Concerns about AARO’s efficacy for UFO disclosure are understandable considering the government’s long history of efforts to downplay and dismiss the topic. AARO’s closest historical parallel, Project Blue Book, began as a sincere effort to unravel the UFO mystery only to become the key tool in those efforts. Even before Blue Book, in 1949, the Air Force released case summaries of some of the UFO sightings that had been collected during its initial investigation of the phenomenon. Even though several of those cases had led some in the military and the Pentagon to conclude the culprit was extraterrestrial spacecraft, the Air Force analysis was a farce. It concluded that most of the sightings had prosaic causes, even if the facts of the case did not support the given explanation. The truly inexplicable cases were simply ignored. Donald Keyhoe was one of the few journalists to get his hands on this tranche of reports. In 1950, he reported that it was like “reading confidential suggestions for diverting attention and explaining away the sightings.” He wondered if the Air Force’s real purpose “was to investigate something serious, at the same time covering it up, step by step.”
Anyone who has studied a little of this history–or even just watched a few seasons of The X-Files–knows how this always plays out. The public comes tantalizingly close to real answers about UFOs, only for them to be yanked away. We are all long sufferers of the Lucy-and-the-football syndrome. Is AARO’s director, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, just another in a long line of Lucys? Will he dangle the truth as a prelude to announcing that UFOs were only in our heads the whole time? There is a strong case to be made that this time is different.
Let’s try to imagine the worst-case scenario. In late November 2021, as pressure to investigate UFOs was building from Congress, the DoD announced the opening of the office that would become AARO. Sean Kirkpatrick was named director eight months later, in July 2022. Suppose that Kirkpatrick and his DoD handlers decided from the beginning to use AARO as a means to bottle up or somehow dismiss evidence of the existence of UFOs. AARO’s critics are not saying this explicitly, but their criticisms are dripping with innuendo that strongly imply it. For this to be the case, what would have to be true?
For starters, it would require a tacit agreement to lie to Congress, to cook the books so that the information Congress demanded all came out one way, facts be damned. This would be legally, professionally, and politically perilous. If AARO were caught in the act of even one misdirection, the entire operation could be exposed. When Blue Book was dismissing UFO sightings in the 1950s and 60s, it was acting neither under a Congressional mandate nor under the glare of Congressional oversight. If the DoD and Intelligence Community were to lie to Congress about UFOs today, it would put their entire leadership structure at risk.
The notion that AARO intends to cover up the truth about UFOs also faces a logic problem. It would be odd for the DoD to put this much effort into looking for something they did not want to find.
AARO was formed by, and until August 2023 was still managed under, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence and Security, a Pentagon office about which Lue Elizondo has said “didn’t give a damn about this topic to begin with until they were forced to.” He resigned from this office for this very reason. When OUSD(I&S) first announced its UFO office, the conventional wisdom was that it was trying to preempt mandates from Congress about how the office should operate. It would elide Congressional oversight, and as Elizondo said at the time, attempt to “control the narrative” about UFO revelations. This plan–if it was the plan–was short lived, and the Congressional mandates came anyway. AARO, under Kirkpatrick, is complying with those mandates: a rigorous analysis of incoming sightings reports; building better data collection tools, including permanent sensors in UFO hotspots; developing novel scientific theories; regular reporting to Congress, including what will certainly be a barn-burner historical report; networking with governmental and civilian organizations, including NASA and the FAA; designing a (not yet launched) public reporting tool; and interviewing witnesses Congress sends his way.
If the intention is to maintain the coverup, then taking any one of these steps would be incredibly risky. Allowing AARO to function as designed is the equivalent of setting Pandora’s Box on a table in a crowded room and letting everyone fiddle with the latch, knowing full well that one of them might pop it open. OUSD(I&S) and the wider circle of DOD and IC leadership are by all appearances OK with this outcome. They have resolved, grudgingly or not, to letting AARO seek the revelations that are implied by Congressional mandates.
How can we be sure of that? Because we know (and the DoD knows) that UFOs are present all around the world, that they have been here a long time, and don’t seem to be going away. AARO presentations have described the UFO presence as “potentially ubiquitous.” Kirkpatrick himself informed the NASA UAP study group that inexplicable metallic spheres capable of traveling Mach 2 are seen all over the world. Kirkpatrick has said that between two and five percent of the cases in his data set are truly anomalous. That means he’s got about 40 UAP that exhibit inexplicable, physics-defying characteristics, with perhaps two to five genuine anomalies showing up every month. So it is only a matter of time before AARO captures incontrovertible evidence of the phenomenon.
It strains credulity to accept that Kirkpatrick would allow all of that evidence to flow to him, be as public about it as he has been, only to turn around and bury it under lies.
Much of the frustration with AARO stems from the belief that sensors and scientific analysis are a colossal waste of time when all Kirkpatrick need do is gather some Special Access Program whistleblowers in a conference room, record their testimony, and announce the U.S. government is in possession of non-human technology. Christopher Mellon has championed the use of whistleblowers for disclosure. In June, he wrote in Politico that in “one stroke [AARO] could resolve one of the greatest government conspiracy theories and most profound scientific questions of all time.” Mellon will go down in history as a national hero, and his impatience to end the reign of UFO secrecy is understandable, but he could easily be wrong that a whistleblower bankshot would bring about disclosure.
Kirkpatrick has acknowledged–and Congress has repeatedlyreminded him–that collecting whistleblower testimony is part of his job. But to be useful that testimony has to contain data he can feed into AARO’s rigorous analytic process. It’s clear by now that Kirkpatrick sees himself not as an investigator of people and events, but as a researcher of a phenomenon (he uses the word often). On whistleblowers, he told ABC News in July, “I believe that they believe what they are telling me. And my job–it’s not a question of belief, it’s a question of what can I go research.”
When Kirkpatrick says that he still lacks “sufficient scientific-quality data” of non-human technology, it’s frustrating to those of us who suspect that evidence exists somewhere in classified records. But there is another way to interpret these statements. Kirkpatrick believes that he needs fresh, uncompromised data that he can vouch for scientifically. As he told the NASA panel, without this framework firmly in place, “we are unable to reach defendable conclusions that meet the high scientific standards we set for resolution…This includes physical testing and employing modeling and simulation to validate our analyses and the underlying theories, and then peer reviewing those results before reaching any conclusions.”
This level of scientific analysis is the only thing that can clinch the case, and Kirkpatrick is laying the groundwork for that to be airtight. This is why he keeps lecturing the public about “why we have to do the things we have to do.” He reiterated this at the NASA meeting: “The greatest thing that could happen to me is I could come out and say, ‘Hey, I know where all these things are. Here you go.’ Alright, but I don’t, right. And it’s gonna take us time to research all that.”
Once AARO does capture verifiable evidence of a UFO in real time, Kirkpatrick knows that no one will take his word for it, or even take the video and sensor data at face value. He is going to reap a whirlwind of very difficult questions from our skeptical intelligentsia and political leadership. Most of his public statements reveal that he is fixated on this phase of disclosure and that AARO is preparing for it. Pulling UFO parts out of a box now, even if he could, would not prepare him to answer those questions, and may in fact harm the ultimate goals of disclosure.
AARO’s critics seem to imagine there was a secret agreement between Kirkpatrick and UFO gatekeepers to continue the coverup. But there is just as much evidence that the opposite occurred. If the current DoD and IC leadership decided to let the truth come out, whatever it may be, they would want it to unfold in an orderly and methodical process. They would need a project leader who would ground the process in rock solid evidence. They would need to go slow enough to account for the scientific method, and all manner of political, bureaucratic, and societal considerations. In short, they would need Kirkpatrick to be doing exactly what he is doing. Did this agreement to disclose actually happen? If UFOs are real and ubiquitous, that is a more plausible explanation for what AARO is doing than the accusations of a coverup.
Sean Kirkpatrick, Director of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), likes to remind everyone of his office’s “broad scope of authorities and responsibilities.” With good reason. It is easy to lose track of just how many spinning plates–or flying saucers–AARO is holding on to. Below is a list of the six core functions of AARO, with excerpts from statutes and direct quotes from relevant parties that clarify what is entailed in each function. The quotes are especially illuminating because they reveal how members of Congress and Kirkpatrick himself interpret the function in practical and operational terms.
AARO is charged with “Developing procedures to synchronize and standardize the collection, reporting, and analysis of incidents, links to adversarial foreign governments, and a threat assessment.” — 2023 NDAA
AAARO “shall supervise the development and execution of an intelligence collection and analysis plan to gain as much knowledge as possible regarding the technical and operational characteristics, origins, and intentions” of UAP. — 2023 NDAA
“AARO’s authorities ensure that UAP detection and identification efforts will span across DoD and relevant interagency partners, as well as the Intelligence Community (IC)” — 2022 UAP Report
“In May [2023], the military services and geographic combatant commands for the first time standardized UAP reporting, and required the information be transferred to AARO, Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough said in an email. The group is also working to expand UAP reporting to the rest of the government, including the weather and oceanic agency NOAA, the Coast Guard, FAA and Department of Energy, she said. “One of AARO’s first efforts has been to establish a streamlined reporting system for all service members,” Gough said. The FAA also documents UAP sightings whenever a pilot reports them to an air traffic control facility, according to a statement from the agency. If the incident “is corroborated with supporting information, such as radar data,” the FAA shares it with AARO. — Politico article, August 10, 2023
NASA should therefore explore the viability of developing or acquiring such a crowdsourcing system as part of its strategy. In turn, the panel finds that there is currently no standardized system for making civilian UAP reports, resulting in sparse and incomplete data devoid of curation or vetting protocols. NASA should play a vital role by assisting AARO in its development of this Federal system.–NASA UAP Panel final report, September 2023
“Operationally, we have institutionalized how to respond to and mitigate these incidents. We have worked with the Joint Staff and the commands and the combat support agencies and the intelligence community on questions like: When one of these things is observed, how do we get more data? How do we save that data that’s been collected? That was historically a very big problem: That data was not retained. Now data is required to be retained so that we can have something to analyze.”–Sean Kirkpatrick, Politico Exit Interview, November 12, 2023
1b. Analysis of UAP data
“The Director of the Office, acting in coordination with the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence, shall supervise the development and execution of an intelligence collection and analysis plan to gain as much knowledge as possible regarding the technical and operational characteristics, origins, and intentions of unidentified anomalous phenomena, including with respect to the development, acquisition, deployment, and operation of technical collection capabilities necessary to detect, identify, and scientifically characterize unidentified anomalous phenomena.”–2023 NDAA
“Since its establishment in July 2022, AARO has formulated and started to leverage a robust analytic process against identified UAP reporting. Once completed, AARO’s final analytic findings will be available in their quarterly reports to policymakers. …The broad scope of authority granted to AARO should enable them to leverage a multi-agency, whole of-government approach to understanding, resolving, and attributing UAP in the future.”–2022 UAP Report
“We have standardized the analytic framework for how we deal with these observations in a very rigorous fashion. We have run that framework successfully now, and are ramping up the number of cases that are being resolved. ”–Sean Kirkpatrick, Politico Exit Interview, November 12, 2023
1c. Prioritization
“AARO is prioritizing reports of UAP in or near military installations, operating areas, critical infrastructure and areas of national security importance.” — Sean Kirkpatrick press roundtable, December 16, 2022
AARO Mission: minimize technical and intelligence surprise, by synchronizing scientific, intelligence, and operational detection, identification, attribution, and mitigation of unidentified, anomalous objects in the vicinity of national security areas
AARO Vision: unidentified, anomalous objects are effectively and efficiently detected, tracked, analyzed, and managed by way of normalized DoD, IC, and civil business practices; by adherence to the highest scientific and intelligence-tradecraft standards; and with greater transparency and shared awareness — AARO slide deck to Transportation Research Board, January 11, 2023
Question: What keeps you up at night? Answer: “Technical surprise, and that could be adversarial technical surprise, or extraterrestrial technical surprise.”–Sean Kirkpatrick ABC News interview, July 20, 2023
“While I assure you that AARO will follow scientific evidence wherever it leads, I ask for your patience as DoD first prioritizes the safety and security of our military personnel and installations, in all domains.” — Sean Kirkpatrick, Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“I want to support the warfighter. I want to go after the cases that we received this week. That’s where I want to be. I want to have my officers out in the field, you know, talking to witnesses, trying to gather and preserve evidence, trying to work with the services and the other departments in the government on how to preserve data when there is an incident, helping to write force protection standards so I can capture this in real-time.”–Tim Phillips, DoD media engagement, March 6, 2024
1d. Maintain Sensors
“After all, UAP encountered first by highly-capable DoD and IC platforms, featuring the nation’s most advanced sensors, are those UAP most likely to be successfully resolved by my office, assuming the data can be collected.” — Sean Kirkpatrick, Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“Yet, time and again, with sufficient scientific-quality data, it is fact that UAP often, but not always, resolve into readily-explainable sources. Humans are subject to deception and illusions, sensors to unexpected responses and malfunctions, and in some cases, intentional interference. Getting to the handful of cases that pass this level of scrutiny is the mission of AARO.” — Sean Kirkpatrick, Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“…an important first step to understanding what sensors are going to be relevant. From there, we are augmenting with dedicated sensors that we’ve purpose built, designed to detect, track and characterize those particular objects. And we will be putting those out in very select areas for surveillance purposes.” –Sean Kirkpatrick, NASA UAP panel discussion, May 31, 2023
“We realized for AARO to really work better we are going to need a lot more sensors around military bases, nuclear sites, on our aircrafts. “–Senator Gillibrand interviewed by City And State New York, August 2023
“First, we have a lot of our reporting comes from military sensor platforms, F-35s, F-22s, Aegis radars, whatnot. All of those sensors have to be calibrated against known objects, right. So, we’re running a campaign and have been for the last year or so on here’s what a weather balloon looks like in an F-35 when you fly it at Mach 1 in all of the sensors. Here’s what it looks like on from Aegis, and then take all that data and turn it into models that we can then put back into the trainers so that the operators can understand what they’re looking at. That’s part one. Part two is then looking at, where are our data gaps? So, our domain awareness gaps don’t necessarily arise because we don’t have a sensor. It arises because we have a lot of data that are tuned for missiles, aircraft, large things that we’re looking at, coming over the poles, that sort of thing. There’s a lot of data that’s not looked at. And so, my team is going through all that systematically with a lot of our S&T partners and our operational partners to go, if I put a calibration sphere out in the middle of the U.S. and I have, say, FAA radar data on it, what does it look like? And can I pull those signatures out and turn them into something that we can then queue off of? The idea being we want to reduce the number of UAP reports that are actually just balloons or actually just drones. Right? I need to get those off of our plate because those aren’t UAP.
“Then when we have gaps, and by gaps I mean either operational gaps or a capability gap, then we will put a purpose-built sensor out in place to do search and track and ID and characterization. We have a couple of those already built and deployed. They’ve been calibrated against known objects, and we’re using them to do pattern of life analysis. And what do I mean by that? We have a lot of our airspaces, for example, we don’t understand, because nobody’s measured it, what all of the stuff is that comes through the airspace on a daily basis.
“So, we have to do that. Well, you can’t just run the sensors 24/7, because it costs a lot of money to do that, because we pay, you know, staff to go out there and run them. But we can build some — some dedicated sensors that are automated, that will just survey an area for a long period of time, couple that with some overhead collect, and now you can get kind of a picture of what’s there, what’s there 24/7 for three months at a time. Then you’ll know if there’s a difference in that, and we can try to figure out if there are anomalies in there.” –Sean Kirkpatrick, AARO Press Roundtable, October 31, 2023
“We’re working with some of the government labs such as the Department of Energy labs. And we have a great partner with Georgia Tech. And what we’re doing is developing a deployable configurable sensor suite that we can put in Pelican cases. And we’re this — we’re going to go deploy it to the field to do a long-term collect.Since the UAP target, the signature, is not clearly defined. We really have to do hyperspectral, you know, surveillance to try to capture these incidents. So we are going to declare a mission capability IOC for our GREMLIN system. That’s the name of the deployable surveillance system that we’ve been developing for the last year.*7 We’re currently at a very large range in Texas. We’ve been out there going against some known UAS targets, but some unknown targets, picking up a lot of bats and birds. We’re learning a lot about solar flaring. We’re really starting to understand what’s in orbit around our planet and how we can eliminate those as anomalous objects. So we’re going to do that and then we’re going to go to the department and say, we are ready to deploy our system in response to a national security site or a critical infrastructure with a UAP problem.”[*7 Eds. note: While GREMLIN is approaching IOC, AARO is also in the early stages of developing a smaller suite of deployable sensors for rapid response to a UAP incident.]–Tim Phillips, DoD media engagement, March 6, 2024
Function 2) Science Plan: Underlying Theories for UAP
“scientific, technical, and operational analysis of data” — 2023 NDAA
AARO must develop a science plan that will produce “scientific theories to–(1) account for characteristics and performance of unidentified anomalous phenomena that exceed the known state of the art in science or technology, including in the areas of propulsion, aero dynamic control, signatures, structures, materials, sensors, countermeasures, weapons, electronics, and power generation; and (2) provide the foundation for potential future investments to replicate or otherwise better understand any such advanced characteristics and performance.”–2023 NDAA
S&T Research & Application: revealing and exploiting elusive and enigmatic signatures through advanced technologies and focused, cross-sector partnerships
Interdisciplinary Analyses: delivering peer-reviewed conclusions through deliberate syntheses of scientific and intelligence method, tradecraft, tools, and expertise–AARO slide deck to Transportation Research Board, January 11, 2023
“…all these things, which now thou seest, shall within a very little while be changed, and be no more: and ever call to mind, how many changes and alterations in the world thou thyself hast already been an eyewitness of in thy time. This world is mere change, and this life, opinion. … That which the nature of the universe doth busy herself about, is; that which is here, to transfer it thither, to change it, and thence again to take it away, and to carry it to another place. So that thou needest not fear any new thing. For all things are usual and ordinary.” —Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, italicized portion is AARO’s motto.
“AARO is taking a collaborative, objective, & data-driven approach to its mission, & partnering with a wide range of stakeholders, including academia. As part of its work, AARO is developing several peer-reviewed articles on UAP with the scientific community.”–Susan Gough response to question about Kirkpatrick/Loeb paper, March 2023
“The UAP challenge is more an operational and scientific issue than it is an intelligence issue. As such, we are working with industry, academia, and the scientific community, which bring their own resources, ideas, and expertise to this challenging problem set. Robust collaboration and peer-review across a broad range of partners will promote greater objectivity and transparency in the study of UAP.”–Sean Kirkpatrick, Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“In the event sufficient scientific data were ever obtained, that a UAP encounter can only be explained by extraterrestrial origin, we are committed to working with our interagency partners at NASA to appropriately inform U.S. Government’s leadership of its findings. For those few cases that have leaked to the public previously, and subsequently commented on by the U.S. Government, I encourage those who hold alternative theories or views to submit your research to credible, peer-reviewed scientific journals. AARO is working very hard to do the same. That is how science works, not by blog or social media.”–Sean Kirkpatrick, Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“AARO’s work will take time if we are committed to doing it right. It means adhering to the scientific method and the highest standards of research integrity. It means being methodical and scrupulous. It means withholding judgment in favor of evidence. It means following the data where it leads, wherever it leads. It means establishing scientific, peer-reviewed, theoretical underpinnings of observed data.” –Sean Kirkpatrick, Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“In 1979, Carl Sagan said, ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.’ I would go one step further, and I would say, extraordinary claims require not only extraordinary evidence, but extraordinary science….” –Sean Kirkpatrick, Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“Because people don’t understand the scientific method and why, why we have to do the things we have to do. Right. And because we can’t just come out and say, you know, the greatest thing that could happen to me is I could come out and say, Hey, I know where all these things are. Here you go. Alright, but I don’t, right. And it’s gonna take us time to research all that. When people want answers now, they’re actually feeding the stigma by exhibiting that kind of behavior to all of us.–Sean Kirkpatrick, NASA UAP panel, May 31, 2023
“for the few objects that do demonstrate potentially anomalous characteristics, AARO is approaching these cases with the highest level of objectivity and analytical rigor. This includes physical testing and employing modeling and simulation to validate our analyses and the underlying theories, and then peer reviewing those results before reaching any conclusions.” –Sean Kirkpatrick, NASA UAP panel, May 31, 2023
“You’ve got a range of hypotheses for any given event, right. You’ve got the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis on one end. [holds up left hand] You’ve got the foreign intel ISR platforms on the other end, or advanced breakthrough technologies, if you will. [hold usp right hand] And in the middle you’ve got all the known stuff [misidentified balloons, drones, atmospheric phenomena, etc.]. Occam’s Razor still applies, no matter how much you don’t want it to, it does. But before you get to that, each of those things, each of those hypotheses have signatures associated with them. If it’s a foreign breakthrough technology, there are signatures associated with what that is based on what we know in our intelligence record. In the middle, if we’ve got the known objects, that’s where our calibration campaign comes into play because we measure those signals. This is what a balloon looks like, this is what a drone looks like, and now I have something to compare it to. On the far extreme when you’ve got the extraterrestrial one, that’s where the scientific and academic community come into play, right. … But most of my data, in fact all of my data, matches either the middle [proasic] or the left [foreign tech]. And I can tell you with certainty that we have absolutely no evidence that anything matches the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis. We have no evidence of any of that. All of the evidence we have, and all of the observations we have, including the ones where people say ‘I don’t understand it. It looks like it’s violating the laws of physics’ I guarantee you it’s not. There is advanced state of the art technologies out there today that can maneuver, and flight controls that don’t have control surfaces, that don’t leave a trail, and they are being commercialized. …That’s the whole purpose here is to understand where we are in that spectrum of hypotheses. What is in our space? And what are we doing about it?”–Sean Kirkpatrick, Hayden Center talk, November 15, 2023
Function 3) Reporting UAP to Congress
Annual and Quarterly Reports; Establishing procedures to require the timely and consistent reporting of such incidents.–2022 NDAA
The 2022 NDAA contains thirteen basic requirements that the report’s authors “shall include.” These are spelled out in Subsections A through P, each of which is listed below.
Req.
Subsection
Description of NDAA Report Requirement
1
A & B
Tally of UAP Events
2
C & D
Analysis, judgements, and explanatory categories
3
E
Restricted air space incursions (number)
4
F
Restricted air space incursions (analysis)
5
G
National Security Threat of UAP
6
H
Adversarial foreign governments
7
I
Breakthrough aerospace capability
8
J
Coordination with allies
9
K
Capture and exploit UAP
10
L
Health-related effects of UAP
11
M, N & O
US nuclear technology and UAP
12
P
Line organizations providing UAP data
13
3
Unclassified format
Find a full summary and links for the legislation here. Find a review of the 2022 UAP report here.
“not later than September 30, 2023, and at least once each fiscal year thereafter through fiscal year 2026, provide to such committees and congressional leadership briefings and reports on such records.”–2023 NDAA
“CONGRESSIONAL NOTIFICATION.—Not later than 72 hours after determining that an authorized disclosure relates to a restricted ac2 cess activity, a special access program, or a compartmented access program that has not been explicitly and clearly reported to the congressional defense committees or the congressional intelligence committees, the Secretary shall report such disclosure to such committees and the congressional leadership. “– 2023 NDAA
Function 4) Historical Assessment of Government Involvement with UAP
A Historical Record Report is required:
Produced by the Director of AARO
Released 540 days after passage [July 2024]
“a written report detailing the historical record of the United States Government relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena”
“focus on the period beginning on January 1, 1945”
“any program or activity that was protected by restricted access that has not been explicitly and clearly reported to Congress”
“any efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide incorrect unclassified or classified information about unidentified anomalous phenomena or related activities” –2023 NDAA
“Meanwhile, consistent with legislative direction, AARO is also carefully reviewing and researching the U.S. Government’s UAP-related historical record.”–Sean Kirkpatrick, Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“AARO welcomes the opportunity to speak with any former or current government employee or contractor who believes they have information relevant to the congressionally mandated historical review,” Gough said in an email.– Politico article, August 10, 2023
“So, this reporting mechanism that is on the website is for people who think they have firsthand knowledge of clandestine programs that the government has been hiding. Really, this is about the historical report. The part of the AARO’s mission that Congress has asked us to do in this review going back to 1945, to include in interviewing all of the whistleblowers and anyone that wants to come forward and have — present their case and make their statement, for the record. …We’re able to bring all that information together and actually research it and cross reference it with the archives, across all of the — National Archives have been great partners in this. In fact, I’d like to highlight for you all that in our research, we have with them uncovered a whole bunch of new documents that they have digitized and put out on their website. And then we’ve got some more that we’re going to be releasing here fairly soon. So, it’s a – it’s a very powerful mechanism to allow us to dip into anybody’s information.” –Sean Kirkpatrick, AARO Press Roundtable, October 31, 2023
“One of those is finishing Volume One of the historical review [required by the law], which really encompasses all of the interviewees that have come in to talk to us. And then laying that out as “Here’s what we’ve been able to prove is true, here’s what we’ve been able to prove is not true,” as a very thorough and objective research product. The legislative requirement for the historical report is not due until June of next year. I decided, because of the desire for more transparency faster, we are doing a Volume One, and then Volume Two will be delivered next year. Volume One covers everything up to about a month ago. Volume Two is going to cover anything new that comes up since we’ve turned on the reporting button on our website. “–Sean Kirkpatrick, Politico Exit Interview, November 12, 2023
“I need to bring in all of the people who have that claim, what they have information to share, about programs they believe to be, relative to reverse engineering programs, whatnot. … We ask them questions to try to get to things that I can go investigate, what can I go pull on, what can I go research, how can I go get evidence that helps support their case or their statements. That’s very time consuming. I have a whole team that does nothing but that….Unless I have something to research, and we can go validate–and we have access to all of the National Archives, all of the agency archives, all of the service archives, every program we need access to, and we go and dig into those.”–Sean Kirkpatrick, Hayden Center talk, November 15, 2023
“Half of our office is almost dedicated to doing the research and then drafting and finalizing the report. In a way, I’m really happy to get this behind us because look I want to support the warfighter…. Doing it forensically after the fact is difficult. You know, as a marine and as an Intel officer, I want to be ahead of my opponent. And I want to capture it in real-time.”–Tim Phillips, DoD media engagement, March 6, 2024
“Anybody with knowledge of UAPs or the government covert attempt to reverse engineer or to exploit these materials, we would love to talk to them. So, aaro.mil, you go online. I’d give my phone numbers, but I’ve been told I can’t do that, but contact us. We want to talk to you. And I will tell you, you know, I’m a guy from Tucson, Arizona, and we treat people — we are government civil servants. We treat the citizens that come in with respect. We listen to their stories. And if we can prove what they’re telling us, we’ll do everything we can to do so. You know, we don’t have barriers. We aren’t biased. We’ll let the evidence take us where it takes us.” –Tim Phillips, DoD media engagement, March 6, 2024
Function 5) Tip of the Spear: Government Lead on UAP
5a. Government Coordination
AARO is the single focal point for all DoD UAP efforts, leading a whole-of-government approach to coordinate UAP collection, reporting, and analysis efforts throughout DoD, the IC, and beyond, to include other government agencies not in the IC, as well as foreign allies and partners of the United States.–2022 UAP Report
AARO is the DoD focal point for these issues and related activities. AARO will represent DoD to the interagency, Congress, media, and public, in coordination with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs and the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (OSD[PA])–2022 UAP Report
Focused Communications: driving shared awareness across mission partners, oversight authorities, and stakeholders—normalizing cross-sector partnerships and building trust with Transparency.–AARO slide deck to Transportation Research Board, January 11, 2023
“However, it would be naive to believe that the resolution of all UAP can be solely accomplished by the DoD and IC alone. We will need to prioritize collection and leverage authorities for monitoring all domains within the continental United States. AARO’s ultimate success will require partnerships with the interagency, industry partners, academia and the scientific community, as well as the public.”–Sean Kirkpatrick, Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“The NDAA [2023] language strengthens AARO and establishes it as the nation’s clearinghouse and analytic center for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) to inform both the Intelligence Community (IC) and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) leaders about UAP and to avoid strategic surprise.” –Warner/Rubio letter, April 2023
NASA – with its extensive expertise in these domains and global reputation for scientific openness – is in an excellent position to contribute to UAP studies within the broader whole-of-government framework led by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).–NASA UAP Panel final report, September 2023
5b. Press and Public Communications
“Our team knows that the public interest in UAP is high. We are developing a plan to provide regular updates and progress reporting to the public on our work.” — Sean Kirkpatrick press roundtable, December 16, 2022
Senator Gillibrand: “Do you have any plans for public engagement that you want to share now, that you think it’s important that the public knows what the plan is?”
Kirkpatrick: “So we have a number of public-engagement recommendations, according to our strategic plan. All of those have been submitted for approval, they have to be approved by USD(I&S). We are waiting for approval to go do that.”– Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“We have not seen evidence of an AARO strategic communications strategy. AARO established a Twitter presence in July 2022, but has yet to post anything further, despite attracting over 31,000 followers. This highlights the lack of communication and transparency with the public. We seek to understand why AARO has not made use of its social media presence and the future plan for educating the public on the mission and findings of AARO.”–Warner/Rubio letter, April 2023
“AARO’s intent is for this website to be a one-stop shop on AARO and UAP, and we look forward to continuing to refine the website to provide the most transparency possible regarding AARO’s work and findings.” – Pentagon spokesperson Eric Pahon, Defense Scoop, week of August 28, 2023
The website is a living thing. It’s going to evolve as we do more and more here. We’ve got a package of a lot of new material that we’ve got ready for release. We’ve uncovered some things that we are having declassified. Not just operational videos, but historical documents that we’ve had declassified that we’re about to release in the coming days and weeks. We’ve got some educational material that will help inform the public. So, you should expect to see things evolve on this platform every one to two months.” –Sean Kirkpatrick, AARO Press Roundtable, October 31, 2023
Function 6) Receive Witness (Whistleblower & Civilian) Evidence on UAP
“One of the tasks Congress set for AARO is serving as an open door for witnesses of UAP events, or participants in government activities related to UAPs, to come forward securely and disclose what they know without fear of retribution for any possible violations of previously signed non-disclosure-agreements.”–Senator Gillibrand, Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
Senator Gillibrand: “As you know, Dr. Kirkpatrick, Congress has mandated that your office establish a discoverable and accessible electronic method for potential witnesses of UAP incidents and potential participants in government UAP-related activities, to contact to your office and tell their stories. Congress also set up a process whereby people subject to non-disclosure agreements, preventing them from disclosing what they may have witnessed or participated in, could tell you what they know without risk of retribution from the…or violation of their NDAs. Have you submitted a public-facing website product for approval to your superiors, and how long has it been under review?
Kirkpatrick: “I have. We submitted the first version of that before Christmas.”–Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“thank you all very much for referring the witnesses that you have thus far to us. I appreciate that. We’ve brought in nearly two dozen, so far. It’s been very helpful. I’d ask that you continue to do that until we have an approved plan. We have a multi-phased approach for doing that, that we’ve been socializing and have submitted for approval, some time. And once that happens, then we should be able to push all that out and get this a little more automated. What I would ask, though, is, as you all continue to refer to us and refer witnesses to us – I’d appreciate if you’d do that – please try to prioritize the ones that you want to do, because we do have a small research staff, dealing with that.”–Sean Kirkpatrick, Senate hearing, April 19, 2023
“The FY23 NDAA established a secure process for AARO to interview witnesses. We are pleased with the number of interviews AARO has conducted, but ask that Congress be regularly informed about the content of the interviews going forward.”–Warner/Rubio letter, April 2023
“The FY23 NDAA also directed AARO to stand up a secure public-facing website, or communication mechanism, to outline the secure process for witnesses to come forward with relevant information. To date, we have seen no efforts to communicate the existence of the secure process to the public. We request that you provide us an update on the plan to publicize the secure process for witnesses to come forward.” –Warner/Rubio letter, April 2023
Q: Why do you think these whistleblowers are coming forward? Answer: “Well, one, I think the recent law which extended whistleblower protections to them, and named AARO as the authorized disclosure authority, opens the door for them to come and tell us exactly what they think they saw or know about. I believe that they believe what they are telling me. And my job–it’s not a question of belief, it’s a question of what can I go research.–Sean Kirkpatrick, ABC News interview, July 20, 2023
The Pentagon… has encouraged witnesses to come forward with any information related to the effort to investigate UAPs — but has not yet provided a public avenue to do so. AARO is required by law to launch a public-facing website where witnesses can directly report potential UFO sightings. But the website is tied up in Pentagon red tape: It is still “under development” after officials submitted a first version to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks for review before Christmas, Gough said. — Politico article, August 10, 2023
[Ryan] Graves and others in his organization are working with lawmakers and officials in the Pentagon to bridge this gap. In some cases, Graves has introduced witnesses to trusted senators — who he declined to name — and the next step is to arrange meetings with AARO. “We are hand-walking people in to do that, because AARO is negligent on having the proper public-facing procedures to have people do it themselves,” Graves said. Gough said the Pentagon is still working on the more easily accessible portal for the general public. “Once established, we will issue guidance for how to access the secure mechanism for authorized reporting,” Gough said. — Politico article, August 10, 2023
“If there are special access programs – they are called SAP programs – that Congress was not read in on, we put an amendment in the defense bill to say they can’t be funded. We do not want to be misled. We do not want to be led astray. We want to get to the bottom of this and this office is perfectly positioned to do that work.” –Senator Gillibrand interviewed by City And State New York, August 2023
“In the near future, the authorized reporting mechanism consistent with section 1673 of the fiscal 2023 NDAA will reside on the website, as well. … The process for submitting these reports, via the AARO website, is going through a significant security review to ensure that we protect both the privacy of the participants and the security of the site. AARO and the Department recognize that members of the general public also desire to make UAP reports, and this capability will be established in the next phase of the website development in the coming months.” – Pentagon spokesperson Eric Pahon, Defense Scoop, week of August 28, 2023
“AARO is also working to standardize and destigmatize reporting on UAP and to thoroughly analyze reports of both current and historical events. We still have a long way to go, but I have charged AARO to aggressively pursue efforts to make its findings as widely available as possible to the Congress and, whenever possible, the public,” – Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks, Defense Scoop, week of August 28, 2023
“The Pentagon is preparing for a flood of new reports as it readies two new portals for submissions: one for historical sightings from current or former government employees and contractors and a second for public submissions of new reports.
“The portal for historical sightings is set to open sometime in the next month or so, Kirkpatrick told CNN. Its purpose is to validate or refute past reports of unidentified objects, checking them against other reports and cataloging them for possible further analysis.
“It is the opening of the public portal, still several months away, that Kirkpatrick says could flood the system with ‘hundreds, if not thousands’ of new reports to sort through. Even so, Kirkpatrick has a plan for his office, which involves a system that will automatically match known objects to public reports, allowing the government to dismiss sightings of identified bodies. But the reports of unknown objects could prove to be valuable, Kirkpatrick says.
“’If it’s a foreign adversary and I got 100,000 people with cell phones who can collect it, well now it makes it really hard for the foreign adversary to do anything,’ Kirkpatrick says.” — CNN report, October 18, 2023
“So, this reporting mechanism that is on the website is for people who think they have firsthand knowledge of clandestine programs that the government has been hiding…. We do have a requirement by law to bring those whistleblowers or other interviewees in who think that it [secret UAP program] does exist, and they may have information that pertains to that. We do not have any of that evidence right now. And why should they come to us? Well, they should come to us because, well, it’s in law that we are the authorized reporting authority for them to come to, they are protected under the Whistleblower Act that they extended those protections to last year’s legislation and we have the security mechanisms by which to anonymously and confidentially bring them in, hear what they have to say, research that information and protect it if it is in truly classified. And if it’s not classified, then we can validate that as well. We can do a couple of things, right, and we can be very flexible depending on where these folks are in the country. We have facilities here that are able to take any classification level. So, if they wanted to come in and they really think that they have a named program and they know what that program is and it’s somebody’s program that’s a SAP of some sort, then they can come in into a protected space that is allowed to take that information and discuss that information, and then we can document it there. If they’re uncertain, we can actually do it via other secure mechanisms, whether it’s a classified phone call, or we can send somebody to them to debrief them in places that — around the country that we can take them to and bring them in securely. But all of our staff are – are cleared, all of our debriefers are cleared to do all that. …I just need to know about the program so that I can research what they’re saying that program is. And since we’re the ones that are authorized by law to go do that research, and as was pointed out earlier, address any classification from any organization, we’re going to be the ones that you’re going to want to go do that with.” –Sean Kirkpatrick, AARO Press Roundtable, October 31, 2023
“The whistleblowers are an interesting bit. We’ve had greater than 30 people now come in to talk to us. We have investigated every single one of them, every single story, every lead that provided any substantive evidence for us to go after.”–Sean Kirkpatrick, Politico Exit Interview, November 12, 2023
Every six months or so I like to revisit my assumptions around two key questions: is government-led UFO disclosure happening for real, and if so, what timetable do decision makers seem to be following? It’s good practice to update your answers to those questions to fit the latest round of facts. The past two months have given us a slew of new facts that are both encouraging and frustrating. The answer to the first question is clearly yes–several game plans seem to be in effect. The answer to the second is that the timetable might be longer than we would prefer.
After eight decades of UFO secrecy, it’s natural to assume that the truth will never come out. Even a year ago, when Scott Bray was still leading the Pentagon’s UAP efforts, it certainly felt like they were trying to squeeze the toothpaste back in the tube. But much has changed in a year, and the idea that AARO and NASA will yank the rug out from beneath us at the last minute, and claim UFOs were weather balloons, etc. the whole time, looks increasingly unlikely. On the other hand, those of us who have read some of the case histories, who know that somewhere there is a UFO in a box marked classified, we just want Sean Kirkpatrick and Bill Nelson to go on live TV and pull a UFO out of a box. The recent fact-pattern shows they have no intention of doing that, but that they might achieve disclosure by other means.
The Whistleblower Game Plan
Since at least early 2022, the UAP caucus in Congress has been interested in learning what UFO secrets might be squirreled away in Special Access Programs. In March of that year, Congress passed an act that required the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to cooperate with the new UAP office’s investigations. If there is a UFO in a box, it has been carted through the corridors of Wright-Patterson. Then, during the May 17 House hearing, they asked Pentagon leaders about the potential for whistleblower protections. In June, the Senate Intelligence Committee posted its draft of the annual Intelligence Authorization Act. It stipulated that the government must produce “a complete historical record of the intelligence community’s involvement” with UFOs, including efforts to conceal that involvement from the public. It also required reporting on “any Government or Government contractor activity or program” related to UFOs “previously prohibited from reporting under any nondisclosure written or oral agreement, order, or other instrumentality or means…” The House version called for reporting on “efforts to recover or transfer [UFO] related technologies to United States-based industry or National Laboratories…” And just so there was no confusion about what Congress wanted from DoD, the final version of the law, which passed in December, called for the revelation of “any program or activity that was protected by restricted access that has not been explicitly and clearly reported to Congress.”
David Grusch is the whistleblower Congress has been waiting for. Just look at how his timeline dovetails with the above. In his Newsnation interview with Ross Coulthart, Grusch confirmed there the US government does indeed have several partial and intact UFOs in its possession (including dead UFO pilots), and that in 2019, while co-leading the UAP Task Force, he was denied access to a broad crash retrieval program. According to the Kean/Blumenthal article that broke this story, in 2022 he provided Congress with “hours of recorded classified information transcribed into hundreds of pages which included specific data about the materials recovery program.” This was the same time that Congress began making moves to get official access to that information. In May 2022, Grusch filed a formal complaint to the Intelligence Community’s Inspector General stating that he had suffered reprisals for his investigative work–the very same period when the House and Senate were drafting language that explicitly forbids such reprisals.
Grusch’s story suggests that the disclosure process is working, and that the culture of secrecy is crumbling. The mere establishment of the UAPTF, according to Grusch, knocked loose “tens if not hundreds of individuals within the government on these programs that would like change.” Former Inspector General Charles McCullough III represented Grusch in his complaint. Congress is riding to the rescue. And now Grusch has followed the model established by Chris Mellon and Lue Elizondo, leaving government so he can bring what he knows into the public square. The DoD even cleared Grusch to speak out, including about one particular craft that crashed in Italy in 1933, allegedly in US custody. When Coulthart asked about the Roswell crash, Grucsh said, “those details were not approved for me to talk about right now.” Not now, but maybe soon. It may be only a matter of time before Congress gets what it’s after.
There are still challenges. David Grusch does not have the UFO in the box. He has some code names for the box, and the names of some people who say they have peeked inside it. The only game plan for accessing SAPs would merely transfer information to Congress. No one seems to know what the next move would be–what it would take to get the UFO out of the box and put it on display for all to see. There are no guarantees. Those of us who have read the case histories crave that information because it would confirm what we already know, but it may not be sufficient proof for everyone else, especially our skeptical elite intelligentsia (more on them in a moment).
Don’t forget, the recovered UFOs are old, from an era that few people have any living memory of. They come encrusted with decades of lies, misdirection, and a murky chain of custody. There are non-nefarious reasons why other actors might decide that trying to get access to them is not particularly useful right now. This is because there are cleaner paths to UFO disclosure that are being set in motion, particularly by AARO and NASA.
The AARO Game Plan
First, we know that AARO, under Kirkpatrick, is making serious attempts to capture real-time UFO data that can be analyzed as truly anomalous. The office has designated several global UFO hotspots (East and West Coast training ranges for example) and is setting up permanent sensors calibrated to record data on any UFOs that may appear there. At NASA’s UAP panel discussion on May 31, Kirkpatrick said he is trying to answer the question “what is normal?” for these areas.
“I have all these hotspot areas, but… [military personnel] don’t operate all the time. So to have a 24/7 collection monitoring campaign, in some of these areas for three months at a time is going to be necessary in order to measure out what is normal, then I’ll know what is not normal, when we have additional things that come through those spaces. And that includes space and maritime.”
AARO’s database now has data on over 800 UAP, with 50 to 100 reports coming in each month. While most of these are unresolved, Kirkpatrick said that between two and five percent are truly anomalous–the really interesting cases. That means he’s got about 40 UAP that exhibit inexplicable, physics-defying characteristics, with perhaps two to five genuine anomalies showing up every month. AARO has distilled those characteristics into its sensor-calibration formula and purpose built sensors “to detect, track and characterize those particular objects.” These will soon be deployed in the hotspots.
Even if Kirkpatrick thinks that all UFOs might have conventional explanations when all is said and done, he has got to prepare for the possibility that his sensors might eventually capture solid and complete data that proves one of those anomalies is genuine non-human technology. In that event, in order for his analysis to have any credibility, he must prove that he did all his homework and checked the math three times over. Most of his public statements reveal that he is fixated on this phase of the process and that AARO is preparing for it.
When Kirkpatrick says that he still lacks “sufficient scientific-quality data” of non-human technology, it’s frustrating to those of us who know there must be good UFO data somewhere (maybe in that secret box). But there is another way to interpret these statements. I believe Kirkpatrick is telling us that he needs fresh, uncompromised data that he owns and understands and can vouch for completely. Without this framework firmly in place, he said to the NASA panel (emphasis added):
“we are unable to reach defendable conclusions that meet the high scientific standards we set for resolution. … AARO is approaching these cases with the highest level of objectivity and analytical rigor. This includes physical testing and employing modeling and simulation to validate our analyses and the underlying theories, and then peer reviewing those results before reaching any conclusions.”
That could all sound like a colossal waste of time if all you expect Kirkpatrick to do is pull the UFO out of the box. But as is clear by now, that is not how he sees his job. Kirkpatrick’s task, as he sees it, is to do nothing less than capture verifiable evidence of a UFO in real time, and then prove it to the world. He knows that if he succeeds, no one will take his word for it, or even take the video and sensor data at face value. As he said in the April 19 Senate hearing, he is going to need to provide “scientific, peer-reviewed theoretical underpinnings of observed data.” This level of scientific analysis is the only thing that can clinch the case, and Kirkpatrick is laying the groundwork for that to be airtight. He told the Senate, “I will not close a case that we cannot defend the conclusions of.”
This is why he keeps lecturing the public about “why we have to do the things we have to do.” He reiterated this at the NASA meeting: “The greatest thing that could happen to me is I could come out and say, ‘Hey, I know where all these things are. Here you go.’ Alright, but I don’t, right. And it’s gonna take us time to research all that.”
That is not to say that the old cases–what Elizondo has called cold cases–will not be valuable. Kirkpatrick mentioned that AARO’s historical study of government involvement with UFOs will be released in 2024. That will help him put any new UFO data into proper historical context.
Permanent sensors in UFO hotspots, and analytical and historical frameworks that will make sense of the data. The outcomes of these efforts will be a complete reset of government, societal, and global awareness of UFOs. At that point, Kirkpatrick is going to reap a whirlwind of very difficult questions aimed directly at him, especially from our skeptical intelligentsia. He needs to be prepared. Pulling a UFO out of the box now, even if he could, won’t prepare him or anyone to answer those questions, and may in fact harm the ultimate goals of disclosure.
The NASA Game Plan
Since the day it announced its UAP study group, NASA has been clear that it’s not going to sift through all the old case histories and archived data, but like AARO, will help develop a new “roadmap” to guide the study of the phenomenon from this point forward.
Nadia Drake is a science journalist who sits on the panel. Her self-described role is to synthesize the “variety of opinions and ideas” that exist on the panel, and craft summaries that distill the group’s thinking and their conclusions. Safe to say she will play a major role in drafting the final report due this summer. At the May 31 meeting, she shared the conclusion that as of right now, “there is no conclusive evidence suggesting an extraterrestrial origin for UAP.” When she invited any in the group to quibble with her representation of their views, no one challenged that conclusion. Kirkpatrick has made the same statement publicly now on at least three occasions.
It is tempting to assume that this panel is hopelessly uninformed, or even reach for more cynical judgments about them. But there is another way to look at it. If this group of scientists have truly set themselves to the task of designing a framework for the study of UAP, they are going to do it their way. They have deeply ingrained standards of practice around what constitutes usable data. They also have institutional experience studying difficult questions–from cosmic waves to Fast Radio Bursts to techno signatures and astrobiology. They also know from experience how easy it is to jump to wobbly conclusions based on compelling data. Of course they are going to say “there is no conclusive evidence” of alien life. Remember, they do not have the UFO in the box, and even if they did, they would still have to do the science to prove that is in fact what it is.
NASA’s task, as the panel sees it, is to do nothing less than wrest UFOs from the realms of pop culture and modern myth, and recast it as a respectable field of science. Most of the panel’s conversation focused on quantitative data, sensor platform calibration and AI modeling, while eyewitness accounts were dismissed as essentially useless to science.
Drake, again speaking for the entire panel, said that eyewitnesses “on their own can be interesting and compelling, but often lack the information needed to make definitive conclusions about an object’s provenance.” This is a factual statement that even long-time ufologists would have a hard time disagreeing with.
Astrophysicist and data scientist Federica Bianco was more blunt: “Witnesses reports… cannot ascertain the nature of UAPs.” Nicky Fox, a NASA Associate Administrator for Science, described eyewitness reports as “muddled.” This all sounds like the same stigmatizing dismissals that UFO witnesses have endured for generations. But it’s not when you consider the scientists’ point of view. In science, all witness testimony is muddled compared to the pristine clarity of math, chemistry, and physics.
It’s true that the only reason this panel exists is due to the extremely compelling witness narratives, particularly the Navy aviators who have come forward, and I wish the NASA panel would be more up front about that. But the entire point of science is to try and extract all the human messiness out of an analysis of the natural world. As scientists, they could not behave any differently.
Put another way, they are culturally appropriating the topic of UFOs away from the witnesses, and from the researchers who have been carefully archiving their stories in our basement filing cabinets, and recasting it in the pure language of science. Cultural appropriation can sometimes be extremely off putting to the originating culture. But it can also lead to new insights and breakthroughs.
The Stigma Game Plan
Everyone from NASA to AARO to Congress agrees the stigma that has calcified around the UFO topic must end. Sean Kirkpatrick told the NASA panel that while UFO stigma has lessened, it still “exists inside the leadership of all of our buildings.” One of the recommendations of the NASA panel, voiced by former NASA associate administrator Mike Gold, is to leverage NASA’s reputational brand to legitimize the UFO topic in the eyes of the public and the scientific community. Gold envisions panels, symposia, and research projects on UFOs plastered with the NASA logo. And yet we continue to hear statements that sound a lot like the UFO stigma of old, even from Kirkpatrick and members of the panel. Turns out there may be non-nefarious reasons for that as well.
This brings us to the Brothers Kelly. Scott and Mark Kelly were astronauts who served at NASA for many years. Scott Kelly, who sits on the UAP panel, explained that UFOs were simply not discussed among NASA employees. The stigma was so effective that it was a non-topic.
“in my 20 years at NASA, no one, either officially or unofficially, in my recollection, have ever discussed or briefed us or had any kind of discussions about anything that would be considered UAP, or UFO or anything like that.”
But what they apparently spent a lot of time discussing, officially or not, was how conventional objects were misidentified as UFOs. He told the panel his brother’s story about how the shuttle crew once mistook the International Space Station for an unknown object within the shuttle bay doors (you can hear Mark Kelly tell the story to a reporter here). Then he told a story about how his co-pilot in their F-14 Tomcat swore he saw a UFO that was in fact a Bart Simpson balloon.
Scott Kelly has been telling himself and others this story his whole career. People like Kelly are going to need to trot this old chestnut out a few more times before they start revising and extending their remarks. Expecting him, at this stage of the process, to step up to the podium, throw up his hands, and declare he’s been wrong and a fool is not how people usually operate.
There are stages to UFO acceptance. Anyone reading this has taken that last step through the threshold into an uncanny new world. But there are many steps before that one wracked with doubt and disbelief. At some point your mutterings that it can’t be true are supplanted by a small voice in the back of your mind that says, my god, it’s all true. We don’t know how far along the AARO and NASA teams are on this journey, but they may be farther along than we think, otherwise they would not even be speaking about this. Sure, they are keeping an open mind about what the final “provenance” or “resolution” will be, but they can probably see where this is headed–even Scott Kelly.
And so Kelly is reminding himself, and the rest of us, where he started from. Doing so allows him to chart his own path toward what he always believed was impossible. We are unlikely to ever hear the end of the Bart Simpson balloon stories. It’s personal for them. Afterall, Kelly’s co-pilot really did think that Bart was a UFO. They will be able to say they were never totally wrong, that their skepticism was justified. After disclosure, the stigma and shame will reverse polarity and blow back on the skeptics. They are laying the predicate for their self-defense.
These are the psychological and emotional hurdles to disclosure that leaders cannot ignore and must prepare for. Imagine what it feels like to know that you are one of the people who will have to shepherd an entire society through that process.
The day after the David Grusch story broke, David Frum released some stigmatizing comments on his Twitter feed. He recounted a conversation with a NASA employee about “conspiracy types” who always ask NASA to reveal what it knows about Roswell and Area 51. The NASA guy said he had figured out how to shut down that line of questioning with the reply, “Do you think that if NASA had super-secret frozen aliens in our basement – we would put up with these budget cuts for even 10 minutes?” Frum was impressed that this “truly silenced the pinheads.” When someone in the thread mentioned the possibility of reverse-engineered UFO technology, Frum scoffed, “Well if you heard it from a guy down the corridor, who knows, that’s good enough for many!”
Frum worked in the White House as a speechwriter for Geroge W. Bush. He is a senior editor for The Atlantic. He is one of the leading intellectuals of the anti-Trump movement, and he is a capable historian. He is one of the trendsetters, one of the hallowed few who script elite opinion. A veryfew of the younger members of his class are paying cursory attention to the rolling UFO revelations, but the vast majority of them are going to be completely blindsided.
What they will find hardest to accept is not that our government has withheld knowledge about extraterrestrial life. No, the hardest thing to accept will be that they have been wrong more than they have been right; that they are the fools; that they have been uncharitable and unkind. Worst of all will be the realization that the people they have been making fun of since 5th grade–the pinheads, the nerds, the weirdos–are better than them at something. Their brains are simply going to melt. They won’t know whether to laugh, or cry, or scream in rage. The Sean Kirkpatricks and Scott Kellys of the world will be there to hold them by the arm as they shuffle through the threshold, stammering. It’s alright, they’ll say. You weren’t wrong. We all missed this one. It won’t be true, but it will be necessary.
Over three days in February 2023, when NORAD took the unprecedented move to shoot down airborne clutter that popped up on its newly calibrated radar systems, nearly everyone in the UFO community, including key players in the Disclosure movement, made a series of wrong calls and overreactions. We found ourselves in the middle of an unusual but ultimately conventional military situation. Our pent-up anticipation, need for validation, and the demands of our respective agendas led us to project onto the situation what we wanted to be true, and cloud our judgment about what was actually happening. This is a problem for several reasons, but the most important is this: the same chaotic mix of reactions is likely to recur during a real Disclosure-level UFO event. Next time around, we all need to be more cautious, discerning, and grounded in the facts, especially leaders of the movement. Below I’m going to retrace the history of those missteps, and provide some practical advice on how to avoid them in the future.
First, let’s dispense with the notion that the shootdowns that occurred on February 10, 11, and 12 were of genuinely anomalous objects. Two things happened between the discovery of the Chinese spy balloon and the three shootdowns. Biden became genuinely frustrated that he could not shoot down the spy balloon earlier than the military did, and Republicans began to use the delay as a political weapon. To forestall a repeat of this problem, NORAD “opened the filters” of its radar systems to see smaller and slower objects. When they did that, they saw three objects in the same general trajectory as the spy balloon, and they shot them down before they passed into the populated regions of the continental United States.
Unlike nearly everyone else, the Executive Branch was careful not to conflate these three objects and UAPs. John Kirby of the National Security Council categorized them as “unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks.” Biden called them “unmanned and unidentified aerial objects.”
Jim Himes, who is a Democrat and member of the Gang of Eight, said in March that “an awful lot of what people think are UFOs is just garbage.” He fingered the National Weather Service and a Michigan balloon weather operators club as potential owners of the three downed objects. Tim Burchett, a Republican who is able to speak more candidly (also not someone afraid to cry “cover up”), said in an interview, “I think the last three were basically a distraction so that we would get off the President’s back [about the Chinese spy balloon]. They started shooting down weather balloons, which we see quite a bit of.”
If you are still on the fence, ask yourself which of the following is more likely: 1) NORAD shot down airborne clutter and is not revealing gun camera video because of classification rules and a fear of revealing to the public (and the Chinese government) that they massively overreacted due to political pressure, wasting a ton of taxpayer money in the process; 2) After decades of flying through restricted airspace with impunity, and also known instances of deactivating aircraft weaponry and entire nuclear arsenals, three genuine UFOs were easily downed by American fighter jets. Option one is the only logical conclusion.
The three objects should not have been conflated with UFOs. But they were. Why were so many so quick to do that? It all started with that Chinese spy balloon.
UFO Skeptics Started It
It’s easy to forget that UFO skeptics were the first people to bring UFOs into this conversation. This occurred almost as soon as the Chinese spy balloon was discovered, a full week before the other three objects were shot down. They jumped at the chance to showcase an example of why they think people are fooled into believing in UFOs.
Reporter Julian Barnes has a track record for quoting unnamed sources in the Pentagon who would really prefer Congress move on from its recent interest in UFOs. Barnes published an article in The New York Times on the day the spy balloon was shot down that cited the 2022 UAP report. He wrote that “the Pentagon has examined 366 [UAP] incidents that were initially unexplained and said 163 were balloons.” (He skips over the part of that report that said those numbers reflect only an initial review, not the final conclusion, a point that Helene Cooper made in her article when she wrote accurately that “nearly all the [UAP] incidents remain officially unexplained.”) Barnes also included details from his own reporting about an entirely different classified report supplied to Congress in January that provided evidence of a “rival power conducting aerial surveillance with what appeared to be unknown cutting-edge technology.” This bombshell revelation was 1) thinly sourced; 2) only mentioned in connection to the spy balloon and never followed up on; 3) described by Barnes in a way that would lead the casual reader to think that this classified report was the same as the 2022 UAP report. Barnes’s reporting about the spy balloon gives the impression that Congress and others are only interested in UFOs these days because they are misidentifying balloons and other spy devices.
The space-writer Marina Koren makes this point explicitly. On the day before the Chinese spy balloon was downed, her article in The Atlantic was headlined “The Chinese Balloon and the Disappointing Reality of UFOs.” She wrote, “if aliens exist (or once existed), their stories are probably playing out (or once did) light-years from Earth. You know what is everywhere? Balloons.”
I wrote at the time that the Chinese spy balloon was not a UFO story and never needed to be one. It was made into a UFO story by the people whose agenda was served by the comparison: Pentagon ostriches and UFO skeptics.
But five days later, this dynamic reversed, and it was the UFO community’s turn to conflate the current situation with UFOs.
The Media and the Executive Branch
On Saturday, February 11, the object that would eventually be shot down over Lake Huron appeared over Montana, but it seemed to be behaving strangely by disappearing and then reappearing on radar. Ross Douthat, who occasionally writes about UFOs in his New York Times Opinion page column, tweeted the following:
At the hastily called NORAD press conference Sunday night, after all three objects had been downed, Pentagon Press Secretary, Brigadier General Pat Ryder, explained why they had used to the word “anomaly” to describe the object over Montana:
“It’s also important to point out in this part of United States that we did not have data link for… the radars on the ground to share information to the fighters airborne, allowing them to queue their sensors and their visual acuity in an attempt to visually identify the track. At sunset, we were unable to find the track. Also, our radar operators lost the track on radar. And the FAA was never tracking the radar. Therefore, that’s why we called it an anomaly because we weren’t able to identify it.”
It was at this press conference when Helene Cooper explicitly asked General Glen VanHerck, Commander of NORAD, about UFOs. Here is that exchange:
COOPER: Because you still haven’t been able to tell us what these things are that we are shooting out of the sky, that raises the question, have you ruled out aliens or extraterrestrials? And if so, why? Because that is what everyone is asking us right now.
GEN. VANHERCK: I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven’t ruled out anything.
The general’s second sentence received the most commentary, even though it does not suggest VanHereck thinks it might be aliens. He would have said the same thing if Cooper had asked if he had ruled out Santa Clause. It’s a way of not engaging with the premise of the question. His first sentence is more telling. He kicked the UFO question right over to the Director of National Intelligence. Other Pentagon spokespeople have done the same of late. The UAP report is a DNI product. AARO is a joint DoD/DNI effort, but ultimately the DNI will be the ones communicating what is a UFO and what is not. The Pentagon seems to interpret this new arrangement for AARO as a license to put responsibility for the UFO question squarely on the DNI’s desk. This allows VanHerck to pass the buck when asked the UFO question, as he did here.
After the Sunday night briefing, New York Times reporter Edward Wong tweeted out the resulting article. He not only included The X-Files tagline, but referred to the three downed objects as UFOs.
On Monday, the White House Press Secretary used humor to bat down press questions about UFOs:
“Again, there is no indication of aliens or [extra]terrestrial activity with these recent takedowns. Wanted to make sure that the American people knew that, all of you knew that. And it was important for us to say that from here because we’ve been hearing a lot about it. I’m just — you know, I loved ‘E.T.’ the movie. But I’m gon — I’m just going to leave it there.”
So, to recap, “everyone is asking” and “hearing a lot about” UFOs in connection with the shootdowns. But why?
Even though there was no such connection, it’s understandable. There was a genuine fog of uncertainty. The objects were unidentified–no one could explain what they were. NORAD had never in its history taken such aggressive action as to shoot down something over the mainland, let alone three one after the other. It felt like a historic moment where extreme outcomes might be possible. Also, since 2017 there has been much public conversation about unidentified objects flying around where they don’t belong. On January 12, just four weeks before the final shootdown, the DNI released its second major report on these incidents.
But was it accurate to say “everyone is asking” about UFOs? Who was everyone? Was it wise to inject UFOs into a fluid, unusual breaking-news situation based only on excited speculation and no direct evidence? Journalists and press secretaries do a public service, but they do not speak for the public, let alone those of us who follow the UFO topic closely. They can be swept up as easily as any of us. Hearing the mainstream press discuss UFOs seriously can feel exciting and cathartic considering their long disdain for the topic, but just because they do does not necessarily mean they are reflecting the reality of a situation.
Takeaway 1: Just because journalists and government employees are talking about UFOs in the Pentagon and White House briefing rooms, doesn’t mean we should particularly care. They might not know more than anybody else. They might be wrong.
Takeaway 2: Whenever the “Is it UFOs?” question comes up in a developing situation, be careful. Ask instead: is that the right question?; why is that being asked?; do the known facts justify it?
Some of us were undoubtedly trying to follow that advice. But then Congress got involved and took this to another level.
Congress
Disclosure leaders in Congress used the shootdowns as an opportunity to first pat themselves on the back, and then ask for more money for their pet project, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Politicians to the core.
Gillibrand sent out multiple tweets like this one on February 13, which she used to reshare the Wong X-Files tweet.
On February 15, she said this to CNN:
“It’s all the service members who have reported this for years and been dismissed, derided, disregarded. Their careers have been harmed. Those are the heroes of this moment, because men and women have been reporting these sightings, certainly for our military, for decades, and they have been met with derision.”
And here she is in a March 28 Armed Services Committee hearing, asking the Secretary of Defense for more money for AARO:
“The incidents last month involving the Chinese high-altitude balloon and the three unknown objects highlighted the need for us to continue to improve our understanding of UAP’s over U.S. airspace.”
Representative Mike Gallagher referred to the three downed objects as “as yet UAPs,” meaning that until proven otherwise he considered them in the same classification as the Tic Tac UAP. He also said on CNN, “For years now we’ve had a problem with Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon… But until now, until it burst into public view, it really didn’t get the attention it deserved.” Like Gillibrand, he was using the situation to highlight the office he helped create.
The reason statements such as these sow confusion is that AARO was set up by Congress to investigate “anomalous spaceborne, airborne, seaborne, or transmedium observations that are not yet attributable to known actors or causes.” None of the four downed objects from February fit that description. At the time, three of them may have been unidentified, but there was no evidence they were anomalous. And there was much evidence and common sense pointing to the conclusion that they could be attributed to airborne clutter.
Senator Rubio took a different tack. In his statements he repeatedly tried to downplay the UFO angle, and play up the airspace sovereignty threat. On February 13 he tweeted:
He released a video statement before going into classified briefing on balloon shootdowns:
“This is a topic I’ve been on for a long time. This is not new. It may sound new, but it really isn’t. We have been seeing objects flying over restricted airspace in the United States for a long time now. No one took it seriously because immediately it was about UFOs and flying saucers and aliens, and that’s not my concern. My concern is that some other country has developed a capability to monitor and enter our airspace and that we are not prepared to identify it because … we’re looking for airplanes, we’re looking for missiles, we’re not looking for objects that don’t fit that criteria.”
After the briefing he said this to the press:
“We have hundreds and hundreds of these over the years. The report that was issued by the Department of National Intelligence earlier this year lists over 500 such cases, dozens this year alone. … What bothers me the most is that everyone is acting like this is the first time we’ve ever seen these things, and so we reacted that way. No, it isn’t. We have hundreds and hundreds of cases reported by military personnel, we have been talking about it for years.”
Again, the confusion lies in the category error of lumping together the Chinese spy balloon, which was a foreign nation “flying something over places they aren’t allowed,” with the three other objects, which were certainly not that, with the conclusions of the UAP reports, which were about an entirely different class of unidentified object.
Politicians are like surfers. They have a sixth sense for the trending wave of public attention, and they will try to ride it in order to serve their political agenda or help a message breakout with a larger audience. The current news hook need not perfectly sync with the topic they want to push. Doing so may reveal certain political realities, but it clouds actual reality.
That is what happened with the balloon shootdowns. Some in Congress used them to call attention and support to the work of AARO, even though AARO would be wasting its time if it got involved in the four incidents the politicians were referencing. All of the politicians who spouted off about transparency and how the American public can handle the truth–they were not talking about UFOs, or even whatever they think AARO is investigating. Most of them could not tell you what the four letters in AARO stand for, and were simply trying to leverage the public conversation to box the Biden administration into admitting that it wasted several very expensive missiles shooting down some kids’ science experiment launched from the roof of Lake Wobegon High School.
Takeaway 3: Politicians always cater to highly specific political or practical aspects of their jobs. Always factor in the full context of their statements.
Takeaway 4: Not everything a politician says needs to be taken seriously. Sometimes they don’t know what they are talking about.
Disclosure Leaders
Finally there are the founders of the modern iteration of the Disclosure movement, who only performed a little better. On the afternoon of February 12, after the third shootdown but before NORAD provided any information, Lue Elizondo tweeted:
Again, it’s understandable that he felt this way at the time. But with hindsight this makes it sound like he resigned because the military was refusing to produce a full accounting of airborne clutter. Tweets like this contributed to the atmosphere that we were in a Disclosure moment, that we were dealing with real UAPs. We weren’t.
Chris Mellon, in a blog post published February 14, also used the shootdowns as an opportunity to plug his Disclosure efforts and AARO, but he at least put this qualification at the top:
“Most of these [UAP] incursions were not slow, high-flying objects, but craft operating at much higher speeds at much lower elevation in much closer proximity to U.S. forces and facilities. Notably, many of these objects appeared to exhibit performance characteristics that are far more impressive and concerning than any of the objects recently downed by the U.S. Air Force.”
By the end of the month, Ryan Graves cut through all the confusion with a Politico article titled “We Have a Real UFO Problem. And It’s Not Balloons.” Graves knows better than anyone because he has seen them from his fighter jet.
Just what is a UAP anyway?
Balloons and UFOs have been getting mixed up long before the term UFO was invented. But part of the current confusion stems from the fact that we have inserted a new term–Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon–that is supposed to fit somewhere between conventional objects like balloons and the far-out possibility of the UFO. (It also does not help that Congress keeps changing and adding to the letters in UAP.) In March, when Politico asked the Pentagon for an update on the still unidentified objects shot down in February, spokesperson Susan Gough gave the official definition:
“UAP are objects that cannot be immediately identified and may exhibit anomalous behavior. Anomalous behavior means that DoD operators or sensors cannot make immediate sense of collected data, actions or activities.”
My larger point is that within days or hours of the shootdowns, all of us could have used common sense to make sense of what those objects were.
Of the three words that make up UAP, the emphasis should always be placed on Phenomenon and not Unidentified. UAP are called a phenomenon because they represent a complex mystery. Based on the DNI’s own assessments, and Congress’s explicit directives, “resolving” genuine UAP will require extensive interagency cooperation, especially with NASA. Also, it will involve deep scientific analysis, and may possibly require “additional scientific knowledge” and “pending scientific advances” that are years beyond current understanding.
In July 2022, the Senate Intelligence Committee directed AARO not to waste its or Congress’s time reporting on misidentified conventional objects like what would be shot down seven months later: “Temporary nonattributed objects, or those that are positively identified as man-made after analysis, will be passed to appropriate offices and should not be considered under the definition as unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena.”
Yes, the three objects were unidentified. But there was no evidence that they fit the definition of a UAP.
Takeaway 5: Not everything that is unidentified should be considered a potential UFO.
Next time around, we need sharper instincts. If another conventional aerial encounter gets spun up into a UFO story, it will only make everyone less willing to entertain the reality of UFOs in the future.
But, crucially, the kinds of missteps outlined above will also cause problems in a genuine UFO event that involves the wider public and the media. Because when that event unfolds, it’s not going to be as simple as a UFO landing on the Washington Mall announcing its intentions in clear terms. It might not be clear for some time what is even happening. As with the shootdowns, there will be a fog of uncertainty that might last days.
The last thing we will need is public figures jumping up and down saying “this is what I’ve been talking about” when what they have been talking about might not accurately describe what is actually occurring. The last thing we will need is politicians confusing the public with category errors (weather balloon vs. spy balloons vs. “balloon-like entities” vs. airborne clutter vs. drones vs. unmanned aerial systems vs. UAPs that are all of the above vs. UAPs that are truly anomalous vs. UFOs…) The last thing we will need is a politician who doesn’t know anything telling people to “lock their doors.” The last thing we will need is the media pretending it knows what the public is thinking and translating that through pop culture cliches. All of this happened before and will happen again. We don’t need to fall for it next time.
Final takeaway: Ground yourself in the known facts, whatever they are. Separate the facts from the speculation and the BS.
I am linking the archives below for easy access. This page will always be available by clicking on the UFO subcategory in the top right of my blog, Organizing Principles. Happy researching.
Two important documents were made public in January that pull back the curtain on AARO. Both showcase the government’s new and evolving stance on UAP investigations, and UFO disclosure generally. One is the 2022 UAP report, which I wrote about here. The other is an AARO slide deck presentation, which I will parse below. Both documents suggest an encouraging shift in tone and perspective from predecessors Scott Bray and the UAPTF.
You can find an easily copy/pasteable version of the slide deck in this archive, under the DoD section.
The fact that this presentation was even given and allowed to be public is significant. It was presented to the Transportation Research Board (TRB), National Academy of Engineering, on January 11, 2023. The deck was somehow procured by D. Dean Johnson, who posted it on his twitter (@ddeanjohnson). It’s not classified, but my understanding is it was not intended to be disseminated outside of the closed group. We know that AARO is now tasked with being the media and external-partner face of the government’s UAP investigation. Maybe Kirkpatrick is honing his presentation skills while also engaging with some of those partners.
First thing to note form the deck is a new definition for UAP.
“UAP are sources of anomalous spaceborne, airborne, seaborne, or transmedium observations that are not yet attributable to known actors or causes.”
Contrast this with how the 2022 UAP report, released about same time, defines UAP: “Airborne objects not immediately identifiable.”
It’s not just that AARO is admitting for the first time that UAP are in space and oceans and transitioning in between. Almost more significant is the second clause, “not yet attributable to known actors or causes,” which has a more earnest and optimistic tone, implying that UAP are real objects resulting from real actors that will be identified in due time.
This point is made into a firm commitment in AARO’s Mission Statements, which was also unknown to the public before now:
“Mission: minimize technical and intelligence surprise, by synchronizing scientific, intelligence, and operational detection, identification, attribution, and mitigation of unidentified, anomalous objects in the vicinity of national security areas.”
Let’s break down these three clauses. 1) Minimize surprise is a technical term based in the IC’s Analytic Standards, and also a primary national security goal. The point of all intelligence gathering is to provide leaders with enough data and conclusions about a situation so that they are not surprised as events unfold. While DoD has been happy to ignore this principle for UFOs, Congress seems to be particularly worried about being caught by surprise. 2) The synchronize clause lists all the ways UAP will be dealt with by AARO. Not just identification, but also attribution to those “known actors or causes”, and also mitigation, which presumably means somehow removing them from the field. 3) AARO is only focused on UAP in US restricted areas, mainly military.
In other words, AARO is committed to explaining what UAP are, and stopping their incursions into restricted airspace.
There is also a vision statement, full of signifiers of AARO’s approach: use of normalized DoD, IC practices; highest scientific and intelligence-tradecraft standards; transparency.
Under the section titled “Key scientific and intelligence questions”, ARRO will assess the “technological gap between phenomena and the United States.” This is the right question because it will help to quantify observed UAP capabilities. There is also this odd phrase: ”The disposition of observed phenomena.” Disposition suggests not only behavior but motivation. Another synonym might be personality. We typically don’t say an act of nature or a spy balloon has a disposition.
Slide 4 contains this much discussed sentence:
“The potentially ubiquitous presence of UAP defines the national-security implications and drives the broad range of stakeholders…”
Considering AARO thinks UAP are real and possibly not misidentifications, calling them potentially ubiquitous significantly expands the definition and the mystery. The notion that UAP are conventional objects and foreign systems for which we just lack data, and this is happening everywhere all at once, does not stand up to logic.
This stance is notably different from the stance of the UAP Task Force, and pushed by Scott Bray. Remember this line from the 2021 Preliminary Report:
“UAP PROBABLY LACK A SINGLE EXPLANATION: The UAP documented in this limited dataset demonstrate an array of aerial behaviors, reinforcing the possibility there are multiple types of UAP requiring different explanations.”
The assumption behind this statement is that military personnel are not seeing UAP caused by a single source. The aviator over the Atlantic probably saw a balloon; the one over the Pacific probably saw a drone; the one over Iraq probably saw a weird cloud, etc. There’s no pattern and no single source. All the sightings are random and meaningless. This Scott Bray-ism seems to have been discarded. It is not repeated in either the 2022 report or the AARO slide deck.
Instead, AARO is treating UAP as a much more serious potential threat, and therefore more real. Not random unattributable somethings, but a clear pattern of recorded behavior that poses “threats to the immediate safety of US citizens and Government facilities,” which in turn must be mitigated.
AARO keeps promising to provide what Congress has asked for: analytic conclusions about UAP. Language on Slide 5 of the deck repeats this promise:
“Interdisciplinary Analyses: delivering peer-reviewed conclusions through deliberate syntheses of scientific and intelligence method, tradecraft, tools, and expertise.”
So far, when pressed to draw a conclusion about UAP, all anyone in the government will say is that they don’t have enough data yet. AARO is at least signaling that they won’t maintain this excuse indefinitely. The 2022 report said the same thing: “Per the NDAA, AARO delivers quarterly reports on UAP to policymakers that contain greater detail regarding analysis and attribution of UAP events.” Congress also required the report to contain that analysis, but if we give the benefit of the doubt, AARO is set to deliver at least some firm answers this year.
Slide 7 contains some lines that make you wonder: If UAP were not a real, anomalous phenomenon, why would AARO be asking about this? A few examples from a list described as “what kind of information would be necessary and sufficient for UAP analyses”:
Indications of advanced and/or enigmatic capabilities
UAP behavior, including whether under apparent intelligent control, apparent response to observation and/or observer presence, and apparent indications of indifference or hostility
Any physiological, psychological, or other effects apparently corresponding to the UAP observation
The slide deck was also the first reveal of AARO’s official logo:
Despite the fact that the logo features space, a mysterious wave formation, and a circle that evokes the image of a disc-shaped UFO, there is also the Latin phrase: universum mutao est; vita nostra est quod cogitationes nostra facere est. This comes from Book 4, section 3 of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Here is the best translation I have found: “This world is mere change, and this life, opinion.” But really, one needs to read the full passage to understand the quote’s significance.
“One, that the things or objects themselves reach not unto the soul, but stand without still and quiet, and that it is from the opinion only which is within, that all the tumult and all the trouble doth proceed. The next, that all these things, which now thou seest, shall within a very little while be changed, and be no more: and ever call to mind, how many changes and alterations in the world thou thyself hast already been an eyewitness of in thy time. This world is mere change, and this life, opinion.”
By this moto, AARO is aligning itself with the idea there are objects external to us, and that that very externality means we project onto it definitions that can and will change over time. This can cut both ways through UFO discourse. Maybe AARO is saying everyone should be careful about projecting their own opinions on UAP, wait for the data. Maybe AARO is saying these objects, when they become known, will bring about a major change in the world. Maybe it is saying both things at once.
Here is a similar thought, located in Book 8:
“That which the nature of the universe doth busy herself about, is; that which is here, to transfer it thither, to change it, and thence again to take it away, and to carry it to another place. So that thou needest not fear any new thing. For all things are usual and ordinary.”
There is nothing truly anomalous, from the perspective of the universe. All things in nature will be known in time, and there is no need to fear any new thing no matter how strange it may seem at first.
I submit that this is not the logo, and not to the mission, of an organization that has set itself to proving UAP are sensor glitches and misidentification of conventional objects. Kirkpatrick and his team seem to have loftier, more expansive ambitions. Ambitions that forebode significant change to the world and how we understand our place in it.
All of this demonstrates that AARO is more open minded than previous government UAP programs, more willing to entertain extreme possibilities, and more willing to put its name underneath those conclusions so long as the data points in that direction. 2022 opened with a congressional hearing where it certainly felt like Scott Bray and Ronald Moultrie were trying to walk back some of the initial startling claims about UAP, trying to carefully put the disclosure toothpaste back in the tube. That era was thankfully short lived. In 2023 we may get Sean Kirkpatrick jumping up and down on that toothpaste tube.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released the congressionally mandated 2022 UAP report on January 12, 2023. This is the second such report. A 2021 Preliminary report was released in June 2021.
There are 13 distinct reporting requirements for this report, and I have applied a Disclosure rubric to measure how transparent the US government is willing to be with each one.
The rubric has three categories, each assigned with a point value.
Full Disclosure (3): The report reveals detailed underlying evidence pertaining to the “shall include” elements, as well as specific conclusions drawn from that evidence. This does not mean total disclosure of any and all information the government possesses about UFOs. We assume that the authors will constrain their report to the specific asks listed in the NDAA, as well as classification laws that forbid revealing intelligence gathering sources and methods. That aside, this category suggests an intention toward openness with the public.
Partial Disclosure (2): The report provides general and generic discussion of the “shall include” elements, without offering any specifics. There may be acknowledgement that a situation is occurring, but no underlying evidence, and little to no analysis–in other words, similar to the 2021 Preliminary Report. This category suggests a muddled middle ground where the authors acknowledge a real phenomenon is occurring, but exhibit a continued extreme reticence to share details with the public.
Full Secrecy (1): The authors simply decline to provide any information to the public for the “shall include” elements.
Scoring & Analysis
Overall Score for the 2022 UAP Report: 1.5 out of 3 – Full Secrecy
7 reporting requirements earn a score of Partial Disclosure
6 reporting requirements earn a score of Full Secrecy
For all of the report’s lack of detail, it does make a number of significant admissions and future commitments:
There are 510 UAP reports, none of which have been formally resolved with a satisfactory explanation
UAP are still thought to demonstrate unusual flight characteristics and abilities
There have been no UAP-related collisions or heath effects for military personnel (as yet)
The UAP investigation is now a whole-government coordination effort, and communication with international partners is ongoing.
These account for the Partial Disclosure scores. No reporting requirement earns a score of Full Disclosure due to extreme vagueness of the language, and the fact that, like the 2021 report, all references to underlying evidence has been stripped out of the public version. We are all forced to read the tea leaves of ODNI bureaucratic language, and are given no concrete, real-world facts that allow us to put those statements in proper context.
There are some encouraging bright spots in the report’s tone, all of which suggest that the ODNI and the Pentagon’s UAP office, AARO, are not trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
The report states that some “UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities.” While this is not as fulsome as the 2021 report, it does not endorse Scott Bray’s argument in the May 2021 congressional hearing that these observed characteristics and capabilities are due to sensor error and mere witness “stories.”
The report explains why there has been a recent spike in UAP reporting: “increase in the UAP reporting rate is partially due to a better understanding of the possible threats that UAP may represent… and partially due to reduced stigma surrounding UAP reporting.” The report does not repeat or endorse Scott Bray’s assertion that increased UAP activity is happening because of “an increase in the number of new systems such as quadcopters and unmanned aerial systems that are in our airspace.” No, reports are increasing because people are seeing a lot of UAP and are concerned enough to make a report.
There is an important (almost heartwarming) expression of trust on page 3 under the a section titled Assumptions: “ODNI and AARO operate under the assumption that UAP reports are derived from the observer’s accurate recollection of the event and/or sensors that generally operate correctly and capture enough real data to allow initial assessments.” The slogan for this might be Believe Pilots. The authors are sending the message that investigators will accept that men and women in the field actual saw and experienced what they describe in the report. This may be easier said than done, but it is important for destigmatization.
While the report provides no analysis of UAP data, it does promise to do so soon in the quarterly updates to Congress. Time will tell if AARO and ODNI are merely getting their feet under them, or if this is a stalling tactic.
If there is cause for concern, it is this creeping fear of a big stall. The 2021 report of 144 UAP cases was being drafted two years ago. Reading that report in June 2021, it was safe to assume that by now we would have know whether or how some of those cases were resolved. The authors of that report also spoke of the need for future “additional rigorous analysis.” We are still waiting. Will the ultimate explanation for UAP be just a year or two away, forever? Or will the team as currently constituted be the ones to finally put their names to some firm conclusions?
See full scoring and rational for all 13 report requirements below.
Requirement #1: Tally of UAP Events
(A) All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during the one-year period. (B) All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during a period other than that one-year period but were not included in an earlier report.
Disclosure Score: Partial Disclosure
The report states the following facts for this requirement:
144 UAP reports were created and compiled by the UAPTF covering 17 years from 2004-March 5, 2021. (Note this number is still inclusive of the one UAP “determined with high confidence” to be a deflating balloon.)
247 UAP reports were newly generated by military personnel from March 6, 2021 to August 30, 2022.
119 UAP reports that occurred prior to 3/5/2021 “have been discovered and reported.”
Total UAP reports in AARO’s data set: 510.
This is one of the only parts of the report where a straightforward answer is given, though as we will see in the next section AARO uses these numbers in deliberately vague and confusing ways. Also note the emphasis created by the persistent use of the term UAP report. The 2021 UAP report contained clear delineation of terms between UAP event, UAP incident, and UAP report. For example, we know there were some UAP incidents that generated more than one report. The 2022 report refers only to reports, almost to emphasize that AARO is investigating a report someone made and not the event itself. This is contrary to the language of the requirement: “unidentified aerial phenomena-related events.” Beyond the tally, we get no details at all about the events, the reports, or the reporters.
Also of note, in the December press roundtable Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, head of AARO, said the UAP reports currently in AARO’s data set now extend back to 1996. But this date range is not included in the report.
Requirement #2: Analysis, judgements, and explanatory categories
(C) An analysis of data and intelligence received through each reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related event. (D) An analysis of data relating to unidentified aerial phenomena collected through–(i) geospatial intelligence;(ii) signals intelligence;(iii) human intelligence; and(iv) measurement and signature intelligence.
Disclosure Score: Full Secrecy
The report states the following facts for this requirement [emphasis added]:
“Since its establishment in July 2022, AARO has formulated and started to leverage a robust analytic process against identified UAP reporting. Once completed, AARO’s final analytic findings will be available in their quarterly reports to policymakers.”
“The broad scope of authority granted to AARO should enable them to leverage a multi-agency, whole-of-government approach to understanding, resolving, and attributing UAP in the future.”
“Regardless of the collection or reporting method, many reports lack enough detailed data to enable attribution of UAP with high certainty.”
26 characterized as Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) or UAS-like entities;
163 characterized as balloon or balloon-like entities; and
6 attributed to clutter.
Subsection C and D should have been be the heart of the 2022 UAP report, since this was the core of Congress’s request–an analysis of what UAP are. I was hoping for a good-faith effort to apply the IC’s Analytic Standards, including judgments and assumptions, and maybe some underlying evidence. Instead, all we are told is that AARO has a “robust analytic process” but they are not yet ready to share it or its findings.
There is also evidence of strained and misleading logic in this section. One clause states that “more than half” of the 366 newly reported UAP reports may be drones, balloons (ballon-like entities?), or clutter. But AARO says nothing about which of the initial 144 reports may be similarly “unremarkable.” Why do they place this divide in their data set between the original and new set of reports? If there is a reason, they don’t tell us. Is it that the recent reports are fresher with more timely evidence? Well, no. We know the majority of the original 144 were from 2019-2021, and that some of the new 366 reports were from earlier than 2021 and extend back to 1996. And what about that poor deflating balloon that was the single resolved UAP case form the first round? Has it been un-resolved?
In any case, when you divide 195 resolved UAP out of the full total of 510, you get 38% – decidedly less than half.
Curiouser!–AARO tells us that even those 195 have not been officially, formally resolved. This is only their “initial characterization” and may change pending more analysis. Why produce this half-way judgement? Well, the report explains, this allows AARO to “efficiently and effectively leverage resources against the remaining 171 uncharacterized and unattributed UAP reports.” In other words, they think that a UAP might be a balloon (balloon-like entity??) but they can’t prove it, and since those other cases are more interesting they are going to move on. Really? A pilot or aviator saw something so strange that they filed a UAP report. And AARO has just enough data on that case to say it might be a balloon or drone, but not enough data to prove it? Not in a single one of the 510 cases? That in itself is evidence of something weird going on, or incompetence.
Per this report, exactly 0% of the 510 UAP have been resolved as conventional objects, which is decidedly less than half.
Also of note: the report makes no mention of the 5 explanatory categories, no mention of the “other catch-all bin,” and no use of the word anomalous.
(E) The number of reported incidents of unidentified aerial phenomena over restricted air space of the United States during the one-year period.
Disclosure Score: Partial Disclosure
The report states the following facts for this requirement:
“UAP events continue to occur in restricted or sensitive airspace, highlighting possible concerns for safety of flight or adversary collection activity”
This statement offers only a general reference to some amount of incursions without revealing the total number. No information is provided about the date and location of events, or how many of the 510 reports derive from restricted airspace.
(F) An analysis of such incidents identified under subparagraph (E).
Disclosure Score: Full Secrecy
The report provides no further information or reference to incursions.
Requirement #5: National Security Threat of UAP
(G) Identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by unidentified aerial phenomena to the national security of the United States.
Disclosure Score: Full Secrecy
Beyond the obvious flight safety concerns posed by UAP, the only national security threat mentioned is a vague and unelaborated reference to “potential adversary collection platforms.” The words “national security” do not appear in the report.
Requirement #6: Adversarial foreign governments
(H) An assessment of any activity regarding unidentified aerial phenomena that can be attributed to one or more adversarial foreign governments.
Disclosure Score: Full Secrecy
The report declines to provide any statement about “foreign adversary systems.” It does promise that AARO “will continue to investigate any evidence of possible foreign government involvement in UAP events.”
Requirement #7: Breakthrough aerospace capability
(I) Identification of any incidents or patterns regarding unidentified aerial phenomena that indicate a potential adversarial foreign government may have achieved a breakthrough aerospace capability.
Disclosure Score: Partial Disclosure
The report states the following facts for this requirement:
“Some of these [171] uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis.”
This is as flashy as we get this time around. The 2022 report omits anything like the language from the 2021 report that captured so much public (and congressional) attention: breakthrough aerospace technology “without discernable means of propulsion.” But this is still an admission that some highly unusual aircraft have been observed.
Requirement #8: Coordination with allies
(J) An update on the coordination by the United States with allies and partners on efforts to track, understand, and address unidentified aerial phenomena.
Disclosure Score: Partial Disclosure
The report states the following for this requirement:
“ODNI and AARO have maintained communication with our allied partners regarding UAP, keeping them informed of developments and U.S. initiatives.”
This is a general admission of at least communication with allies about the U.S. efforts regarding UAP, without giving specifics. No mention is made on coordination.
Requirement #9: Capture and exploit UAP
(K) An update on any efforts underway on the ability to capture or exploit discovered unidentified aerial phenomena.
Disclosure Score: Full Secrecy
This may be unsurprising, but no mention is made of the scenarios described by this requirement.
Requirement #10: Health-related effects of UAP
(L) An assessment of any health-related effects for individuals that have encountered unidentified aerial phenomena.
Disclosure Score: Partial Disclosure
The report states the following for this requirement:
“Regarding health concerns, there have also been no encounters with UAP confirmed to contribute directly to adverse health-related effects to the observer(s). Acknowledging that health-related effects may appear at any time after an event occurs, AARO will track any reported health implications related to UAP should they emerge.”
Even though this represents a flat denial, one of the only straight answers in the report, the language indicates there may be more going on than AARO is willing to share. By holding out the possibility that health-related effects may yet emerge, this suggests that at least some military personnel have come in close enough contact with a UAP for this to be the case. Yet they don’t say anything like this or provide any additional context.
Requirement #11: U.S. nuclear technology and UAP
(M) The number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena associated with military nuclear assets, including strategic nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered ships and submarines. (N) In consultation with the Administrator for Nuclear Security, the number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena associated with facilities or assets associated with the production, transportation, or storage of nuclear weapons or components thereof. (O) In consultation with the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena or drones of unknown origin associated with nuclear power generating stations, nuclear fuel storage sites, or other sites or facilities regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Disclosure Score:Full Secrecy
Subsections M through O address U.S. nuclear technology, and together they represent one-fifth of the 2022 reporting requirements. Of all of Congress’s requirements, these contain some of the most specific language. Congress wants to know more about the relationship between UAP and nukes. This section could cover a range of cases, from the 2004 encounter with the nuclear powered USS Ronald Regan, to domestic cases similar to the mystery drones observed over the Swedish nuclear plant in 2021.
The report makes no mention of any US nuclear asset.
Requirement #12: Line organizations providing UAP data
(P) The names of the line organizations that have been designated to perform the specific functions under subsections (c) and (d), and the specific functions for which each such line organization has been assigned primary responsibility.
Disclosure Score:Partial Disclosure
The report states the following for this requirement [emphasis added]:
“The majority of new UAP reporting originates from U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force aviators and operators who witnessed UAP during the course of their operational duties and reported the events to the UAPTF or AARO through official channels.”
“AARO’s authorities ensure that UAP detection and identification efforts will span across DoD and relevant interagency partners, as well as the Intelligence Community (IC), with the support and coordination of the National Intelligence Manager for Aviation (NIM-Aviation). NIM-Aviation’s and AARO’s coordination efforts will improve U.S. Government awareness of objects in the airspace and resolution of UAP events.”
“This report was drafted by ODNI’s NIM-Aviation in conjunction with AARO.”
“AARO has the authority to coordinate UAP efforts beyond DoD and is authorized to develop processes and procedures to synchronize and standardize collection, reporting, and analysis throughout not just DoD, but the IC as well, with the support and coordination of NIM-Aviation. AARO will coordinate with other non-IC agencies such as the FAA, NASA, NOAA, and the non-IC elements of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Energy (DOE), as appropriate. The broad scope of authority granted to AARO should enable them to leverage a multi-agency, whole-of-government approach…”
“NIMAviation will remain the IC’s focal point for UAP issues, while AARO is the DoD focal point for these issues and related activities. AARO will represent DoD to the interagency, Congress, media, and public, in coordination with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs and the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (OSD[PA]).”
On page 3, there is a long list of agencies that provided input into the report, which includes every military branch, as well as NASA, the FBI, and the FAA, among others. One stark difference from the 2021 report is the inclusion of UAP reports from the Air Force. The original 144 cases all came from the Navy. The Air Force adopted the Navy’s UAP reporting protocol in November 2020. Considering the Air Force’s long standing hostility to UFO disclosure, a cynic might wonder if the 366 newly reported cases, “more than half” of which are thought to be balloons and drones, are UAP reports that originated with the Air Force. It would not be the first time the Air Force tried to pad out its tally of “solved” UFO cases. It’s also worth considering that simply because a UAP report is submitted to AARO does not mean that all available data was included in said report. A cynic might think these things.
The role of the National Intelligence Manager for Aviation (NIM-Aviation) is prominent in the report, and seems significant. Both the 2022 report and the 2021 report were drafted by NIM-Aviation, part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. I’m not enough of a government insider to know precisely what the word “drafted” implies in this context, but I think it’s safe to say that the ODNI produces the reporting based on data from AARO. What has changed is that NIM-Aviation now has a formal role as the DNI’s lead on UAP issues. Since Congress has charged DNI and DOD with co-leadership roles over the UAP investigation, the two key players going forward will be AARO and NIM-Aviation.
The elevation of NIM-Aviation probably occurred on March 3, 2022. That week, Lue Elizondo made a claim on a podcast that the ODNI committed to “a historic action” and “a significant milestone” that “needs to applauded.” He did not go into detail about what that action was, but did imply it was made by the two-star general who was the National Intelligence Manager to Aviation.
Requirement #13: Unclassified format
(3) Form.–Each report submitted under paragraph (1) shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex.
Disclosure Score: Partial Disclosure
Half of the required elements are present in the unclassified report, but (I presume) with significantly less specificity and no underlying evidence compared to the classified report.
“Americans always do the right thing, once they have exhausted all other possibilities.”
–unatributed aphorism
The following archive contains most of the public statements and records provided by Executive Branch agencies on the topic of UFOs in the modern era. Use the links below to jump to each section.
Each statement is placed in chronological order by agency. In order to qualify for entry into the archive, the source must be a public statement from a currently serving agent of the U.S. government. Statements made by future or former members of the Executive Branch are not included. As a result this archive will demonstrate the Executive’s official stance on UFOs, and can be used to track how that stance will shift (or not) over time. This archive will be updated as more statements are made.
Thomas Zurbuchen, an astrophysicist and NASA’s associate administrator for science, press briefing:
“People tend to underestimate nature. Nature is an amazing place where a lot of miracles happen. And once we understand, it’s like, ‘Why didn’t we think of that?’ In the realm of science we’re all about unidentified issues and objects…So, using the tools of science, we will do whatever we can to move our understanding forward.”
Bill Nelson, the former Florida senator and spaceflight veteran, told CNN Business’ Rachel Crane during a wide-ranging interview on Thursday that it’s not clear to anyone — even in the upper echelons of the US space agency — what the high-speed objects observed by Navy pilots are.
Nelson added that he does not believe the UFOs are evidence of extraterrestrials visiting Earth. “I think I would know” if that were the case, Nelson said. But, he acknowledged, it’d be premature to rule that out as a possibility….
“We don’t know if it’s extraterrestrial. We don’t know if it’s an enemy. We don’t know if it’s an optical phenomenon,” Nelsonsaid. “We don’t think [it’s an optical phenomenon] because of the characteristics that those Navy jet pilots described … And so the bottom line is, we want to know.”
NASA press secretary Jackie McGuinness said Nelson did not establish a formal task force to begin investigating UFOs. However, he did direct researchers to move forward with exploring any lines of questioning around the topic as they see fit.
“There’s not really a lot of data and…scientists should be free to follow these leads, and it shouldn’t be stigmatized,” McGuinness said, acknowledging that UFO research can be negatively associated with unfounded conspiracy theories. “This is a really interesting phenomenon and Americans are clearly interested in it [so if] the scientists want to investigate, they should.”
October 19, 2021
Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator, livestreamchat hosted by politics professor Larry Sabato, UVA’s Center for Politics:
“I’ve talked to those pilots and they know they saw something, and their radars locked on to it,” Nelson said. “And they don’t know what it is. And we don’t know what it is. We hope it’s not an adversary here on Earth that has that kind of technology. But it’s something. And so this is a mission that we’re constantly looking, ‘Who is out there?’ Who are we?’ How did we get here? How did we become as we are? How did we develop? How did we civilize? And are those same conditions out there in a universe that has billions of other suns and billions of other galaxies?’ It’s so large I can’t conceive it.
“Now there are even theories that there might be other universes,” Nelson added. “And if that’s the case, who am I to say planet Earth is the only location of a life form that is civilized and organized like ours?”
Nelson: Do I think that in these billions of stars that are in our galaxy, and there are billions if not trillions of other galaxies, is there the opportunity for another star, a sun, to have planets going about it? Yes, I think that. Who am I to limit life right here?…
Ignatius: What is the coolest thing about NASA that we don’t know about.
Thomas Zurbuchen, astrophysicist, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA:
Asked by Marina Koren, space reporter for The Atlantic (and UFO skeptic): “Whose idea was it to establish this UAP study team?”
Zurbuchen: “The science discipline is where these questions should be addressed. It is my decision to put this up. I was not asked by anybody to do this.“
“The science discipline is where these questions should be addressed. It is my decision to put this up . I was not asked anybody to do this.”
“I’m not aware of any systematic or even sporadic examination of NASA data with that [UFOS] in mind. I’m sure there are some, but I’m not aware of any. […mentions numerous types of data from NASA, national science foundation, commercial entities…] Sifting through the data to finding some of these interesting events that have the characteristics of UAP. The data are here. The data are public. I really don’t know if other people use these data for their research. I sure hope they are.”
“The output from this particular study is not to sift through all the data, and do all this research. It’s to make a proposal for a research program that we can then implement based on the inputs and the principles that are there.”
“What we’re really trying to do here is start an investigation without an outcome in mind.”
”One of the outcomes of this study for me is to communicate… that the science process is a valid process for any and all problems.”
David Spergel, astrophysicist, UAP team leader:
“We want to start with synthesizing what information we have, and see what information we need. And our plan is to conduct an open inquiry that we hope will [pause] advance our understanding so that when this is done we at least have a road map for understanding in this area.”
“I think we will end up probably saying… ways of observing in the future, that might give further insight, ways of analysis in the future… I’m imagining we will end up pointing it perhaps in future directions that NASA may want to consider. We will hopefully at least lay out some of the road map of how we might make progress in the future.”
“I do not know of any systematic study to do that [use telescopes and satellites to collect UAP data]. Either ground based telescopes looking up, atmospheric observations, or downward-looking satellites. I do not know of any systematic study. There is a wealth of data that we have collected, just not looked at.”
“When you are looking for life on Mars you know what you are looking for, you start out with a hypothesis you want to test. The approach I think we want to take here is a different one. This is a phenomenon we don’t understand and we want to collect more data on the phenomenon. I don’t think we want to go in with a particular hypothesis.”
“I do not have classified clearance, and we want this to be an open study. … we will try to see what we can learn from the open data.”
Daniel Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, will serve as the NASA official responsible for orchestrating the UAP study:
“There is an enormous wealth of data that we’ve held in public archives that can be brought to bear on this problem. …That’s when we’ll really be able to answer those questions that are on the tips of everybody’s tongues about UAPs.”
“One of the things that we aim to do by setting up this study is .. to see what we can contribute using the tools of science. So it’s extremely important to us that this remain a fully transparent, open, and therefore unclassified study.”
“One of the things that we tangentially hope to do as part of this study, simply by talking about it in the open, is to help to remove some of the stigma associated with it.”
“NASA is commissioning a study team to start early in the fall to examine unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) – that is, observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena – from a scientific perspective. The study will focus on identifying available data, how best to collect future data, and how NASA can use that data to move the scientific understanding of UAPs forward.”
“The limited number of observations of UAPs currently makes it difficult to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of such events. Unidentified phenomena in the atmosphere are of interest for both national security and air safety. Establishing which events are natural provides a key first step to identifying or mitigating such phenomena, which aligns with one of NASA’s goals to ensure the safety of aircraft. There is no evidence UAPs are extra-terrestrial in origin.”
August 17, 2022
Daniel Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, will serve as the NASA official responsible for orchestrating the UAP study, NASA town hall:
“We’re going full force [on UAP study]. This is really important to us, and we’re placing a high priority on it. NASA really is uniquely positioned to address UAP, because we know how to use the tools of science and data to discern what might be happening out there in the skies. And, to be frank, no other agency is trusted as much by the public as us.”
NASA Announces Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Study Team Members, press release:
“Unidentified aerial phenomena are of interest for both national security and air safety and the study aligns with one of NASA’s goals to ensure the safety of aircraft. Without access to an extensive set of data, it is nearly impossible to verify or explain any observation, thus the focus of the study is to inform NASA what possible data could be collected in the future to scientifically discern the nature of UAP. “
“Why is NASA involved with studying UAP? Exploring the unknown in space and the atmosphere is at the heart of who we are. The nature of science is to better understand the unknown – but the language of scientists is data. The limited number of high-quality observations of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP, currently makes it impossible to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of such events. Without access to an extensive set of data, it is nearly impossible to verify or explain any observation, thus the focus of the study is to inform NASA what possible data could be collected in the future to shed light on UAP. NASA is commissioning the UAP Independent Study Team to examine unidentified aerial phenomena from a scientific perspective – with a focus on how NASA can use data and the tools of science to move our understanding forward. Data is the language of scientists and NASA wants to ensure a 360-degree understanding from a multitude of perspectives.”
“Are there any data supporting the idea that UAP are evidence of alien technologies? No. Most UAP sightings result in very limited data, making it difficult to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of UAP.”
Thomas Zurbuchen, astrophysicist, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA:
“Exploring the unknown in space and the atmosphere is at the heart of who we are at NASA. Understanding the data we have surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena is critical to helping us draw scientific conclusions about what is happening in our skies. Data is the language of scientists and makes the unexplainable, explainable.”
Daniel Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate:
“NASA has brought together some of the world’s leading scientists, data and artificial intelligence practitioners, aerospace safety experts, all with a specific charge, which is to tell us how to apply the full focus of science and data to UAP,” said Evans. “The findings will be released to the public in conjunction with NASA’s principles of transparency, openness, and scientific integrity.”
December 22, 2022
Katherine Rohloff, press secretary for the space agency’s Science Mission Directorate, statement:
“To be consistent with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), NASA will be calling UAP ‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena’ instead of ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.’ NASA’s UAP independent study will be largely focused on aerial phenomena.”
Daniel Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, will serve as the NASA official responsible for orchestrating the UAP study:
“Now, why do we value a scientific approach? It’s because science is built on evidence. It thrives on scrutiny, it demands reproducibility, and above all, objectivity when we approach UAPs. From a scientific perspective, we do not come in with an agenda, we come in needing a roadmap. Indeed, the primary objective of this incredible team of experts is not to go back and look at grainy footage of UAPs but rather to give us a roadmap to guide us for future analysis. This is the very scientific method that NASA holds true to its heart. “
“NASA believes that the study of unidentified anomalous phenomena represents an exciting step forward in our quest to uncover the mysteries of the world around us. By embracing a scientific lens, we ensure that our work is rigorous and reliable. And by valuing transparency and openness, we can foster trust and collaboration with the public.”
Nicky Fox, NASA Associate Administrator for Science:
“Right now there is very limited number of high quality observations and data curation of UAP. The existing data available from eyewitness reports are often muddled and cannot provide conclusive evidence that supports UAP recognition and analysis. Additionally, an object’s background can complicate the data further and render it unusable due to conventional objects that can mimic or overshadow the phenomena completely, such as commercial aircraft, military equipment, the weather, and ionospheric phenomena like auroras. This lack of high quality data make it impossible to draw scientific conclusions on the nature of UAP. “
David Spergel, chair of panel:
“…we have a lengthy charge. But the high level summary of it is how can NASA contribute to understanding the nature of UAPs. And our role here is not to resolve the nature of these events, but rather to give NASA guidance to provide a roadmap of how it can contribute to this in this area.”
“The current data collection efforts regarding UAPs are unsystematic and fragmented across various agencies, often using instruments uncalibrated for scientific data collection. And if I think about the data that people have out there, it’s in many ways what we’d like to think of as citizen science. But again, it is uncalibrated data, poorly characterized, not well curated. And we face looking through this data, a significant background. A background of many of these events are commercial aircraft, civilian American military, drones, weather and research balloons, military equipment, ionospheric phenomenon, we need to characterize how, what the date when the data is taken, when it sees events like this first. The current existing data and eyewitness reports alone are insufficient to provide conclusive evidence about the nature and origin of every UAP event. They’re often and uninformative due to lack of quality control, and data curation. To understand UAP, better, targeted data collection, thorough data curation, and robust analyses are needed. Such an approach will help to discern unexplained UAP sightings.”
“Another challenge in this area is what we call stigma, there’s a real stigma among people reporting events. And despite NASA’s extensive efforts to reduce the stigma, the origin of the UAP is remain unclear. And we feel many events remain unreported. commercial pilots, for example, are very reluctant to report anomalies. And one of our goals and having NASA play a role is to remove stigma, and get high quality data.”
Nadia Drake, science journalists on the NASA UAP Panel:
“And my job is to try and synthesize the information that we’ve learned so far, and summarize the situation. So if you will put together a framework for thinking about UAP. Now I’m going to try and do this in a way that reflects the thoughts of the entire panel, although obviously we have a variety of opinions and ideas among us.”
“This includes eyewitness reports, which on their own can be interesting and compelling, but often lack the information needed to make definitive conclusions about an object’s provenance. We as a panel are thinking about the types of data that might add value to those reports, and which could be useful on their own. As a corollary to date, in the refereed scientific literature, there is no conclusive evidence suggesting an extra terrestrial origin for UAP. Collecting more good data for the scientific community to review and a peer reviewed context will be important for progress to be to be made here.”
“And to that end, when we’re thinking about making recommendations about how NASA can tackle this topic scientifically, I think it’s important to remember that it’s not NASA’s job to replicate the efforts of the department of defense, but rather to consider approaches that are complementary and to what the all domain anomaly resolution office is doing. And so one of the questions that we as a panel, I think need to center is what can we recommend that NASA can do that the DoD cannot?”
Federico Bianca, astrophysicist and data scientist on the NASA UAP committee:
“I can mention one, for example, is called the FAAIR standard, where FAAIR stands for find the ability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. The current status of the data about UAPs does not meet the standards.”
“So, the alternative approach in detecting anomalies requires a thorough and deep understanding of what is normal and usual, to tease out what is unusual. And unlike the rest, these methods typically fall in the realm of what we call unsupervised machine learning. What is usual maybe the balloons the aircraft and wealth of natural phenomena that we have heard, and what is unusual what is an anomaly is anything that is not consistent with the way in which those things look in our data. Once the anomalous signal is detected, it can be studied in more depth either through the discovery data itself, but that may not be sufficient. So then we may need to collect additional data for to study these anomalies. And this is something that in astrophysics, we typically refer to as follow-up data. This can be very hard, especially if the phenomena that are anomalies are also ephemeral in time, so you have to promptly respond to the detection and set up follow up observations. It’s an extremely hard game, but it’s something that is seeing a large developing in astrophysics in recent years with the study of anomalous detections in the universe. This approach relies entirely on a comprehensive and systematic organization of the data, which is paramount and on a deep understanding of all the data that is actually usual and known. The data that we may want to collect ideally will be collected in a multi-sensor and multi-platform and multi-site manner. Witnesses reports, I want to elevate what Dr. Drake said, cannot ascertain the nature of UAPs. However, they should be considered because they may contain important information. For example, persistent sampling locations are seasonality, but they only really work if join with quantitative data collected by sensors as well as your physical and psychophysical assessments of the witness and the impact that the experience has on them to really reveal the nature of UAPs. You’ve heard it from my colleagues a number of times, the data needs to be collected by sensors. They need to be calibrated or calibratable.”
David Grinspoon, planetary scientist and astrobiologist, on NASA panel:
Question: NASA hasn’t been researching the techno-signature field for very long, and there’s been a stigma with techno-signatures for many decades. Are there any lessons learned, we can impose from the-techno signature in the SETI community, to the UAP, and solar system? Studies?
“So really good question. I guess the immediate thought it sparks in me is that, yeah, techno signatures, were kind of treated, kept at arm’s length for a long time by NASA because of stigma, and ultimately, can’t be kept away forever. If you’re, if you are an agency that is curiosity driven, trying to understand the whole universe, you have to move beyond stigmas, and just try to honestly look at whatever evidence there is. And so I think in that broad sense, the same lesson ought to apply to UAPs.”
Karlin Toner , aerospace engineer on NASA UAP Panel:
“I want to make a recommendation to my fellow panelists, that we consider advising NASA to more fully assess the cultural and social barriers to studying and reporting UAP. And for NASA to implement a plan to leverage its brand image to start removing these obstacles.”
Scott Kelly, Astronaut on NASA UAP panel:
“Yeah, just wanted to jump in here, I think, make a couple of comments. Just follow up on what Josh said and my experience of flying, you know, over 15,000 hours 30 something years in airplanes and both in space and the environment that we fly in space or you know, an atmospheric flight, very, very conducive to optical illusions. So I get why these pilots would look at that go fast video and think it was going really really fast. I remember one time I was flying in the warning areas off of Virginia Beach military operating area there. And my REO, the guy that sits in the back of the Tomcat, was convinced we flew by a UFO. So I didn’t see it. We turned around. We went to go look at it. It turns out it was Bart Simpson, a balloon. So, oftentimes in space, I would see things and I was like, Oh, that’s really not behaving like it should, it’s not, it doesn’t have the trajectory of a satellite or a planet on the back of the star field. And every single time, when I would look at it long enough, I would realize that it was atmospheric lensing. “
“But in my 20 years at NASA, no one, either officially or unofficially, in my recollection, have ever discussed or briefed us or had any kind of discussions about anything that would be considered UAP, or UFO or anything like that.”
Mike Gold, former NASA associate administrator:
“I’m very concerned that this could be effectively done on an ad hoc basis. And I’ve been a part of far too many panels and studies that end up sitting on the shelf. I don’t want this to be one of those exercises. And we can discuss this further. But I would call for and recommend a permanent office within NASA to support this activity, I’ll be likely a modest one, what’s collate this information, collate that data, to archive the information and act as the open forward facing counterpart to Sean [Kirkpatrick] and AARO, I think then we could continue and actually accomplish the reporting, the stigma issues that have been raised, and we could do so in a relatively affordable fashion. Because again, I don’t want to all of our work to end up being in vain.”
“I really consider it quite amazing that we’re here having this discussion, and the leadership deserves great kudos for this. And beyond, I think a recommendation that I’d like to make is that NASA participate in symposia in panels sponsor research, when you have the NASA logo on that sponsored research on the discussion. It really helps normalize and push back against the stigma. I think NASA can leverage its excellent reputation, both domestically and abroad. To help push back on that stigma. I think it’s important to do so not just for science and discovery, but for national security, that we’ve all seen what’s occurred with balloons from rival nations. We don’t want this stigma to be a vulnerability that rival nations can take advantage of.”
David Spergel:
“And I think this is something where, if we had, you know, some imaging software people, you know, citizen scientists with cell phone cameras identify some event that looks interesting. One of the places you’d like to be able to turn is the FAA data. And having, you know, if there is to go back to, you know, having a NASA responsibility for data NASA makes because a lot of experience in serving as a clearinghouse for data from across the government for civilian data, right. It’s something we do in lots of different areas. And I think there are some opportunities with datasets there and I think the radar data is one that comes to mind as well.”
Walter Scott:
“The short answer to what NASA’s current assets would be able to see would be really big haystacks that are moving very slowly… But that doesn’t mean that that data is not useful. Because if it’s able to characterize the background extremely well, that gives you a better idea of what unusual looks like basically, anything that you do that characterizes the background will contribute to an understanding.“
Dan Evans:
“From the agency perspective, we are of course, taking a set of actions to effectively normalize the study of UAP. … So in terms of promoting a rigorous scientific inquiry, the primary way we’re doing this is by being truly rigorous, and employing an evidence based methodology in everything that we do. That is characteristic of scientific research. It’s no accident that the people up on this stage are true experts in their reflect his respective fields. Okay. So that is, in turn going to help us to legitimize UAP studies… And it’s going to demonstrate the seriousness with which we’re approaching this issue.”
Anamaria Berea:
“We cannot make that kind of extraordinary claims at all, for any kind of big subjects in science, whether it’s UAPs, whether it’s bio signatures, whether it’s techno signatures, this question of whether we are alone in the universe is probably one of the largest questions that we’ve had in our history of science in our history of humanity. And it’s not one that we can take lightly. And that’s why we need so many scientists and multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams to work together and many organizations. So it’s a process. It’s a roadmap, and we work collectively on this. And we hope that within our lifetime, we will be able to answer this big question of whether we are alone or not. And also to better characterize this phenomenon, which is UAPs.”
David Spergel: “we have not seen the extraordinary evidence. I mean, there’s a sense to give, you know, to make the claim that we see something that is evidence of, non human intelligence, it would be it would require extraordinary evidence. And we have not seen that.”
“And there’s, I think, a long history in science, when you look back, and you realize that this discovery had a pre discovery that people had seen something before. And we’re missing it. And those pre discoveries were not of note, often because we had biases against seeing it, but also because there was limitations in data quality. … We need better data would be my my take away, and we need more uniform data.”
“The phrase UFO Hunters was in a lot of headlines describing the initial [press release]… so a lot of what I’ve been doing over the last seven or eight months has just been kind of disabusing people of the notion that we are UFO hunting. That’s not our job. It’s not what we’re doing, and we’re going to tell NASA how to do that, if they want to.”
“Skepticism is not a bad thing to have. If you’re trying to prove the existence of something that’s really, truly extraordinary, you want to be doing that through the lens of skepticism. Otherwise nobody is going to believe you. Right, like how well is that going for the community so far? Everyone on the panel has a very open mind when it comes to looking at the data, and following the data where it takes us.”
“What I would say is that there’s a lot of interestingness out there, and I think it’s worth looking at. I don’t I don’t think we’re gonna end up finding evidence of extraterrestrial technology, but if we do, awesome.”
July 27, 2023
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson responds to a question about UAP: “I decided as the head of NASA, since there are so many suspicions about aliens, that I would appoint a committee of very distinguished scientists. That committee is deliberating, and they will make their report publicly next month. Now I can tell you in the meantime…they will consider using our scientific sensors in space in trying to determine this phenomenon.”
Q: Have you seen spacecraft made from outside of this world?
“Absolutely not. No.”
Q: Has anyone ever talked with you about that?
“No.”
Q: Anything else you make of those [UAP] hearings on Capitol Hill?
“I mean look, there’s clearly a lot of interest. Our interest is in actually scientifically following the evidence.”
September 14, 2023
NASA’s UAP Panel releases its final report. Key excerpts below.
NASA – with its extensive expertise in these domains and global reputation for scientific openness – is in an excellent position to contribute to UAP studies within the broader whole-of-government framework led by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
Engaging the public is also a critical aspect of understanding UAP. The panel sees several advantages to augmenting data collection efforts using modern crowdsourcing techniques, including open-source smartphone-based apps that simultaneously gather imaging data and other smartphone sensor metadata from multiple citizen observers worldwide. NASA should therefore explore the viability of developing or acquiring such a crowdsourcing system as part of its strategy. In turn, the panel finds that there is currently no standardized system for making civilian UAP reports, resulting in sparse and incomplete data devoid of curation or vetting protocols. NASA should play a vital role by assisting AARO in its development of this Federal system.
NASA’s long-standing public trust, which is essential for communicating findings about these phenomena to citizens, is crucial for destigmatizing UAP reporting. The scientific processes used by NASA encourage critical thinking; NASA can model for the public how to best approach the study of UAP, by utilizing transparent reporting, rigorous analysis, and public engagement
Finally, the threat to U.S. airspace safety posed by UAP is self-evident. The panel finds that a particularly promising avenue for deeper integration within a systematic, evidenced-based framework for UAP is the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), which NASA administers for the FAA. This confidential and voluntary reporting system for pilots, air traffic controllers, and other professional aviation staff, receives approximately 100,000 reports per year. Although not initially designed for UAP collection, better harnessing it for commercial pilot UAP reporting would provide a critical database that would be valuable for the whole-of-government effort to understand UAP. I
Dr. Nicola Fox, Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, Forward to the report: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) are one of our planet’s greatest mysteries. Observations of objects in our skies that cannot be identified as balloons, aircraft, or natural known phenomena have been spotted worldwide, yet there are limited high-quality observations. The nature of science is to explore the unknown, and data is the language scientists use to discover our universe’s secrets. Despite numerous accounts and visuals, the absence of consistent, detailed, and curated observations means we do not presently have the body of data needed to make definitive, scientific conclusions about UAP. … NASA is appointing a Director of UAP Research to centralize communications and leverage NASA’s extensive resources and expertise to actively engage in the whole-of-government UAP initiative. This individual will also ensure that the agency’s vast analytical capabilities, including its proficiency in data management, machine learning and artificial intelligence, are contributed to the government’s unified UAP effort.
The panel sees particular promise in future SAR-based Earth-observing satellites such as NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission, a partnership with the Indian Space Research Organization. The excellent resolution of NISAR will provide valuable radar data that will potentially be critical for examining UAP directly, in addition to their environmental context. SAR systems will also provide critical validation of any truly anomalous properties, such as rapid acceleration or high-G maneuvers through the Doppler signatures they produce.
NASA’s adherence to FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability) data principles when generating curated data repositories enables both scientists and citizen scientists to conduct data-mining and meaningful analysis…. The application of NASA’s rigor to UAP data protocols will ultimately be essential for a detailed understanding of these phenomena.
NASA’s fleet of Earth-observing satellites must also play a key role in collecting future data on environmental conditions coinciding with UAP sightings. … NASA should also leverage sensors that expand its observational reach, such as penetrating deeper into the ocean or at the air/sea interfaces.
At present, UAP analysis is more limited by the quality of data than by the availability of techniques. As a consequence, it is a higher priority to obtain better quality data than it is to develop new analysis techniques.
Once AARO and other agencies, including NASA, accumulate an extensive and well-curated catalog of baseline data, these can be used to train neural networks so that they can characterize deviations from normal. The panel finds that standard techniques that are routinely applied in astronomy, particle physics, and other areas of science can be adapted for these analyses.
AARO has already begun this task by studying what “normal” phenomena such as solar glint or balloons look like to military sensors. The program of systematically calibrating observations of “normal” is an essential step before starting to search for the abnormal.
If the whole-of-government framework to understanding UAP – with NASA playing a crucial role – were to implement the preponderance of steps prescribed above, then the panel regards placing physical constraints on UAP, together with the suite of plausible natures and origins, as being within reach. If all unidentified events move at conventional speeds and accelerations, this likely points towards a conventional explanation for these events. Convincing evidence of verified anomalous accelerations and velocity would point towards potentially novel explanations for UAP.
current FAA guidelines suggest that citizens wanting to report UAP contact their local law enforcement or one or more non-governmental organizations, which is inadequate for drawing scientific inferences. Although such eyewitness reports are often interesting and compelling, they are insufficient on their own for making definitive conclusions about UAP. Thus, their effective corroboration within a robust reporting and follow-up framework based on systematically gathered data (including the ATM system) can provide a useful tool for understanding UAP
Recommends using NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), which NASA administers for the FAA, as a potential reporting tool: This system is a confidential, voluntary, non-punitive reporting system that receives safety reports from pilots, air traffic controllers, dispatchers, cabin crew, ground operators, maintenance technicians, and UAS operators that provides a unique data source for emerging UAS safety issues.
Excerpts from the press conference:
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson: “…we did so with a few goals in mind. First to examine how NASA can use our expertise and instruments to study UAP from a scientific perspective. Second, shift the conversation from sensationalism to science. And to make sure that whatever we find, or whatever we recommend, to make sure that information is shared transparently around the world. There’s a global fascination about UAP. On my travels one of the first questions I often get is about these sightings, and much of that fascination is due to the unknown nature of it. Think about it. Most UAP sightinghs result in very limited data. That makes it even more difficult to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of UAP.”
“And so this independent study panel … all with a specific charge from me, which is to tell how to apply the full focus of science and data to UAP. This is the first time NASA has taken concrete action to seriously look into UAP.”
“What’s the likelihood [of other life-harboring planets in the universe], at least a trillion, that’s from our [NASA] scientists. So we start this without any preconceived notions, but understanding we’re in a world of discovery.”
“The NASA independent study team did not find any evidence that UAP have an extraterrestrial origin, but we don’t know what these UAP are.”
Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington: “UAP are one of our planet’s greatest mysteries. And it’s really due to the limited number of high quality data that surrounds such incidents, and often renders them unidentifiable. While there are numerous eye-witness accounts and visuals associated with UAP, they’re not consistent, they’re not detailed, and they’re not curated observations that can be used to make definitive scientific conclusions about the nature and origin of UAP.”
David Spergel: “The current approach to UAP data collection has let to a limited sample of events and limited data. Stigma has limited reporting by pilots, both civilian and military. So we know there’s missing data. For its anlayalis in other areas, NASA always takes a scientific approach–of systematic data collection, that involves calibrating instruments, multiple measurements, and ensuring censor metadata. Most UAP events lack this quality of data. … Once we have a large sample of well characterized events… will likely pove helpful in identifying interesting anomalies.It is essential to clarify, based on our current findings and methodology, that we find no evidence that UAP are extraterrestrial in origin.”
Question Section:
Bill Nelson, asked by James Fox if NASA had a plan to announce proof of extraterrestrial visitors: “If we are what I said we intend to be, which is transparent, then you bet your boots, we will say that. And I’ve tried to set the table for you by telling you what I personally believe… Whatever we find, we’re going to tell you.”
Bill Nelson, asked if the stigma is still a problem since NASA must refer to UFOs as UAP: “There’s a mindset. We’re all entertained [by UFO stories]. There’s a lot of folklore out there. That’s why we entered the stage, the arena, to try to get into the from a scientific perspective.” Nicola Fox: “I think you can blame The X-Files for a lot of this to.”
Marsha Dunn, AP: “I’m already receiving emails on Area 51 and Roswell, so I would like to ask… How much was your panel hassled or bombarded by this sort of thing.. from the fringe element?” David Spergel: “I would divide the emails and tweets into two types. There are some where people are honestly curious about things they’ve seen, they’ve heard. You know, they are things that are hard to respond to, like ‘My uncle, who’s dead, saw something strange’ and you get a report. You know, that’s not useful but that’s harmless.”
Asked about David Grush’s allegations. “I don’t speak for other parts of the government, but I can tell you that NASA, which I speak for, is open and transparent with our data…Whatever he said, where’s the evidence, is my response… A long time ago there was a TV show, Jack Friday, and he used to say, ‘Just the facts.’ Show me the evidence.”
September 14, 2023
NASA names a Director of UAP Research, Mark McInerney.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson: “At NASA, it’s in our DNA to explore – and to ask why things are the way they are. I want to thank the Independent Study Team for providing insight on how NASA can better study and analyze UAP in the future. NASA’s new Director of UAP Research will develop and oversee the implementation of NASA’s scientific vision for UAP research, including using NASA’s expertise to work with other agencies to analyze UAP and applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to search the skies for anomalies. NASA will do this work transparently for the benefit of humanity.”
Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington: “The director of UAP Research is a pivotal addition to NASA’s team and will provide leadership, guidance and operational coordination for the agency and the federal government to use as a pipeline to help identify the seemingly unidentifiable.”
McInerney’s name was initially going to be undisclosed, but NASA changed it’s mind seven hours after announcing the position. Nicola Fox tweeted: “Given the interest, I’m sharing NASA selected Mark McInerney director of UAP research. As we continue to digest the study team’s report and findings, please treat him with respect in this pivotal role to help us better scientifically understand UAP.”
Daniel Evans, assistant deputy associate administrator for research in NASA’s science mission directorate: “Some of them actually rose to actual threats [online harassment of members of the UAP Panel]. And yes, that’s in part why we are not splashing the name of our new director out there, because science needs to be free.” [NYTimes]
“Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP): Airborne objects not immediately identifiable. The acronym UAP represents the broadest category of airborne objects reviewed for analysis.”
“This report provides an overview for policymakers of the challenges associated with characterizing the potential threat posed by UAP while also providing a means to develop relevant processes, policies, technologies, and training for the U.S. military and other U.S. Government (USG) personnel if and when they encounter UAP…”
“There are probably multiple types of UAP requiring different explanations based on the range of appearances and behaviors described in the available reporting. Our analysis of the data supports the construct that if and when individual UAP incidents are resolved they will fall into one of five potential explanatory categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, USG or U.S. industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and a catchall “other” bin.”
“Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion. In a small number of cases, military aircraft systems processed radio frequency (RF) energy associated with UAP sightings.”
“We currently lack data to indicate any UAP are part of a foreign collection program or indicative of a major technological advancement by a potential adversary.”
[Asked about the UAP “Other” category] “That basically indicated that we were not going to be able to characterize every single one of these reports, in the various categories that we’d identified, because frankly we were not able to understand everything about it. … The main issues that congress and others have been concerned about have been, basically, safety of flight concerns, and counterintelligence issues, but of course there is always the question of is there something else that we simply do not understand that might come extraterrestrial-ly.”
David Ignatius: “I’d love to hear your comments about what the tradecraft of UAP detection is, how we’ll know what we know, how would we know if we were being observed, for example…. What is the tradecraft?”
Haines: “The tradecraft isn’t any different for Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon than it is for the rest of our work in the intelligence community… We collect all of the information we can through a variety of different sensors, people are reporting things, we’re picking up things technically, we’re doing a variety of work to try to understand what it is we are seeing. We are then taking other information that we have to determine is it something that we know about in that area, is there some other reporting that we might not normally think of as being connected, and then we do our analysis as we normally would to … put it into context, what are the likely possible options, how do we characterize it, bucket it, and think about it. All of that is the standard way.
“But It doesn’t mean that we are definitely going to be able to tell if we are being observed under the circumstance. I mean I think there’s a lot of different ways that might be revealed. But certainly, we’re working to make sure that we understand what we do see, and what phenomenon is identified, and otherwise, we’re going to have to wait for Bill’s science work I think to actually reveal some of these additional possibilities.”
CLIP OF U.S. INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORS TESTIFY ON GLOBAL THREATS
Senator Gillibrand askes DNI Director Avril Haines:
“DO I HAVE A COMMITMENT FROM YOU, AND EACH OF OUR WITNESSES, that YOU WILL WORK TO REDUCE STIGMA, SHARE INTELLIGENCE BETWEEN AGENCIES AND, AS WE’RE ABLE WITH THE PUBLIC, TO ENSURE WE HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT HAPPENS IN OUR SKIES AND seas?”
“AND IS THE ARROW OFFICE FULLY FUNDED IN YOUR BUDGET? Can you MAKE SURE? IT WAS LEFT OFF LAST YEAR, FOR BOTH THE D.O.D. AND INTELLIGENCE BUDGETS.”
September 15, 2023
Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (IC IG) Thomas A. Monheim responds to the August 21 request by six individual members of the House of Representatives for information corroborating David Grush’s claims [source]:
“As a matter of discretion, IC IG notes that it has not conducted any audit, inspection, evaluation, or review of alleged UAP programs within the responsibility and authority of the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] that would enable this office to provide a fulsome response to your questions.”
“There have been a number of reports of unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated air space in recent years,” the Navy said in a statement in response to questions from POLITICO. “For safety and security concerns, the Navy and the [U.S. Air Force] takes these reports very seriously and investigates each and every report.
“As part of this effort,” it added, “the Navy is updating and formalizing the process by which reports of any such suspected incursions can be made to the cognizant authorities. A new message to the fleet that will detail the steps for reporting is in draft.”
…
“In response to requests for information from Congressional members and staff, Navy officials have provided a series of briefings by senior Naval Intelligence officials as well as aviators who reported hazards to aviation safety,” the service said in its statement to POLITICO.
The Navy declined to identify who has been briefed, nor would it provide more details on the guidelines for reporting that are being drafted for the fleet. The Air Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Joseph Gradisher, a Navy spokesman, said the new guidance was an update of instructions that went out to the fleet in 2015, after the Roosevelt incidents.
“There were a number of different reports,” he said. Some cases could have been commercial drones, he said, but in other cases “we don’t know who’s doing this, we don’t have enough data to track this. So the intent of the message to the fleet is to provide updated guidance on reporting procedures for suspected intrusions into our airspace.”
[Navy spokesman Joseph] Gradisher said the Navy’s transparency about unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP, is largely done to encourage trainees to report “incursions” they spot in the airfield, which threaten pilots’ safety.
“This is all about frequent incursions into our training ranges by UAPs,” he said. “Those incursions present a safety hazard to the safe flight of our aviators and the security of our operations.”
The public clips capture just a fraction of the frequent incursions Navy training ranges see, he said.
“For many years, our aviators didn’t report these incursions because of the stigma attached to previous terminology and theories about what may or may not be in those videos,” he said.
The only way to find out what those UAP are, he said, is to encourage trainees to report them when they see them.
April 16, 2020
UAP Security Classification Guidance approved by Scott Bray, Director of Naval Intelligence, FOIA-released to The Black Vault on December 22, 2021:
Section 2.7
Definitions: Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP): Any aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified.
Section 3.1
Identification: Where information pertaining to UAP has been obtained or developed through the use of classified sources or methods, the proper classification of a resultant item of information or material will be the highest classification set forth in either this classification guide, or the classification guide or guides applicable to the sources or methods used to obtain the UAP information or material. Accordingly, in Cormation about UAP designated herein as SECRET/IREL FVEY may well be TOP SECRETIISCIIINOFORN due to the sources or methods through which the UAP information was collected
Section 3.3
Goal and Mission: The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze, catalog, consolidate and exploit advanced non-traditional aerospace vehicles posing an operational threat to U.S. National Security ond ovoid strategic surprise
April 27, 2020
The Pentagon officially authenticates and publicly releases the three UAP videos, FLIR, GOFAST, and GIMBAL. The press release states:
“The Department of Defense has authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, one taken in November 2004 and the other two in January 2015, which have been circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017. … The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as ‘unidentified.’”
June 25, 2020
Kathleen H. Hicks, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Assessments memo:
“It is critical that the United States maintain operations security and safety at DoD ranges. To this end, it is equally critical that all U.S. military aircrews or government personnel report whenever aircraft or other devices interfere with military training. This includes the observation and reporting of UAPs.”
“UAP activity expands significantly beyond the purview of the Secretary of the Navy, who heads the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF)”
“I direct the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security to develop a plan to formalize the mission currently performed by the UAPTF…. synchronize collection, reporting and analysis on the UAP problem set… establish recommendations for securing military test and training ranges… include the organizational alignment, resources and staffing required”
“All members of the Department will utilize these processes to ensure that the UAPTF, or its follow-on activity, has reports of UAP observations within two weeks of an occurrence.”
“I don’t consider it an imminent threat to the United States or the human race, these phenomena occurring,” he said in response to a question from POLITICO. “I would have to see evidence that it was something worthy of the attention of the United States Air Force as a threat.”
“Our job is to protect the United States against threats,” Kendall added. “I have a lot of known threats out there that we’re working very hard to protect the United States against. I’d like to focus on those.” However, he did say that “if we’re asked to take that on, we will.”
November 23, 2021
Kathleen H. Hicks, Deputy Secretary of Defense, memo
The Pentagon announces that the UAP Task Force will become the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG).
“The AOIMSG will synchronize efforts across the Department and the broader U.S. government to detect, identify and attribute objects of interests in Special Use Airspace (SUA), and to assess and mitigate any associated threats to safety of flight and national security.”
“Incursions by any airborne object into our SUA pose safety of flight and operations security concerns, and may pose national security challenges. DOD takes reports of incursions – by any airborne object, identified or unidentified – very seriously, and investigates each one.”
May 17, 2022
The House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation holds a public congressional hearing on UFOs (C-SPAN video and transcript)
Ronald Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security:
“What are UAP? Put simply, UAP are airborne objects that when encountered cannot be immediately identified. However, it is the department’s contention that by combining appropriately structured collected data with rigorous scientific analysis any object that we encounter can likely be as isolated, characterized, identified, and if necessary mitigated. We know that our service members have encountered unidentified aerial phenomenon. And because UAPs pose potential flight safety and general security risk, we are committed to a focused effort to determine their origins. Our effort will include the thorough examination of adversarial platforms and potential breakthrough technologies, us government or commercial platforms, allied or partner systems and other natural phenomenon.”
“With regard to the importance of transparency, the department is fully committed to the principle of openness and accountability to the American people. However, we are also mindful of our obligation to protect sensitive sources and methods. Our goal is to strike that delicate balance, one that enables us to maintain the public’s trust while preserving those capabilities that are vital to support of our service personnel.”
“We also understand that there has been a cultural stigma surrounding UAP. Our goal is to eliminate the stigma by fully incorporating our operators and mission personnel into a standardized data-gathering process.”
“I’m familiar with Blue Book. I’m familiar with AATIP. I haven’t seen other documented studies that have been done by DOD in that regard. Not aware of anything that’s official that was done in between those two. It hasn’t been brought to my attention.”
Scott Bray, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence:
“Our main objective was to transition UAP efforts from an anecdotal or narrative based approach to a rigorous science and technology engineering focused study. This data driven approach.”
“If and when individual UAP incidents are resolved, they likely fall into one of five potential explanatory categories, airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, US government or US industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems or a other bin that allows for a holding bin of difficult cases and for the possibility of surprise and potential scientific discovery.”
“We attribute this increase in reporting to a number of factors, including our work to destigmatize reporting, an increase in the number of new systems such as quadcopters and unmanned aerial systems that are in our airspace. Identification of what we can classify as clutter, mylar balloons and other types of air trash and improvements in the capabilities of our various sensors to detect things in our airspace.
“I don’t mean to suggest that everything that we observe is identifiable, but this is a great example of how it takes considerable effort to understand what we’re seeing in the examples that we are able to collect. … We recognize that can be unsatisfying or insufficient in the eyes of many. This is a popular topic in our nation with various theories as to what these objects may be and where they originate. By nature, we are all curious and we seek to understand the unknown. And as a lifelong intelligence professional, I’m impatient, I want immediate explanations for this as much as anyone else. However, understanding can take significant time and effort. It’s why we’ve endeavored to concentrate on this data-driven process, to drive fact-based results. And given the nature of our business, national defense, we’ve had to sometimes be less forthcoming with information and open forums than many would hope.”
“We do not want, we do not want potential adversaries to know exactly what we’re able to see or understand or how we come to the conclusions we make. Therefore public disclosures must be carefully considered on a case by case basis.”
“The question then becomes in many of these cases where we don’t have a discernible mean of propulsion in the data that we have, in some cases, there is likely sensor artifacts that may be hiding some of that.”
“When I say we can’t explain, I mean, exactly as you described there, that there is a lot of information like the video that we showed in which there’s simply too little data to create a reasonable explanation. There are a small handful of cases in which we have more data that our analysis simply hasn’t been able to fully pull together a picture of what happened.”
“Again, we’ve made no assumptions about what this is or isn’t. We’re committed to understanding these and so we’ll go wherever that data takes us.”
“What I will commit to is, at least for that material that’s under my authority as the Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, for information that we have, when it does not involve sources and methods, and when we can, with a reasonable degree of confidence, determine that it does not pose a foreign intelligence or national security threat, and it’s within my authority to do so, I commit to declassifying that.”
“The UAP task force doesn’t have any wreckage that isn’t explainable, that isn’t consistent with being of terrestrial origin.”
“I can’t point to something that definitively was not manmade, but I can point to a number of examples and which remain unresolved.”
“The message is now clear, if you see something, you need to report it.”
July 20, 2022
The DoD announces the establishment of a new UAP office called the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick is named as director.
Kathleen H. Hicks, Deputy Secretary of Defense, memo:
“…renaming and expanding the scope of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Group (AOIMSG) to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)”
“The mission of the AARO will be to synchronize efforts across the Department of Defense, and with other U.S. federal departments and agencies, to detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in, on or near military installations, operating areas, training areas, special use airspace and other areas of interest, and, as necessary, to mitigate any associated threats to safety of operations and national security. This includes anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged and transmedium objects.”
Ronald Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security, memo:
“The AARO will leverage Department of Defense capabilities and synchronize with the Intelligence Community to tackle the unique challenges posed by the presence of anomalous objets across all domains. I will manage the processes to enable the AARO Executive Council to provide oversight and direction to the AARO along these primary lines of effort:
1. Surveillance, Collection and Reporting 2. System Capabilities and Design 3. Intelligence Operations and Analysis 4. Mitigation and Defeat 5. Governance 6. Science and Technology”
“I expect the DoD components to continue to meet their responsibilities for timely reporting of UAP, as they have done to this point.”
July 21, 2022
Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of both NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, (NORAD), Aspen Security Forum roundtable:
“I have not changed or been asked to change any of my posture, taskings or anything… First of all, let’s be clear. My job as the NORAD commander is to identify every single UAP or …whatever it is. What I would report to you is I’ve yet to find one that had aliens or was a spaceship that we’ve identified. If any of our NORAD fighters or, or any assets assigned to NORTHCOM, came across some type of UAP, we would absolutely report that. I’m just telling you, we haven’t seen that.”
“#NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and I are looking forward to our teams collaborating on unidentified phenomena. We greatly appreciate all that our @NASA colleagues are doing in the areas of science and exploration!”
“The UAP Task Force has responded back to DNS-36 and have stated that the requested videos contain sensitive information pertaining to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) and are classified and are exempt from disclosure in their entirety under exemption 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b)(1) in accordance with Executive Order 13526 and the UAP Security Classification Guide. The release of this information will harm national security as it may provide adversaries valuable information regarding Department of Defense/Navy operations, vulnerabilities, and/or capabilities. No portions of the videos can be segregated for release.”
“While three UAP videos were released in the past, the facts specific to those three videos are unique in that those videos were initially released via unofficial channels before official release. Those events were discussed extensively in the public domain; in fact, major news outlets conducted specials on these events. Given the amount of information in the public domain regarding these encounters, it was possible to release the files without further damage to national security.”
“To be quite honest, not for me. I have real threats that I worry about every day, and they are severe threats. I’m aware of–I don’t have direct responsibly for investigating these phenomenon. I’ve looked at the reports. There are things that we haven’t been able to explain. But I think that the important thing for us to do is do some real technical investigation of what they are and try to resolve these.”
Sue Gough, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said the Pentagon remains committed to principles of openness but must balance that with its “its obligation to protect sensitive information, sources and methods.”
While the Pentagon will not “rush to conclusions in our analysis,” Ms. Gough said, no single explanation addresses the majority of unidentified aerial phenomenon reports.
“We are collecting as much data as we can, following the data where it leads and will share our findings whenever possible,” she said.
December 16, 2022
Pentagon press roundtable on the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, transcript excerpted below.
Ronald Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security:
“You may have caught that I just said unidentified anomalous phenomena, whereas in the past the department has used the term unidentified aerial phenomena. This new terminology expands the scope of UAP to include submerged and trans-medium objects. Unidentified phenomena in all domains, whether in the air, ground, sea or space, pose potential threats to personnel security and operations security, and they require our urgent attention.”
“We have not, to the best of my knowledge, had any credible reporting, that we’ve been able to analyze of trans-medium activity or trans-medium objects. …I would say that we have not seen since the — the May hearing, we have not seen any – any indications that there have been trans-medium activities with UAPs.”
[Asked by The New York Times if UAP are from space aliens] “So, we can say it in unison, and we can do it separately? At this time, the answer’s no, we have nothing…. We have not seen anything that would — but we — we’re certainly very early on — that would lead us to believe that any of the objects that we have seen are of alien origin, if you will. If we are — if we find something like that, we will look at it and analyze it and take the appropriate actions.”
[Asked by Politico about transmedium] “So, just to go back and — and level set, how we approach this. We are concerned about objects that appear — and this has happened for decades, right? — objects that appear on the sea. … But we can resolve those to adversarial activities, or we resolve those to, sometimes to amateur activities, if you will. … We’re trying to ensure that we do a complete characterization of that with any of the things that may fall under the criteria that the — has really hit the forefront over the last year and a half. And this is this anomalous activities and things that Congress has said that they — we’re really concerned about.”
“I think our ability right now to resolve things in the space domain, and what we have in the space domain, is something that would fall under sensitive sources and methods and means, so would be — would prefer not to respond to that — that comment or that question, excuse me, in this forum.”
“In terms of holdings that I have seen and holdings, that that we have gone through — and we are being very thorough about this, and we are going back and trying to understand all the compartmented programs that this department has had, understand all the relationships that we may have had with any other organizations and all the predecessor organizations that were established before we were officially a Department of Defense. We’ve looked at all that; I have not seen anything in those holdings to date that would suggest that there has been an alien visitation, an alien crash, or anything like that.”
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office:
“We have an important and yet challenging mission to lead an interagency effort to document collect, analyze, and when possible, resolve reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena. … Unidentified objects in the skies, sea and space pose potential threats to safety and security, particularly for operational personnel.”
“AARO is prioritizing reports of UAP in or near military installations, operating areas, critical infrastructure and areas of national security importance. Our team is partnering with the services, the intelligence community, the Department of Energy, NASA, the FAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA – and others to share information about UAP and tap into the vast resources of the interagency. NASA has been a particularly valuable partner. We are also engaging with a wide range of select partners from across academia, industry and the scientific community, as well as our allies and partners.”
“As you heard at the opening hearing in May, the stigma associated with UAP reporting has been significantly reduced. While that’s good news, more work needs to be done. Building on that progress, AARO is working with the military departments and the Joint Staff to normalize, integrate and expand UAP reporting beyond the aviators to all service members, including mariners, submariners and our space guardians.”
“AARO is integrating and executing a focused collection campaign using both traditional and nontraditional sources and sensors. We are bringing in outside expertise to help design and deploy ‘detect and track’ capabilities.”
“Our team knows that the public interest in UAP is high. We are developing a plan to provide regular updates and progress reporting to the public on our work. While we’re committed to declassifying and sharing information related to UAP to the greatest extent possible, we must, of course, balance the desire for transparency with the need to protect classified information, sources and methods in the interest of national security.”
“Remember, AARO is just getting started. It is crucial that we are rigorous and thorough in our collection, analysis and S&T; that we apply the highest analytic and scientific standards; that we execute our mission objectively and without sensationalism; and when we do not rush to conclusions.”
[Asked by The New York Times if UAP are from space aliens] No… So, I would just say we are — we are structuring our analysis to be very thorough and rigorous. We will go through it all. And as a physicist, I have to adhere to the scientific method, and I will follow that data and science wherever it goes.
“I believe our cut off [for modern UPA reporting]; going backwards was 1996 through now.”
[On decline of UFO stigma] “So, it’s the quality and quantity reporting that we’re getting across all the services; all the services have also instigated their own reporting mechanisms. And what we’re doing right now is working with all the services and the Joint Staff to raise the threshold for reporting, the standards for reporting and the requirements for reporting so that we can unify that across the entire department.”
[Q: Have you detected UAP demonstrating technology which you are unable to explain?] “There are things that appear to demonstrate interesting flight dynamics that we are fully investigating and researching right now…. Some of that could be sensor phenomenology. Some of that could be flight dynamics of the platform. Some of that could be just an illusion. There’s lots of different ways that we have to investigate all of those in order to get to that truth.”
December 20, 2022
Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, press briefing:
“I think the important thing is, looking at the bigger picture, ensuring that we’re all working towards common objectives through interagency dialogues and — and discussions, which I would fully expect will happen in this case going forward. We have a very close working relationship with the — in the Department of Defense, with NASA — and I have no reason to think that that will change anytime soon.”
January 11, 2023
AARO Director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick presented a slide deck to the Transportation Research Board (TRB), National Academy of Engineering, on AARO’s “UAP Mission & Civil Aviation.”
The slide deck contains the following new details about AARO.
AARO’s new logo
Translation of logo inscription: “This world is mere change, and this life, opinion.”
Slide 2
AARO emerged from Congressional and Departmental recognition that UAP present complex hazards and threats across service, regional, and domain boundaries.
UAP are sources of anomalous spaceborne, airborne, seaborne, or transmedium observations that are not yet attributable to known actors or causes
Slide 3
AARO is a uniquely-capable, Defense Department organization that integrates operational, scientific, and intelligence capabilities to resolve UAP.
Mission: minimize technical and intelligence surprise, by synchronizing scientific, intelligence, and operational detection, identification, attribution, and mitigation of unidentified, anomalous objects in the vicinity of national security areas
Vision: unidentified, anomalous objects are effectively and efficiently detected, tracked, analyzed, and managed by way of normalized DoD, IC, and civil business practices; by adherence to the highest scientific and intelligence-tradecraft standards; and with greater transparency and shared awareness
Key scientific and intelligence questions:
Physical, technical, behavioral, and contextual characteristics of phenomena, their composition, and their movement
Capabilities, limitations, and vulnerabilities of phenomena and any assessed technological gap between phenomena and the United States
Indications and characteristics of hazards, risks and/or threats by phenomena to the United States, its people, its equities, and/or its instruments of national power
Attribution of phenomena to natural and/or artificial sources
Indications of foreign observation of and reaction to phenomena
The disposition of observed phenomena
Slide 4
The potentially ubiquitous presence of UAP defines the national-security implications and drives the broad range of stakeholders and demand for rigorous scientific understanding of and intelligence on phenomena
US Territory & Operating Areas
US Strategic Capabilities
Foreign Territory & Operating Areas
DoD observations and reporting of UAP most often in the vicinity of US military facilities and operating areas Threats to the immediate safety of US citizens and Government facilities, across domains, is priority Safety and security risks of UAP heighten US Government awareness and drives research and mitigation efforts
Reporting on UAP proximity to strategic capabilities and critical infrastructure primarily historical; analysis limited by information currency and source reliability Consequence of UAP in the vicinity of strategic capabilities is high, potentially threatening strategic deterrence and safety of civil society DoD strengthening observations and reporting capabilities near US strategic capabilities and critical infrastructure
Reporting on UAP activity in foreign territory or operating areas limited by source reliability Consequence of such moderate-to high, potentially leading to adversarial misattribution of UAP to the United States Allies and strategic competitors apply resources to observe, identify, and attribute UAP
Key partners and stakeholders include: DoD, IC, DoJ, NASA, FAA
Key partners and stakeholders include: DoD, IC, DoE and NNSA, DoJ, DHS
Key partners and stakeholders include: DoD, IC, STATE, international partners
Slide 5
AARO leads integration of the Department’s UAP operations, research, analyses, and strategic-communications to deliver exquisite data, advanced sensors, sound analytics, and shared mission awareness and ownership
Integrated-Operations
S&T Research & Application
Interdisciplinary Analyses
Focused Communications
synchronizing and sequencing Theater, IC, and other capabilities for optimized, cross- functional UAP detection, tracking, mitigation, and recovery
revealing and exploiting elusive and enigmatic signatures through advanced technologies and focused, cross- sector partnerships
delivering peer-reviewed conclusions through deliberate syntheses of scientific and intelligence method, tradecraft, tools, and expertise
driving shared awareness across mission partners, oversight authorities, and stakeholders— normalizing cross-sector partnerships and building trust with transparency
Slide 6
Our mission success and our ability to contribute to aviation safety depends on observations and insights from the aviation community
Educate Aviators and Crews
Encourage Reporting
Leverage Our Expertise & Systems
The subject of UAP is laden with decades of imprecise—and often sensational–information
Promulgating accurate information about UAP, their implications to flight safety and national security, and our commitment to resolving them is foundational to our partnership with the community.
Sharing what UAP data is critically-important for scientific and intelligence analyses allows aviators and crews to optimize the value of their observations and reporting of phenomena
Historically, reticence to UAP reporting has limited the Government’s ability to guard against aerial safety and security threats
Destigmatizing discussion about and reporting of UAP is essential for tracking, resolving, and defending against such phenomena
Government efforts to encourage military aviators and crews to report phenomena have substantially increased the quantity and quality of UAP data
Aviators and crews informed about UAP and willing to report have historically had few official channels to submit observational data
We are working with military, civil, and industry partners to develop and field reporting mechanisms available to aviators and crews
By leveraging our systems, we will be able to quickly incorporate aviators’ and crews’ reporting into the corpus of data, to optimize scientific and intelligence analyses, and to provide feedback to the reporting individual and/or organization
Slide 7
What kind of information would be necessary and sufficient for UAP analyses?
about the phenomenon
UAP-event description or narrative
UAP location relative to the observer, with as much precision as practicable
Number of UAP-objects observed during the phenomenon and indications of intra UAP-object coordination and/or communication
Indications of advanced and/or enigmatic capabilities
UAP characteristics, including physical state (e.g., solid, liquid, gas, plasma); description (e.g., size, shape, color); signatures; propulsion means; payload
UAP performance envelope, including altitude and/or depth; travel path and trajectory; velocity; maneuverability
UAP behavior, including whether under apparent intelligent control, apparent response to observation and/or observer presence, and apparent indications of indifference or hostility
about the observer
Observer’s date, time, location, and travel path for first and last observation of the UAP, with as much precision as practicable
Observer’s behavior toward the UAP
Sensors that detected the phenomenon (e.g., visual, radar)
Any physiological, psychological, or other effects apparently corresponding to the UAP observation
Observer’s assessment of the UAP, including the nature of the phenomenon and whether it was benign, a hazard, or a threat
Identification of any other observers
January 12, 2023
Statement by Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder on the Annual Report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), excerpt:
“The safety of our service personnel, our bases and installations, and the protection of U.S. operations security on land, in the skies, seas, and space are paramount. We take reports of incursions into our designated space, land, sea, or airspaces seriously and examine each one.
“The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is leading DOD’s efforts, in coordination with ODNI and other government agencies, to document, analyze, and when possible resolve UAP reports using a rigorous scientific framework and a data-driven approach. “
Question: Do these Chinese surveillance balloons somehow explain the UAP, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon that were reported in that report to Congress? Are some of those UAP incidents perhaps some of those Chinese surveillance balloons?
Answer: So your first questions, that’s really best addressed by the Director of National Intelligence, that puts that report together. … The DNI would be the best folks to address that.
February 12, 2022
Press Call regarding the NORAD shoot down of three unidentified objects.
Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander of both NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, (NORAD):
What I would tell you is what we’re seeing is very, very small objects that produce a very, very low radar cross-section. … radars essentially filter out information based on speed. So you can set various gates. We call them velocity gates that allow us to filter out low-speed clutter. So if you have radars on all the time that we’re looking at anything from zero speed up to, say, 100, you would see a lot more information.
We have adjusted some of those gates to give us better fidelity on seeing smaller objects. You can also filter out by altitude. And so, with some adjustments, we’ve been able to get a better a categorization of radar tracks now. And that’s why I think you’re seeing these overall. Plus, there’s a heightened alert to look for this information.
To get with our history, I believe this is the first time within United States or America airspace that NORAD or United States Northern Command has taken kinetic action against an airborne object.
So we have scrambled in the past against radar tracks that we’ve been unable to correlate with fighters. That has happened over years. And sometimes it’s attributed to potentially being birds. Sometimes it’s been attributed to weather. Sometimes we don’t know what to attribute it to.
Helene Cooper, New York Times: Hi, thanks, Pat, and thanks for doing this. This is for General VanHerck. Because you still haven’t been able to tell us what these things are that we are shooting out of the sky, that raises the question, have you ruled out aliens or extraterrestrials? And if so, why? Because that is what everyone is asking us right now.
GEN. VANHERCK: Thanks for the question, Helena. I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven’t ruled out anything. At this point, we continue to assess every threat or potential threats unknown that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it.
February 26, 2023
Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough, response to the Daily Mail about AARO staffing and funding:
“I can tell you that AARO has more than three full-time staff, but I’m not going to comment on the details. AARO is growing quickly to meet its mission and is on track to reach full operating capacity in FY2024. We will continue to work across DoD, ODNI, OMB [White House Office of Management and Budget], and with Congress, to determine appropriate funding and personnel levels.”
March 7, 2023
AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick publishes a draft version of a peer-reviewed paper titled: PHYSICAL CONSTRAINTS ON UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA
Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough, response to Christopher Sharp: “AARO is taking a collaborative, objective, & data-driven approach to its mission, & partnering with a wide range of stakeholders, including academia. As part of its work, AARO is developing several peer-reviewed articles on UAP with the scientific community.”
April 14, 2023
Major General John Olson, Mobilization Assistant to the Chief of Space Operations for the U.S. Space Force, Foreign Press Center briefing
Question: “Major General Olson, what do you think about the unidentified aerial phenomena, UAP, and UFOs?
MAJOR GENERAL OLSON: Well, this is a very hot topic, and I appreciate the question. I know, admittedly, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force is quite a mouthful in an acronym. I’ve gotten that question a couple other times – what do you think about UFOs or aliens? And quite frankly, having flown 83 different airplanes and had lots of hours, we’ve all seen lots of unexplainable elements. And the cosmos – the space realm is so large. If we look at the Earth, it is this tiny blue dot in an unlimited, almost incomprehensibly large cosmos. I personally believe that there absolutely, from a probability perspective, is life out there.
However, this task force is a very serious U.S. Government approach to systematically investigating and understanding these, because of course unidentified elements present a national security concern, present a safety of flight, present a risk that we must take and diligently pursue.
But I think the question is actually more broadly put, and that is – is we will continue this effort, and in fact, I believe it will be getting more funding and more of a structural support level within the department. But I also believe that this is part of our never-ending quest to learn and understand and explore. And as we have on our probes that have exited the solar system to our probes to the Moon, we have gone in peace to explore and discover. And we continue that yearning to see and discover is there life out there and what does that mean for humanity.
April 19, 2023
Sean Kirkpatrick, excerpts from opening statement and question responses during the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities hearing on AARO [full transcript]:
AARO has accomplished much in the 9 months since it was established. The AARO team of more than three dozen experts is organized around four functional areas: operations, scientific research, integrated analysis, and strategic communications. In the nine months since AARO’s establishment, we have taken important steps to improve UAP data collection, standardize the Department’s UAP internal reporting requirements, and implement a framework for rigorous scientific and intelligence analysis, allowing us to resolve cases in a systematic and prioritized manner. Meanwhile, consistent with legislative direction, AARO is also carefully reviewing and researching the U.S. Government’s UAP-related historical record.
AARO is the culmination of decades of DoD, Intelligence Community, and congressionally-directed efforts to successfully resolve UAP encountered, first and foremost, by U.S. military personnel, specifically Navy and Air Force pilots.
The law establishing AARO is ambitious, and it will take time to realize the full mission. We cannot answer decades of questions about UAP all at once, but we must begin somewhere. While I assure you that AARO will follow scientific evidence wherever it leads, I ask for your patience as DoD first prioritizes the safety and security of our military personnel and installations, in all domains.
After all, UAP encountered first by highly-capable DoD and IC platforms, featuring the nation’s most advanced sensors, are those UAP most likely to be successfully resolved by my office, assuming the data can be collected. However, it would be naive to believe that the resolution of all UAP can be solely accomplished by the DoD and IC alone. We will need to prioritize collection and leverage authorities for monitoring all domains within the continental United States. AARO’s ultimate success will require partnerships with the interagency, industry partners, academia and the scientific community, as well as the public.
Without sufficient data, we are unable to reach defendable conclusions that meet the high scientific standards we set for resolution, and I will not close a case that we cannot defend the conclusions of.
Yet, time and again, with sufficient scientific-quality data, it is fact that UAP often, but not always, resolve into readily-explainable sources. Humans are subject to deception and illusions, sensors to unexpected responses and malfunctions, and in some cases, intentional interference. Getting to the handful of cases that pass this level of scrutiny is the mission of AARO.
In the wake of the PRC HAB event [February balloon shootdowns], the interagency is working to better integrate and share information to address identifiable stratospheric objects, but that is not AARO’s lane.
Meanwhile, for the few cases in all domains, space, air and sea, that do demonstrate potentially anomalous characteristics, AARO exists to help the DoD, IC, and interagency resolve those anomalous cases.I should also state clearly, for the record, that in our research, AARO has found no credible evidence, thus far, of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics. In the event sufficient scientific data were ever obtained, that a UAP encounter can only be explained by extraterrestrial origin, we are committed to working with our interagency partners at NASA to appropriately inform U.S. Government’s leadership of its findings. For those few cases that have leaked to the public previously, and subsequently commented on by the U.S. Government, I encourage those who hold alternative theories or views to submit your research to credible, peer-reviewed scientific journals. AARO is working very hard to do the same. That is how science works, not by blog or social media.
I think we’re currently sitting at around – if I remember correctly – we’re around twenty to thirtyish, or about halfway through that analytic process. A handful of them have made it all the way out to the other side, gone through peer review, we’ve got case-closure reports done and signed. We’re gonna get faster as we get more people on board and we get more of the Community tools to automate some of the analysis that has to be done.
And I have indicators that some are related to foreign capabilities. We have to investigate that with our IC partners, and as we get evidence to support that, that gets then handed off to the appropriate IC agency to investigate. Again, it becomes an SEP at that point [Somebody Else’s Problem.]
So, I would like to lay down…here’s one of my, you know, sort of my mission and my goal and my vision here. So the vision is, at one point…at some point in the future, you should not need an AARO. If I’m successful in what I’m doing, we should be able to normalize everything that we’re doing into existing processes, functions, agencies and organizations, and make that part of their mission and their role. Right now, the niche that we form is really going after the unknowns. I think you articulated it early on, this is a hunt mission for what might somebody be doing in our backyard that we don’t know about. Alright, well, that, that, that is what we are doing, right? But at some point, we should be able to normalize that. That’s why it’s so important the work we’re doing with Joint Staff to normalize that into DoD policy and guidance. We are bringing in all of our interagency partners. So NASA is providing a liaison for us. I have FBI liaison, I have OSI liaison, I have service liaisons. Half of my staff come from the IC. Half of my staff come from other scientific and technical backgrounds. I have DOE. And so, what we’re trying to do is ensure, again, as I make UAP into SEP, they get handed off to the people that that is their mission to go do. So that we aren’t duplicating that. I’m not gonna go chase the Chinese high-altitude balloon, for example. That’s not my job. It’s not an unknown and it’s not anomalous, anymore. Now it goes over to them.”
“In 1979, Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence.” I would go one step further, and I would say, extraordinary claims, require not only extraordinary evidence, but extraordinary science. And so how do you do that? You do that with the scientific method, right? And so as AARO is developing and implementing its science plan, it has to do so grounded in a solid foundation of scientific theory, across the entire range of hypotheses that have been presented for what UAP are. That range spans, adversary-breakthrough technology on one hand, known objects and phenomena in the middle, all the way to the extreme theories of extraterrestrials. All of that has physics-based signatures associated with it. Whether it’s theoretical, from the academic community, known from things like hypersonic weapons, or adversary-breakthrough technologies, as we’ve talked about before. Or the known objects that we have to go measure. The idea is, across that entire range, you have to come up with peer-reviewed, scientific basis for all of it. “
May 2023
Ronald Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security, approves an email address that individuals can use to directly contact AARO.
The Joint Staff also separately published a “GENADMIN” message on “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Reporting and Material Disposition” that offers guidance to the military services and commands about reporting UAP worldwide, using a standard reporting template. The template is a result of work AARO has pursued with military leaders to improve and standardize reporting procedures across the force, since its inception.
Ronald Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security, tweets:
Dr. Kirkpatrick, AARO Director, participated in NASA’s Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Independent Study Public Meeting today. Partners like NASA are crucial to better understanding the nature and origin of UAP. Watch the stream here.
Sean Kirkpatrick, AARO Director, speaking at NASA’s UAP Panel Public Meeting
“I also emphasize to Congress that the only a very small percentage of UAP reports display signatures that could reasonably be described as anomalous. The majority of unidentified objects reported to AARO and in our holdings demonstrate mundane characteristics of readily explainable sources. While a large number of cases and AARO’s holdings remain technically unresolved, this is primarily due to a lack of data associated with those cases, very much along the lines of what David was just speaking about. Without sufficient data, we are unable to reach defendable conclusions that meet the high scientific standards we set for resolution. Meanwhile, for the few objects that do demonstrate potentially anomalous characteristics, AARO is approaching these cases with the highest level of objectivity and analytical rigor. This includes physical testing and employing modeling and simulation to validate our analyses and the underlying theories, and then peer reviewing those results before reaching any conclusions. “
“Given what we’ve got so far is going to be an important first step to understanding what sensors are going to be relevant. From there, we will we are augmenting with dedicated sensors that we’ve purpose built, designed to detect, track and characterize those particular objects. And we will be been putting those out in very select areas for surveillance purposes.”
“We have partnerships with both DOD and DOE labs to explore our current state of the art fundamental physics of UAP observations, both current and historical. In other words, if I have objects, those few that are doing some things that are anomalous, what is our current understanding of maneuverability? Speed? Signature management, propulsion? What are those underlying signatures that we would expect to see? And how do I then pull on that?”
“And then finally, our pattern of life analysis. This is essentially baselining. What is normal, I have all these hotspot areas, but we only have hotspot areas, because that’s when the reports come in from the operators that are operating at that time. They don’t operate all the time. So to have a 24/7 collection monitoring campaign, in some of these areas for three months at a time is going to be necessary in order to measure out what is normal, then I’ll know what is not normal, right when we have additional things that come through those spaces. And that includes space and maritime. “
“…we roughly get I mean, you can do the math, you know, it depends anywhere from from 50 to 100-ish new reports a month. Now, the reason we had such a big jump recently is because I got FAA data integrated. …But the numbers I would say that we see are possibly really anomalous are less than single digit percentages of those, that total database, so maybe two to five-ish percent.”
“The stigma has improved significantly over the years since the Navy first took this on, some years ago. It is not gone and in fact, I would argue the stigma exists inside the leadership of all of our our buildings, wherever that is. My team and I have also been subjected to lots of harassment, especially coming out of my last hearing. Because people don’t understand the scientific method and why, why we have to do the things we have to do. Right. And because we can’t just come out and say, you know, the greatest thing that could happen to me is I could come out and say, Hey, I know where all these things are. Here you go. Alright, but I don’t, right. And it’s gonna take us time to research all that. When people want answers now, they’re actually feeding the stigma by by exhibiting that kind of behavior to all of us. Right? That is a bad thing. Where can NASA help I made that recommendation on NASA should lead the scientific discourse, we need to elevate this conversation. We need to have this conversation in an open environment like this, where we aren’t going to get harassed. Because this is a hard problem. “
“Your first question on what makes it anomalous to me, we actually developed some definitions on all of these things. We gave it both to the White House into Congress, I think we’ve gotten some of that into law now. But essentially anomalous is anything that is not readily understandable by the operator or the sensor. Right, so it is doing something weird, whether that’s maneuvering against the wind at Mach two with no apparent propulsion, or it’s going into the water, which we have, we have shown is not the case, that is actually a sensor anomaly that we’ve now figured out, and we’re going to be publishing all that. You know, those kinds of things, make anomalous signature. We’ll call it signature management. But it’s things that are not readily understandable in the context of, hey, I’ve got a thing that’s out in the light, it should reflect a certain amount of light. If it doesn’t reflect that amount of light, something weird.”
June 5, 2023
Susan Gough, Pentagon spokesperson statement about David Grusch :
“I’m a long term intelligence officer, scientists, and military officer.”
Q: What keeps you up at night?
“Technical surprise, and that could be adversarial technical surprise, or extraterrestrial technical surprise.”
Q: What are the most common misconceptions that people have of UAP and the work you are doing?
“That they are all the same thing, and they are all extraterrestrial. Neither of those are true.”
Q: What’s your best guess about what happened there [2004 Tic Tac incident]?
“It’s really hard to guess, and I don’t like to guess…
Q: So have you hit a dead end on this one?
“The more things that I see that resemble a Tic Tac, then I can get more and more information about what that is.”
ABC: “Kirkpatrick says between 95 and 98% of cases reviewed by his office are readily explainable. … But a small number remain a mystery.”
Q: So that 2-5% that are anomalous incidents, could potentially be extraterrestrial activity?
“We are going to follow our data and our investigations wherever it goes. I have a full range of hypotheses. I can’t rule it out. But I don’t have any evidence that says that yet.”
Q: You can say categorically you’ve seen no convincing, confirmable evidence of intact spacecraft kept by the US government?
“No. I have seen nothing that leads me to that conclusion.
Q: Is it possible that there is some secret program that you’re just not aware of?
“I don’t think so. I have access to anything and everything I need.”
Q: Why do you think these whistlesblowers are coming forward?
“Well, one, I think the recent law which extended whistleblower protections to them, and named AARO as the authorized disclosure authority, opens the door for them to come and tell us exactly what they think they saw or know about. I believe that they believe what they are telling me. And my job–it’s not a question of belief, it’s a question of what can I go research.
Q: Are we gong to find it on your watch?
“Wouldn’t that be fun. That would probably be the best outcome of this job.”
July 21, 2023
Pentagon spokesperson responds to Mid Bay News question about Congressional complaints of stonewalling during a February UAP briefing: “Eglin Air Force Base supported a visit from Representatives Gaetz, Burchett, and Luna on Feb 21. Air Force officials provided a classified briefing on intelligence collection threats to Eglin Air Force Base during their visit. The Congress members halted the briefing and requested instead a briefing focused on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. Base officials responded to present additional available classified information on UAPs to all three members but were only able to discuss a certain portion of the information with Representative Gaetz, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Representatives Burchett and Luna, not being members of a congressional defense committee, did not possess the access required to join the portion of the discussion reserved for Representative Gaetz.”
July 27, 2023
Sean Kirkpatrick response to the House Oversight Committee hearing on UAP. Douglas Dean Johnson “received verification directly from Dr. Kirkpatrick that he wrote it.”
July 31, 2023
Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks convened stakeholders to discuss AARO’s website and formally directed DOD to provide that office with any administrative and technical support needed to build and launch the online portal successfully. (Source: Defense Scoop)
Pentagon spokesperson Eric Pahon: “She has the ability — and used it — to bring together all the top actors in the department. I think what she found was that this was being worked at a working level, but it didn’t have the right level of senior leader attention until she really kind of drove it home to say, ‘Hey, you people around the table are going to make this thing happen,’”
August 4, 2023
General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, exit interview with the Washington Times.
“The guy was under oath. I’m sure that he was trying to say whatever he thought was true. … I’m not going to doubt his testimony or anything like that. I can tell you, though, that as the chairman I have been briefed on several different occasions by the UAP office [AARO]. And I have not seen anything that indicates to me about quote-unquote ‘aliens,’ or that there’s some sort of cover-up program. I just haven’t seen it.”
“There is a lot of unexplained aerial phenomena out there. That’s true,” he said. “And they’ve got pilot reports, there’s various other sensors out there, and some of it is difficult to explain.” “Most of it, actually, they can explain away by a variety of things, like balloons for example — the whole Chinese balloon thing comes to mind. They can explain a lot of it, but there is some that’s really kind of weird and unexplainable. But I’ve seen nothing to suggest that we, the United States military or the United States government, has in fact recovered any sort of vehicle that is not man-made, or made here on earth, or that there’s any kind of remains … I haven’t seen any of that kind of stuff.”
August 28, 2023 (week of)
Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and Pentagon spokesperson Eric Pahon briefed DefenseScoop, providing the following updates on AARO:
Hicks recently moved to personally oversee the Pentagon’s unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP)
Hicks now holds regular meetings with AARO’s inaugural director, Sean Kirkpatrick — who she’s also repositioned to report directly to her.
AARO public reporting website will be activated on August 30.
Hicks: “I believe that transparency is a critical component of AARO’s work, and I am committed to sharing AARO’s discoveries with Congress and the public, consistent with our responsibility to protect critical national defense and intelligence capabilities,”
“The UAP mission is not easy, and AARO’s mission, to minimize technical and intelligence surprise by synchronizing scientific, intelligence, and operational detection identification, attribution, and mitigation of UAP objects of national security issues, is being orchestrated by a small, but growing team. AARO is not yet at full operational capability, and I look forward to AARO achieving that in fiscal year 2024.”
“The department takes UAP seriously because UAP are a potential national security threat. They also pose safety risks, and potentially endanger our personnel, our equipment and bases, and the security of our operations. DOD is focusing through AARO to better understand UAP, and improve our capabilities to detect, collect, analyze and eventually resolve UAP to prevent strategic surprise and protect our forces, our operations, and our nation.”
“AARO is also working to standardize and destigmatize reporting on UAP and to thoroughly analyze reports of both current and historical events. We still have a long way to go, but I have charged AARO to aggressively pursue efforts to make its findings as widely available as possible to the Congress and, whenever possible, the public,”
Pahon: “In the near future, the authorized reporting mechanism consistent with section 1673 of the fiscal 2023 NDAA will reside on the website, as well. AARO’s intent is for this website to be a one-stop shop on AARO and UAP, and we look forward to continuing to refine the website to provide the most transparency possible regarding AARO’s work and findings.”
August 31, 2023
DOD Press Secretary AF Brig. General Pat Ryder announces new AARO Website.
“There are a couple of phases here. What you have today is information from AARO that has been declassified as it relates to looking into UAP reportings. The next step will be in the relatively near future enabling service members and civilians–DOD civilians–who have reports to make regarding UAPs, to be able to submit those for consideration and review by AARO. As it relates to the public being able to provide inputs, that is something we will look to do in the future.”
The AARO website launched on this day is www.aaro.mil.
September 20, 2023
DoD spokesperson, Susan Gough: “Rep. Matt Gaetz received a classified briefing while visiting Eglin Air Force Base earlier this year, but we cannot comment on the content of that briefing.
“I can confirm that AARO is reviewing a report from Eglin AFB. AARO has prioritized its analysis of that case and intends to publish the findings on its website once the information is cleared for public release. I have nothing further for you.” [Source: Liberation Times]
October 18, 2023
Sean Kirkpatrick quotes in excerpts from CNN report on AARO:
“There are some indicators that are concerning that may be attributed to foreign activity, and we are investigating those very hard,” said Kirkpatrick, speaking exclusively to CNN ahead of the release of the annual report on unidentified aerial phenomena.
About half of the reports contain enough data that they can be ruled out as “mundane things,” such as errant balloons or floating trash, Kirkpatrick said, but 2-4% are truly anomalous and require further investigation.
The report said only “a very small percentage” of observations have “interesting” signatures, such as high-speed travel or “unknown morphologies.”
Kirkpatrick’s office has transferred “a lot” of cases to law enforcement for further investigation and, if necessary, counterintelligence. But some sightings could potentially be foreign adversaries spying on the United States, like the Chinese spy balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina in February.
The annual report on UAPs, put together by the Defense Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said, “Although none of these UAP reports have been positively attributed to foreign activities, these cases continue to be investigated.”
Asked if the Pentagon could definitively identify a sighting of an unidentified object as belonging to a foreign adversary, Kirkpatrick said that his office is “looking at some very interesting indicators of things, and that’s about all I can tell you.” But the office, which has more than 40 employees and is expected to grow, can’t say that for sure yet.
“There are ways to hide in our noise that always concern me,” Kirkpatrick said, referring to the extraneous readings picked up by US radars and other sensors. “I am worried from a national security perspective.”
But Kirkpatrick could offer few details about why certain reports raised suspicions about foreign involvement.
“It could just be a foreign entity. It could be a hobbyist. It could be anybody,” he said. “And those are the things that we have to look into.”
On Grusch claims:
Kirkpatrick dismissed the sensational claims, saying he has “no evidence that suggests anything extraterrestrial in nature.”
“If anybody thinks that they know where those things are, they should be coming to talk to us,” said Kirkpatrick. “That’s why we have set up this entire architecture for people to securely come in and talk to us.”
… Asked if the US government should have created an effort to handle unidentified objects earlier, Kirkpatrick demurred. He said the new office came “probably at the right time for the right reasons.” But in an acknowledgment of the interest and the mystery of the subject matter, he added, “I think the government as a whole – that includes Congress – should have probably addressed some of this years ago in a more directed fashion.”
October 18, 2023
Statement by Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder on the Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP):
Yesterday the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence delivered to Congress the Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) as required by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022, as amended by the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2023. Analyzing and understanding the potential threats posed by UAP is an ongoing collaborative effort involving many departments and agencies, and the Department thanks the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and other contributing departments and agencies for their collaborative efforts to produce this report. The safety of our service personnel, our bases and installations, and the protection of U.S. operations security on land, in the skies, seas, and space are paramount. We take reports of incursions into our designated space, land, sea, or airspaces seriously and examine each one. The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is leading DOD’s efforts, in coordination with ODNI and other government agencies, to document, analyze, and when possible, resolve UAP reports using a rigorous scientific framework and a data-driven approach. This year’s UAP report covers UAP reports from Aug. 31, 2022, to April 30, 2023, as well as any UAP report from previous time periods that were not included in an earlier report. AARO received a total of 291 UAP reports in this time period, consisting of 274 that occurred during this period and another 17 that occurred from 2019-2022 but had not been included in previous annual reports. This brought the total cases that AARO has been reviewing to over 800 as of April 30, 2023.
Today, per Section 1673 of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, AARO launched the second phase of our secure reporting mechanism on the aaro.mil website.
This phase of the reporting mechanism is for current or former U.S. government employees, service members, or contractors with direct knowledge of alleged U.S. government programs or activities related to UAP dating back to 1945 to contact AARO, to voluntarily submit a report. These reports will be used to inform AARO’s congressionally directed Historical Record Report and investigations into alleged U.S. government UAP programs, due to Congress in June of 2024.
The form on the website is intended as an initial point of contact with AARO. It is not intended for conveying potentially sensitive or classified information. The form will take individuals through submission guidance, including determining their eligibility, and then will gather contact information, data on their affiliation with the U.S. government, and some basic information on the UAP program or activity that they have a direct knowledge of. AARO personnel will then catalog and review the submissions and follow up with the individuals as needed.
…
I’d also like to take this opportunity to strongly encourage any current or former U.S. government employees, military or civilian, or contractors who believe that they have firsthand knowledge of a U.S. government UAP program or activity to please come forward using this new secure reporting mechanism. We want to hear from you. As I’ve said, the information you submit in the form will be protected.
Additionally, any information that you provide in a subsequent interview will be protected according to its classification. By law, AARO can receive all UAP related information, including any classified national security information involving military intelligence or intelligence related activities at all levels of classification, regardless of any restrictive access controls, special access programs, or compartmented access programs.
Moreover, there is no restriction to AARO receiving any past or present UAP related information, regardless of the organizational affiliation of the original classification authority within the department, the intelligence community, or any other U.S. government department or agency.
…
our domain awareness gaps don’t necessarily arise because we don’t have a sensor. It arises because we have a lot of data that are tuned for missiles, aircraft, large things that we’re looking at, coming over the poles, that sort of thing. There’s a lot of data that’s not looked at. And so, my team is going through all that systematically with a lot of our S&T partners and our operational partners to go, if I put a calibration sphere out in the middle of the U.S. and I have, say, FAA radar data on it, what does it look like? And can I pull those signatures out and turn them into something that we can then queue off of? The idea being we want to reduce the number of UAP reports that are actually just balloons or actually just drones. Right? I need to get those off of our plate because those aren’t UAP.
…So, Mr. Grusch, since AARO has stood up and since I’ve been director, has not come to see us and provided any information.
So, the last time I believe I spoke with Mr. Grusch was when I was in the J2 at U.S. Space Command about five years ago, and it was not on this topic. Now, we have interviewed a whole range of people, over 30 people now. I think we’ve interviewed most of the people that he may have talked to, but we don’t know that. And we have extended an invitation at least four or five times now for him to come in over the last eight months or so and has been declined
…. What they are reporting, we are documenting. They are reviewing and then revalidating that this is what they want to say. We then research all of that collectively. There is a – there is a, if you think of it as a story arc, there’s a number of people that kind of fit into this story arc.
But then there’s these little offshoots and variations on themes. We’re investigating each and every one of them. We’re cross-referencing those. There are some bits of information that are turning out to be things and events that really happened. A lot of it is still under review, and we’re putting all that together into our historical report.
On the 2004 Tic Tac: Okay, so cases, the way we investigate cases, we really prioritize more the operational ones from today than we do going backwards in time. And the reason for that is there is no supporting data to actually analyze. Right? So, that video, that’s all there is. There is no other data to put behind it. So, understanding what that is off of that one video is unlikely to occur. Now, whereas today, if we have a lot of data, somebody sees something, there’s going to be a lot more data associated with it that we can pull that apart. Radar data and optical data and IR data…. The farther back in time you go, the less data you have. It is highly unlikely we’re going to get any resolution out of that that’s going to satisfy anybody, just because there is no data to be looked at.
Q: are you finding any at all obstacles within the bureaucracy of the U.S. Department of Defense or U.S. government that’s preventing you in any way from looking over old – looking over classified information to find the existence of programs?
DR. KIRKPATRICK: Absolutely not. We’ve had – we’ve had great cooperation, and we have access to anything we need.
Q: you are asking current and former government employees if they have evidence of a former clandestine UAP program. What makes you believe that such a thing might have existed? And if the government kept it secret before, why should a government employee trust you now?
DR. KIRKPATRICK: Well, let’s see, I currently have no evidence of any program having ever existed as a to do any sort of reverse engineering of any sort of extraterrestrial UAP program. We do have a requirement by law to bring those whistleblowers or other interviewees in who think that it does exist, and they may have information that pertains to that. We do not have any of that evidence right now. And why should they come to us?
Well, they should come to us because, well, it’s in law that we are the authorized reporting authority for them to come to, they are protected under the Whistleblower Act that they extended those protections to last year’s legislation and we have the security mechanisms by which to anonymously and confidentially bring them in, hear what they have to say, research that information and protect it if it is in truly classified. And if it’s not classified, then we can validate that as well.
November 7, 2023
Kirkpatrick announces his resignation from AARO in an exclusive interview with Politico:
“I’m ready to move on. I have accomplished everything I said I was going to do,” Kirkpatrick said, adding that he still wants to finish a few tasks, including wrapping up the first volume of a historical review of the unidentified anomalous phenomena issue, before leaving.
Kirkpatrick’s deputy, Tim Phillips, will lead the office in an acting role until the Pentagon hires a permanent replacement, Kirkpatrick said.
…In fact, he believes “the best thing that could come out of this job is to prove that there are aliens” — because the alternative is a much bigger problem.
“If we don’t prove it’s aliens, then what we’re finding is evidence of other people doing stuff in our backyard,” he said. “And that’s not good.”
November 8, 2023
Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks statement on Kirkpatrick’s retirement:
All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) Director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick announced that he will retire from federal service in December.
During his distinguished 27-year career of public service in the Department of Defense and the United States Intelligence Community, and since assuming leadership of AARO, Dr. Kirkpatrick has served the American people with honesty and integrity, tackling an incredibly difficult mission to explain the unknown.
During his tenure, Dr. Kirkpatrick stood up the office and its operations, investigated more than 800 unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) cases, led an extensive search for U.S. Government and contractor programs associated with UAP, and established the department’s first public-facing website, www.aaro.mil, to bring greater transparency to the department’s work.
His commitment to transparency with the United States Congress and the American public on UAP leaves a legacy the department will carry forward as AARO continues its mission.
Our department is stronger and better prepared for future scientific and national security challenges because of Sean’s distinguished service to our country.
We are deeply appreciative of his tenacity, insight, and undying dedication to our national security mission, and wish him the greatest of success in his future endeavors.
The Department of Defense, in coordination with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is in the process of searching for the next AARO Director, and it will publicly announce its selection once made.
When I took the job, I promised going in that I would do a year, and we would reevaluate. I have decided to stay on until towards the end of this year because there’s a couple more things I need to finish…. I deferred my retirement because I was asked to come do this. I set out those goals. It’s been about 18 months. I’m ready to move on. I have accomplished everything I said I was going to do.
David Grusch is a unique instance in that he has refused to come and share any of that information. We still can’t get him to come in. I’ve got five different people who have gone to talk to him to get him to come in. And the answers have always been everything from “We’re not cleared” to “It would jeopardize his whistleblower protections” to “Why can’t we just go get the information that he shared from the IG?” It’s every excuse that I have heard, why not to come in. And that’s been a challenge because now here we are, we’re about to put out Volume One of the historical review, which I believe captures most all of the people that he’s spoken with, but I can’t say that 100 percent because I can’t hear what he thinks he has. If he has evidence, I need to know what that is.
If I go back to the fundamental definition of a UAP [unidentified anomalous phenomena] that we had written into law, it is an unknown object that is not initially understood by the sensor or the people observing it. That doesn’t mean that it’s not understandable. It just means that initially when you look at it, you may not understand what that is.
People are subject to optical illusions, sensors are subject to being fooled or spoofed or even just having errors. Understanding what all of that is out in the real world is a very challenging mission space. It is hard to apply science and technology to the real world. It’s easy to do in a lab.
So putting all that together and putting it into an institutionalized space and getting it formalized and getting it into policy and getting it into orders: Those have all been major accomplishments that we set out to do, that I set out to do. And that has been achieved today.
Seligman: Are aliens real?
Kirkpatrick: That is a great question. I love that question. Number one, the best thing that could come out of this job is to prove that there are aliens, right? Because if we don’t prove there are aliens, then what we’re finding is evidence of other people doing stuff in our backyard. And that’s not good.
Two, from a scientific perspective: The scientific community will agree that it is statistically invalid to believe that there is not life out in the universe, as vast as the universe is and the number of galaxies and solar systems and planets. That is what part of NASA’s mission is to look for that life. The probability, however, that that life is intelligent and that it has found Earth and that it has come to Earth and that it has repeatedly crashed in the United States is not very probable.
So part of what we’ve been trying to do, and part of what I will continue to do until I’m done, is raise the level of the conversation. Let me explain. If you are talking with NASA or the European Space Agency, and you’re talking about looking for life out in the universe, it is a very objective, very scientifically sound discussion and discourse. As that discussion gets closer to the solar system, somewhere around Mars, it turns into science fiction. And then as you get even closer to Earth, and you cross into Earth’s atmosphere, it becomes conspiracy theory.
We need to change the level of the [public] conversation. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve engaged academia to work on a number of scientific papers that look at the probabilities of these things, and what are the signatures associated with that? So that we can benchmark what we’re doing in scientific proofs and in scientific fact and not hearsay and pointing fingers and government cover ups and conspiracies with no evidence of any of them.
“AARO is completing personnel hiring for its [fiscal year 2024] authorized billets and is working to ensure adequate facilities for its growing team. AARO is currently on track to reach FOC by the end of FY2024 [September].”
“AARO looks forward to reaching its full capabilities to detect, identify, and attribute UAP on or near military installations, operating areas, training areas, special use airspace, and other areas of interest.”
Phil Larson, White House Office of Science & Technology Policy:
Thank you for signing the petition asking the Obama Administration to acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence here on Earth.
The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race. In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.
However, that doesn’t mean the subject of life outside our planet isn’t being discussed or explored. In fact, there are a number of projects working toward the goal of understanding if life can or does exist off Earth. Here are a few examples:
SETI—the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence—was originally stood up with help from NASA, but has since been moved to other sources of private funding. SETI’s main purpose is to act as a giant ear on behalf of the human race, pointing an array of ground-based telescopes towards space to listen for any signal from another world.
Kepler is a NASA spacecraft in orbit that’s main goal is to search for Earth-like planets. Such a planet would be located in the “Goldilocks” zone of a distant solar system—not too hot and not too cold—and could potentially be habitable by life as we know it. The Kepler mission is specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover Earth-sized, rocky planets in or near the habitable zone of the star (sun) they orbit.
The Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity, is an automobile-sized rover that NASA is launching soon. The rover’s onboard laboratory will study rocks, soils, and other geology in an effort to detect the chemical building blocks of life (e.g., forms of carbon) on Mars and will assess what the Martian environment was like in the past to see if it could have harbored life.
A last point: Many scientists and mathematicians have looked with a statistical mindset at the question of whether life likely exists beyond Earth and have come to the conclusion that the odds are pretty high that somewhere among the trillions and trillions of stars in the universe there is a planet other than ours that is home to life.
Many have also noted, however, that the odds of us making contact with any of them—especially any intelligent ones—are extremely small, given the distances involved.
But that’s all statistics and speculation. The fact is we have no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth.
December 8, 2013
Barack Obama, President of the United States, Kennedy Centers Honors ceremony:
“Now, when you first become President, one of the questions that people ask you is what’s really going on in Area 51. When I wanted to know, I’d call Shirley MacLaine. I think I just became the first President to ever publicly mention Area 51. How’s that, Shirley?”
Donald Trump, President of the United States, interview with Good Morning America:
“I want them [Navy aviators] to think whatever they think. I did have one very brief meeting on it. But people are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly.”
“I think our great pilots would know. And some of them see things a little bit different from the past. … We’re watching, and you’ll be the first to know.”
April 29, 2020
Donald Trump, President of the United States, Oval Office interview:
Regarding the recently released Navy UAP videos: “I just wonder if it’s real. That’s a hell of a video.”
June 18, 2020
Donald Trump, President of the United States, interview:
Asked about whether he will declassify information about Roswell: “I won’t talk to you about what I know about it, but it’s very interesting… Well, I’ll have to think about that one,”
February 13, 2023
Press briefing regarding NORAD’s downing of three unidentified objects.
Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Press Secretary:
And one last thing before I turn it over to the Admiral. I just wanted to make sure we address this from the White House. I know there have been questions and concerns about this, but there is no — again, no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity — (laughter) — with these recent takedowns.
Again, there is no indication of aliens or [extra]terrestrial activity with these recent takedowns. Wanted to make sure that the American people knew that, all of you knew that. And it was important for us to say that from here because we’ve been hearing a lot about it.
I’m just — you know, I loved “E.T.,” the movie. But I’m just going to leave it there. (Laughter.)
With that, with all seriousness, I know there’s a lot of questions about the flying objects.
John Kirby, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications:
The President also instructed the Intelligence Community to take a broad look at the phenomenon of unidentified aerial objects.
Indeed, President Biden conducted the first-ever Daily Intelligence Briefing session devoted to this phenomenon back in June of 2021. He was briefed that this is not just an issue for the United States but one for the rest of the world.
And as I said, our friends and our partners are dealing with this as well.
We worked on a bipartisan basis to stand up an office at the Pentagon to study this, in partnership with the Intelligence Community, academic institutions, and the private sector.
And these unidentified aerial phenomena have been reported for many years, without explanation or deep examination by the government.
President Biden has changed all that. We are finally trying to understand them better.
…the President, through his National Security Advisor, has today directed an interagency team to study the broader policy implications for detection, analysis, and disposition of unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks.
Every element of the government will redouble their efforts to understand and mitigate these events.
…
And — and also, it comes down to — a lot to our ability to track, detect, and engage.
Having come from the Pentagon, I can tell you that some of these UAPs, while we may not be able to know what each and every one is doing, some of the big concern there was that
A lot — not — many of those reports were happening around our training ranges, were happening around air training ranges. So combat pilots were seeing these things. And it was — and there was a potential impact to the safety of flight of our pilots. But you may not have but a fleeting moment on some of these things to see it. And so, it’s different.
In these cases, we had time to detect, time to analyze, time to engage, time to make those kinds of decisions.
February 16, 2023
Joe Biden, Remarks by President Biden on the United States’ Response to Recent Aerial Objects
NOTE: President Biden is referring to three unidentified objects shot down on February 10, 11, and 12. His remarks do not refer to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, but to conventional airborne objects that are unidentified within U.S. airspace. The excerpt below is included in this archive because the objects were conflated with UAP and even UFOs by some in the public and the media, and this event will likely bear some influence on future government with those two topics.
We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were. But nothing — nothing right now suggests they were related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from other — any other country.
The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research.
When I came into office, I instructed our intelligence community to take a broad look at the phenomenon of unidentified aerial objects.
We know that a range of entities, including countries, companies, and research organizations operate objects at altitudes for purposes that are not nefarious, including legitimate scientific research.
I want to be clear: We don’t have any evidence that there has been a sudden increase in the number of objects in the sky. We’re now just seeing more of them, partially because the steps we’ve taken to increase our radars — to narrow our radars. And we have to keep adapting our approach to delaying — to dealing with these challenges.
That’s why I’ve directed my team to come back to me with sharper rules for how we will deal with these unidentified objects moving forward, distinguishing — distinguishing between those that are likely to pose safety and security risks that necessitate action and those that do not.
… Going forward, these parameters will guide what actions we will take while responding to unmanned and unidentified aerial objects. We’re going to keep adapting them as the challenges evolve, if it evolves.
February 16, 2023
John Kirby, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications:
Aerial objects have recently been taken down by U.S. military aircraft. Watch as National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby provides an update:
Question: Are these objects UFOs or aliens?
Kirby: “I don’t think that the American people need to worry that this has anything to do with aliens or extraterrestrial technology. These were high flying, most likely balloons of some sort. So we think that this is technology that is, again, not very sophisticated and definitely tied to somebody here on the planet Earth, and one of our leading assumptions is that this could very well be just research balloons, weather balloons, that kind of thing.”
May 31, 2023
Mike Freie, Technical Advisor, Surveillance Services, Federal Aviation Association, presentation to the NASA UAP committee meeting:
“Weather Stations are released balloons twice a day. It’s 6am and 00 100, Zulu and 1200. Zulu, typically two hour duration they fly up to 100,000 feet where the the envelope bursts and then the payload descends back back to Earth. So certainly 100 At least 184 balloon flights daily in the NASS you know not to consider universities and hobbyist balloons that may be launched, but those are typically small, small in size. And finally, Sean did talk about UAPs and FAA data, a couple of data points that we do report there is a process by which air traffic controllers can report UAP sightings or, or events. Historically, those have been in the range of about three to five reports per month that have been reported. We did see an uptick of reports in August of 22. That went up to about eight to 10 Perhaps due to start like Starlink launches. And finally the with the Chinese weather, or the Chinese balloon incidents in February, we did see a significant uptick and uptick and there’s like 68 UAP reports that that started in February.”
“That is three to five reports per month for all the controllers and all of us. So there’s a process by which if they see something and they want to report that they can go with to report that to the, the Den we call it but report, Hey, I saw something I don’t know what it was sets three to five per month across the entire 14,000 controllers per month. So, you know, 45,000 operations, any given day, 30 months, 30 days, however many days in a month, you know, it’s a very small percentage.”
[on stigma]: “I’m not aware of…I’ll answer it this way. The the process by which UAP is reported is part of the air traffic controller order. So basically, the aircraft controllers are allowed to say, you know, if you see something, here’s a process by which the procedure by which you would report it. Other than that, I’m not aware of any any specific stigma or, or limitations and really I’m not in a good position to, you know, to speak to that other than there is that process.”
July 17, 2023
John Kirby, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, press conference response to a question about UAP (C-SPAN link):
Yes. I know what that is. (Laughter.) Well, without speaking to proposed legislation – I won’t do that – as you know, the Pentagon has stood up an entire organization to help collate and coordinate the reporting and analysis of – of sightings of UAP across the military. Before that, there wasn’t really a coordinated, integrated effort to do that.And, of course, we will always want to be as transparent with members of Congress and with the American people as we can, considering national security concerns.
Question: But there – this used to get laughed at for quite some time, for years and then decades –
What gets laughed at?
Question:The idea of Congress taking this up. I mean, Gerald Ford talked about this as a congressman back in 1966, and here we are – what is that? – 60 years later, give or take.Is this a legitimate issue? Does the administration believe that getting to the bottom of these sightings in the air – is it a real concern? Is it a real, legitimate issue as you see it?
Yeah. I mean, we wouldn’t stood – we wouldn’t have stood up an organization at the Pentagon to analyze and – and try to collect and – and coordinate the way these sightings are reported if we didn’t take it seriously. Of course, we do.I mean, some of these phenomena, we know, have already had an impact on our training ranges for – you know, when pilots are out trying to do training in the air and they see these things, they’re not sure what they are, and it can have an impact on their ability to perfect their skills.It’s already had an impact here, and we just want to better understand it.Now, we’re not saying what they are or what they’re not. We’re saying that there’s something our pilots are seeing. We’re saying it has had an effect on some of our training operations. And so, we want to get to the bottom of it. We want to understand it better.So, yes.
Department of Homeland Security
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August 29, 2023
The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released documents and videos it has compiled related to UAP on their website.
I have compiled an archive and timeline of all recent public actions and statements by the U.S. Congress regarding UFOs. Putting this research all together makes it clear that a core group within Congress is committed to government transparency on this issue and is actively implementing a game plan that will bring that about. Below are five major takeaways.
NOTE: since UAP is their preferred term for UFOs I’m going to use it here. What follows is a summary. For more details, and all of the source links, check out following:
When did these members of Congress become collectively activated by their interest in what they call UAP? Based on available records, no earlier than 2018. TheDecember 2017 New York Times article that broke the news about the Pentagon’s secret UFO office seems to have been the trigger. However, we know that at least some in Congress were being briefed on UAP/military encounters for at least the prior decade. In 2011 Senator Rubio joined the Intelligence Committee, and Senator Gillibrand joined the Armed Services Committee. In 2021 both senators said that they had been receiving UAP reports for ten years.
Christopher Mellon has revealed that Navy aviators who were direct UAP witnesses, like Dave Fravor and Ryan Graves, briefed members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2018. (We know very little about what was going on behind Congress’s closed doors during this year, so if anyone has any details please reach out to me so I can add them to the timeline.)
So Congress was at least partly in the loop, but they took no action that we know of until June 2019. And it was no small step. That summer the Senate Armed Services Committee introduced the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2020 with a classified Annex that directed the Pentagon’s USD(I&S) and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) to stand up a UAP Task Force “to investigate UAP activity.” This was not known to the public at the time, or much of Congress for that matter. A year later, the directive to draft a UAP preliminary report was attached to the Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) for 2021, and this was generally considered the first significant congressional action on UAP. But it was 2019 when the core group within Congress very quietly began their formal UAP inquiry. One week after that 2019 Annex was attached to the NDAA, ONI was giving the first publicly announced UAP briefings to Congress. These were widely reported at the time, and they continued with numerous committee members and staffers through December (in fact they continue to this day, and were formalized into regular quarterly briefings in 2022). By October 2019, ONI was showing armed services and intelligence committees detailed powerpoint presentations on UAP, and arranging for expert testimony. It has been reported that Dr. Eric Davis briefed Senate staffers during the time of these October briefings, and his message to them was that UAP were “off-world” vehicles, and that there had been “retrievals of unexplained objects.”
The question of why Congress chose to act is also important. At this early point in the timeline, certain members of the armed services committees in the House and Senate became aware of two interconnected problems that they could not ignore. One was that the military were encountering UAP with some frequency in restricted airspace. Second was that the Pentagon was not organizationally equipped to address this.
Representative Ruben Gallego explains this dynamic in the clearest terms I have heard. Gallego has served on the House Armed Services Committee since 2015, which was when UAP reports must have been flying at him fast and thick. The UAP wave over Oceania training ranges was happening at this time, and the Navy began formal reporting of UAP events in 2014 (see pg. 2 of this FOIA-released Navy email cache). In January 2021 he was appointed chairman of the subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, which he has said has “jurisdiction” over UAP events. In November 2021, when UAP legislation to greatly expand the scope of the UAP Task Force was about to pass, he told Hill TV the following (emphasis mine):
“…we just don’t have enough information, and even the information the Department of Defense has, it is useless information, it is anecdotal evidence, and/or, even film, whatever it is. But we have no reference points to it, and there is no unified way to actually collect this information. Nobody knows what to do with this information… the goal of my legislation is to treat this like a real problem set, and the way you do that when you’re dealing with the Pentagon is you have a system-wide understanding of how to collect this information, how to collect this data, let’s analyze the data and then let’s come up with recommendations about what this is and what we should do about it.”
Gallego’s frustration is palpable. Contrary to the popular self-conception of a can-do military spirit able to tackle any problem it sets its mind to, he describes a military leadership that is hesitant, indecisive, even a little scared. He ascribes this to the UFO stigma, which could block a career path in the Pentagon. As a result: “everyone just avoids the issue. Politicians avoid the issue. So everyone just kind of walks around in circles, saying, ‘Man, there’s something there,’ but nobody wants to do anything about it.”
The classic analogy for the military’s handling of UFOs is the ostrich burying its head in the sand. But Gallego’s image of someone walking in circles has a different connotation and is perhaps more instructive. A person walking around in circles is not ignoring the problem. The problem weighs on them, bothers them. But they cannot decide what they should do about it. They do not act, even though they know someone really must. They need someone to point them in a direction, and kick them in the pants. This is exactly what Congress has done to the Pentagon.
Gallego also touches on an additional problem that the core group in Congress was clearly worried about–that it is just a matter of time until the public gets hard proof of whatever UAP are, and politicians won’t want to be seen as unprepared. In the same Hill TV interview he said, “because we are a more interconnected society, you have a lot of people that are flying, a lot of people can actively use their own drones, they can actually even now rent satellite imagery, more people are starting to discover this.”
In the May 17 UAP hearing the ranking member of the subcommittee, Representative Crawford, asked Pentagon leadership, “how can [the UAP office] lead to prevention of intelligence surprises?” Christopher Mellon, who advises members of Congress on UAP, made the same point this month when he said that if government disclosure happens soon “it will happen most likely because it’s impossible to contain it any longer.” If UFO confirmation comes from a source other than the Pentagon’s vaults, and our leaders are made to stammer “We had no idea!” under the klieg lights, it will be seen as a massive failure of not only intelligence but basic leadership. At least now they will be able to say that they have been working on this problem since 2018.
There is much we still do not know about when and why Congress went down this path. But it seems clear that around 2018 the core group on the national security committees saw a national security and political problem brewing on the horizon that they could not ignore.
A Concerted Effort
During that freshman UAP year of 2019, dozens of individual members of Congress requested UAP briefings, as well various committees. You can see a partial list of the hodgepodge group of congresspeople and hill staffers who were requesting and receiving UAP briefings just in July, on pgs. 10-17 of the Navy emails. The four main committees that have worked in concert are the House and Senate intelligence and armed services committees. Every year since 2019, they have inserted UAP requirements into the NDAA or the IAA. These have been authored by numerous members, and ushered through committees by at least eight chairmen of both parties. These committees passed UAP directives and legislation when Republicans as well as Democrats held the chairmanship:
Senate Armed Service Committee
Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) – Chairman in 2019 and 2020; Ranking Member in 2021 and 2022
Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) – Chairman in 2021 and 2022; Ranking Member in 2019 and 2022
Senate Intelligence Committee
Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) – Chairman in 2020; Ranking Member in 2021 and 2022
Mark Warner (D-Va.) – Chairman in 2021 and 2022; Ranking Member in 2020
House Armed Services Committee
Adam Smith (D.-Wash.) – Chairman in 2021 and 2022
Mike Rogers (R.-Mich.) – Ranking Member in 2021 and 2022
House Intelligence Committee
Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) – Chairman in 2021 and 2022
Mike Turner (R.-Ohio) – Ranking Member in 2021 and 2022
Senator Gillibrand has said repeatedly, in 2021 and 2022, that there is no “opposition to this on any level” in Congress.
There is circumstantial evidence that the committees are engaging in some strategic membership placement that might be related to their overall UAP efforts. Senator Gillibrand has sat on the Armed Services Committee for over a decade, and in 2021 she was given a rare dual placement by being appointed to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Nine months after this appointment, Gillibrand authored her now-famous UAP amendment to the 2022 NDAA, which created a new, more comprehensive UAP investigative office inside the Pentagon.
In the House, Representative Gallagher has sat on the Armed Services Committee since 2017, and in 2022 he was also appointed to the House Intelligence Committee. Five months after this appointment, Gallagher, with Ruben Gallego, authored a major UAP amendment to the 2023 NDAA.
Is it a coincidence that two major UAP trailblazers in Congress were appointed to both national security committees just months before they helped shape major UAP legislation? As the saying goes: personnel is policy. Coincidence or not, the dual placement allows them unique access to and influence over Congress’s UAP efforts.
Building the Record (and a Case)
Congress’s UAP inquiry has expanded year after year. Take the following representative examples of information they have been mandating the military and Intelligence Community cough up over the last four years:
2019 – Congress asks the Pentagon to form a task force to “investigate UAP activity” and produce a memo.
2020 – Congress calls for a “unified, comprehensive process within the Federal Government for collecting and analyzing intelligence on unidentified aerial phenomena.” It also mandates that the task force produce a comprehensive UAP report, which ended up revealing that the military knows of 143 cases of mysterious aircraft exhibiting unexplained “breakthrough aerospace capabilities” since 2004.
2021 – Congress requires a more detailed report, due annually every October through 2026. Here are just some of its requirements:
An updated tally of recent UAP events
Analysis of all UAP restricted airspace incursions
U.S. military attempts to capture and exploit UAP
Health-related effects UAP have had on people
U.S. nuclear technology and UAP
2022 – Congress requires that the government “compile and itemize” all of its records on UFOs dating back to January 1, 1947–which is the date when the Pentagon began formally collecting UFO reports. This would presumably include any UFO-related activity on or around the Roswell Army Air Force Base that year. Congress also requires the “complete historical record of the intelligence community’s involvement” with UFOs, including any attempts “to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide unclassified or classified misinformation.” Oh, and they are also offering immunity that would allow any government agent or contractor to share with Congress what they know about secret UFO programs.
In other words, in the span of four years, Congress transitioned from its strictly national security interest in restricted airspace to going after the full UFO enchilada. They have been widening their scope every year, and there is no indication their reach won’t go farther in 2023 and 2024.
It stands to reason that Congress intends to use this information for some purpose. It’s almost like they have decided that at some point in the near future they will go before the American people to explain the U.S. government’s involvement with UFOs. They are doing their homework now in preparation for the greatest political test of their careers.
Practicing their Lines
And make no mistake, the political test of UFO disclosure will be enormous. Right now, about 30 members of Congress have made public statements on UAP. Most of the politicians in my statement archive are what I call UAP Advocates. They are only comfortable discussing UAP within the narrow range of national security and air-space-sovereignty. They talk about the need for more data and less stigma, but many of them retreat to the stance that UAP are “probably” foreign spy technology. The fact that the conversation has advanced this far is a testament to the national security tactic pioneered by former government insiders like Christopher Mellon and Nick Pope. It’s almost like “national security” has been used as a Trojan Horse to sneak UFOs into the mainstream of our body politic. At minimum, for the small but growing group within Congress it has supplied the words to begin the conversation.
Still, moving beyond that to a fuller discussion of what is really going on with the UAP of today, and of 1947, will require more of our politicians. Frankly, they’re going to have to get comfortable talking about aliens. As of now, only 5 members of Congress are willing to do that. I call them Extraterrestrial Hypothesis Advocates because of their willingness to move beyond the talking points about unknown objects in restricted airspace. They have used words like aliens, other intelligence, other worlds, and other solar systems.
The quintessential example of a politician who has learned to talk about extraterrestrial visitors with smooth, confident banality, akin to discussions of constituent services like job fairs and potholes, is André Carson. In 2022, while chairman of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation, Carson deployed this masterclass in understatement:
“If it is otherworldly we will have internal controls in place to protect us and to engage, in the event that that happens, in a healthy and safe way.” [Source: End UAP Secrecy]
Others in the House have gone farther out the E.T. limb than Carson, but none with his level of power. Arguably there is no greater Extraterrestrial Hyopthesis Advocate than Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett, who has repeatedly accused the U.S. military of a coverup and called for public disclosure of everything from Roswell forward. He has frequently referred to the Pentagon’s gestures toward UAP disclosure as “a joke.” Burchett has also knowingly admitted “that’s why people like me never get on intelligence committees.” Position and amount of power is a factor in who is willing to say what about UFOs.
Speaking of power…
A Tale of Two Senators
The only Extraterrestrial Hypothesis Advocate in the upper chamber is Mitt Romney of Utah. One of the only members of Congress to be openly cynical and stigmatizing about UFOs is also in the Senate–Mark Kelly of Arizona.
In 2021, Romney told CNN: “If for some reason these [UAP] came from another system, if you will, another alien society,… that would be fascinating, interesting…. That would make me more fascinated, not fearful.” He categorically denied the possibility that UAP are Russian, Chinese, or American technology. No U.S. politician of his stature has gone this far.
On the other hand, Senator Kelly responded this way to a reporter who asked a sincere question about the Pentagon’s UAP investigation: “Well on the alien subject, you know I could confirm that they exist, they’re really small, they have sharp teeth, and they live under your bed.” He went on to explain how easy it is to misidentify objects seen in the sky.
What accounts for this difference? Romney’s stance is remarkable because so few politicians are willing to say what he did (only 5 have, and he is the only Senator). There is clearly a perceived political cost to expressing an openness to the possibility of alien visitors, no doubt due to the long-standing UFO stigma. If we take Romney at his word, he is persuaded by the scientific consensus on the sheer amount of planets and potential for life in the universe, and he seems comfortable with the idea that some of that life is intelligent and has visited the Earth.
Kelly, conversely, has extensive experience in space, and with the tricks of perception that its vastness can play on the human psyche. For all we know, his years at NASA may have caused him to internalize the consensus of so many space scientists: UFOs are bunk because interstellar travel is not possible. His cynicism about UFOs may be genuine and heartfelt.
But there is also a major political dynamic that could be driving these two divergent responses, which needs to be understood because it could affect how Disclosure continues to unfold.
Romney is an elder statesman with fewer years ahead of him than behind. He suffered the greatest defeat that modern politics has to offer when he lost a winnable presidential election in 2012. He is a popular Republican senator in Utah, where the partisan lean skews toward his party by 26.3%. He will keep this seat for as long as he chooses to hold it. All of this adds up to a man who has nothing to fear. He can and does speak his mind.
Kelly is younger and newer to politics. He is the Democrat senator in Arizona where the partisan lean is 7.6% in favor of Republicans. When he blew off the reporter’s question about UFOs, he knew he would soon be in a tight race for his first re-election that he could easily lose. Being a former astronaut is not without its political liabilities–there is nothing quite as far removed from work-a-day Arizonans’ daily lives than circling the planet in a space shuttle. He may not be eager to add UFO-enthusiast to that identity.
We don’t know how politicians will react as more UFO revelations come out. We don’t know if they will follow the Romney model or the Kelly model. But make no mistake, these are the only two models available: stigmatization and willful ignorance, or open-mindedness and leadership. Twenty-eight members of Congress have chosen to lead. We have yet to hear from the remaining 506.
Last December the U.S. Congress passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contained directives for how the Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community (IC) must handle the UAP issue going forward. One of those directives requires an annual report due by October 31, 2022. This will be the second UAP report. The first UAP report, known as the Preliminary Assessment, was issued June 25, 2021. What will be in this new report? How detailed will it be?
The 2022 NDAA contains thirteen basic requirements that the report’s authors “shall include,” which is a legal term that means “must include.” These are spelled out in Subsections A through P, each of which is listed below. Below I preview each element and provide some speculation about how the report might address the requirement. This speculation is guided by assumptions about how open or how secretive the authors might be with the public–a disclosure rubric. I hope this will help the public evaluate the impact of the 2022 UAP report, and also allow some fact-based judgments about the authors’ intentions toward disclosure. The rubric has three categories.
Full Disclosure: The report reveals detailed underlying evidence pertaining to the “shall include” elements, as well as specific conclusions drawn from that evidence. This does not mean total disclosure of any and all information the government possesses about UFOs. We assume that the authors will constrain their report to the specific asks listed in the NDAA, as well as classification laws that forbid revealing intelligence gathering sources and methods. That aside, this category suggests an intention toward openness with the public.
Partial Disclosure: The report provides general and generic discussion of the “shall include” elements, without offering any specifics. There may be acknowledgement that a situation is occurring, but no underlying evidence, and little to no analysis–in other words, similar to the 2021 Preliminary Report. This category suggests a muddled middle ground where the authors acknowledge a real phenomenon is occurring, but exhibit a continued extreme reticence to share details with the public.
Full Secrecy: The authors simply decline to provide any information to the public for the “shall include” elements.
Before we dive in, let’s look at who is writing this report.
The 2021 Preliminary Assessment was authored by the UAP Task Force (UAPTF) and issued by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who leads the entire Intelligence Community. Just like the 2021 report, “the Director [of National Intelligence], in consultation with the Secretary [Defense], shall submit” the 2022 report “to the appropriate congressional committees.” So, DNI Avril Haines will issue both reports, and some reporting indicates that she is disclosure-friendly. Haines is the only member of the DoD or IC to sit for an news interview exclusively about UAP.
But there have been other personnel changes.
In 2021 the UAPTF was a very small office, with reportedly only two active members. Dr. Travis Taylor, an aerospace engineer with an open mind about UFOs, recently admitted to being one of the authors of the 2021 report.
In December 2021 this office was converted into the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG), managed by DoD, specifically the Under Secretary for Defense for Intelligence and Security (USDI&S). The office was not fully staffed for most of 2022. On July 20, DoD rebranded the office as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), and announced Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick as its director. Presumably Kirkpatrick has spent his first three months on the job managing the completion of the new report. It’s unclear how much of the report he or others in AARO will have personally written or edited.
I will be reading between the lines to detect any significant difference in tone and perspective between the two reports.
The 2022 UAP Report Contents and Disclosure Rubric Scoring
Below you will find the NDAA language stipulating the thirteen requirements, followed by some context about the requirement, and speculation about what we might get in the report, using the disclosure rubric as a guide.
Requirement #1: Tally of UAP Events
(A) All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during the one-year period. (B) All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during a period other than that one-year period but were not included in an earlier report.
This requirement is the accountability measure for the section of the law that requires “procedures to synchronize and standardize the collection, reporting, and analysis of [UAP] incidents,” and “to ensure that such incidents from each component of the Department and each element of the intelligence community are reported and incorporated in a centralized repository.” This ensures that Congress will receive those “timely and consistent” reports each year, and that if for some reason an incident was not reported or missed being included that year, it would be included in the following year. (Congress has also requested that they be notified more frequently through quarterly briefings).
Subsection B requires inclusion of UAP events not included in the previous report, which has provoked much speculation about how far back the new report will go. Some hope that all the old classics, including Roswell, will be included. This seems unlikely, at least for this report.
The 2021 Preliminary Report included data from November 2004 (the Nimitz Tic-Tac case) through March 2021. So one way to interpret subsection B is that the new report will contain data on cases from March 2021 through September or October 2022. It may also add any new cases from 2004 onward that have since surfaced. This would increase the standing tally of 144 UAP incidents. Back in May, Scott Bray of the Office of Naval Intelligence informed us the tally is now over 400.
It is unlikely that AARO authors will interpret this language as a requirement or even an invitation to include UFO cases from deep in the 20th Century. The 2021 report explained why they are comfortable with 2004 and are likely to stick to that:
The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) considered a range of information on UAP described in U.S. military and IC (Intelligence Community) reporting, but because the reporting lacked sufficient specificity, ultimately recognized that a unique, tailored reporting process was required to provide sufficient data for analysis of UAP events. As a result, the UAPTF concentrated its review on reports that occurred between 2004 and 2021, the majority of which are a result of this new tailored process to better capture UAP events through formalized reporting.
If Congress intended for an airing of all the “cold case” UFO files in this report, they would have explicitly done so. The Pentagon began collecting “flying disc” reports as early as January 1947. Exhuming all of them would require enormous effort and a tailored skill set, which may not be the best use of AARO resources at this point. This is why Congress has used the current Intelligence Authorization Act to require the Comptroller General to compile all of that historical data, but this report will not be due for another year.
Full Disclosure:
The total number of UAP events in the given period, and the total number of standing events in their dataset
Some sort of date and location, even if it is general (e.g. August 2021, Pacific Northwest)
An expansive rather than narrow interpretation of the time frame that should be covered by the report
Partial Disclosure:
The total number of UAP events in the given period, without reporting the exact total number of standing events in their dataset
No information about the date and location of events
A narrow interpretation of the time frame that should be covered by the report
Full Secrecy:
Declines to provide any information about amount or frequency of UAP events in the given period
Requirement #2: Analysis, judgements, and explanatory categories
(C) An analysis of data and intelligence received through each reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related event. (D) An analysis of data relating to unidentified aerial phenomena collected through–(i) geospatial intelligence;(ii) signals intelligence;(iii) human intelligence; and(iv) measurement and signature intelligence.
Subsection C and D should be the heart of the 2022 UAP report.
On the one hand, we can expect the least amount of detail about this requirement since it has to do with sources and methods of intelligence collection. On the other hand, the term “analysis of data” is the central task Congress is requiring from this report. Chairman Schiff reiterated this when he announced the May 17 public hearing on UAP:
“The American people deserve full transparency–and the federal government and the Intelligence Community have a critical role to play in contextualizing and analyzing reports of UAPs.”
Like everything else in the military, the word “analysis” is codified with specific requirements. I have written aboutthe IC’s Analytic Tradecraft Standards. Some of the most basic elements are:
“Analytic products should present a clear main analytic message up front… Language and syntax should convey meaning unambiguously…. and should not avoid difficult judgements in order to minimize the risk of being wrong.”
An analytic product should include “key analytic judgments” defined as “conclusions based on underlying intelligence information, analysis, and assumptions.” Assumptions are defined as “suppositions used to frame or support an argument,” which also “affect analytic interpretation of the underlying intelligence information.” In other words, when the IC or DoD is asked to produce an analysis, they are being asked to craft an argument in response to a question. In this case, Congress’s questions are: What are UAP, and what risk do they pose to national security?
So far, both the IC and DoD have declined to share with the public anything resembling a complete analytic product related to UAP. Whether in writing or public statements, including the May 17 congressional hearing, we have been told explicitly that the IC and DoD have made no judgements and no assumptions about the nature of UAP. In fact, they are suggesting it is simply not possible for them to make a judgment, nor is it their responsibility to do so. Will that change with the 2022 UAP report?
One way it could change is if the report provides an update on how AARO is applying the five explanatory categories of UAP that were established in the 2021 report: “airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, USG or U.S. industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and a catchall ‘other’ bin.”
As of now, of the 144 UAP cases in the 2004-2021 dataset, one UAP event is categorized as clutter, and the remaining 143 remain uncategorized. Has that changed? Has an analytic judgment been reached that any of the reported UAP are now thought to be foreign or domestic technology? Have any cases been tossed in the “Other bin”? The 2022 report should tell us.
Full Disclosure:
A good-faith effort to apply the IC’s Analytic Standards, including judgments and assumptions
A detailed description of at least some of the underlying evidence
A clear enumeration of how many UAP events are attributed to any of the five explanatory categories
Some description of how each data collection method was used in relation to specific UAP events
Partial Disclosure:
A continuation of the stance that analytic judgements cannot be made at this time
Allude to underlying evidence without revealing any details
Refer to the five explanatory categories without enumerating how many UAP events are in each one
A broad statement that states which data collection methods were used in the writing of the report
Full Secrecy:
Completely ignore the requirement to provide an analysis of UAP data
Decline to reference the existence of any underlying evidence
Decline to mention any information about data collection, or which was used, if any.
(E) The number of reported incidents of unidentified aerial phenomena over restricted air space of the United States during the one-year period.
The 2021 report emphasized that UAP are primarily observed over restricted airspace, and that they frequently interfere with military training and operations. This subsection requires DoD to state how many times that has occurred.
Full Disclosure:
The total number of incursions in the given period
Some sort of date and location, even if it is general
Partial Disclosure:
A general reference to some amount of incursions without revealing the total number
No information about the date and location of events
Full Secrecy:
Declines to provide any information about incursions
(F) An analysis of such incidents identified under subparagraph (E).
There’s that word “analysis” again. The analytic standards should doubly apply to this section since one of the main purposes behind the standards is “to explain events or phenomena” so as to “imagine possible futures to mitigate surprise and risk.” UAP showing up in restricted airspace, swarming training ranges, and buzzing nuclear-powered aircraft carriers all suggest significant potential for surprise and risk.
Full Disclosure:
A robust discussion of the problem posed by UAP in restricted airspace and an attempt to make a judgment about what is happening
A detailed description of at least some of the underlying evidence
Partial Disclosure:
A general mention of the problem without stating a judgment
Allude to underlying evidence without revealing any details
Full Secrecy:
Completely ignore the requirement to provide an analysis of UAP in restricted airspace
Decline to reference the existence of any underlying evidence
Requirement #5: National Security Threat of UAP
(G) Identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by unidentified aerial phenomena to the national security of the United States.
The 2021 report mentioned the national security implication of UAP only in one narrow context:
UAP would also represent a national security challenge if they are foreign adversary collection platforms or provide evidence a potential adversary has developed either a breakthrough or disruptive technology.
In other words, of the five explanatory categories of UAP (“airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, USG or U.S. industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and a catchall ‘other’ bin.”) only foreign adversaries qualify as a threat. Based on how the DoD does threat analysis, UAP that are “Other” are not threats because we do not know their intentions. The big question: is this still the operable view?
Full Disclosure:
A full, candid explanation of how the DoD applies threat analysis to UAP events
An enumeration of the national security threats that the DoD thinks UAP may pose, with some examples
Partial Disclosure:
Vague references to national security threats, lacking specifics
Full Secrecy:
No mention of national security threats posed by UAP
Requirement #6: Adversarial foreign governments
(H) An assessment of any activity regarding unidentified aerial phenomena that can be attributed to one or more adversarial foreign governments.
Full Disclosure:
A clear statement of the DoD’s confidence in whether or not any observed UAP were “foreign adversary systems”
Some discussion of underlying evidence
Partial Disclosure:
Decline to draw a conclusion about whether UAP were “foreign adversary systems,” due to lack of data or some other reason
Full Secrecy:
Decline to provide any statement about “foreign adversary systems”
Requirement #7: Breakthrough aerospace capability
(I) Identification of any incidents or patterns regarding unidentified aerial phenomena that indicate a potential adversarial foreign government may have achieved a breakthrough aerospace capability.
The 2021 report stated that the UAP office was in the process of “conducting further analysis to determine if breakthrough technologies were demonstrated.” It claimed that “a small amount of data” suggested this was the case, but that more “rigorous analysis are necessary by multiple teams or groups of technical experts to determine the nature and validity of these data.” Will the 2022 report reveal the outcome of those studies?
Full Disclosure:
An update on current thinking on whether UAP exhibits “breakthrough aerospace capability”
A discussion of underlying evidence
Partial Disclosure:
A continuation of the view that “breakthrough aerospace capability” is so far inconclusive
No underlying evidence is provided
Full Secrecy:
Decline to discuss “breakthrough aerospace capability” as a possibility
Requirement #8: Coordination with allies
(J) An update on the coordination by the United States with allies and partners on efforts to track, understand, and address unidentified aerial phenomena.
Full Disclosure:
A robust description of coordination efforts, including number and/or identity of partners
A discussion of the outcomes of those efforts, including evidence that has been shared
Partial Disclosure:
A general mention that coordination has been attemption, without giving specifics
Full Secrecy:
Decline to offer any information about coordination with partners to study UAP
Requirement #9: Capture and exploit UAP
(K) An update on any efforts underway on the ability to capture or exploit discovered unidentified aerial phenomena.
This one is wild. Nothing even close to this is mentioned in the 2021 report. But there has been reporting about military efforts to interfere with UAP, and Congress is asking this question for a reason. Also recall that in conjunction with the 2021 report, the Deputy Secretary of Defense released a memo that ordered the UAPTF to “establish recommendations for securing military test and training ranges” from repeated UAP incursions. What were those recommendations, and were they implemented?
Any attempts to shoot down or apply advanced technology against UAP are going to be highly classified. So subsection K could be a place where the report authors are not able to answer because the responsible military branch declined to provide any data.
Full Disclosure:
A direct answer as to whether DoD has attempted to “capture or exploit” UAP
A discussion of what “capture” entails, and what “exploit” entails
Partial Disclosure:
Vague mention of such attempts, or a statement that no data was provided to corroborate such attempts
Full Secrecy:
Decline to offer any information about efforts to “capture or exploit” UAP
Requirement #10: Health-related effects of UAP
(L) An assessment of any health-related effects for individuals that have encountered unidentified aerial phenomena.
This is also an unprecedented question. It implies that members of the military have not only observed UAP, but been bodily affected by them. If the answer is yes, then the reality of UAP being truly “Other” would be pushed beyond doubt.
Full Disclosure:
An enumeration of the “health-related effects” with a description of each
A description of the UAP events that led to the health effects, including date, location, circumstance
Some underlying medical evidence
Partial Disclosure:
General mention of health effects, and/or a statement that UAP causing health effects is so far inconclusive
No underlying evidence is provided
Full Secrecy:
Decline to provide any information about “health-related effects”
Requirement #11: U.S. nuclear technology and UAP
(M) The number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena associated with military nuclear assets, including strategic nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered ships and submarines. (N) In consultation with the Administrator for Nuclear Security, the number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena associated with facilities or assets associated with the production, transportation, or storage of nuclear weapons or components thereof. (O) In consultation with the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena or drones of unknown origin associated with nuclear power generating stations, nuclear fuel storage sites, or other sites or facilities regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Subsections M through O address U.S. nuclear technology, and together they represent one-fifth of the 2022 report. Of all of Congress’s requirements, these contain some of the most specific language. Congress wants to know more about the relationship between UAP and nukes. This section should cover a range of cases, from the 2004 encounter with the nuclear powered USS Ronald Regan, to domestic cases similar to the mystery drones observed over the Swedish nuclear plant in 2021. We can expect that very little of this will be included in the public version of the report, but what will be shared with the public on this topic?
Full Disclosure:
An full enumeration and analysis of all UAP incidents involving US nuclear technology, including general locations and dates (Provided to Congress in Classified form)
A frank admission of the extent to which UAP incidents are related to US nuclear technology (provided to the public in Unclassified form)
Partial Disclosure:
Vague, inconclusive reference to UAP and US nuclear technology
Full Secrecy:
Decline to provide any information related to US nuclear technology
Requirement #12: Line organizations providing UAP data
(P) The names of the line organizations that have been designated to perform the specific functions under subsections (c) and (d), and the specific functions for which each such line organization has been assigned primary responsibility.
This requires the report to list all the departments, service branches, and interagency partners that provide underlying intelligence on UAP events.
The 2021 report had this to say on who was providing data:
“The majority of UAP data is from U.S. Navy reporting. The UAPTF is currently working to acquire additional reporting, including from the U.S. Air Force (USAF), and has begun receiving data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).”
We later learned that the Navy provided all or nearly all of the data contained in that report.
On the same day that the 2021 UAP report was released, the Deputy Secretary of Defense issued a memo that formalized the UAPTF’s mission and ordered the “synchronize[d] collection, reporting and analysis on the UAP problem set.” The data collection plan was to be developed with each military Department and Command in coordination with the Intelligence Community through the DNI. As a result:
“All members of the [DoD] will utilize these processes to ensure that the UAPTF, or its follow-on activity [AARO], has reports of UAP observations within two weeks of an occurrence.”
If that in fact happened, the 2022 report should contain data from any part of the military or IC that reported a UAP from anywhere in the world (or above it) in the last year. Will it be more than just the Navy this time around? If so, might that result in a significant spike in the tally of UAP events?
Full Disclosure:
A list of all organizations who provided information used in the report, and a ratio of how much data came from each one.
Calls out any organizations that declined to provide UAP data
Partial Disclosure:
General statements about which organizations provided UAP data
Unclear about the quantity of UAP data provided by each organization
Full Secrecy:
Decline to mention the names of the organizations who did or did not provide UAP data
Requirement #13: Unclassified format
(3) Form.–Each report submitted under paragraph (1) shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex.
Recall that the 2021 report was a public facing document. Congress received a classified version, which was released through a FOIA request nine months later. The classified version was not much longer, but all underlying evidence, and perhaps some analytic conclusions or assumptions, were carefully stripped out of the public report. Will that happen again?
Full Disclosure:
Most of the required elements are present in the unclassified report, and include as much underlying evidence as possible
There is minimal difference in the amount of information and its specificity between the unclassified and classified reports.
Partial Disclosure:
Most of the required elements are present in the unclassified report, but with significantly less specificity and little underlying evidence compared to the classified report
Full Secrecy:
The unclassified report is a short statement of submission containing little to no detail
Once the 2022 UAP report is released, I intend to use this disclosure rubric to grade AARO’s transparency and sincerity vis-a-vis Congress’s intentions. Readers will be able to see for themselves where any sections of the report might fall short, or perhaps exceed expectations.
If the report does err on the side of secrecy more than Congress intended, and more than the public deserves, the rubric score will establish a baseline that authors of future UAP reports can strive to rise above.
