Documents / Official release

Office of the Secretary of Defense: 05_AARO_Historical_Record_Report

Department of Defense. Office of the Secretary of Defense. · 2023 · 63 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is Volume I of the Historical Record Report from the Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), dated February 2024 and released in full in February 2025. It reviews US government UAP investigations since 1945, from Project SIGN and Blue Book through the Condon Report, AATIP and the UAP Task Force. AARO found no evidence that any sighting involved extraterrestrial technology or that anyone reverse-engineered alien craft. It says the claims come largely from circular reporting, and it names KONA BLUE as a proposed program that was never approved.

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Prospective Special Access Program (PSAP) was officially requested to stand up this program,
but it was eventually rejected by DHS leadership for lacking merit. As demonstrated by the
proposal package and by statements from the originator, Senators Lieberman and Reid asked that
the PSAP be established with the promise of additional funding.116 The proposed KONA BLUE
lines of effort closely mirrored those conducted by the private sector organization for
AAWSAP/AATIP.
KONA BLUE’s advocates were convinced that the USG was hiding UAP technologies.
They believed that creating this program under DHS would allow all of the technology and
knowledge of these alleged programs to be moved under the KONA BLUE program. The
program would provide a security and governing structure where it could be monitored properly
by congressional oversight committees. This belief was foundational for the KONA BLUE
proposal, based on the proposal documents and several interviewees who have provided the same
information to AARO and Congress.117 The Oral History Initiative section of the KONA BLUE
proposal was to collect data:
“…from an already identified and calibrated list of retired, previously highly placed
government, armed services, contractor and intelligence community individuals. The oral
history project will include gathering all information pertaining to the location of
advanced aerospace technology and biological samples, including records, files, reports,
photographs, as well as physical samples.”118
It is critical to note that no extraterrestrial craft or bodies were ever collected—this
material was only assumed to exist by KONA BLUE advocates and its anticipated contract
performers. This was the same assumption made by those same individuals involved with the
AAWSAP/AATIP program. The SAP was never approved or stood up, and no data or material
was transferred to DHS.119
• KONA BLUE was not reported to Congress at that time because it was never
established as a SAP and, therefore, did not meet the threshold for congressional
reporting. However, the Deputy Secretary of Defense provided a Congressional
Notification concerning the program when it was identified in the spirit of
transparency.
Unnecessary IC Program Expansion
AARO confirmed the existence of one IC CAP that was unnecessarily expanded in 2021
to include a UAP reverse-engineering mission. This program was expanded despite the lack of
any evidence or mission need to justify the expansion. The appropriate congressional
committees were notified. This program never recovered or reverse-engineered any technology,
let alone off-world spacecraft. This CAP was disestablished due to its inactivity, absence of
mission need, and lack of merit.
Nexus of Proponents of the USG UAP Reverse-Engineering Allegation
AARO found no empirical evidence that any UAP investigatory effort since 1945—
foreign, domestic, government, private, or academic—has ever uncovered verifiable information05Page determined to be Unclassified
Review by Chief of Staff, AARO
IAW FY24 NDAA, Section 1841 (a)(1)(C)
Date: 02/05/2025

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Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 63 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.