Was it a UFO? That’s what some people were left wondering in parts of southern British Columbia late Thursday after a strange object appeared in the evening sky.
It turned out to be the exhaust plume from a SpaceX rocket
But that same night, U.S. president Donald Trump offered UFO enthusiasts a sight to truly behold. In a post on Truth Social, he wrote that he’ll be directing the Pentagon and other U.S. government agencies to find and release files related to aliens and UFOs – these days known as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs.
“A lot of UFO fans are really excited. This is what they’ve been waiting for,” said Chris Rutowski, a Winnipeg-based UFO researcher who called it “Christmas” for enthusiasts who think they’ll be getting all the documents.
However, Rutkowski is skeptical, given Trump did not offer up specifics or a timeline.
“It’s sort of a very soft suggestion that he’s going to start the process.”
That process is taking place in part because of something another U.S. president said that grabbed headlines last weekend.
While being interviewed on a podcast during a lightning round of questions, Barack Obama was asked if aliens are real.
“They’re real,” said America’s 44th president. “But I haven’t seen them and they’re not being kept in Area 51. There’s no underground facility.”
Obama later clarified on Instagram that he meant the universe is so vast, it very likely contains other life – but said he saw no evidence of extraterrestrial contact during his presidency.
While being interviewed on Air Force One on Thursday, Trump claimed Obama had revealed classified information, then hours later, put out his Truth Social post.
The U.S. government has released more information about UAPs in recent years and there have been U.S. congressional hearings on the matter. In a 2024 report, the Pentagon said it had found no evidence of aliens or extraterrestrial technology.
Still, Canada’s leading UFO researcher believes there’s plenty of information about sightings being kept from the public.
“There will be quite a lot more information that has to be released,” said Rutkowski. “If this statement from Trump leads to that, that would be interesting, but I think we have to wait and see.”
He wonders if some detections of UAPs have been made using classified instruments in war zones, which would be a reason to keep the details private.
Rutkowski thinks Canada has actually been much more transparent about UAPs compared to the U.S. He cited the example of the balloons that were shot down over the North in 2023.
Rutkowski also says there are hundreds of pages of documentation from the Canadian military about it, but “not a single document” from the U.S.
“So perhaps we’ll finally find out what the Americans did, since it was their fighter jets that shot these down,” he said. “Or maybe we won’t. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Rutkowski thinks Trump may just be trying to deflect attention away from other matters, including the ongoing controversy around the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
“Some people have said this was going to be a distraction from some other files he doesn’t want to release,” Rutkowski said. “But a lot of people who are really interested in UFOs, and the subject of aliens in general, are really hoping that this will be a watershed moment.”
