Sec. War : "We’ve got our people working on it right now"

In recent days, many figures in American politics and government have responded to the Trump-Obama exchange on the presence of extraterrestrials on Earth and UFOs.

Official portrait

DNI Tulsi Gabbard

Responding to Donald Trump’s call, previously reported by Sentinel News, the office of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard stated:

On Day One of his presidency, The President Of The United States promised to deliver accountability through transparency by declassifying long-withheld government secrets and evidence of wrongdoing to restore trust in our federal agencies. Half a million documents declassified in year one alone.
-JFK
-RFK
-MLK
-Amelia Earhart
-Russia hoax
-Weaponization

And soon, files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, UAPs, and UFOs.

Sec. War. Pete Hegseth

In an interview given shortly thereafter on February 24, 2026, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stated:

We’ve got our people working on it right now. I don’t want to oversell how much time it will take. We’re digging in. We’re going to be in full compliance with that executive order, eager to provide that for the president. So there’ll be more coming on that as far as the process of what we’ll do.

These remarks by senior officials in the Trump administration show the effect his statement has had. Politicians were not to be outdone.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz

Representative Jared Moskowitz directly accused the administration of lying:

I believe that the American government is lying to the American people about these UAPs. And we’re not getting the information that I think they have.

However, he expressed doubts about Trump’s ability to declassify this information:

I do think the president could declassify a lot of documents. I think he could clear up a lot of stuff. Will he do it? I don’t know. You know, we’ll have to see.

When asked about the existence of evidence of UFOs and programs to recover crashed craft, he stated:

There’s plenty of video evidence. There’s plenty of documentary evidence. The real question is, are they ours? Are they adversaries? Are they private companies? Is it technology that was found here that we’ve reverse engineered?

These are a lot of questions that get asked. Okay, I have sat with, you know, multiple people from the military, former pilots, former folks, high ranking individuals in our military. And I will tell you, they have witnessed this stuff first hand, Brian.

These are folks from some of the best, you know, universities, some of our best, you know, military education institutions. These are reputable people who said, I saw it. It defied gravity. It didn’t move in ways that we can possibly understand. We have physicists that we’ve interviewed that have been involved.

There’s evidence that the Russians, the Chinese, and the Americans all have crash retrieval programs. There’s documents that go back decades and decades and decades that those three countries have crash retrieval programs.

Regarding the mechanisms that prevented this information from reaching the public, and how the programs were able to evade congressional oversight, he stated:

In one of the hearings, one of the pilots talked to us about how he had to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

They’ve kept it from us, and when we asked questions, they tried to stop us, when we’ve tried to put language into bills about disclosure, there are people from government coming down to talk to the HIPSC committee and go down to the Armed Services and tried to stop that stuff.

The way it’s getting paid for, right, is if you look at the Pentagon, who hadn’t passed an audit in forever, right, and how things cost an exorbitant amount of money in government procurement, what folks that have looked at this is saying is that they’re overcharging for certain programs and misappropriating those funds.

One of Representative Moskowitz’s most interesting remarks was the following:

I think you’ll see maybe this week, a bunch of us in Congress doing a press conference on a bipartisan basis to try to talk about more disclosure, more information, to take the president’s words, and say, okay now, let’s take that into action, let’s get some of these documents out of the Pentagon, out of the Defense Department, let’s get some of these documents out and let’s get them released to the American people.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna

The Florida State Representative and former Airfield Management Specialist in the Air Force elaborated on this in her interview with Fox News.

When asked about the evidence of “interdimensional beings here on Earth” that the elected official may have seen, she replied:

I think that a good example would be some of the photo visual evidence that we’ve seen directly in some of these classified briefings that will now be made public.

Indeed, US elected officials, particularly those on the committee for declassifying federal secrets, led by Representative Luna, attended classified briefings by various US government agencies. As Luna mentioned, this executive order would provide an opportunity to obtain these briefings. Regarding their content, the Representative stated:

there have been briefings that we’ve received as Congress that leads us to believe that, yes, there is definitely an advanced technology out there that’s not created by mankind.

Based on our interviews that we’ve conducted, not just in person but also to given some of the testimony that we’ve received, we do have reason to believe that this tech is not created by mankind.

However, she pointed out that during her investigation, she had encountered obstacles from the federal government:

I think the whole aspect that the federal government can deny access to members of Congress of which has happened not just to myself, but to other members of Congress as well is not just alarming. But it’s also something that cannot truly exist in free and fair society, government should not operate in secrecy.

And so I look forward to the American people being able to determine their own conclusion after they’ve seen some of the evidence that we’ve seen. But most recently, Representative Gates actually came forward, he was on that initial codel with me and Representative Tim Burchett, where we were denied access.

And he will tell you that if you’ve seen some of the stuff that we’ve seen, you will too become a believer.

She emphasized, regarding threats and reprisals against whistleblowers:

When you have unelected bureaucrats denying access to members of government that are supposed to oversee and write the checks for that federal spending, and then we’re also getting reports that there are people being threatened, whether it be physically, whether there have been, you know, interesting deaths associated with people that have been coming forward as whistleblowers, which has been brought up in some of the testimony that we’ve received.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw

Representative Crenshaw expressed agreement with his colleagues, stating:

There is plenty of evidence of this anomalous behavior that we cannot explain.

The attributes of some of these craft, they defy the laws of physics.

We have evidence of anomalous behaviour.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam

Even Rep. Subramanyam, who is often highly critical of Donald Trump’s policies, said in an interview:

I support him releasing files on UFOs and aliens and what we have, I think the American people deserve to know what’s going on...

Jay Stratton

Former head of the UAPTF Jay Stratton, declared:

President Trump’s annouvement is a landmark occasion for us all. After Years of fighting for disclosure behind the scenes, I couldn’t be prouder to be a part of this turning point in human history. Congratulations and thank you to Dan Farah for making the truly groundbreaking film, The Age Of Disclosure. Less than three months after the film’s release, two U.S. Presidents acknowledge non-human intelligent life exists and President Trump has issued an historic disclosure order. We are all living in the Age of Disclosure. There will be more watershed moments and issues to face ahead, but I hope all of humanity celebrates this moment.

Lue Elizondo

In an interview with Chris Cuomo, Lue Elizondo stated :

there are individuals currently right now in the administration that are very keen in trying to get to the bottom of this

And added regarding the drones that flew over US bases and New Jersey:

at no time were we able to get or identify or retrieve a single drone

Christopher Mellon

Christopher Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and now chairman of the Disclosure Foundation, also offered a cautious comment:

To the extent they follow through, this is an enormously positive development, and I commend the Administration for taking this step.

That said, virtually all relevant documents are classified, and identifying and declassifying them will be a lengthy, complex process. My concern is that an executive branch effort, if snarled in turf fights and classification nuances, could end up being misleadingly partial or incomplete, as we’ve seen recently with other unrelated disclosure efforts.

I’d encourage Congress to support the Administration’s intent by enacting a legislative framework that concretely structures, authorizes, and directs a comprehensive disclosure process, both to encourage and to help the Trump Administration actually get this done.

Ryan Graves

Ryan Graves, Executive Director of Americans for Safe Aerospace, stated :

Transparency serves both aviation safety and the public interest, our pilots need clear guidance on reporting procedures and assurance that their reports will be taken seriously. The public deserves to understand what is operating in our skies. Release of government information could help establish the baseline knowledge necessary for proper safety protocols, research into the origin and behavior of these craft, and informed public awareness.

Aldo Rebelo

Although international media coverage was intense, few officials or elected representatives from other countries took a stance following these statements. One of the few to speak out was Aldo Rebelo:

In my capacity as former Minister of Defense, I am compelled to speak on this topic. I know what the Armed Forces have in their archives. What I can say is that if the U.S. government reveals its documents, I will do the same if elected President of Brazil.

Jennice Vilhauer Ph.D.

Among the media coverage, one piece was particularly interesting. Dr. Vilhauer states in her article for Psychology Today:

disclosure is not just about evidence.

When information challenges basic assumptions about reality, institutional knowledge, or mankind’s place in the universe, it carries significant emotional weight.

As such, disclosure is a psychological event, with real human impact.

For decades, interest in UAPs was culturally seen as fringe or suspect. People who reported sightings risked ridicule or professional harm. When the United States Government acknowledges UAPs in formal government proceedings and orders the Pentagon to release UAP information from all relevant agencies, the boundaries shift. Political scientists call this, movement in the “Overton window”—the range of ideas considered legitimate for public discussion.

When a topic moves from one that is mocked to one treated legitimately in government institutions, stigma decreases, and that matters psychologically. When stigma drops, more people engage openly, more people reconsider prior assumptions, and more people allow the topic into conscious reflection instead of automatically dismissing it.

It moves the needle on the subject from suspect to something we must take seriously, particularly in the world of mental health.

Sentinel News will follow developments in its next article.