The White House pledged to make public every file tied to UFOs and extraterrestrial life, prompting hopes that Americans might finally learn whether aliens exist—or whether the mystery belongs solely to science fiction.
Instead, months of disclosures featuring indistinct photographs, artist renderings and no definitive explanation for the objects seen in US skies have fueled accusations that the president’s promise amounted to little more than a cosmic bait-and-switch.
Simon Holland, a NASA filmmaker, told the Daily Mail that a major UFO disclosure is still on the way—but he believes it will come from America’s geopolitical rivals, not President Donald Trump.
Holland said a source connected to the global search for intelligent life believes Russia and China could make a public UFO announcement “very soon” in an effort to “embarrass” the United States.
According to Holland, his source—a European specialist in radio telescopes—said Russia’s principal facility for messaging extraterrestrial intelligence, or METI, was located in Crimea before it was destroyed in August 2025. The source allegedly claimed that Russia’s effort to identify intelligent signals has since shifted to China, whose “excellent radio telescopes” and willingness to share data could keep the project alive.
Holland, a science communicator who worked on NASA-funded films related to asteroid tracking, said the source became aware of the alleged Russia-China cooperation while working in the Far East.
“Does this mean we are in an ET arms race? Possibly,” Holland said. He suggested Russia and China could use any announcement to promote their technological capabilities and portray the US as lagging behind, although no specific date has been identified.
There is no independent confirmation that such an agreement exists, nor evidence that scientists have detected intelligent signals from beyond Earth. Nevertheless, US officials have openly expressed concern that Russia and China could seize control of the global UFO disclosure narrative.
US officials reportedly fear the country is running out of time to reveal what it knows about UFOs before another world power makes the historic announcement first
A radio telescope specialist has alleged that Russia and China created a partnership to send and detect signals from deep space
Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison recently warned of an “arms race” over who will shape the public story surrounding the possible existence of alien life.
In a recent interview, Burlison said Russia and China could use a landmark extraterrestrial disclosure to portray the United States as a government that has concealed the truth from its citizens.
“We’re supposed to be the most transparent country in the world to its citizenry, and if another country is able to be more transparent than the United States on this topic, it would be a blemish on our otherwise pristine legacy on transparency,” Burlison told The New York Post.
On February 19, President Trump directed officials to release all information held by the US government concerning UFOs and the search for extraterrestrial life. Since the Pentagon began its disclosure campaign on May 8, six large data releases have made files, photographs and videos of unexplained phenomena available to the public.
The effort has drawn widespread criticism, with claims that the material released so far bears little resemblance to the more conclusive evidence some lawmakers say they have viewed in classified briefings.
Most of the material posted on the Department of War’s UFO website consists of footage showing vague glowing objects crossing the frame, witness accounts that are heavily redacted or lacking detail, and decades-old records from government programs that never established whether extraterrestrial encounters had occurred.
Several members of Congress have also alleged that the strongest evidence of alien life has been withheld from successive presidents by the intelligence community.
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Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett told the Daily Mail in April: “I’m in a meeting with some little punk bureaucrat with a man bun telling me that ‘the president’s on a need-to-know basis.’ That, to me, sends a very chilling message for what’s really going on out there.”
Congressman Eric Burlison, pictured, has served on the House Oversight Committee as it examines claims that the US government has not been truthful about UFOs
The Russian RT-70 radio telescope in Crimea was reportedly used to transmit messages into space before being destroyed in a Ukrainian drone strike
Television film editor and independent science filmmaker Simon Holland
As for what might be delaying Russia and China from sharing what they have learned from their own UFO investigations, Holland said the nations may not have been able to decode the signals they have allegedly detected from deep space.
Before the alleged deal with China, Holland’s contact claimed Russia had been using its Yevpatoria RT-70 radio telescope complex in Crimea for METI projects.
The 230-foot dish, built in the 1970s by the Soviet Union, had a documented history of beaming powerful signals into space.
Between 1999 and 2008, RT-70 transmitted four sets of interstellar messages to nearby stars and planets in the hope of contacting intelligent life. Holland claims they succeeded.
‘After fitting the quantum communication device to a Russian radio telescope based in the Crimea, they confirmed that there were signals coming from a distant source,’ he said.
The idea dates back to the 1990s: Use a process called quantum tunneling to send messages across vast distances almost instantly.
Claims that it could carry information faster than light remain unproven.
German physicist Günter Nimtz published laboratory findings in 2001, but there is no public evidence that Russia built a working device or used one to send messages into space.
If such a device was housed at Russia’s RT-70 telescope, it may have been destroyed in the drone strike announced by Ukraine’s military on August 31, 2025.
Holland’s source claimed Russia then moved the signaling project to China’s FAST telescope, the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope, in the southwestern province of Guizhou.
Along with the US, Russia and China, Holland claimed that France also knew ‘we are not alone in the universe,’ and alleged that these governments kept large amounts of evidence to prove it – including biological remains and crashed UFO debris.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Burlison for comment.