Secretary of State Marco Rubio said unidentified objects have been observed flying over U.S. military installations and aren't known to belong to the American government, framing the unexplained activity as a national-security problem that warrants investigation while rejecting suggestions that the Trump administration possesses definitive evidence of extraterrestrial life.
"I don't know who it is. I don't know what it is," Rubio said in an interview published Tuesday on The Katie Miller Podcast. "But there are things flying over our military installations, and they're not ours, and we should look into this."
Rubio, a former Florida senator who has pressed the government for greater scrutiny of unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP, stopped short of identifying what could be behind the reported activity. His argument was narrower: Anything entering sensitive military airspace without being readily identified presents a potential security issue, whether it turns out to be a drone, foreign surveillance technology, a misidentified conventional object or something investigators can't explain.
The remarks come as the Trump administration releases additional government material related to UFO and UAP reports. President Donald Trump earlier this year directed federal agencies to identify and disclose records concerning UAP and possible extraterrestrial activity.
The Pentagon began releasing material on May 8 through the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, known as PURSUE. Subsequent disclosures have included documents, photographs, recordings and videos gathered from agencies including the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, NASA and Department of Energy, according to the supplied material.
Those records have added to the volume of publicly available evidence surrounding unexplained sightings but haven't established an extraterrestrial explanation. Some incidents remain unresolved based on the information released, while the quality, age and supporting evidence associated with individual cases vary considerably.
Rubio acknowledged that government secrecy has contributed to public suspicion. "People do believe we're covering something up," he said.
He nevertheless rejected the idea that the current administration has conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial activity and is deliberately keeping it secret. Rubio argued that Trump's personality and appetite for major announcements make such a scenario difficult for him to imagine.
"If we knew, the president would be all over it," Rubio said. "There would be a primetime address. He would be showing the pictures and the videos."
Rubio's interest in UAP predates his role in the administration. During his Senate career, he was among the lawmakers who publicly pressed intelligence and defense officials to investigate reports from military personnel who encountered objects they couldn't identify, particularly when those incidents occurred around restricted airspace or sensitive installations.
"I don't have time for these questions about politics," Rubio said, recalling his attitude toward interviews during that period. "Do you realise there's things flying over airspace? We don't know what they are."
The distinction between an unexplained object and evidence of extraterrestrial technology remains central to the government's UAP debate. An incident can remain unidentified because available sensor information is incomplete, because an object was observed only briefly or because investigators can't confidently determine its origin; none of those circumstances by itself establishes an extraterrestrial explanation.
Disclosure advocates have continued to press the government over more extraordinary allegations, including claims involving recovered nonhuman technology or biological material. Rubio didn't endorse those allegations in the podcast interview, instead returning to the potential defense implications of unidentified activity around military facilities.
Rubio said responsibility for pursuing the issue has shifted since he joined the administration. He said he has "surrendered that portfolio" to an official with more direct responsibility for investigating the phenomenon.
His comments surfaced alongside separate reports concerning another security issue involving Trump after a NATO summit in Turkey. Trump said security officials instructed him to change aircraft following information about a reported Iranian threat.
"I go by Secret Service and the military," Trump said. "They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane. I do what they say."
