Attribution: FBI The monochrome image, released by the Department of Defense on Friday, displays a background with a dense, speckled pattern and a central crosshair reticle. A dark, circular object is located at the bottom quadrant and right of center of the reticle.
President Donald Trump would like the American public to stop talking so much about skyrocketing gas prices, humanitarian disasters, governmental corruption, and his own incompetence—and instead focus on little green men,
Or, to be more precise, blurry and unclear photos that could maybe possibly (but not very likely) be little green men, or whatever color alien beings might be.
On Friday, the Department of Defense released files from the government’s archives of material related to unidentified anomalous phenomenon, commonly known by the outdated acronym UFOs. In its coverage of the release, The New York Times had to break from its generally credulous coverage of Trump, noting, “The initial files are murky still images that show what could be anything. In one, a cluster of dots appear on the screen. In another, there are some strangely shaped objects.”
This is not exactly the “truth” that the classic sci-fi TV series “The X-Files” told us was “out there.”
To be fair, the official government website releasing the blurry photos is designed like something out of “The X-Files.” Animated images and all-caps text promising to “begin the process of identifying and releasing government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life” would probably be too embarrassing for another administration, but it is just another day under Trump.
Further undermining the legitimacy of this conveniently timed campaign is the fact that the administration’s media allies at Fox News were given an advance look at the release. The network published its report on the disclosure as a “first on Fox” exclusive, meaning they were tipped to the content before other (more skeptical and independent) news outlets.
The UFO release is the latest in a series of headline-grabbing disclosures from the Trump administration. In March of last year, it released files on the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, and the following July, it released files on Martin Luther King Jr.
The administration’s willingness to release files on topics from many decades ago stands in contrast to its unwillingness to follow through on disclosing files related to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a former close friend of Trump. But after all, there aren’t any lewd notes between Trump and aliens like there seemingly were with Epstein. As far as the public knows, at least.
Millions of Americans are grappling with rising gas prices thanks to Trump’s attack on Iran, a conflict that Trump has been bungling since he started it just over two months ago. They’re paying more for products because of tariffs, losing access to healthcare, watching people die because vital foreign aid was cut off, and witnessing rampant corruption they weren’t doing was asking for blurry pictures of maybe aliens. But Trump delivered, and he wishes people would stop talking about all those other things.
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