On February 19, 2026, the 45th and 47th President of the United States posted the following on Truth Social:
“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. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
This post is reproduced verbatim on war.gov/ufo as the founding directive of PURSUE. It is cited in the Department of War press release as the authority for the declassification programme. It is the legally operative presidential instruction.
The Language
Several elements of the directive are significant:
- “alien and extraterrestrial life” — Trump specifically named both. Not just UAP or UFO. The directive explicitly covers files related to extraterrestrial life as a category. This is a sitting US President directing the release of files about extraterrestrial life.
- “any and all other information connected” — The scope is maximally broad. This is not a narrow FOIA request or a limited declassification order. It covers anything connected to these topics.
- “highly complex, but extremely interesting and important” — Trump is not dismissing the topic as nonsense. He is acknowledging complexity and importance. “Important” in presidential context implies national security or strategic significance.
- “Based on the tremendous interest shown” — The public demand — from the 2023 congressional hearings, from Grusch’s testimony, from decades of FOIA campaigns — is explicitly cited as the motivation. The people asked; the President acted.
Eighty Days to Launch
From February 19 to May 8, 2026 is 78 days. In that time, the Department of War coordinated with ODNI, FBI, DOE, NASA, and “additional components of US intelligence agencies” to review, declassify and publish 161 files. The DoW describes this as “tens of millions of records” requiring review. The 161-file Release 01 is the first processed tranche of what will be a multi-year programme.
The Oracle Assessment
No US President has ever explicitly directed the release of files related to “alien and extraterrestrial life” by name. The directive is not classified. It is a public Truth Social post, reproduced on a .gov website, cited as the legal authority for a federal declassification programme. Whatever PURSUE ultimately reveals, the directive itself is a historical document. The US President has officially framed extraterrestrial life as a topic on which the government has files.
Source: Truth Social, @realDonaldTrump, February 19, 2026. war.gov/ufo. Department of War Press Release, May 8, 2026.