extraterrestrial life might exist. However, Obama later clarified that during his presidency he had never encountered any evidence of contact between humans and extraterrestrial life forms. He explained that his belief in the possibility of extraterrestrial life is largely based on the vast scale of the universe, which makes the existence of life elsewhere statistically plausible.
Read also | Obama Claims Aliens Are ‘Real’ – Are They Held at Area 51? What Ex US Prez Said
Critics lash out at UFO revelations
Several critics have criticized the Trump administration’s UFO disclosures as a distraction from his policy issues, including the recent US military campaign against Iran and increased public pressure to release files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
