UAP Declassified: An Objective Look at the U.S. Government’s Official Data from AARO

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From “UFOs” to a National Security Priority

For more than seventy-five years, the idea of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, has occupied a unique and often sensationalized space in the public imagination. The term itself conjures images of flying saucers, alien visitors, and shadowy government conspiracies, fueled by decades of science fiction, anecdotal accounts, and a persistent cultural mythology. Yet, in the corridors of the Pentagon and the hearing rooms of the United States Congress, the conversation has undergone a significant transformation. The cultural baggage of “UFOs” has been deliberately shed in favor of a more clinical and urgent designation: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAP. This shift in terminology is not merely semantic; it represents a fundamental reframing of the issue from a fringe curiosity to a pressing matter of national security, flight safety, and military domain awareness.

At the heart of this new, objective approach is the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a congressionally mandated organization established within the Department of Defense in July 2022. AARO’s creation marks the U.S. government’s most significant and transparent effort to date to bring a standardized, scientific, and data-driven methodology to the study of these phenomena. Its mission is not to chase aliens, but to resolve anomalies – to identify the unknown objects and events that are being detected by some of the nation’s most advanced military sensors in sensitive airspace and operational areas. The official government definition of UAP reflects this expansive and serious scope, encompassing not just “airborne objects that are not immediately identifiable,” but also “transmedium objects or devices” that can travel between air and water, and “submerged objects or devices” that display behaviors not readily understood by observers or sensors. These phenomena, the government now formally acknowledges, may demonstrate capabilities or material properties that appear to exceed the known state-of-the-art.

The catalyst for this modern era of official investigation can be traced to a pivotal moment in December 2017. A front-page article in The New York Times revealed the existence of a secret, albeit unclassified, Pentagon program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). This program had been funded to investigate reports of UAP encounters by military personnel. Paired with this revelation was the official release of three startling videos captured by U.S. Navy fighter jet sensors between 2004 and 2015. These videos, which came to be known as “FLIR,” “GIMBAL,” and “GOFAST,” showed objects exhibiting speed and maneuverability that the pilots tracking them could not explain. This combination of credible reporting and official, verified sensor data forced the UAP issue out of the realm of speculation and squarely into the mainstream national security conversation. It was no longer a question of belief, but a matter of evidence.

The establishment of AARO is the direct institutional consequence of that moment. It represents a deep shift within the bureaucratic and philosophical landscape of the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment. For decades, the subject was treated with official skepticism and, at times, outright dismissal, as exemplified by earlier efforts like the Air Force’s Project Blue Book, which was ultimately terminated in 1969 after concluding that UFOs posed no threat. The modern push for investigation succeeded where previous efforts failed because it was strategically reframed. The conversation was moved away from the unprovable and speculative question of extraterrestrial origins and toward the tangible, undeniable risks of unidentified objects operating in restricted military airspace.

Lawmakers and Pentagon leaders who might have been hesitant to engage in a debate about “little green men” found common ground in addressing what they came to understand as a critical “domain awareness gap.” The core problem, as it is now defined, is the presence of unknowns in sensitive operational areas. These unknowns could be advanced drones from a foreign adversary, they could be airborne clutter like weather balloons or debris, or they could be something else entirely. Regardless of their origin, their unidentified nature poses a direct risk to the safety of military aviators and a potential threat of technological surprise. This pragmatic reframing was the key to unlocking serious legislative support and the financial resources necessary to create a dedicated office like AARO. It ensures that the study of UAP will remain a durable and legitimate national security concern, driven by the permanent and non-negotiable military requirement to identify any and all activity within its domains. The work of AARO, as presented in its official reports and data, provides the first clear, government-sanctioned look into what is actually known – and, just as importantly, what is not.

The Legislative Mandate: How Congress Built AARO

The existence of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office is not the result of an internal Pentagon initiative or a presidential directive. It is a creation of the United States Congress, meticulously constructed and empowered through a series of powerful legislative mandates embedded in the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the massive bill that funds and sets policy for the entire Department of Defense. This legislative history reveals a Congress that has become increasingly assertive on the UAP issue, demanding a centralized, transparent, and accountable process for investigating these phenomena and, more recently, for scrutinizing the government’s own historical handling of the topic.

NDAA for Fiscal Year 2022: The Foundation

The legislative cornerstone for AARO was laid in the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2022. This law marked a decisive break from the ad-hoc, often siloed efforts of the past. It formally required the Secretary of Defense to establish a permanent office to carry on the work of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF), a smaller group that had been operating within the Office of Naval Intelligence. The legislation gave this new office a broad and powerful mandate.

One of the most significant provisions of the FY 2022 NDAA was the expansion of the official definition of the phenomenon. Congress dictated that the focus should not be limited to aerial objects. The new definition was explicitly “all-domain,” encompassing airborne, submerged, and transmedium objects. This acknowledged that reports from military personnel included phenomena that were observed moving between the air and the sea, a characteristic that defies the capabilities of conventional aircraft. The law mandated that this new office synchronize and standardize the collection, reporting, and analysis of UAP incidents across the entire Department of Defense and with other federal agencies. It was tasked with developing a formal process to ensure that all reports were funneled into a central repository for rigorous scientific and intelligence analysis. This was a direct response to years of inconsistent reporting procedures, which had left valuable data fragmented across different military branches and agencies.

NDAA for Fiscal Year 2023: Expanding Authority and Demanding Accountability

Building on the foundation of the previous year, the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2023 dramatically expanded AARO’s authorities and responsibilities. This legislation was crafted in the wake of the first public congressional hearings on UAP in over 50 years and a rising chorus of claims from former government officials about secret legacy programs and professional retaliation for speaking out. Congress responded directly to these concerns with two groundbreaking provisions.

The first was the establishment of a secure, confidential reporting mechanism for current and former government employees, service members, and contractor personnel. This provision created a legally protected pathway for individuals with knowledge of U.S. government programs or activities related to UAP to report that information directly to AARO. Crucially, the law stipulated that such reporting would not be considered a violation of any non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and provided protections against reprisal. This was a clear signal that Congress wanted to hear from insiders who might have been previously silenced by security oaths, and it effectively nullified NDAs for the specific purpose of communicating with AARO.

The second major mandate in the FY 2023 NDAA was the requirement for AARO to produce a comprehensive historical report on the U.S. government’s involvement with UAP, dating all the way back to January 1, 1945. This was a direct legislative response to persistent allegations of a decades-long government cover-up. Congress tasked AARO with scouring archives, conducting interviews, and delivering a definitive historical account, effectively ordering the executive branch to investigate itself and report its findings.

NDAA for Fiscal Year 2024: A Push for Public Disclosure

The legislative momentum continued with the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2024, which focused heavily on public transparency. The centerpiece of its UAP provisions was a mandate directing the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to establish a formal “UAP Records Collection.” This law requires every government office to identify all records relating to UAP, technologies of unknown origin, and non-human intelligence, and to transmit them to this central, public-facing archive.

The legislation established a powerful “presumption of immediate disclosure.” This means that all UAP records are to be made public unless a specific and compelling reason for continued classification can be demonstrated. Any decision to postpone public release requires a finding that disclosure would pose a grave and identifiable threat to military defense, intelligence operations, or foreign relations. Even then, such records must be periodically reviewed for declassification and are subject to mandatory release after 25 years.

This provision was a modified version of a more aggressive amendment originally proposed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Mike Rounds, known as the “UAP Disclosure Act of 2023.” The original amendment would have created a presidentially appointed, civilian-led review board with the authority to declassify records, and it would have granted the government eminent domain over any recovered UAP materials held by private entities, such as defense contractors. While these more controversial elements were scaled back in the final law, the core principle of a centralized archive with a mandate for transparency remained, marking a significant step toward public accountability.

The clear progression of these laws reveals a deliberate and reactive legislative strategy. The initial reports from pilots and the UAPTF’s 2021 assessment prompted the creation of AARO in the FY 2022 NDAA. Subsequent whistleblower testimony in congressional hearings, which included allegations of secret programs and retaliation, led directly to the robust whistleblower protections and the mandatory historical review in the FY 2023 NDAA. The continued claims of a long-running cover-up then fueled the push for the NARA public records collection in the FY 2024 NDAA. Congress is not merely tasking AARO with studying the UAP phenomenon itself; it is using its legislative power to actively investigate the government’s own handling of the phenomenon over many decades. The structure of these laws suggests a deep and growing skepticism among key lawmakers about the completeness and truthfulness of the information they have received from the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community in the past, and a determination to use their oversight authority to bring more of that information into the light.

Inside AARO: Mission, Structure, and Operations

To understand the U.S. government’s current approach to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, it’s essential to understand the office at the center of the effort. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office is a unique entity within the vast bureaucracy of the Department of Defense, designed from the ground up to serve as the single point of authority and coordination for all UAP-related matters across the U.S. government. Its official mission, structure, and operational partnerships provide a clear picture of its intended function: to transform the study of UAP from a collection of disparate, anecdotal reports into a synchronized, data-driven intelligence and scientific endeavor.

Mission and Vision

AARO’s purpose is articulated in a precise and carefully worded mission statement that is devoid of speculative language and firmly rooted in the principles of national security. Its official mission is to “Minimize technical and intelligence surprise by synchronizing identification, attribution, and mitigation of UAP in the vicinity of national security areas.” This statement reveals the office’s primary focus. It is not a passive research body, but an active operational entity concerned with preventing strategic surprise, whether from a foreign adversary’s breakthrough technology or from a previously unknown natural or technical phenomenon. The key verbs – synchronize, identify, attribute, mitigate – all point to an active process of resolving unknowns and addressing potential threats.

The office’s vision statement complements this mission by outlining the methodology it is intended to employ. AARO’s vision is to “Effectively and efficiently detect, track, analyze, and manage anomalous detections and UAP via normalized and systematized DoD, IC, and civil business practices adhering to the highest scientific and intelligence-tradecraft standards with transparency and shared awareness.” This vision underscores the goal of creating a permanent, standardized process that becomes a normal part of government operations. It explicitly commits the office to a dual-track approach, combining the rigor of the scientific method with the established techniques of intelligence tradecraft. The inclusion of “transparency and shared awareness” acknowledges the public and congressional mandate for openness that is central to AARO’s charter.

Organizational Structure

AARO operates under the direct authority of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, placing it high within the Pentagon’s organizational chart and giving it the necessary clout to coordinate across the sprawling defense enterprise. The office is led by a director who reports to senior defense officials, ensuring that its findings are communicated at the highest levels of leadership.

To facilitate the critical information sharing required by its mission, AARO is guided by an executive council known as the AAROEXEC. This council is designed to be the primary forum for collaboration between the military and the various agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community. It provides oversight and guidance in key areas, including surveillance and reporting protocols, the design of sensor systems, intelligence analysis, and the development of strategies to mitigate any identified threats.

As a newly established office, AARO has been on a deliberate path to reach what the Pentagon terms Full Operational Capability (FOC). This milestone, projected for the end of Fiscal Year 2024, signifies that the office is fully staffed, has secured all necessary facilities and resources, and has all its operational processes in place. Achieving FOC has involved a significant effort to hire personnel with the requisite expertise in science, technology, and intelligence analysis, and to establish the secure infrastructure needed to handle a wide range of classified and unclassified data.

Interagency Collaboration

AARO’s mandate requires it to function as a central hub, connecting a vast network of military, intelligence, and civilian organizations. Its success is heavily dependent on its ability to foster cooperation and break down the bureaucratic silos that have historically hindered a unified approach to the UAP issue.

Within the Department of Defense, AARO works closely with the Joint Staff, the regional combatant commands (such as INDOPACOM and EUCOM), and the individual military services (Air Force, Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and Space Force). The combatant commands are responsible for detecting and reporting UAP incidents within their geographic areas of responsibility, providing the raw data that forms the basis of many of AARO’s investigations.

Equally important is AARO’s deep integration with the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), a coalition of 18 federal agencies and organizations. AARO partners with agencies like the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the National Security Agency (NSA) to leverage their powerful collection and analysis capabilities. These partnerships allow AARO to access a wide spectrum of intelligence data, from satellite imagery to signals intelligence, to help characterize and attribute UAP events.

Beyond the national security apparatus, AARO has forged important relationships with civilian agencies. Its most significant civilian partnership is with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Through this collaboration, AARO receives UAP-related Pilot Reports (PIREPs) from commercial and private pilots, which helps to lessen the military-centric collection bias that results from relying solely on DoD-sourced reports. These civilian reports provide a more diverse geographic distribution of sightings across the United States. AARO also collaborates with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which has convened its own independent study team to examine UAP from a purely scientific perspective. This partnership allows for the sharing of data and analytical approaches, reinforcing the scientific rigor of AARO’s work.

This complex web of partnerships reveals the dual identity at the core of AARO’s design. It is simultaneously a scientific analysis organization and an intelligence fusion center. Its operational challenge is to bridge the often-disparate cultures of these two worlds. Open scientific inquiry thrives on the free exchange of data, peer review, and public disclosure. Classified intelligence operations, by contrast, depend on secrecy to protect sensitive sources and methods. AARO must navigate this inherent tension daily. Its public-facing website, with its declassified case files and trend reports, represents its commitment to scientific transparency. Its classified briefings and detailed reports to Congress fulfill its primary function as an intelligence organization tasked with protecting national security. This duality explains much of the public and political friction surrounding the UAP topic. While AARO is mandated to pursue “transparency,” it is also legally and operationally bound by the classification rules of the national security community, creating a constant and challenging balancing act.

The Analytical Framework: A Data-Driven Approach to Anomalies

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office is tasked with a formidable challenge: to take a vast and varied collection of UAP reports – ranging from grainy cockpit videos to fleeting radar returns and eyewitness accounts – and subject them to a rigorous, objective, and repeatable analytical process. The goal is to strip away ambiguity, correct for misperception, and arrive at a data-driven conclusion about the nature of each reported phenomenon. To do this, AARO employs a sophisticated framework that combines the powerful tools of the U.S. Intelligence Community with the structured discipline of the scientific method. This framework is fundamentally a process of elimination, designed to exhaust all known, conventional explanations before a case is ever considered truly anomalous.

The Intelligence Toolkit

AARO leverages the full spectrum of intelligence-gathering disciplines to build as complete a picture as possible of each UAP event. This multi-intelligence, or “multi-INT,” approach allows analysts to fuse data from different sources, cross-reference information, and identify patterns that might be invisible when looking at a single data point. The primary disciplines include:

• Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT): This is intelligence derived from the analysis of imagery and geospatial information. For a UAP investigation, GEOINT can be used to precisely locate an event in space and time. Analysts can use satellite or aerial imagery to map an object’s flight path, measure its size and shape, and correlate its position with known geographical features, air traffic, or weather patterns. It provides the essential “where and when” context for an incident.
• Signals Intelligence (SIGINT): This discipline involves the collection and analysis of electronic signals. If a UAP emits any form of electromagnetic energy – such as radio communications, radar signals, or other electronic transmissions – SIGINT sensors could potentially detect and analyze these emissions. This could provide clues about the object’s origin, capabilities, or intent.
• Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT): MASINT is a highly technical discipline that focuses on data other than traditional imagery and communications. It involves analyzing the unique physical “signatures” of an object or event. For a UAP, this could include its radar cross-section (how it appears on different radar bands), its thermal signature (how much heat it emits), its spectral signature (the specific wavelengths of light it reflects or emits), or any magnetic or acoustic signatures it might produce. MASINT provides a detailed technical fingerprint that can be used to identify and characterize an object.
• Human Intelligence (HUMINT): This is the oldest form of intelligence gathering, derived from human sources. In the context of UAP investigations, HUMINT primarily involves the detailed debriefing of the witnesses – the pilots, sensor operators, and other military personnel who observed the event firsthand. These interviews provide important qualitative data and context that sensor readings alone cannot capture.

The Scientific Method

Alongside its intelligence tradecraft, AARO is committed to a rigorous scientific framework. This involves applying a structured, evidence-based approach to analysis, including modeling, simulation, and collaboration with external science and technology partners. AARO’s public resolution of the “Go Fast” video provides a clear case study of this scientific methodology in action.

The “Go Fast” video, captured by a Navy F/A-18F in 2015, appeared to show a small, round object skimming rapidly above the ocean’s surface. The initial perception was of an object traveling at extraordinary speed. AARO’s analysis demonstrated that this was an illusion. By manually extracting the telemetry data displayed on the pilot’s screen – such as the aircraft’s altitude (25,000 feet), the sensor’s angle, and the range to the object – analysts were able to perform a detailed photogrammetric reconstruction. Their calculations showed that the object was not low to the water but was actually at an altitude of approximately 13,000 feet. At that altitude, its calculated speed was not hypersonic but was consistent with the speed of the wind at that elevation, as confirmed by historical meteorological data. The object’s apparent high speed was an optical illusion known as motion parallax, where an object at a distance appears to move faster against its background when viewed from a fast-moving platform. This rigorous application of physics and mathematics allowed AARO to resolve the case with high confidence as a non-anomalous object, likely a balloon or similar debris, drifting with the wind.

Core Analytical Challenges

Across all of its public reports and briefings, AARO, along with its partners at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and NASA, has consistently identified one overarching obstacle that plagues the vast majority of UAP investigations: the poor quality of the available data. This is the single most persistent theme in the official government literature on the subject. The challenges fall into several key categories:

• Lack of Sufficient Data: Many UAP reports are simply too limited to support a conclusive analysis. A fleeting visual sighting or a single, uncorroborated sensor return often lacks the verifiable measurements – such as range, altitude, speed, and size – needed for a rigorous investigation. AARO has stated that a large number of cases in its holdings remain unresolved simply because of this lack of data.
• Sensor Limitations and Artifacts: Military sensor systems, such as radar and infrared pods, are highly advanced but are optimized for their specific mission: detecting and tracking known threats like conventional aircraft and missiles. They are not always calibrated to accurately measure or identify small, slow-moving, or unusually shaped objects. This can lead to sensor errors or the creation of “artifacts” – false readings or visual distortions generated by the sensor system itself. For example, an infrared “flare” can be mistaken for a hot object, and video compression algorithms can create visual trails that appear to be a propulsion signature.
• Observational Misperceptions: The human brain, even when aided by advanced sensors, is susceptible to optical illusions and misperceptions. As demonstrated in the “Go Fast” case, effects like motion parallax can dramatically distort the perception of an object’s speed. Other effects, such as forced perspective, can make it difficult to accurately judge an object’s size and distance. Atmospheric conditions, such as temperature inversions or ice crystals, can also create visual distortions and false radar returns.

This analytical framework reveals that AARO’s process is fundamentally one of conservative, skeptical inquiry. For every case, the investigation begins with the assumption of a conventional explanation. Analysts work systematically to rule out every known possibility – airborne clutter, sensor artifacts, natural phenomena, conventional aircraft – before they will even entertain the possibility that a phenomenon is truly anomalous. The “other” or “unresolved” category is not a default classification for confirmed extraterrestrial craft; it is a repository for cases where the data is simply too poor to support a definitive conclusion one way or the other. This methodology is designed to be cautious and evidence-based. It also means that any case that AARO might one day officially designate as truly anomalous would have to be a phenomenon that has survived an exceptionally rigorous and multi-layered process of conventional debunking. The data released so far suggests that such cases constitute an extremely small fraction of the total UAP caseload.

The Data So Far: Statistical Trends in UAP Reporting

To move beyond individual case studies and understand the UAP issue in its totality, it’s necessary to examine the aggregate data compiled by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. Through its public website and annual reports to Congress, AARO has released statistical trends that provide a quantitative, high-level snapshot of the thousands of reports in its holdings. This data offers a objective perspective on the most common characteristics of reported UAP, revealing clear patterns in what is being seen, where it is being seen, and what it turns out to be once identified.

As of late 2024, AARO’s total caseload included over 1,600 UAP reports submitted from across the U.S. government. In its most recent reporting period, covering May 2023 to June 2024, the office received 757 new reports. Of this total caseload, AARO has successfully resolved hundreds of cases, while a significant number – over 900 – remain in an “active archive.” These archived cases are not considered permanently unidentified; rather, they lack sufficient scientific data to allow for a conclusive analysis at this time. They can be reopened and potentially resolved if new information or improved analytical techniques become available.

Resolution Outcomes: What Are UAP?

When a UAP case has enough high-quality data to be resolved, it almost always turns out to be a known, conventional object or phenomenon. The statistical breakdown of AARO’s closed cases paints a clear picture of misidentification. The overwhelming majority of resolved UAP are attributable to man-made objects, with balloons and satellites being the most common culprits. This data strongly supports AARO’s position that the UAP problem is primarily one of domain awareness gaps and the difficulty of identifying ordinary objects in complex environments.

The following table details the resolution outcomes for closed cases, based on data released by AARO.

As the data shows, balloons and satellites alone account for over 86% of all resolved cases. When combined with drones, conventional aircraft, and other man-made objects, this figure rises to over 95%. This statistical evidence provides a powerful counter-narrative to speculation about extraordinary or off-world technologies, grounding the UAP discussion in the reality of an increasingly cluttered air and space environment.

Reported Morphologies: What Do UAP Look Like?

Public fascination with UAP is often driven by reports of distinctly shaped craft, such as the classic “flying saucer” or the more recent “Tic Tac” shape described by Navy pilots. AARO’s data on reported morphologies – the shapes of the observed phenomena – reveals that such well-defined objects are the exception, not the rule. The vast majority of reports describe simple, ambiguous shapes, most commonly featureless orbs or points of light.

This pattern is significant because it aligns with the core analytical challenge of poor data quality. A distant, unresolved light source or a simple spherical object is inherently more difficult to identify than a structured craft with wings, control surfaces, or visible propulsion. The prevalence of these simple morphologies supports the conclusion that many unresolved cases remain so not because they are exotic, but because they lack the distinguishing features necessary for a positive identification.

The following table breaks down the most commonly reported UAP shapes for cases where morphology data was available.

Together, “Orb/Round/Sphere” and “Lights” account for nearly 72% of all reports where a shape was described. The more exotic and widely discussed shapes, like “Disk” and “Tic Tac,” represent a very small fraction of the total, at 1.9% and 1.6% respectively.

Reported Altitudes and Geographic Hotspots

AARO’s data also reveals distinct patterns in where and at what altitude UAP are reported. Geographically, sightings tend to cluster around U.S. military installations, training ranges, and operational areas. This is not necessarily because more anomalous activity occurs in these locations, but because of what AARO terms a “collection bias.” These areas have a high concentration of advanced sensors (like radar and infrared systems) and a population of highly trained observers (pilots and sensor operators) who are now under explicit guidance to report any anomalies they encounter. This creates a feedback loop: more sensors and trained observers lead to more reports, which in turn makes these areas appear to be “hotspots.”

This collection bias is beginning to shift due to AARO’s increased collaboration with the FAA. The influx of reports from commercial pilots has started to diversify the geographic distribution of sightings, providing a broader view of activity across the continental United States and its coastal waters.

In terms of altitude, the majority of UAP are reported between 10,000 and 30,000 feet, a range commonly occupied by commercial and military aircraft. This again points to the likelihood of misidentification in a crowded airspace. The data, taken as a whole, consistently reinforces AARO’s central thesis: the UAP issue is less about the “unexplained” and more about the “misidentified.” The statistical trends show a phenomenon dominated by conventional objects appearing in ambiguous forms, primarily observed in areas where the U.S. government has its most powerful sensors and its most vigilant observers.

Declassified Case Files: Resolving the Unidentified

While statistical trends provide a valuable overview of the UAP landscape, it is through the detailed analysis of individual cases that AARO’s analytical framework is best understood. The office has publicly released a number of case resolution reports and videos, offering a transparent look at how its teams of scientists and intelligence analysts apply rigorous methods to solve these puzzles. These declassified files consistently demonstrate a core principle of AARO’s work: the “anomaly” in a UAP report is often not a property of the object itself, but a product of the sensor’s limitations or the observer’s misperception. AARO’s primary function is to deconstruct these initial, often misleading, impressions with careful, data-driven analysis.

Case Study: The “Go Fast” Video (2015)

Perhaps the most compelling public demonstration of AARO’s scientific methodology is its resolution of the “Go Fast” case. The 34-second infrared video, captured by a Navy F/A-18F, shows a small, round object that appears to be moving at incredible speed just above the surface of the ocean. The audio captures the pilots’ astonished reactions, reinforcing the impression of an object with extraordinary capabilities.

AARO’s investigation concluded with high confidence that the object was not moving at anomalous speeds. The analysis was a meticulous exercise in photogrammetry – the science of making measurements from photographs. Lacking the original sensor data, analysts manually extracted the telemetry values displayed on the jet’s cockpit screen. This data provided the critical variables needed for their model: the aircraft’s altitude (a constant 25,000 feet), its speed, the sensor’s azimuth and elevation angles, and the calculated range to the target.

By inputting these values into a geometric model, the analysts were able to calculate the object’s true position and trajectory. Their findings were stark: the object was not low to the water but was actually at an altitude of approximately 13,000 feet. Its apparent proximity to the ocean was an illusion created by the viewing angle. Once the object’s true altitude was known, its speed could be accurately calculated. The result was a speed that ranged from about 5 to 92 miles per hour. A review of historical weather data for that time and location showed that the wind at 13,000 feet was blowing at approximately 69 miles per hour. The object’s movement was entirely consistent with an object, such as a balloon, drifting with the wind. The breathtaking speed was an illusion of motion parallax, a common optical effect that makes distant objects appear to move quickly when viewed from a fast-moving platform. The case was a textbook example of how rigorous data analysis can overturn initial, dramatic perceptions.

Case Study: The “Middle East Orb” (2022)

Another prominent case involves footage from an MQ-9 Reaper drone operating in the Middle East, which recorded a small, spherical, metallic-looking object moving through the sky. This “orb” case is representative of a common type of UAP report. AARO’s analysis determined that the object did not demonstrate any anomalous performance characteristics. Its speed and movement were consistent with the prevailing winds, and it did not pose a threat to the drone or any other airborne assets.

unlike the “Go Fast” case, AARO has not definitively resolved the “Middle East Orb.” The reason highlights the office’s primary challenge: a lack of sufficient data. Without multi-sensor data or the ability to get a closer look, analysts could not conclusively determine the object’s identity. While its characteristics are consistent with a balloon, other possibilities could not be ruled out. As a result, AARO has placed this case in its “Active Archive.” This means the investigation is paused, pending the discovery of additional data that could allow for a final resolution. Cases like this are not considered evidence of anomalous technology; instead, they are used to contribute to trend and statistical analyses, helping AARO understand the common characteristics of unresolved sightings in a particular region.

Case Study: The Mt. Etna Object (2018)

In 2018, a U.S. uncrewed aerial system recorded dramatic infrared video of an eruption of Mt. Etna in Italy. During the recording, a round object appeared to transit directly through the superheated ash plume without any apparent effect on its performance, an seemingly impossible feat.

AARO coordinated an interagency and international analytical effort to investigate the event. The team’s in-depth analysis revealed another case of optical illusion. Using pixel luminosity analysis and sophisticated 3D modeling, they were able to reconstruct the geometry of the scene. Their model demonstrated with high confidence that the object never entered the volcanic plume. In reality, it was a balloon drifting with the wind at a distance of approximately 170 kilometers (over 100 miles) from the volcano. The intense atmospheric conditions and heat near the volcano created optical distortions in the infrared sensor’s field of view, making the distant balloon appear to be interacting with the much closer ash plume.

Other Resolved Cases: A Pattern of Misidentification

AARO has published a variety of other case resolutions that reinforce this pattern of misidentification and misperception.

• In one case from South Asia, an MQ-9 Reaper recorded an object that appeared to have an “atmospheric wake” trailing behind it, a signature visually consistent with some forms of advanced propulsion. Post-event analysis determined that the “wake” was a software artifact created by the video compression algorithm overlaying successive frames. Air traffic control data suggested the object itself was simply a commercial airliner on a known flight path.
• In the Western United States, a P3 aircraft pilot reported three objects moving at high speed. A detailed geospatial analysis revealed the objects were much farther away than the pilot had estimated. The apparent changes in their shape were determined to be visual artifacts caused by the sensor’s autofocus system struggling to resolve distant targets. Air traffic data confirmed the objects were likely three separate commercial aircraft.
• Other cases have been resolved with high confidence as groups of migratory birds, whose flight behavior corresponded with known migration routes, and as consumer-grade reflective foil balloons, whose movement correlated perfectly with recorded wind speed and direction.

These declassified case files, taken together, reveal a consistent and powerful theme. The “unidentified” and “anomalous” nature of these events is frequently a temporary state, a product of incomplete data and the inherent limitations of both human and machine perception. The work of AARO is a methodical process of adding the missing context – wind speed, object distance, sensor properties, software behavior – that allows an apparently inexplicable event to resolve into an ordinary one. This body of work suggests that any UAP evidence, whether it’s a sensor recording or an eyewitness account, is fundamentally unreliable for determining anomalous characteristics until it has been subjected to this kind of exhaustive contextual analysis.

AARO’s Historical Review: Re-examining the Past

As part of its mandate from the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2023, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office was tasked with a monumental undertaking: to conduct a comprehensive review of the entire historical record of U.S. government involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, dating back to 1945. In March 2024, AARO released the first volume of this review, titled the “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).” The report was the result of an exhaustive effort that involved reviewing official investigation archives, researching both classified and unclassified records, and conducting approximately 30 interviews with individuals who claimed to have knowledge of secret UAP-related programs.

The Overarching Conclusion: No Evidence of Off-World Technology

The historical report’s primary conclusion is unambiguous and directly addresses the most persistent narratives surrounding the UAP topic. After its extensive review, AARO stated that it found “no empirical evidence” that any UAP sighting represented off-world technology. Furthermore, it found no evidence to substantiate claims that the U.S. government or private industry has been concealing extraterrestrial technology and reverse-engineering it in secret programs that were hidden from congressional oversight. The report concluded that while many historical UAP cases remain unsolved due to a lack of quality data, if such data were available, most of these cases would likely be resolved as misidentifications of ordinary objects or phenomena.

Legacy Investigation Programs

AARO’s report provides a historical overview of the U.S. government’s past efforts to investigate UFOs, placing its own work in the context of a long, and often misunderstood, history.

• Projects Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book (1947-1969): The report re-examined the work of the U.S. Air Force’s early UFO investigation programs. It affirmed that these projects, which collectively investigated over 12,000 sightings, concluded that the vast majority of reports were the result of misidentifying conventional objects (like aircraft and balloons), astronomical phenomena (like stars and meteors), or natural events. The final conclusion of Project Blue Book in 1969 was that UFOs did not pose a threat to national security, showed no evidence of technology beyond the range of modern science, and offered no indication of being extraterrestrial vehicles. The AARO report did acknowledge the famous internal debate within the earliest program, Project Sign, where some staff members drafted a now-lost “Estimate of the Situation” that reportedly concluded some UFOs could be interplanetary in origin. the report notes that this estimate was rejected by Air Force leadership for its lack of proof and was never officially published.

The following table provides a chronological overview of the key U.S. government programs tasked with investigating UAP, illustrating the evolution of the government’s approach over time.

Addressing Persistent Narratives

A significant portion of AARO’s historical review was dedicated to investigating specific, high-profile claims and narratives that have fueled beliefs in a government cover-up for decades.

• The Roswell Incident (1947): The report addresses the famous incident in Roswell, New Mexico, which has become the cornerstone of modern UFO folklore. AARO’s review reaffirms the findings of two exhaustive U.S. Air Force reports published in the 1990s. The conclusion remains that the debris recovered by the Roswell Army Air Field was not from an alien spacecraft, but from a high-altitude balloon train launched as part of Project Mogul, a top-secret military project designed to monitor Soviet nuclear tests using acoustic sensors. AARO’s report also concurs with the Air Force’s explanation for the claims of “alien bodies.” It found that these stories were a later conflation of the 1947 balloon crash with separate, unrelated incidents from the 1950s, including a 1956 KC-97 aircraft accident that killed 11 Air Force members and the use of anthropomorphic test dummies in high-altitude parachute drop experiments.
• KONA BLUE: AARO’s investigation also shed definitive light on a program called KONA BLUE, which had been cited by some individuals in interviews as a secret Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program established to retrieve and exploit “non-human biologics.” AARO’s research, which included reviewing the original proposal documents, found that KONA BLUE was never an operational program. It was a proposal for a Special Access Program (SAP) that was put forward to DHS leadership in 2011. The proposal was a continuation of the DIA’s AATIP/AAWSAP effort, which the DIA had terminated due to a lack of merit. After a six-month review, DHS leadership disapproved the KONA BLUE proposal and directed its immediate termination, citing an inadequate justification for the program. AARO confirmed that the program was never formally established, never received any funding, and never collected or received any materials, “non-human” or otherwise.

The Historical Record Report represents AARO’s attempt to provide a definitive, evidence-based counterpoint to decades of speculation. By systematically investigating the most prominent claims and re-examining the history of official government involvement, the report seeks to ground the UAP conversation in the documented historical record. Its conclusions, while perhaps unsatisfying to some, are consistent with the broader findings of AARO’s ongoing analytical work: a story dominated by misidentification, conventional explanations, and a persistent lack of high-quality data, not by evidence of a secret history of off-world engagement.

The Dialogue on Disclosure: AARO, Congress, and the Public

The work of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office does not occur in a vacuum. It is situated within a dynamic and often contentious public and political landscape, shaped by a growing “disclosure movement,” intense congressional scrutiny, and a deep-seated public fascination with the UAP topic. AARO’s official data and objective conclusions are frequently juxtaposed with extraordinary claims from whistleblowers and persistent demands from some lawmakers for greater transparency. This has created a complex dialogue about what the government knows and what it should be telling the American people.

Congressional Scrutiny

Since 2022, the U.S. Congress has held a series of public and classified hearings on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, bringing the issue to a level of official prominence not seen in over half a century. These hearings have served as a powerful platform for lawmakers to question Pentagon officials and for former military personnel to provide firsthand testimony about their encounters.

The hearings have highlighted a persistent and bipartisan push for greater transparency. Members of Congress have repeatedly expressed frustration with what they describe as a culture of excessive secrecy within the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. They have raised questions about AARO’s classified budget, which prohibits detailed public oversight, and have voiced concerns about the slow pace of declassification. A key theme has been the need to protect whistleblowers who come forward with information. Testimony from military witnesses has included claims of professional stigma and even retaliation for reporting UAP sightings, which directly spurred Congress to write the robust whistleblower protection language into the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2023. These hearings have become a focal point for the broader debate, with some lawmakers demanding answers about alleged secret programs and the use of taxpayer funds for activities that have not been reported to Congress.

AARO’s Public Engagement

In response to its legislative mandate and the intense public interest, AARO has undertaken a deliberate effort to engage with the public and provide a degree of transparency unprecedented in the history of government UAP investigations. The centerpiece of this effort is its official website, aaro.mil, which serves as a public repository for official information.

Through this website, AARO has released declassified UAP videos, detailed case resolution reports, information papers on common phenomena like satellite flaring, and links to historical records from the National Archives. The office also provides transcripts and videos of its directors’ public statements, such as open testimony before congressional committees and media roundtable discussions. This public-facing posture is a significant departure from the closed-door approach of past government efforts.

In its public communications, AARO and its leadership have been consistent in their messaging. The office’s current and former directors have repeatedly stated that, to date, AARO has found “no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology.” They emphasize that their work is guided by the scientific method and that they will follow the data wherever it leads, but that the data so far points toward conventional explanations.

The Transparency Paradox

Despite these efforts at public engagement, AARO finds itself caught in a difficult position, which can be described as a “transparency paradox.” The public and many in Congress demand total disclosure of all UAP-related information. AARO is an organization that operates at the intersection of public inquiry and national security, and it is bound by the strict rules of classification that govern the latter.

AARO’s director, Dr. Jon Kosloski, has publicly explained this dilemma. He has stated that in many UAP cases, the image or video of the object itself may not be a security concern. The reason for the classification is often the context in which the data was collected. The “location, source, or method used to capture it is still sensitive.” Releasing a video might inadvertently reveal the highly classified capabilities of a fighter jet’s sensor pod, the location of a covert submarine, or the collection methods of an intelligence satellite. Protecting these “sources and methods” is a fundamental principle of national security. This reality means that AARO cannot simply release all of its data, even if it wishes to. It must navigate a complex declassification process for every piece of information, balancing the public’s right to know against the imperative to protect national security.

This paradox fuels a significant disconnect between the narrative presented in some congressional hearings and the official findings published by AARO. While AARO’s data-driven reports consistently point toward mundane explanations and data gaps, some witness testimony presented to Congress alleges a vast, multi-decade conspiracy involving recovered non-human technology and a secret “control group” operating outside of legal oversight. These two narratives are fundamentally incompatible. AARO’s Historical Record Report was a direct attempt to investigate these extraordinary claims and found them to be unsubstantiated, often tracing their origins to misinterpretations, rumors, or inaccurate information.

This has created a situation that could be described as a “tale of two governments.” One is the official, on-the-record government represented by AARO, which presents a conservative, data-driven, and skeptical analysis of the UAP issue. The other is a shadow narrative, promoted by some whistleblowers and their supporters in Congress, of a deep-state conspiracy and a monumental cover-up. The UAP issue has, in many ways, become a proxy for a broader political and cultural battle over government transparency and public trust. AARO is caught in the middle of this conflict, tasked with providing objective, scientific answers in an environment charged with suspicion and belief. The future of the UAP conversation will likely be defined by which of these two competing narratives ultimately proves more compelling to the public and its elected representatives.

Summary

A objective examination of the official data, reports, and public statements from the U.S. government’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) presents a picture of the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena issue that is far more grounded in scientific and intelligence challenges than in paranormal mystery. The evidence, as presented by the government’s own designated authority, suggests that the UAP phenomenon is best understood as a confluence of several distinct factors. The first is a high volume of misidentified conventional objects and natural phenomena, a problem exacerbated by an increasingly cluttered air and space environment filled with everything from commercial drones and high-altitude balloons to a growing constellation of satellites.

The second factor is the inherent limitation of modern sensor technology. While advanced, military sensor systems are not infallible; they are subject to artifacts, misinterpretations, and optical illusions like parallax that can create the false impression of anomalous performance. A significant portion of AARO’s analytical work involves correcting for these perceptual and technical errors to determine an object’s true characteristics. The final, and perhaps most significant, factor is a persistent lack of high-quality, comprehensive data. A large percentage of cases in AARO’s portfolio remain unresolved not because they are demonstrably exotic, but because the available data is simply too limited to support a conclusive scientific or intelligence analysis.

AARO’s extensive review of the U.S. government’s historical record, stretching back to 1945, reinforces these conclusions. The comprehensive report found no verifiable evidence to support claims of recovered off-world technology or of a government conspiracy to conceal such information from Congress or the public. Instead, it found a history of investigations that consistently concluded the vast majority of sightings were attributable to ordinary explanations.

Ultimately, the official data frames AARO’s ongoing mission not as a quest to find extraterrestrial life, but as a critical and pragmatic national security function. Its purpose is to systematically identify and eliminate domain awareness gaps, ensuring that the United States military and intelligence community can reliably detect, track, and identify any object operating in its sensitive airspace, waterways, and on-orbit. The declassified data from AARO reveals a complex technological, perceptual, and intelligence challenge – one that demands rigorous analysis and a commitment to evidence over speculation.

Last update on 2025-12-19 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API