When the Trump administration registered the domains Aliens.gov and Alien.gov in March, UFO conspiracy theorists wondered whether they might finally get answers they’d long awaited.
But coming on the heels of the Pentagon’s anticlimactic release of files related to UFOs and extraterrestrial life, the debut of Aliens.gov last week proved even more disappointing: The website was no “Disclosure Day,” but a parody, serving no apparent purpose but to disparage undocumented immigrants.
“THEY WALK AMONG US,” the site declares in large, neon green text. Crawling type then starts to fill the screen: “For 60 years, the U.S. government has kept a closely guarded secret. Aliens have been walking among us, living in our neighborhoods, and interacting with us in our daily lives.”
Along with fake “declassified” labels and a clunky reference to “The X-Files,” the website also features an interactive map tracking “alien encounters,” or purported arrests of immigrants, and asks users to report “suspicious aliens.”
In announcing the new site on X, the White House also posted an AI-generated animation depicting a UFO beaming up an undocumented immigrant over the southern border wall. It’s not the first time Trump and his administration have engaged in wordplay around “aliens:” The president recently shared an AI-generated image showing him walking alongside a chiseled alien in shackles.
