Transcription
The United States government is in possession of “intact and partially intact” non-human craft - and the remains of the pilots who flew them. This isn't a conspiracy theory. It’s testimony given under oath to the U.S. Congress.
But if the U.S. is hiding the ultimate secret, why are nations across the globe suddenly breaking their silence? I’m Josh, and on today’s episode of The Infographics Show, we’ll be asking what do governments know about aliens?
The wall of silence surrounding aliens wasn’t just cracked in February 2026. It had been shattered. Barack Obama appeared on a podcast and was asked about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The former President dropped a line that went viral within minutes: “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them”. 7 words that changed everything.
He clarified that there is no massive underground facility in Area 51, suggesting that any "enormous conspiracy" would have had to be hidden even from the President. While Obama later backtracked on social media - citing the vastness of the universe and a lack of contact during his own term - the damage to the ‘secret’ had been done. Just days later, President Trump fired back publicly accusing Barack Obama of leaking classified information. But what happened next caught Washington, and the world, off guard. In a dramatic escalation, Trump announced a sweeping declassification effort, promising to release a massive trove of government files to the public.
But while the politicians argued, one man was already trying to burn the whole system down. David Grusch wasn’t a household name. But in 2023, the former US Air Force officer and intelligence official took advantage of new whistleblower protections to tell Congress that the U.S. has been aware of “non-human” activity since the 1930s.
In June 2023, an article detailing claims by Grusch of an elaborate government conspiracy regarding aliens started to circulate. Many of the claims were unverified, so top outlets initially refused to publish it. Grusch’s claims were explosive - that the government not only had a program investigating UAPs, but that it had a top-secret retrieval program - including any non-human pilots. According to Grusch, the government wasn’t afraid to commit crimes to cover up these truths, with both white-collar crime and murder being on the table. It was the secret the government wanted to keep hidden.
Grusch’s story got wilder when he spoke to a French newspaper. He suggested the UAPs might come from other dimensions and some were as large as a football field. He added that there was evidence of aggressive and hostile activity by the aliens - as well as that the crashed UAPs had been transferred to defense contractors for research. The uproar grew so intense that Grusch would be called before the US Congress a month later. There, he repeated and elaborated on his claims - stating that the US had “non-human biologics” in its custody, although he didn’t specify if they were alive or dead.
The controversy sparked calls for a formal organization to investigate these astonishing reports. But the government didn't need to create a new office to investigate these claims. Because it already exists. It’s called the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO... and it's tucked away inside the Department of Defense. On paper, this agency exists to investigate UFO sightings. In reality, it acts as a gatekeeper.
Every year, thousands of reports flood in - more than 2,000 in just the first half of 2025 in the United States alone. The agency’s first job isn’t to prove aliens… it’s to filter. And most cases don’t survive that filter. Wildlife mistaken for craft. Weather balloons drifting off course. Commercial and military aircraft. Even strange but explainable local phenomena. Case after case gets ruled out. Only about 2 to 5% of sightings remain unexplained. That tiny fraction is where things get interesting. Because that’s what this agency is really built for. And unlike any version before it, this one has access to technology and intelligence capabilities its predecessors never had. The question is… what are they actually finding?
The official line from AARO is that they have no empirical evidence of extraterrestrials. Or is that what they want people to believe? UAP believers are quick to assume that this agency is continuing an elaborate cover-up that’s been going on for decades. Meanwhile, skeptics assume Grusch is simply a rogue agent who is looking to sow discord. And a big part of the reason for the ambiguity is because the US has been incredibly tight-lipped about what it shares with the public. That’s a big part of why Area 51 has been such a subject of fascination - all we know is that it’s top-secret. There is no evidence that it has anything to do with aliens. But there’s also little evidence that it doesn’t. Could this change everything we thought we knew about Earth?
In total, 7 countries - the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, the Soviet Union, Brazil, and Australia - have their own programs investigating sightings. And that’s just the ones we know of. These programs are highly secretive. At most, the public will get vague details - and if anything too explosive was to be revealed, the government would scramble to hush it up. But the era of tin foil hats is in the past. The conversation has moved from internet forums to the Oval Office.
Countries are being more open about their study of UAPs. France has been at the forefront of research for decades now. The organization GEIPAN, their Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena Research and Information Group, is a part of the French space agency. It’s basically the French government's scientific detective agency for the sky, investigating reports of objects both foreign and unknown. And it’s surprisingly transparent. Since 2007, the agency has been posting its archives online for the public. And they are quickly analyzed by skeptical eyes.28% of sightings were unexplained. Over time, that dropped to 3%. But that small number is where things get really interesting.
Most reports end the same way: inconclusive. But one didn’t. The COMETA report wasn’t an official product of any UAP aligned government agency. Instead, it came from an independent think tank in 1999, dedicated to studying extraterrestrials.That means it approached the data differently - likely more open to the possibility that some sightings were genuine - but it wasn’t careless. The non-profit collected reports of UFO incidents from over 60 years and analyzed them from a perspective of potential threats to national defense. Their findings were eyeraising. 5% of incidents couldn’t be attributed to any natural or human-made events. This report was published by the agency in 2007, and remains France’s most significant contribution to the debate yet.
So why haven’t Americans heard about France’s key role in the hunt for UFOs? American UFO research has always been colored by the influence of the common man. Most of the stories about the phenomenon have come from people who claim to have seen it streaming over the skies, or even had a close encounter with one of the aliens. It’s terrifying - and exciting. France, by contrast, has always maintained a very scientific approach to things. There aren’t too many well-publicized reports of UFO incidents coming out of the country. This isn’t just a local oddity - it’s a global mystery. Yet strangely, it rarely feels that way If you like these deep dives, make sure to like, share and subscribe - before the government silences us.
France had the cold data, but Brazil had something much more terrifying... Physical casualties. Brazil has been chasing down UAPs since the 1970s. In 1977, several UAP sightings were reported on the Brazilian island of Colares, and some residents even claimed that the strange lights on the ship had scarred them. After the panic grew, the local Mayor requested help from the Air Force. They delivered… in more ways than one. The operation known as Operacao Prato was conducted over several months, and they were able to capture images of the lights. This event created conspiracies about what was actually discovered during this event - and those conspiracy theories went into overdrive 20 years later. Mission leader Captain Uyrange gave his first interview about the events. T Three months later, he was seemingly found dead by his own hand. Ufologist Jacques Vallee also claimed that several individuals were killed by microwave-like rays from the objects. He alleged the government covered it up, as well as other bizarre claims, like that the objects attacked people, sucking the blood out of them.
So why wasn’t this worldwide news? There are plenty of spectacular UFO claims around the world - but a general rule is that the more spectacular, the less direct link there is to the events. The terrible night that supposedly took place in 1977 was poorly documented and classified when it happened. There are few current records of the supposed casualties and the death of Captain Uyrange continues to raise conspiracies. No one knows exactly how Jacques Vallee is connected to the event - if he’s connected at all. We don’t know how he obtained the information. And if he really has classified secrets the government would never want released or how is he even able to speak about them publicly. But the rumors that something horrible had taken place continued to swirl around the mysterious incident.
So Brazil’s government took a very unusual tack. As of 2010 Brazil’s government officially decreed that all UAP sightings should not only be recorded, but submitted directly to the National Archives for public access. This has made Brazil one of the most fascinating hotspots for UAP research. It gives enthusiasts the chance to study events like the 1986 “Night of the UFOs” in detail - when hundreds of crafts were spotted over Sao Paolo, Rio de Jaineiro, and other locations. The Air Force was eventually scrambled to pursue them. The strange phenomena were never explained.
However, the US remains the most common hotspot for UAP sightings - so it’s no surprise that its closest neighbor has been keeping an eye on the skies as well. Canada has been quietly investigating UAPs for decades, almost as long as the United States. Its first major investigations date back to the 1950s, but much of that work remained classified… until 2025. That year, the Canadian government decided to make its efforts public under a new initiative: Sky Canada Project. Led by the Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada, the foundation wasn’t just about transparency. It was to review decades of data, update investigative practices, and bring the latest scientific tools to the study of UAP sightings across the country. For the first time, Canadians could see how their government was approaching the mystery and what it was learning from the skies. The most recent major UAP sighting took place in North York, Ontario in 2014 where a string of diagonal flashing lights in the sky were witnessed by several people.
Canada is taking this phenomenon seriously. The Sky Canada Project isn’t just about releasing past reports. It’s building a system. The goal is to collate sightings, establish an official reporting network, and develop theories based on real data. There’s a reason for this scientific approach, one that differs from the U.S. Terrain.Much of Canada is sparsely populated. That isolation makes certain regions potentially vulnerable to incursions, whether terrestrial or… extraterrestrial. This helps explain why so many nations are investing more heavily in UAP research. Even if they never confirm alien life, monitoring the skies is a clear matter of national security, and Canada is making sure no anomaly goes unnoticed.
There’s been a new hotspot for UAPs sightings in recent years… the skies of Japan. Alien watchers have seen strange orbs streaking through the sky. And this isn’t the first time. In the 1970s, two boys claimed to have met an alien - Japan’s most famous sighting. But the most recent sightings center around objects behaving in ways that don’t match that of either planes or stars. And it sounds a lot like the sightings over the United States.
All these sightings mean it's impossible to keep them quiet. For the first time, this isn’t just the domain of conspiracy theorists and sci-fi buffs anymore. More people - and more countries - are publicly acknowledging that UAP sightings are becoming increasingly common. Some are even recognizing that they don’t have the answers. What does this mean for humanity? There’s a growing consensus that something is out there, and we need to learn more about it. People who have been chasing answers for decades are feeling vindicated, and many are watching the skies for the next big development.
But this raises a chilling question: Is the government hiding the truth to protect us, or are they simply powerless? If there are aliens out there, it would be one of the biggest news events the world has ever seen. It would change the way we view the world and everything in it. It would also raise some terrifying prospects. It’s unlikely that there is any life in our solar system, due to the hostile landscapes on the other planets. That means if alien life forms have visited us, they would have to have come from much further away. And we would pretty much be at their mercy. If an alien species had the capability to visit Earth from other solar systems, their technology would likely be so far beyond us that we wouldn’t even have a chance at fighting back. It would be less akin to an interstellar war and more like a fishing expedition… and we’re the fish.
Which might be the biggest reason the government is covering it up. Alien life could have the potential for total societal collapse. We’ve seen how people react to events like terror attacks or pandemics. There’s always a rush to blame, a rush to hoard, and eventually a series of conspiracies that damage the social fabric for years to come. The storm of controversy that would erupt over aliens being confirmed could dwarf all that - and not just between citizens. It could create chaos between countries as well.
David Grusch made one big claim that got people speculating in particular, that the US was in possession of both aliens and their spaceships. This could create a type of arms race that the world had never seen. Rival countries could try to reverse-engineer alien technology in order to win the battle for the next super-weapon.
But there is a second theory. One that is even scarier than a global conspiracy. What if the governments aren't hiding the truth because they have control - but because they have absolutely none? If these are actually alien lifeforms paying a visit to the skies of Earth, that would mean an unknown intelligence is operating in the territory of sovereign nations with impunity, possibly gathering intelligence. Governments can track UAPs. They can study them. But understanding what they want? That’s a whole different challenge.
If here is a cover-up, they may not be able to keep it going for long. No one is sure what files the Trump administration will be releasing in the aftermath of Former President Obama’s interview. But whatever comes out, it’s going to be closely scrutinized - by everyone. After 80 years of silence, the veil of secrecy is finally coming down.
Since the infamous 1947 Roswell crash, the US government has been collecting every piece of evidence they can on UAP. This included famous research projects like the Blue Book. And while the program officially ended in 1969, the trail didn’t stop there. For decades, new sightings and encounters continued quietly, just out of the public eye. But then, something happened that changed everything… In 2017, it was revealed that the government had put $22 million into a new program to identify aerospace-related threats. And this created a sea change in the way UAPs were viewed not just by the government, but by the public. No more was this being treated as some sort of science fiction, but as a pressing national security threat. For the first time, the government was treating them not as a conspiracy - but as something tangible. And they wanted answers just as much as anyone.
The big change arrived in 2023, with the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act. This was an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, and for the first time, it created a system for declassifying government records related to UAP sightings, as well as to hypothetical discoveries of alien technology or biological specimens. This was bipartisan legislation, and it got people hoping But it might not be enough to satisfy everyone. We’re on the verge of what might be the biggest reveals in the history of UAP research. But if the reveals fall short of what some people expect, they’re likely to simply claim that the government is still holding out on us. After all, if the government has been keeping secrets for this long in the name of national security, they can easily continue to do the same. So the fight is likely to go on - no matter what the government does.
The government of the United States - and the world with it - has been researching UAPs for more than half a century now, creating a tight-lipped approach to things that has filled people with suspicion. Now, for the first time, they seem to be shifting towards transparency. But once people are convinced a conspiracy exists, it’s nearly impossible to undo that. No matter how much the government reveals about aliens or unexplained phenomena, skepticism remains. People will always suspect there’s something being hidden. They’ll keep speculating. They’ll keep digging. And often, they’ll be looking in the wrong places, chasing shadows while the real story quietly unfolds elsewhere. And that might be exactly what the government wants. Because the only thing better than hiding something from the public… is giving them something else to look at.
The government is looking for secrets far beyond Earth’s atmosphere as well. Check out “NASA Just Found Something Terrifying at the Edge of the Solar System” for all the disturbing details, or watch this video instead.