What are UFO hunters really searching for?
The Global Story
BBC
3.8 • 666 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump has promised to release government files on UFOs and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, telling a crowd at Turning Point USA this month, “ we found many very interesting documents”.
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance has said he is “obsessed” with the search for aliens, which he believes are demons, rather than innocuous little green men. Their comments follow a slew of congressional hearings about the subject in recent years, as well as pronouncements from other political figures, such as Barack Obama.
Why has the search for extra-terrestrial life – a fascination that began in the 1940s in the US – become mainstream again? What deeper meaning are people seeking when they look to the skies?
Daniel Lavelle, an award-winning British journalist, set out on a road trip across the States to answer these questions for his forthcoming book, Chasing Aliens: Conspiracy in the UFO Heartlands, and he joins Tristan on today’s episode.
Producer: Hannah Moore
Executive producer: James Shield
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: Meteors in the night sky. Credit: Georgi Licovski/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On Saturday, President Donald Trump spoke at a turning point USA event in Washington, D.C. |
| 0:13.0 | And he said that his government would be releasing, quote, interesting documents about UFOs. |
| 0:20.2 | And the first releases will begin very, very soon, so you can go out and see if that phenomena |
| 0:25.6 | is correct, you'll figure it out. Let me know. |
| 0:27.6 | A US president taking UFOs seriously. |
| 0:32.6 | Maybe the only surprising thing about that is that it's not that surprising, because it's not just Donald Trump. |
| 0:40.9 | When I came in, I was obsessed with the UFO files. |
| 0:44.1 | Here's the vice president, J.D. Vance, on the Benny Johnson Show a few weeks ago. |
| 0:49.2 | I don't think they're aliens. I think they're demons anyway, but that's a longer discussion. |
| 0:53.4 | Barack Obama, speaking to podcaster Brian Taylor Cohen. |
| 0:57.6 | Are aliens real? |
| 0:59.7 | They're real, but I haven't seen them. |
| 1:02.8 | And there've been multiple hearings in actual Congress in the last few years about UFOs. |
| 1:09.1 | Long story short, you're not a crank if you're talking about this stuff these days. |
| 1:14.0 | Is that because there's actually something new and compelling in terms of evidence? |
| 1:19.3 | Or is something else going on? |
| 1:22.2 | From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redmond in London. |
| 1:26.6 | And today on The Global Story, what's the search for aliens and UFOs really about? |
| 1:40.6 | Well, it's interesting because I had no interest in aliens and UFOs at all before setting off across the States. |
| 1:50.1 | Danny Lavelle is a journalist from Manchester in the UK. |
| 1:53.2 | He's won awards for his writing about social care and homelessness for publications like The Guardian. |
| 1:58.9 | But a few years ago, he decided he needed to change. |
... |
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