The prediction
In a New York Times opinion column dated May 6, 2026, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson predicted that the imminent UAP file release would be "anticlimactic." His core argument: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and after years of congressional whistleblower testimony, what remained for the files to add was unclear.
He added a characteristically light caveat: "Personally, I'd be delighted if the files were accompanied by an actual alien. Alive or dead or undead. Preferably alive." And, importantly, he called the release "a good thing" — disclosure changes who is allowed to look, even if it does not change what there is to see.
What the files showed
The accurate version of Tyson's prediction holds. There are no extraordinary objects in Release 01. There are 162 documents, photographs, and videos, organized professionally, with metadata that previous leaks had stripped out. The most-discussed items — Apollo 17 lights, FBI 62-HQ-83894, Tic Tac reference packet — have all been individually covered in the press for years; PURSUE makes them more accessible and more useful, not more astonishing.
The procedural change Tyson endorsed
Tyson's "good thing" framing is more important than his "anticlimactic" framing. The federal government has shifted from default-classify to default-disclose for this category of records. The Tic Tac SPY-1 gain settings — absent from the 2017 leak, present in PURSUE — let independent analysts do real work. That is the bar science requires, and it has been raised.
Where Tyson and the disclosure community still disagree
The Age of Disclosure documentary alleges an 80-year cover-up of non-human intelligence. Release 01 contains nothing that confirms such a program. Disclosure advocates argue this means the program is being protected at a deeper classification tier; Tyson and the broader scientific community argue this is what happens when an alleged program does not in fact exist. PURSUE itself is silent on the question. Future tranches may settle it; they may not.