DOD Examining Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena

The Defense Department's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office's mission is to minimize technological and intelligence surprise by detection, identification and mitigation of unidentified anomalous phenomena in the vicinity of national security areas, in coordination with the intelligence community.

UAP are any objects in air, sea or space that defies scientific explanation.

Today, Jon Kosloski, the AARO director, discussed the fiscal year 2024 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP, which covers the period May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024. That report was briefed to congressional staff earlier this week.

This report covers UAP from May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024, and all UAP reports from any previous time periods that were not included in an earlier report. AARO received 757 UAP reports during this period, 485 of these reports featured UAP incidents that occurred during the reporting period.

The remaining 272 reports featured UAP incidents that occurred between 2021 and 2022 but were not reported to AARO until this reporting period and consequently were not included in previous annual UAP reports.

"AARO has successfully resolved hundreds of cases in its holdings to commonplace objects such as balloons, birds, drones, satellites and aircraft," Kosloski said.

"Only a very small percentage of reports to AARO are potentially anomalous, but these are the cases that require significant time, resources, and a focused scientific inquiry by AARO and its partners," Kosloski said.

"It is also important to underscore that, to date, AARO has discovered no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology. None of the cases resolved by AARO [has] pointed to advanced capabilities or breakthrough technologies," he pointed out.

Over 900 reports lack sufficient scientific data for analysis and are retained in an active archive. These cases may be reopened and resolved should additional information emerge to support analysis, he said.

AARO continues to see a density of UAP reports near U.S. military assets and sensors. However, this density has been reduced somewhat by an increase in commercial pilot reporting in the continental United States, he said.

There has been an education campaign to reduce reporting stigma and to help pilots with identification of explained objects to reduce false positive sightings, he added.

"Unidentified objects in any domain pose potential threats to safety and security. Reports of UAP, particularly near national security sites, must be treated seriously and investigated with scientific rigor by the U.S. government," he said.

AARO is working to expand UAP reporting to more of the interagencies, like the Federal Aviation Administration, Kosloski said.

Also, in the near term, AARO hopes to work with allies and the American public on UAP engagement and expand the scope of its work to include nonnational security sites in the U.S., he said.

Another, aspiration of AARO is to more rapidly speed up the declassification process of UAP reports. As such, more declassification experts are being hired.

Meanwhile, AARO continues to review the U.S. historical record relating to UAP and will release a second volume of its congressionally directed Historical Record Report. "We welcome any former or current government civilian, contractor or military service member with relevant information to reach out to us at www.aaro.mil," he said.

AARO has taken meaningful steps to improve data collection and retention, bolster sensor development, effectively triage UAP reports and reduce the stigma of reporting a UAP event, he said.

"In the coming year, AARO will prioritize building partnerships, promoting increased transparency and scaling up the work of the office," Kosloski said.

"For every UAP report, operational or historical, AARO will follow the science and data wherever they lead, and we are committed to sharing as much information as possible at the unclassified level to inform the public of our activities and findings," he said.

Some background on UAP naming convention: In 1952, the Air Force used the term unidentified flying objects, or UFO, which most people still use outside of government agencies.

In 2022, UAP stood for unidentified aerial phenomena. However, that term didn't include underwater objects so the new term with the same abbreviation now stands for unidentified anomalous phenomena.

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