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PA-AARO RoundTableTranscript 11-15-24 (FOIA 25-F-3931)

Office of the Secretary of Defense · 2024-11-15 · 40 pages · text from the file's own layer

This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (25-F-3931) holds Public Affairs emails from November 14 and 15, 2024, plus the transcript of a media roundtable with AARO Director Jon Kosloski on the FY24 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP. Kosloski said AARO had received over 1,600 reports and found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology. He said the Langley incidents were UAV activity. The release also includes a Hill article covering the report.

  • p. 4 …decades at the National Security Agency where I did advanced research in the areas of optics…
  • p. 5 …None of the cases resolved by AARO have pointed to advanced capabilities or breakthrough technologies. It…
  • p. 6 …And then, after the hearing on the Hill yesterday, lawmakers were saying that they are really…
  • p. 7 …We are going to be starting with the traditional allies of the DOD and the IC…
  • p. 17 …None of the cases resolved by AARO have pointed to advanced capabilities or breakthrough technologies either…
  • p. 25 …Luis Elizondo, the former head of the now-defunct Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program that investigated…
  • p. 26 Grusch alleged the U.S. government has run a secret program to reverse-engineer nonhuman material…
  • p. 32 …Luis Elizondo, the former head of the now-defunct Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program that investigated…
  • p. 33 In the Thursday report, AARO identified 18 reports of UAP sightings near U.S. nuclear weapons…
  • p. 38 …Luis Elizondo, the former head of the now-defunct Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program that investigated…
  • p. 39 …Two of the sightings involved flights of near an hour and near two hours. All the…
So it's not just eyewitnesses. But in each of the cases I'm particularly interested in, there were
multiple eyewitnesses. And there is additional data to go with them. It remains to be seen
whether or not that additional data is going to be sufficient for us to either resolve the case,
understand whether it's a UAV, bird or balloon, or say something substantive about the nature
of the unknown phenomenon.
So we're still trying to understand whether or not there's more data available. Because we get
the data that comes in from the witnesses. But we also go through a bunch of other sources.
Whether or not we can enrich the data that was brought to us and then build a better case. Still
digging into it.
Q: What are some of the characteristics or are there -- is there a trend among these things?
And are they extended period incidents or are they very, very quick?
DR. KOSLOSKI: In each of these cases, they were not extended. The cases that I'm thinking of,
there was no commonality across the different cases, different morphologies, so orbs, cylinders,
triangles. In one of the cases, it has been happening over an extended period of time. And it is
possible that there's multiple things happening. There could be some UAV activity in the
environment that's getting confused or conflated with the UAP activity, so we're trying to tease
that out right now.
Q: Just to clarify, earlier, you said Langley was UAVs. This -- who -- the Langley incidents would
not be among what you're describing?
DR. KOSLOSKI: Correct.
Q: OK.
DR. KOSLOSKI: Correct.
STAFF: Konstantin?
Q: Thanks. Konstantin Toropin with Military.com. So one of the sort of key criticisms, I think,
around this issue from the hearing yesterday was government transparency, lack of government
transparency. I mean, can you sort of speak to that critique and whether you feel that AARO is
being overly secretive? If you guys are working on being more transparent, sort of address this
criticism from the Hill that you guys are emblematic of a government that overtly classifies
everything and?
DR. KOSLOSKI: Yes, yes, it's an understandable concern. And I'm going to make a comment. My
wife would like me to share more about the UAP incidents too, but I'll -- I guess it's on the
record now, so.
(Laughter)

Cases discussed

About this file

FOIA release, from the osd collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 40 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.