Pentagon Releases Sixth UAP Document Batch, Includes Classified Program Files
The disclosure adds to a multi-year federal declassification effort mandated by Congress, but key details about program funding and scope remain withheld from public records.
The Pentagon released a sixth batch of documents on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) on Friday, September 18, 2026, including files related to a secretive military aerospace threat study program, according to CBS News. The release marks the latest installment in a series of federally mandated disclosures that have drawn sustained attention from both congressional oversight committees and the public.
The documents were made public by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The specific program referenced in this batch has not been fully identified by name in the publicly released materials, according to CBS News. What program or programs are described, and which appropriations accounts funded them, is not established by the current release.
Congressional pressure has been a driving factor behind each successive UAP document release. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022, passed by Congress and signed into law in December 2021, established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) within the Department of Defense and directed it to report to Congress on UAP incidents. Subsequent NDAA provisions have added declassification requirements.
The 2023 NDAA, signed into law in December 2022, further directed the Pentagon to make historical UAP records available to the public, modeled in part on the framework used for the declassification of John F. Kennedy assassination records. The legislative record for those provisions is available through Congress.gov.
Senators and House members on both sides of the aisle have participated in UAP oversight hearings. In July 2023, the House Oversight Committee held a public hearing at which three witnesses, including a former Navy pilot and a former intelligence official, provided testimony under oath. The hearing transcript is available through the House Oversight Committee's public records.
In 2024, the Senate Armed Services Committee included provisions in that year's NDAA directing AARO to produce a historical record report. AARO released a report in March 2024 concluding it had found no verifiable evidence that any U.S. Government program had recovered non-human technology. That report is publicly available on the AARO website.
Funding for AARO has been a recurring subject of congressional inquiry. The office's annual appropriations are embedded within the broader Defense Intelligence budget, portions of which remain classified. The dollar amounts allocated specifically to AARO have not been made fully public in unclassified budget documents reviewed by this publication.
The September 18 release does not, based on the CBS News account, include any new photographic or sensor data from military encounters with UAP. Whether such data was reviewed before the release and withheld, or was not part of the document set considered for this batch, is unknown. A Freedom of Information Act request to the Office of the Secretary of Defense would be the appropriate mechanism to establish what was reviewed and what was excluded.
The aerospace threat study program referenced in the Friday documents appears to be a historical program rather than a currently active one. Its budget, personnel count, duration, and reporting chain have not been confirmed in the released materials, according to CBS News.
This release follows five prior document batches. The cumulative scope of what has been declassified across all six releases, measured in total pages or total programs addressed, has not been publicly summarized by the Pentagon as of this publication's deadline. AARO's public website and its congressionally mandated reports would be the primary documentary sources for that accounting.
What remains unknown is the identity and full history of the aerospace program described in the Friday documents, the classified budget figures associated with it, and whether additional document batches are planned before the end of fiscal year 2026. The AARO legislative mandate and the Defense Department's declassification schedule, both of which are subject to congressional modification in the pending FY2027 NDAA, would govern the timing and scope of any future releases.