Watch the full interview on YouTube: “Age of Disclosure” world premiere SXSW
The Age of Disclosure
A provocative new documentary premiering at SXSW, The Age of Disclosure, explores the possibility of extraterrestrial life on Earth and accuses the U.S. government of a decades-long effort to conceal the truth. The film builds on years of congressional hearings and official reports concerning Unexplained Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), a term replacing the once-stigmatized “UFO.” While drawing considerable buzz, it has also sparked skepticism.
Directed by Dan Farah, The Age of Disclosure features testimony from 34 former military and intelligence officials, many of whom claim to have directly witnessed UAPs. Some go further, asserting that alien life is already present on Earth and that a sophisticated government cover-up has kept the public in the dark. Luis Elizondo, a former Pentagon insider who led the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), characterizes this alleged deception as “the most effective disinformation campaign in U.S. history,” spanning “80 years of lies.”
The film also highlights lawmakers pushing for more transparency on UAPs, including Senators Marco Rubio, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Mike Rounds. These officials express frustration over the difficulty of accessing classified information on the subject. However, despite the film’s ambitious claims, hard evidence remains elusive. IndieWire describes it as “the most convincing argument you can make without providing actual proof,” while The Hollywood Reporter criticizes it as “sensationalist, glossy, and ultimately unprovable.”
Opening with a striking montage of military and intelligence veterans declaring, “We are not alone,” the documentary introduces theories that range from plausible to extraordinary. It speculates on the existence of alien civilizations hiding in the deep oceans and suggests that extraterrestrial technology could render fossil fuels obsolete. However, it also draws from verified reports, such as a groundbreaking 2017 New York Times exposé that revealed the Pentagon’s covert UAP research through AATIP. Many of the film’s key figures, including Elizondo and former defense official Christopher Mellon, were original sources for that article.
Since then, mounting government interest has led to multiple Pentagon reports acknowledging unexplained UAP encounters, as well as the establishment of an official reporting system. In 2023, Elizondo and others testified before Congress about a secretive UFO retrieval program, but no concrete proof was presented. That hearing followed whistleblower David Grusch’s dramatic claim that the U.S. government possessed non-human “biologics” and alien spacecraft—assertions made without physical evidence.
The central challenge of The Age of Disclosure mirrors that of previous UAP investigations: compelling stories with little to substantiate them. Some officials avoid outright alien speculation, instead emphasizing national security concerns. “It could be a foreign adversary,” Gillibrand warns, while Rubio stresses the need to remain open-minded about unknown threats, whether terrestrial or not.
Beyond official testimony, the documentary also highlights personal accounts of unexplained aerial encounters. Navy Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich recalls witnessing the infamous “Tic Tac” object off the coast of San Diego in 2004—an aircraft-like anomaly without visible propulsion that executed seemingly impossible maneuvers, including an 80,000-foot drop in under a second. Others, including physicist Harold Puthoff and astrophysicist Eric Davis, assert that extraterrestrial activity has been documented near U.S. nuclear sites—though once again, without irrefutable proof.
At its core, The Age of Disclosure raises the question: Is the truth about extraterrestrial life being deliberately concealed, or is the lack of evidence proof that there’s nothing to hide? The film may not provide definitive answers, but it certainly fuels the ongoing debate.