Before the Trump administration released its UFO documents Friday, podcaster Joe Rogan suggested the anticipated release could be a “distraction” tactic.

”The Iran war is not going very well. The American public is very upset. A lot of people don’t think we should have ever been involved in that in the first place, and we need some good news. I think we need something to distract us,” Rogan said on his podcast Thursday.

Rogan was joined by Representative Tim Burchett, who replied, “If I was gonna do it, now would be the time I’d do it.”

The FBI interviewed two witnesses in September 2023 who described unusual sightings.

One of these witnesses said they saw a “bright light” at a U.S. test site, according to an FBI report.

“The light was stationary in the air, then started moving to the right and then disappeared … The light was bright white and was visible for ten seconds before it disappeared,” the report says.

In a separate incident that same month, an individual told the FBI they saw a “cigar shaped object with an extremely bright light.”

“The object was almost hovering, slowly moving from east to west. The light was an intense diamond white light with what appeared to be a ring around the light and was located on the eastern end of the object,” the FBI report says.

President Donald Trump called on Americans to “have fun and enjoy” the newly released UFO files.

“As for my promise to you, the Department of War has released the first tranche of the UFO/UAP files to the Public for their review and study,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

He added: “In an effort for Complete and Maximum Transparency, it was my Honor to direct my Administration to identify and provide Government files related to Alien and Extraterrestrial Life, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and Unidentified Flying Objects. Whereas previous Administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’ Have Fun and Enjoy!”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Friday’s file release “is the first in what will be an ongoing joint declassification and release effort.”

“The American people have long sought transparency about the government’s knowledge of unidentified aerial phenomena,” she wrote on X.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is actively coordinating the Intelligence Community’s declassification efforts with the Department of War to ensure a careful, comprehensive, and unprecedented review of our holdings to provide the American people with maximum transparency.”

The Defense Department included several videos in its UFO files release.

The Defense Department released “never-before-seen” files related to UFOs on Friday — a move that has been anticipated for months.

The order came just days after former President Barack Obama told podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen that aliens are “real,” but that he hadn’t seen them. Obama later clarified his comments, claiming he saw “no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us.”

A group of Republican lawmakers has also been pushing for the files’ release. This includes Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who called Friday’s release a “massive first step in the right direction.”

The Defense Department released the FBI’s case file on UFOs and flying discs documented between 1947 and 1968.

The file includes a number of reports from people claiming to know about UFOs or extraterrestrials.

One report described how a young woman went to the FBI’s Dallas Field Office in October 1967 and claimed she received “a quantity of information concerning beings from outer space.” She refused to give her name because she would “feel like a fool if this information is not true,” the report said.

It also included letters from people inquiring about extraterrestrials, including one from a man who claimed to have read a report that the FBI “captured a saucer occupant” and wanted to know if it was true.

The FBI also received a handwritten letter from a Virginia man who asked the agency to comment on an image of a figure holding its hands up and looking toward the sky.

The Defense Department’s newly released UFO files include pictures of unexplained phenomena taken in recent months.

This includes a photo of an “unidentified object” spotted over the western U.S. in September 2025. Another “unidentified object” was spotted in the same region in December.

Former GOP congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has once again lashed out at the Trump administration over its release of the UFO files.

“The most transparent administration in history still hasn’t released all the Epstein files or arrested anyone, but rolled out some UFO files today so you would get so excited that you forgot you are paying over $4.50/gallon because they are fighting another foreign war they said they would no longer fight,” she wrote on X.

Earlier Friday, Greene said she doesn’t care about the newly released files.

“I really don’t care about the UFO files. I just don’t. I’m so sick of the ‘look at the shiny object’ propaganda while they wage foreign wars, let rapist and pedophiles run free, and ruin the value of our dollar,” she wrote.

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon, described three strange sightings from the mission during a crew debriefing, according to documents released as part of the Defense Department’s UFO files.

“The first unusual thing that we saw I guess was one day out or something pretty close to the moon. It had a sizeable dimension to it, so we put the monocular on it,” Aldrin said.

Another observation included “little flashes” inside the cabin.

“The other observation that I made accumulated gradually. I don’t know whether I saw it the first night, but I’m sure I saw it the second night. I was trying to go to sleep with all the lights out. I observed what I thought were little flashes inside the cabin, spaced a couple of minutes apart,” he said.

He also saw a “fairly bright light.”

“I observed what appeared to be a fairly bright light source which we tentatively ascribed to a possible laser,” Aldrin explained.