The federal government possesses satellite photographs and video footage of craft that do not appear to be human-made, according to a former deputy assistant secretary of defense intelligence who says he has personally reviewed some of the material.
Christopher Mellon told The New York Post that the trove of UFO-related documents held across multiple federal agencies "is massive," including what he described as "stunning photos and videos."
The revelation adds significant weight to President Trump's order, issued two weeks ago, directing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to release "files related to" aliens, UFOs, and "all other information connected to" what Trump called the "highly complex" subject matter in a Truth Social post.
No official word has emerged on what exactly will be released, or when. But Mellon's account suggests the government's vault goes far beyond the handful of grainy clips that have trickled out over the past decade.
Mellon, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense intelligence during the Clinton and Bush administrations, laid out a picture of a bureaucracy hoarding material it has no legitimate reason to hide.
He described "clear satellite photos of craft in space above the Earth that are obviously not manmade" and pointed to files scattered across a sprawling list of agencies:
Mellon is not a fringe figure speculating from the outside. He played a key role in the 2017 release of three now-famous US military radar images of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, known as the "Tic Tac," "GOFAST," and "Gimbal" recordings. Those clips, captured by gun cameras on F-18s, forced a reluctant Pentagon to acknowledge publicly that its pilots were encountering objects it could not explain.
But Mellon says those three clips were just the beginning. He told The Post that a significant number of additional videos from the same sources were judged unclassified in 2018 and have been withheld from the public anyway:
"There's a significant number of videos from the same sources that were judged unclassified in 2018 — gun cameras on F18s, [Forward Looking Infrared Radar] videos — that have been withheld from the public."
When pressed on how he could be certain, Mellon was direct:
"I know there are because I've seen some of them."
He offered no national security rationale for the suppression, and openly challenged anyone else to produce one:
"And there's no rational reason that I can think of why those videos are being withheld."
Ordering a release is one thing. Getting the permanent government to comply is another. Mellon clearly understands this, and he was not optimistic about the timeline:
"I have a feeling bureaucracy is going to react slowly and I don't think they're gonna put the best stuff out quickly, if they do at all."
He called the kind of proactive transparency the order demands an "unnatural act" for the agencies involved. That phrase deserves a moment's consideration. A former senior Pentagon official is telling the American public, plainly, that the institutions charged with serving them treat basic honesty as something foreign to their nature.
This is the core tension in the UFO disclosure story, and it extends well beyond UFOs. The same federal bureaucracy that resists transparency on aerial phenomena resists transparency on everything.
Classification becomes a reflex, not a judgment. Information marked unclassified in 2018 still hasn't reached the public in 2026. Nobody is fired. Nobody is held accountable. The machinery simply doesn't move unless someone forces it.
Mellon's prescription was pointed:
"Congressional vigilance is needed to ensure a thorough and effective process."
This is not the first attempt to pry the files loose through official channels. In 2023, Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota and senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced the UAP Disclosure Act alongside Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The bipartisan effort signaled that the appetite for transparency crossed party lines, but legislative momentum alone proved insufficient to crack the bureaucratic vault.
Rounds is now hoping Trump's executive order succeeds where legislation stalled. He framed his expectations in characteristically measured terms:
"As much disclosure as we can get with regard to just being honest to the American people about what we see that we either don't know about or that we're learning about."
He added a necessary caveat about protecting intelligence-gathering methods:
"And I just want to make sure that whatever we put out, we do not impact our own national security capabilities."
That's the right balance. Disclosure and security are not mutually exclusive. The question is whether the agencies tasked with executing this order will use national security as a genuine guardrail or as a convenient excuse to keep the vault sealed.
The images Mellon describes, satellite photographs of non-human craft above the Earth, would represent the most significant government disclosure in modern history if released.
Former CIA director and ex-director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe referenced similar imagery in a 2021 Fox News interview, suggesting that awareness of this material reaches the highest levels of the intelligence community.
The pattern is familiar. Officials who have seen the evidence speak openly about its extraordinary nature. Agencies that hold the evidence treat every disclosure request like a siege. The public is left to reconcile confident testimony from credible insiders with an institutional silence that borders on contempt.
Trump's order changes the dynamic because it comes with executive authority, not just legislative aspiration. Hegseth's Department of War sits at the center of the agencies involved. The question is no longer whether the files exist. Mellon has told us they do, described what they contain, and confirmed he has personally viewed some of the withheld material.
The question is whether the federal government will obey its own president. Given its recent track record, congressional vigilance isn't just advisable. It's essential.
