Name: Astrophysicist, cosmologist on Trump’s promise to release UFO files
Uploaded: 2026-02-21T23:02:01.000Z
Duration: 9 min 55 s
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The Pentagon says it will work with other agencies to fulfill President Trump's directive to release files related to extraterrestrial life and unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs.

Now, this comes after the president gave the directive on his social media.

Let's bring in Avi Loeb, astrophysicist and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at Harvard University and the author of the First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.

What challenges do you see in declass classifying information relating to extraterrestrial life and UAPs?

The material that is currently classified could be classified in order for adversarial nations not to be aware of the level, the quality of the data that we collect in defending the nation.

And as a result of that, even if it deals with objects that have nothing to do with our adversaries, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies might be reluctant to share it.

There could be another reason that both the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies are unable to identify some objects, and

they do not want to admit that they're not doing their job.

And so they don't want to face scrutiny on the.

For example, we all know about the story of the Chinese spy balloon that was not identified for a while.

And so for a variety of reasons, some of this data is under wraps and difficult to declassify.

However, my point is that anything to do with what happened 50 years ago is irrelevant to the battlefield today.

So the technologies that humans employed back then are very much inferior to what we are using now.

And therefore, that kind of data should be released and shared with scientists so we can help government figure it out.

Because there is a remote chance that maybe there was evidence for technologies that originated beyond this earth.

And you know, Avi, this is a topic that so many people find fascinating for one reason or another.

And I almost have to ask here, should we temper our expectations?

Because I'm sure people are expecting to find out some sort of shocking information once this is all released.

Well, it all depends on what the government holds secret.

I haven't been exposed to that evidence, but

there are people that either serve within government or military personnel told us that there is something really unusual that we haven't seen.

And so in that sense, I'm very curious to figure it out.

I think there is something out there, and

that's the reason that the former President Obama talked about it and the current President Trump initiated this release.

It means that it's quite likely that there are people within government that just don't know what to make of it.

And in that case, perhaps it indicates something really unusual and it will open a new age of disclosure that potentially would lead to the next Copernican revolution where, you know, right now we know we are not at the center of the universe, but

we still think that we are at the top of the food chain of the Milky Way galaxy, and

we might find out that there is actually a more accomplished sibling of our family of intelligent civilizations out there.

Avi, do you think the Pentagon will actually put out all the information it has about extraterrestrial life?

Or in your opinion, what information do you think they can safely put out so the public can digest?

They can safely disclose information that is beyond any doubt unrelated to human made technologies.

If you see an object behaving in ways that are well outside the performance envelope of existing human technologies, that should be released.

If you see something accelerating, you know, an unprecedented rate or moving at very high speed, you know, that cannot be done by our equipment.

And we know pretty much what adversarial nations are using.

So that is the kind of data that should be shared and also data from a long time ago that is not relevant to the present day battlefield.

So I do feel that there is a lot for them to consider, and

I would be happy to either help Congress analyze that kind of evidence or perhaps collaborate with people at the Pentagon that, for example, at the office that was established, established there, the old Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, to analyze such anomalies.

All right, Avi, I have to ask about this.

So what kind of information have you seen in regards to intelligent alien life through all of your work in this topic?

Yeah, I haven't seen any conclusive evidence, but

we really did not fund any substantive research in this direction.

And, you know, right now the mainstream of the astronomy community is willing to allocate more than $10 billion in the search for microbes, looking for the chemical fingerprints of microbes in the atmospheres of planets around other stars.

But I argue that we should allocate similar funds to the search for technological signatures because they might be easier to detect even if microbes are far more abundant.

And I think it's a matter of common sense to imagine, especially if you read the news every day, you realize there could be a smarter kid on the block.

Thank you so much for your time today on 24.

Let's bring in new CBS News contributor Janet Levin.

Jana is a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University.

So what do we know about extraterrestrial life?

Well, astronomers are very excited about this prospect.

Actually, if you look even in the environment just around the Earth, there are thousands of other planets.

If we look in our own solar system, we're the only example of a planet that's really harboring, teeming with life.

And so I think the big debate is how rare.

And also, if you look at technological species like us who are manipulating their environment and actually exploring space, we're kind of precarious, Right?

We're having very negative impact in many ways on our planet.

It's not clear that technologically advanced civilizations will survive and survive long enough to go visit other planets.

So when you, when we're talking about extraterrestrial life, are we talking about little green men running around or not so much?

So scientifically, we're really interested in microbes.

We're really hoping to see the beginnings of life even before multicellularity.

I mean, we want to be open to the possibility that there's other civilizations that also want to explore space.

But the first port is really just to see the simplest organisms.

My dream is there's a little rocky out there.

Fans of Hail Mary will know what I'm talking about.

All right, so when these files are released, what will you be looking for?

Well, obviously, if there's anything in them, it would be really thrilling if there are claims of actual technologies from other civilizations.

I don't think anyone's really expecting that scientifically.

I think if you're expecting that, you're going to be disappointed.

But I don't know, maybe something was carried here on a natural object that plunged to Earth from our solar system.

It is conceivable that, that they could transport microbes that originated somewhere else in the galaxy.

So what you're saying is when these files are released, I'm not going to be able to understand them.

I'm going to need you to come here and translate them.