The Department of War launched PURSUE — Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters — at war.gov/UFO this morning. 162 files. Apollo 12 and 17 transcripts. A 2013 eight-pointed-star object. Religious leaders allegedly briefed in advance. Trump on Truth Social: "What the hell is going on?" The internet answered in 24 hours, and the LunarCrush social graph caught all of it.
Up +286% WoW. 6.6× the daily average. The social graph is reacting to the release in real time across X, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and the news layer.
The official term reads positive. The cultural term reads neutral. The sci-fi term reads skeptical. Same files, same day — language frames the response.
A single news event activates many overlapping LunarCrush topics. The "UFO" topic alone is 170M engagements, but UAP-related conversation is happening simultaneously across UFO, UAP, Disclosure, Aliens, plus tangential topics on Truth Social / Pete Hegseth / Kash Patel. Combined, that's the real volume of the social graph reacting today.
Across the 4 primary UAP-related LC topics in 24 hours. This is the real "how much are people talking" number. The single-topic UFO read of 170M understates it — there are 36M more in the disclosure-and-related cluster, plus the institutional/insider-figure overlap.
"Disclosure" topic creators hit a 52-week and all-time high earlier today (8,881). 24h-window currently shows 2,082 — but the peak passed through 8,881 unique accounts at the spike, with 15,116 mentions on May 7 alone. Sentiment 66% supportive.
Sum of unique creators across the 4 topics is 15,491 — there's some overlap (creators posting on multiple topics), so the true unique-creator count is likely 11–13K. Either way, this is one of the largest cross-topic creator-spikes LC has tracked outside major election events.
Major news brands tracked as creators on LunarCrush — measuring not what they're publishing on their websites, but what's actually getting visibility on social. Engagement on UFO/UAP-tagged posts in the last 24 hours, by network. The mainstream outlets are present, but the visibility share is significantly less than the disclosure-community amplifiers.
The mainstream news layer is present but no longer leading. Daily Mail TikTok (2.6M) and Fox News X (680K) are top mainstream performers. But they're being matched or exceeded by independent amplifiers — @MarioNawfal (~4M cumulative), @theblackvault (3.9M cumulative), even Arabic-language @Eyaaaad (2.5M). The single highest-engagement post on the topic today is from @WhiteHouse itself (2.7M) — a 25-character post: "🚨UFO FILES RELEASED". The institutional channels are now the originators; mainstream news is downstream amplification; independent creators are the parallel infrastructure.
LunarCrush NLP extracts theme breakdowns per topic. Reading them side-by-side shows how the cultural term ("UFO"), the official term ("UAP"), the policy term ("Disclosure"), and the sci-fi term ("aliens") each capture distinct audiences having different conversations about the exact same event. The framing language flips both the sentiment and the dominant theme.
Network-by-network engagement breakdown across the LunarCrush dataset. X dominates UFO at 59.5%, but TikTok and Instagram together pull another 33% — rare cross-platform spread on a single news event. Reddit at 0.09% is the loudest signal in the silence.
59.5% of UFO conversation lives on X. The platform is the cycle's primary venue — political accounts, disclosure-community, international amplifiers, and major news brands all converge there.
31.7M TikTok engagements (18.6%). UAP topic specifically is 35% TikTok — disclosure community skews younger. @dailymail TikTok alone hit 595K engagements on a single Apollo-transcript clip.
0.09% Reddit share is anomalous. Reddit is where skeptic communities live (r/skeptic, r/UFOs has anti-sensationalism rules). Their silence today suggests skeptic backlash is still building. Watch r/UFOs over the weekend.
Trump's Truth Social directive (Feb 19, 2026) authorized today's release, and Trump's Truth Social posts today are being quoted everywhere. But LunarCrush data on the "truth social" topic itself shows a counter-intuitive pattern: the platform topic is at 7.8M engagements today — below its 24h daily average of 17.7M. The conversation about Trump's posts is happening on X, TikTok, and Instagram via screenshots, not on Truth Social itself.
Truth Social as a discussion topic is at a 52-week low for mentions (435) and creators (387). The platform isn't being discussed; Trump's individual posts are being relayed.
Posted on Truth Social, then quoted across X / Instagram / TikTok / YouTube within minutes. Single highest-engagement quoted-text in today's UFO theme cluster. The post itself is platform-locked behind Truth Social; the engagement happens elsewhere.
Truth Social is the source layer; X is the amplification layer; TikTok is the explainer layer; Instagram is the meme layer.
For political-comms operations, the implication: any messaging strategy that ends at Truth Social leaves engagement on the table. Cross-posting to X (and seeding video for TikTok creators) is what actually generates the 170M-engagement cycle.
Kash Patel's social engagements jumped +258% week-over-week ahead of today's release. He publicly confirmed the files had been "delivered for upcoming public release" — which the disclosure community caught immediately and turned into the May 6 pre-spike (59M UFO engagements with no files yet public). The pattern is predictive.
Patel's volume comes from BOTH the disclosure community amplifying his "delivered files" tweet AND the residual scrutiny over WHCD-shooting handling. He's high-engagement, high-controversy.
Patel posts that UFO files have been "delivered" to White House. UFO topic spikes to 59M engagements — no files public yet.
Rep. Tim Burchett confirms phone briefing from Hegseth's staff at 3 PM. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna posts about "inter-dimensional beings" framing. Disclosure community escalates.
@WhiteHouse posts "🚨UFO FILES RELEASED". Topic detonates to 83M day-tally / 170M rolling 24h. Burchett's "Holy Crap is coming" frames the next-release-window expectation.
Beyond the metrics, the discourse is splitting into three measurable narrative tracks. Each has identifiable spokespeople in the LC creator data, characteristic theme language, and a projected weekend trajectory.
75% of UAP supportive themes. Trump credited as the disclosure president. War.gov/UFO is "real evidence." Apollo astronaut transcripts cited as "confirming what we knew." Tim Burchett's "Holy Crap is coming" is the rallying call.
LC top creators: @WhiteHouse, @timburchett, @disclosetv, @theblackvault, @JeremyCorbell, @MJTruthUltra, @Truthpole, @InterstellarUAP, @MarioNawfal. Trajectory: accelerating.
10–15% of UFO and Aliens themes. Frames the release as deliberate distraction from Iran (Project Freedom + Bandar Abbas strikes), Epstein files, gas prices ($4.55/gal), midterm pressure. Tim Dillon: "Their goal is for you to have a nervous breakdown." MTG's "shiny ball" line is the conservative-skeptic rallying cry.
LC top creators: Tim Dillon, @mtgreenee (1.7M followers, 577K engagements on her dismissal post), @damonimani (516K), @setiodkaiba parody. Trajectory: building over weekend.
10% of UFO + 5% of Aliens themes. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna posted "OPHANIM" (multi-eyed angels in the Dead Sea Scrolls) right after the 8-pointed-star drop. Pastors comparing UFO files to Ezekiel's "wheel within a wheel." @dom_lucre claim that religious leaders were briefed in advance about "Reptilian creatures and materials of non-human origin".
LC top creators: Rep. Luna, @howertonjosh (Ezekiel comparison, 302K eng), @dom_lucre (1.7M, 692K), @ProfDemirtas (Turkish religious framing, 492K eng), @jakedenys (TikTok pastors). Trajectory: slow-burn long-tail through Sunday pulpits.
Three distinct skeptic clusters are visible in the LC data, each with different epistemic standards and different audiences. Lumping them as "the skeptic side" misses how differently they're shaping the cycle.
Eric Weinstein (1.1M followers, 464K engagements) raising biological/technical questions: "Eukaryotic cells? Histones? Mitochondrial DNA? Phylogenetic placement?" The "if real, prove it scientifically" cohort.
Effect: Raises bar for credible disclosure. Forces government to either provide biology or admit they don't have any.
Mick West (Metabunk, 48K followers but 655K engagements on his debunk post) immediately identified the "Chandelier UFO" as diffraction spikes investigated 2 years ago. Receipts-driven, image-by-image.
Effect: Slows the viral velocity of specific artifacts. Each artifact must survive Mick West's scrutiny to keep its narrative force.
MTG (1.7M, 577K engagements on her post) plus Tim Dillon plus @damonimani: this is distraction from Iran/Epstein/gas prices. Not interested in evidence — interested in motive.
Effect: Caps political-base enthusiasm. If the distraction frame consolidates over the weekend, the disclosure win narrative compresses.
Top posts in the LunarCrush 24h window across all networks, organized by which narrative they advance. Engagement counts are LC-tracked.
"🚨 UFO FILES RELEASED · http://WAR.GOV/UFO"
"With these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves: 'WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?' Have Fun and Enjoy!"
"The 1st drop will be big but in comparison to what is coming they will be a drop in the bucket. I would say 'Holy Crap' is coming."
"BREAKING: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna says tomorrow could be the day. She also dropped that her witnesses won't even use the word 'alien.' Their preferred term: 'inter-dimensional beings.'"
"Here is a thread of each of the UFO videos released today by the Department of War."
"I really don't care about the UFO files. I just don't. I'm so sick of the 'look at the shiny object' propaganda while they wage foreign wars, let rapists and pedophiles run free, and ruin the value of our dollar."
"We're in a war, everything's going up, and the last thing they have is to say there's alien bases under the water. Stop bothering us about this war. Their goal is for you to have a nervous breakdown."
"In the first tranche of government UFO files, video PR38 looks the most visually interesting, but the shape was determined to be a camera artifact in the Metabunk investigation two years ago. Diffraction spikes."
"It's extremely hard to 'do a little disclosure' and avoid the tight scientific/societal questions. Biologists: 'Do they have eukaryotic cells? Histones? Matrilineal mitochondrial DNA? Hemoglobin? ATP synthase?'"
"Congresswoman Luna posts 'OPHANIM' right after Pentagon declassifies eerie 8-POINTED star UFO. Ophanim described as multi-eyed ANGELS in Dead Sea Scrolls. NEVER BEFORE SEEN Apollo 12 photo reveals 5 MYSTERIOUS glowing lights over Moon."
206 million engagements in 24 hours. +286% WoW. 15,491 creators across 4 topics.
Cross-platform spread (5 of 6 networks lit), cross-language amplification (Turkish, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Bengali, Italian, Thai, Spanish), and a dual-peak shape (May 6 anticipation + May 8 release) signal an event with structural attention staying-power. The Disclosure topic alone hit a 52-week-high creator count today (8,881). The mainstream news layer is present but no longer leading — the WhiteHouse account itself is the highest-engagement creator on the cycle.
The specific artifacts in social circulation right now from the war.gov/UFO portal, ranked by engagement velocity in the LC creator stack.
~2 minutes infrared footage. Object moves in sharp zigzag patterns. Most-shared single artifact today. @Megatron_ron + @MarioNawfal + @DC_Draino + @visegrad24 all amplifying. ~2.5M cumulative engagements across stack. Mick West already debunked.
Metallic orb appears to "play with the windmills." Cited by @JeninedUFO, RT, @MJTruthUltra, Visegrad24 for European amplification. 540K+ on the original. Quirky framing ("studying renewable energy?") drove meme-share velocity.
Buzz Aldrin describes a "brighter object tumbling past" their spacecraft. First-time public release. @InterstellarUAP got 765K engagements re-quoting the transcript. Daily Mail TikTok cut got 595K.
Astronaut Cernan describes object "rotating and flashing in steady rhythm." 1996 NASA tether incident now read as corroboration (@tupacabra, 605K engagements). The "moon photo" is the single most-quoted image in the release.
Radar trace from over the Mediterranean. Object performs sharp circular maneuvers above sea level. Driving heavy Turkish-language amplification (@haskologlu, 700K+ engagements). Greek aviation community engaged.
Claims of "total body and thought control" via cobalt/laser ray, 1945 UFO sightings, "staged accidents since 1946", business infiltration. Released as historical FBI document. Driving deep-state-residual narrative (@MJTruthUltra, 1.2M engagements on the thread).
Image circulated by @Truthpole as alleged New Mexico crash recovery. @RT_com picked it up. Highest single-image engagement velocity. Origin not explained in adjacent files. Skeptic note: image looks AI-rendered.
Object emerges from "BRIGHT FLASH" then "DISAPPEARED" instantly. Largest object in release by reported dimensions. FBI graphic overlay on actual site photo. Cited by @MJTruthUltra (517K) and RT (1.3M).
Including UAE inverted-teardrop (June 2024), Iraq object (Dec 2022). Cited by @pubity (42M followers, 50K engagements). Frames the release as "this isn't decades-old, it's last-Tuesday." Currency is the credibility narrative.
Department of War confirmed releases will continue every few weeks. The signal architecture below tells you which way the discourse is moving before the next drop. Each watch item maps to a specific LC metric.
Watch UFO Reddit engagement on LC. If r/UFOs / r/skeptic engagement climbs past 1M/day (currently 147K), the skeptic community has finished processing and is entering the discourse. Prepare for a backlash narrative wave.
Watch the "Ophanim" topic on LC, plus pulpit-cycle sermons via Christian YouTube creators. If Catholic + Evangelical creator volume on UFO+religion overlap doubles, the Bible-changing-revelations narrative consolidates.
Burchett's claim sets a high bar for the next release. If the second tranche is anticlimactic, "Holy Crap" becomes a punchline and the disclosure-win narrative compresses. If it lands, it's the most consequential disclosure since Roswell rumors.
RT_com is amplifying heavily (3.5M engagements). Chinese-language posts running. Turkish dominant outside US. Watch for narrative divergence — does the US "transparency win" frame survive translation, or do international amplifiers reframe as "US admits cover-up"?
MTG + Tim Dillon framing currently 10-15% of themes. If it climbs past 25% by mid-week, the distraction frame has won the political-comedy and pundit cycle. Watch for it to bleed into MAGA discourse via late-night.
Harvard's Avi Loeb already on CBS today. If academic UAP-research community (Loeb, Mellon) starts driving primetime cable, the discourse moves from disclosure-community to mainstream science — and Eric Weinstein's biological questions become unavoidable.
99%+ of metrics, posts, creators, time series, themes, and network breakdowns surfaced here were pulled directly from LunarCrush via MCP. Mainstream news outlets are tracked as creators on LC (reach + engagement on the topic), not cited as article sources.
23 LunarCrush topic queries fired across the UAP universe today. Top 4 topics carry the volume; supporting topics provide context, attribution, and frame-language flips.