Is there anything new to learn from the ‘alien files’?
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
The DoD report, coming on President Trump’s orders, is another step towards the federal government taking the question of UAPs more seriously. But how much of this is really new – and what more can we learn from the files?
Astrophysicist Adam Frank of the University of Rochester, who’s involved in the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, weighs in on this new trove of ‘alien files.’
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's consider this, where every day we go deep on one big news story. |
| 0:04.9 | Today, what is in a trove of government files related to unidentified anomalous phenomena? |
| 0:10.3 | That is the new term for what we used to call UFOs. |
| 0:13.8 | Now, a few decades ago, flying saucers and UFOs were the sort of thing you would see relegated to the tabloids, but in 2023, that changed. |
| 0:21.3 | We were primarily seeing dark gray or black cubes inside of a clear sphere. |
| 0:25.5 | I'm sorry, dark gray or black cubes? |
| 0:28.3 | Yes, inside of a clear sphere. |
| 0:30.1 | The House Subcommittee on National Security, the border, and foreign affairs called a hearing on UAPs |
| 0:36.6 | and invited witnesses like former Navy fighter pilot Ryan Graves, |
| 0:40.6 | who you heard there being questioned by Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin. |
| 0:44.8 | Retired Air Force intelligence officer David Grush made some pretty explosive allegations about crashed alien spacecraft to South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace. |
| 0:55.0 | If you believe we have crashed craft stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots |
| 1:00.2 | who piloted this craft? |
| 1:02.3 | As I've stated publicly already in my news nation interview, biologics came with some of these |
| 1:07.2 | recoveries. |
| 1:08.0 | Yeah. |
| 1:10.5 | Were they, I guess, human or non-human biologics? |
| 1:14.6 | Non-human, and that was the... |
| 1:15.9 | Fast forward to this year. |
| 1:17.0 | President Trump ordered the Defense Department to start releasing the government's files |
| 1:21.2 | on alien and extraterrestrial life. |
| 1:24.1 | Anything having to do with UFO or related material. |
... |
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