Age of Disclosure includes interviews with former and present United States elected, military, and intelligence officials, as well as scientists and government associates, some of whom claim the U.S. government has been aware of alien life and retrieving their technology since 1947. Luis Elizondo, a former U.S. Department of Defense employee, narrates the film, and recalls being assigned to Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) in 2009. Elizondo and AATIP scientist colleagues Hal Puthoff and Eric Davis allege, among other claims, that they discovered the existence of a secret government program ("The Legacy Program") that investigated and concealed evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence for more than 80 years.[10][11] Jay Stratton, the former director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office's (AARO) 2017-2022 UAP Task Force (UAPTF), claims there is a race among governments to reverse engineer alien technology.[12] Stratton compares it to the Manhattan Project to develop nuclear weapons in World War II "on steroids", and that the nation to succeed first will lead "for years to come".[12]
The film was showcased at SXSW on March 9, 2025.[26] It released on November 21, 2025, on Amazon Prime[27] and had a limited, Oscar-qualifying release at theaters in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.[28]
"As someone who has never been persuaded by anything I had ever heard about aliens before watching the film, I feel qualified to tell you that The Age of Disclosure is really, really convincing...The amount of military officials who share detailed, corroborating stories of alien encounters, and congresspeople who vouch for the credibility of their claims, make this feel like a documentary with front-page news potential...Of course, there’s still the problem of never being able to see this classified evidence, and each viewer will have to decide how many generals swearing that they’ve seen aliens with their own eyes is enough to convince them."[2]
"The title of the film refers to the idea — or is it merely the hope? — that we now live in an age when the government is being pressured to shed its secrecy. The people want to know, and the film says: We will know. But if that's the case, then when are we actually going to be shown something that looks like more than a dupe of a dupe of an old video game depicting a blurry black dot of an alien spaceship cruising over water at what looks to be about 300 miles per hour [500 km/h]? I'll believe it when I see it."[25]
Writing in The Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Fienberg called the film a "sensationalistic wolf in understated sheep's clothing" and opined that "almost nothing in The Age of Disclosure is 'new,' per se" but that the quality of its production values set it apart from similar films of the genre and that "some viewers will happily celebrate the fantasy, when it looks this legitimate". Fienberg dismissed it as "a basic cable exploitation doc done up with a fancy gloss", in which "nothing is proven, and thus nothing can be refuted".[1]
On Collider, Nate Richard wrote that "as we get further into the movie, the more ridiculous it gets", that it was "executed in the most bland way possible", and that "the pacing makes the movie feel like you're watching a college PowerPoint presentation". Richard's conclusion was that: "...the movie felt like it was made to be an echo chamber for those who already believe in UFOs. If the job of The Age of Disclosure was to convert skeptics, it failed."[30]
According to The Guardian reviewer Adrian Horton, the film is "the most serious and sourced documentary on the government's handling of UAP information to date", although he also noted the lack of evidence provided to support the claims.[6]
Writing for The New York Times, Ben Kenigsberg concluded of the film that "anyone who sits through its nearly two hours of unprovable claims is a chump".[31]
Responses
Participants
In a December 2, 2025 episode of Hannity, host Sean Hannity opened his interview with United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio with what he said was a "fun question", asking him about The Age of Disclosure. Rubio, who appeared in the film, laughed and clarified that his interview in the film was from while he was still a Senator from Florida. Rubio said the point he was "trying to drive at" during his interview for the film was his concern that "some adversary, another country for example, has developed some asymmetric capability for surveillance or the like for which we are not prepared" citing the examples of drones or hot air balloons. Addressing the film's other interview subjects, from 2:15 to 2:40, Rubio said,[32]
It has, as I said, claims from people that were former admirals, naval fighters, people with high clearances in government. Some of them are pretty spectacular claims. I'm not calling these people liars; I don't have independent knowledge that what they're saying is true. The one observation I had is we had people that did very important jobs in the U.S. government who are saying these things, so we have people with very high jobs in the U.S. government that are either, A: liars, B: crazy, or C: telling the truth. And two of those three options are not good. I don't have the answers. I don't want to call them liars. I just don't have any independent way to verify the things they've said.
Scientists
Joshua Semeter, a Boston University professor of electrical engineering who was a member an unclassified NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team that, according to senior writer John Barlow of BU Today, "studied the evidence for UAPs [sic], including classified congressional testimony by David Grusch", was skeptical of the film's allegations.[8] Semeter said, "I have seen no evidence that the government has been hiding anything". Based on the film trailer for Age of Disclosure, he was critical of the interview format used in the documentary, "ultimately, testimonies are simply not enough. They need to be backed up with evidence."[8] Neither Semiter nor the panel was able to examine classified data. In April 2025, he said, "I thought I was gonna get to see a bunch of classified data ... it turned out everything that was available for me to look at, and the panel to look at, is the stuff that's available for you to look at as well, it's all in the public domain. And uh, there is apparently classified data that shows something different, but at this point I don't really believe it."[33]
Skeptics
Jason Colavito, a researcher who has documented the connection between pseudoarchaeology and UFO beliefs, wrote that the film was like "an episode of Ancient Aliens with better production values" and opined that by "the time the film is over, the viewer has seen no evidence that is new, no stories that had not been told many times before".[34][failed verification]
Writing in Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer criticized the film’s reliance on anecdotes. According to Shermer, “What scientists and skeptics are asking of the UFO and UAP community is to, at long last, show us the evidence”. Shermer compared the anecdotes featured in the film to claims about Bigfoot, saying, “If all you had were stories about what you saw, and maybe a couple of out-of-focus videos and grainy photographs, no one would believe you...and for good reason!”.[9]
See also
Above Majestic, a 2018 documentary alleging similar cover-ups
12Kurtz, Jefferey. "Another look at UFOs". CT Insider. Hearst Media Services Connecticut, LLC. Retrieved July 12, 2025. What sounds like a conspiracy fever dream is from a documentary, "The Age of Disclosure," which recently debuted at the SXSW Film Festival, in Austin, Texas
123Barlow, Rich. "New Film The Age of Disclosure Alleges Government Cover-Up of UFOs, but BU Expert Is Skeptical". BU Today. Boston University. Retrieved July 9, 2025. Joshua Semeter (ENG'92,'97), a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Boston University's College of Engineering, says there has been investigation — and he knows. He served on a 2023 NASA panel that studied the evidence for UAPs, including classified congressional testimony by David Grusch, a former Air Force and intelligence officer...[Semeter:] All the evidence I have seen is now in the public domain and has been highlighted in multiple documentaries.
↑Semeter, Joshua (April 4, 2025). "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena-From Sensationalism to Science, The NASA Panel's Investigations and Report". PWS Science. PSW Science. Retrieved December 2, 2025. I thought I was gonna get to see a bunch of classified data ... it turned out everything that was available for me to look at, and the panel to look at, is the stuff that's available for you to look at as well, it's all in the public domain. And uh, there is apparently classified data that shows something different, but at this point I don't really believe it.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
