President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rarely agree, but Trump's decision to unveil government documents on UFOs is a passion project of Schumer's years in the making. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Trump, spurred by former President Barack Obama saying on a podcast that there was alien life — then walking it back shortly after — ordered Secretary of War Pete Hegseth late Thursday night to dump the government’s files on extraterrestrials.
"Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War and other relevant Departments and 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, matters," Trump said on Truth Social.
The timeline for release of the documents and the breadth and scope of materials that could become public were unclear, but chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told Fox News Digital in a statement, "The Department looks forward to working with the interagency to fulfill the President’s directive."
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., left, and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., right, listen to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., speak during a press conference on Capitol Hill Feb. 24, 2010. (Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
He and Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., introduced legislation modeled after the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
That bill, meant to be an amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), would have created a review board at the National Archives and Records Administration to collect the government’s trove of documents on UFOs and UAPs and established a presumption of disclosure for the records, requiring the government to provide a compelling reason why they shouldn’t be released to the public.
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Ultimately, their original version did not pass muster, and a more watered-down iteration of the bill became law — an outcome Schumer blasted as an "outrage" at the time.
"It means that declassification of UAP records will be largely up to the same entities that have blocked and obfuscated their disclosure for decades," Schumer said.
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-schumer-find-rare-common-ground-releasing-ufo-files