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Official reports, hearing transcripts, case files and releases: the paper behind the cases. 2,872 documents, 2,610 mirrored with their text, 53,529 pages indexed, so a search reads inside them and lands on the page.
New in the library The PURSUE files The Department of War's UAP release, mirrored in full: the videos, recordings and images, each beside its case file.Documents55 records · page 1
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (18-F-0724) holds August 2017 emails between Luis Elizondo of OUSD(I) and Michael Russo of the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review. They include DD Form 1910 requests to clear three videos, titled "GoFast", "Gimble" and "FLIR", for release. Elizondo said the files were unclassified and would support a database of UAS threats. A Navy contact checked with NAVAIR, and a stamp shows the videos cleared for open publication on August 24, 2017.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (20-F-1098) holds a December 2019 to January 2020 email exchange between Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough and Steven Greenstreet of the New York Post about AATIP. Gough stated that the Defense Intelligence Agency ran AATIP and that Luis Elizondo had no assigned responsibilities for it. She said neither AATIP nor AAWSAP was UAP related. Greenstreet pressed her on earlier contradictory statements from spokespeople Chris Sherwood and Dana White.
This 2022 slide from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, released under FOIA 22-F-1364, lays out the goals and progress of the Anomaly Resolution Office. It sets three phases: building the office from July to December, developing the mission from September to December, and executing it from October to March. The planned work includes multi-source UAP data fusion, partnerships with stakeholders, a strategic communications plan, analysis of military response plans, and more routine oversight engagement.
This 2022 release from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, under FOIA case 22-F-1364, is a briefing deck from the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) presented by its director, Sean Kirkpatrick. It sets out AARO's mission and vision and describes UAP concerns in US territory, near strategic capabilities and in foreign areas. It also covers integrated operations, research, analysis and strategic communications, and efforts to destigmatize reporting. The deck closes by listing the observer and phenomenon details needed for UAP analysis.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (22-F-0956) collects internal Pentagon emails from October 2017 to May 2018 about former staffer Luis Elizondo. Garry Reid wrote that Elizondo's claim to have led classified UFO programs was "pure fiction as best I can tell" and reported concerns that he might disclose classified information. Other emails cover a WIRED journalist's questions about DOPSR video clearance and efforts to find the Navy classification authority for a video.
This 2022 Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (22-F-1178) contains 2020 email correspondence between the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review and Luis Elizondo, former Director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, and his attorney Jeff Springer. Elizondo submitted "Alone," a partially fictionalized screenplay based on Leslie Kean's book, for security review. The emails cover delays caused by COVID-19. DOPSR cleared the screenplay for public release on November 30, 2020, without implying endorsement or factual accuracy.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (22-F-0863) collects internal emails from June 2021 to February 2022 among Under Secretary Ronald Moultrie, David Taylor, Neill Tipton and other intelligence and security staff. They cover coordinating the ODNI preliminary UAP report released June 25, 2021, and a Deputy Secretary Hicks memo on formalizing the Navy's UAP Task Force. They also cover a 28-member SSCI and SASC briefing, establishing the AOIMSG, and a search for a UAP director candidate.
This is a biography of Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, Director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), which the Office of the Secretary of Defense released under FOIA 23-F-0922 in 2023. It says USD(I&S) asked him to stand up and lead AARO in early 2022. It covers his physics PhD from the University of Georgia and his career at the Naval Research Laboratory, AFRL, NRO, CIA, DIA and USSPACECOM. It also lists his awards and patents.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (23-F-1486) is a set of May 2023 emails to Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, Director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. They arrange an inaugural Five Eyes (FVEY) UAP Caucus, held at the Pentagon on 24 May 2023 with AARO, ODNI, FAA, NASA, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. The agenda covers partner updates, sharing UAP reports across networks, shared databases, collection planning and future meetings.
This is a May 2023 Joint Staff J3 GENADMIN message from the J36 Homeland Defense Division, released by the Office of the Secretary of Defense under FOIA 23-F-1423. It directs Combatant Commands and Services to report UAP incidents, incursions and engagements worldwide to AARO using standard templates, and to notify counterintelligence elements within 24 hours. It also covers transferring UAP data and material to AARO within 30 days. The message defines UAP categories and sets reporting deadlines and security classification rules.
This 2023 Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (case 23-F-0010) contains 2022 email exchanges between Sean M. Kirkpatrick, director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, and Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb. The emails arrange a meeting at Loeb's home on October 3, 2022. They also include Loeb's Medium essays on interstellar meteors IM1 and IM2 and on the Ukrainian UAP report. In that essay Loeb argues the "Phantom" objects were probably artillery shells and the luminous object a satellite.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense released this 2023 record under FOIA request 23-F-0740. The extracted text is short and mostly placeholder website text. It contains a heading for Dr. K's opening comments, apparently for a Senate Armed Services Committee session dated 19 April 2023. It also includes an AARO UAP case tracker table that lists 700 open cases, no active archive cases and 38 closed cases for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense released this document in 2023 in response to FOIA request 23-F-0204. It is an unclassified list of all cases analyzed by, being analyzed by, or archived at the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, current as of 6 December 2022. The document contains only AARO case serial numbers set out in tables. It gives no dates, locations, descriptions or findings for any of the cases.
This is a Department of Defense priority language appeal on the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Bill, released under FOIA case 23-F-0241. It responds to House bill H.R. 7900, section 1663, which would require a secure system for reporting UAP events, run by AARO, along with searches for UAP-related nondisclosure agreements. The Department objects to the provision. It cites presidential authority over classified information, counterintelligence risks, resource costs and risks to the safety of AARO staff, and it urges that the provision be excluded or revised.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (23-F-1017) contains excerpts from Joint Staff J33 Daily Update briefings from September 2020, February 2021 and June 2021. The excerpts mostly cover counternarcotics interdictions, foreign developments and schedules. The UAP items are brief. One notes a USSTRATCOM hearing that took questions on the Pentagon's UAP Task Force. Another records public affairs referring reporters to the FBI about a cruise-missile-type object near an American Airlines flight over New Mexico. A third refers questions about the UAP report to Congress to ODNI.
This is an unclassified briefing deck from the Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, presented by Director Seán Kirkpatrick for an open congressional hearing and cleared for publication on April 17, 2023. It covers UAP reporting trends from 1996 to 2023, including altitude distribution, reporting hotspots and typical characteristics such as round shapes, 1 to 4 meter size and no detected thermal exhaust. It presents two MQ-9 cases: an unresolved 2022 Middle East metallic orb and a 2023 South Asia object likely resolved as a commercial airliner with a video-compression artifact.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (case 22-F-0249), dated May 16, 2023, collects public affairs material about the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG). It contains Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks' November 23, 2021 memo creating the AOIMSG and an executive council to succeed the Navy's UAP Task Force. It also holds press releases, briefing cards with talking points and answers, a spokesperson statement and news clips.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (23-F-0946) contains Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review records for David C. Grusch's 2023 submissions. Grusch was then an NGA Senior GEOINT Capabilities Requirements Officer. It includes his DD Form 1910 request, reviewer worksheets, internal emails, and approval letters. Both a speaker/author summary and a set of interview questions on recovered material and UAP programs were cleared for public release in April 2023. Grusch's answers are largely redacted.
This is an organization chart of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, dated August 2024 and released by the Office of the Secretary of Defense under FOIA request 24-F-0448. It names Director Jon Kosloski and Deputy Director Tim Phillips. It lays out positions in analysis, operations, science and technology, and strategic communications, along with liaison officers from NASA, Army and Navy. Most staff names are redacted.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (24-F-0894) collects March 2024 emails about the rollout of AARO's Historical Record Report. Press officer Sue Gough answers journalists from YLE, the Washington Examiner and Scientific American who asked about embargoed copies and the March 6 roundtable with Acting Director Tim Phillips. The chain also covers coordination with ODNI on the press release, readouts of classified Hill briefings that mention KONA BLUE, and a SASC briefing on drone incursions at JBLE.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (24-F-0088) contains the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review file for case 22-SB-0151. The file covers James T. Lacatski's manuscript "The U.S. Government's Secret UAP/UFO Program: The Beginning - Initial Planning and Investigations," co-authored with Colm Kelleher and George Knapp. It holds emails from July 2022 to April 2023, including DIA's review of the 143-page manuscript. The release ends with an April 24, 2023 letter that clears the manuscript for public release but does not endorse its accuracy.
This is a slide deck that the nonprofit UAPx presented to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) on 2 February 2023. The Office of the Secretary of Defense released it in 2024 under FOIA 24-F-0489. The slides introduce the team and its goals and describe a July 2021 field expedition to Catalina Island and Laguna Beach, California. They also cover the sensors used and events the team identified as mundane, such as the ISS. Some events remain unexplained, including a dark area seen on camera on 16 July 2021.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (24-F-0893) collects Pentagon public affairs and legislative affairs emails from March 4 to 6, 2024. They include a Scientific American editor's request to join the press list for an AARO media event and a daily press operations summary. The file also holds readouts of Hill briefings. Acting AARO Director Tim Phillips and Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick briefed congressional staff on the Historical Record Report, including KONA BLUE. A separate SASC briefing covered drone incursions at JBLE in December.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (24-F-0250) centers on a January 8, 2024 AARO memorandum for record. The memo describes the office's repeated attempts through 2023 to interview David Grusch for its Historical Record Report. It concludes that Grusch had no intention of giving AARO information about his claims. The release also includes text messages with Chris Mellon and congressional staff, email exchanges with Grusch, and DoD SAPCO and ODNI CAPCO memos stating that AARO may receive classified and NDA-protected UAP information.
This is an email that Sue Gough of Defense Press Operations, Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs, sent to reporters on March 5, 2024. It invites them to an embargoed roundtable with Tim Phillips, acting director of AARO, in the Pentagon Briefing Room on March 6. The subject is AARO's Historical Record Report Volume 1, which is under embargo until DOD announces its public release on March 8. Reporters who agree to the embargo receive an advance copy.
This 2024 Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (24-F-1134) contains Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review records for a submission by Chris Mellon, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. In January 2024 Mellon submitted for release an unmarked message from a former DoD official alleging a program exploiting recovered off-world technology. The file includes emails chasing reviews from OUSD(I&S) and AARO. Both reviewers raised no objection, and on March 1, 2024 the case was cleared for open publication.
This five-page redacted email release was issued by the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2024 in response to FOIA request 24-F-1426. It contains May 2023 messages to Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, Director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, about the inaugural Five Eyes UAP Caucus Working Group, held at the Pentagon on 24 May 2023. The agenda lists updates from AARO, the FAA, NASA, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. It also covers plans for data sharing, collection planning and future collaboration.
This is a Joint Staff J3 GENADMIN message from the J36 Homeland Defense Division, dated 19 May 2023 and released by the Office of the Secretary of Defense under FOIA 24-F-0067. It tells the combatant commands and the Services to report all UAP incidents, incursions and engagements to AARO on a standard template, to notify counterintelligence within 24 hours, and to transfer UAP data and material to AARO within 30 days. It also defines UAP terms and sets reporting deadlines.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (24-F-0636), dated 2024, contains redacted pages from Joint Staff J33 daily operations updates from 2020 and 2021. Most entries cover counter-narcotics interdictions, logistics, and security events. Public Affairs notes record press queries about a "cruise-missile-type object" reported near an American Airlines flight over New Mexico, which were referred to American Airlines or the FBI. They also record questions about the release date of the UAP report to Congress, which were referred to ODNI.
This document from the Office of the Secretary of Defense was released under FOIA request 24-F-1138 and dated November 13, 2023. It is a blank verbal legal advisement script from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, meant to be read to interviewees before an oral history session inside a SCIF. It covers voluntary participation, Privacy Act handling and government ownership of transcripts. It also covers possible sharing with Congress, a temporary lifting of nondisclosure agreements and penalties for false statements.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (23-F-0949) contains May 2023 emails and an agenda for the inaugural Five Eyes (FVEY) UAP Caucus, held at the Pentagon on 24 May 2023. The meeting was hosted by Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. It brought together AARO, ODNI, FAA, NASA and partners from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Planned discussion topics included networks for sharing UAP reporting, shared sensor databases, collection planning and a framework for future collaboration.
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.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (case 25-F-3452) contains a November 2023 prepublication review package for the biography of Timothy A. Phillips, Deputy Director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). It includes the DD Form 1910 clearance request, the DOPSR case sheet 24-P-0136 and the related emails. The one-page biography was cleared for open publication on the aaro.mil website on November 17, 2023. It covers his intelligence career, his Marine Corps service and his education.
This FOIA release (25-F-3452) from the Office of the Secretary of Defense contains the November 21, 2023 Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review case file 24-T-0401. It includes the DD Form 1910 that AARO Deputy Director Timothy Phillips signed to request clearance, the related emails and the reviewer worksheet. It also includes the one-page AARO chart "UAP Reporting Trends 1996-2023", which was cleared for publication on aaro.mil. The chart lists typical characteristics of reported UAP: round, 1 to 4 meters in size, white or silver, and flying at 10,000 to 30,000 feet.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (25-F-3452) contains the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review file on the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office's "UAP Self Reporting Mechanism User Guide." Acting AARO Director Timothy Phillips requested the review on December 8, 2023, and DOPSR cleared the guide for open publication on aaro.mil on December 11, 2023. The 20-page guide explains how current or former government personnel with firsthand knowledge of UAP programs since 1945 can report to AARO for its Historical Record Report.
This 2025 Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (25-F-1324) collects Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review records on Christopher Mellon's submissions, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, from 2022 to 2024. His article "The Next Step: UAPs in Space and America's New Sputnik Moment" was cleared in July 2022, and his speech "UAPs and ET" was cleared as amended for accuracy. His foreword to Luis Elizondo's book was cleared in January 2024.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release (25-F-1939, 2025) contains September 2024 email chains involving OSD Public Affairs and AARO Director Jon Kosloski. In one, a Columbia University Fulbright journalist asks Kosloski for a brief interview on Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's push for a Senate UFO hearing. In the other, a New York Post journalist asks whether Kosloski was part of the UAP Task Force. Staff discuss the difference between member and assigned, and deliberative passages are redacted.
This Office of the Secretary of Defense FOIA release, dated May 18, 2026, is 40 pages of October 2023 email chains. They show the privacy and intelligence oversight office drafting a reply to Rep. Tim Burchett, who had asked about a reported June 2023 Air Force complaint against David Grusch. The November 1, 2023 response from Mark D. Dupont says an Air Force officer raised only a preliminary concern about a possible unauthorized disclosure and later withdrew it. It states that no complaint was ever filed.
This undated Air Force UFO fact sheet, filed as Attachment 2 in an Office of the Secretary of Defense release, traces UFO investigations from Project Sign in 1948 through Grudge to Project Blue Book. It gives yearly sighting counts from 1947 to 1969: 12,618 reports in all, 701 of them still unexplained. It records that Blue Book was ended on December 17, 1969 and lists its three conclusions: no threat to national security, no technology beyond present knowledge, and no evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles. It also notes that NASA declined to resume investigations in 1977.
This is an edited English translation, dated 11 April 1983, prepared by the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson AFB, of a September 1982 article by Liu Yan in the Chinese journal Tianwen Aihaozhe. The article covers the spiral luminous object that several million people in western China saw on July 24, 1981. It rejects Zhang Zhousheng's claim that the object was a Cassiopeia meteoroid he had predicted. The author concludes it was most probably a man-made flying machine several hundred km up.
This Defense Documentation Center report (ADA068988) reproduces a paper Thomas E. Bearden prepared for the 1979 MUFON Annual Symposium. It carries a public-release distribution statement. Bearden is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and nuclear engineer. The paper proposes a speculative mind and matter model built on a claimed fourth law of logic and hyperspatial frames. It argues that the collective unconscious can materialize thought forms under Cold War stress, and it fits major UFO waves and U.S. cattle mutilations since 1973 into that model.
The Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) released this report in February 2024. It is Volume I of its Historical Record Report on U.S. Government involvement with UAP. AARO reviewed official investigations since 1945, searched archives and conducted about 30 interviews. It found no evidence that any sighting represented extraterrestrial technology, and no evidence that the government or private companies reverse-engineer such technology. The report attributes such claims to misidentified authentic programs and circular reporting.
This is a technical report by Thomas E. Bearden, a research scientist with an MS in nuclear engineering, dated January 3, 1977. Bearden submitted it to the Defense Documentation Center under a cover letter and it is approved for public release. The report divides the evolution of life into seven stages and argues that humanity must avoid self-destruction by technologically linking all human brains into a single superbeing. It claims UFO phenomena are consistent with a sixth-stage superbeing preparing humanity for that linkage.
This is a US Air Force UFO fact sheet dated 11 August 1985. It traces Air Force UFO investigations from Project Sign in 1948 through Project Grudge to Project Blue Book, which examined 12,618 sightings, 701 of which remained unexplained. A table lists the totals for each year from 1947 to 1969. The sheet says Blue Book ended in 1969, based partly on the University of Colorado study and the National Academy of Sciences review, and found no threat and no evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles.
This assortment of records released by the Office of the Secretary of Defense collects 1975 National Military Command Center memoranda and message traffic. They cover unidentified helicopters and low-flying aircraft seen over weapons storage areas at Loring AFB, Maine, and Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan, along with radar and visual UFO contacts at Malmstrom AFB, Montana. The file also contains a 1976 defense attaché report on F-4 intercepts of a UFO over Tehran and Air Force UFO statistics for 1965.
This Department of the Air Force memorandum dated 13 January 1981 was signed by Lt Col Charles I. Halt, Deputy Base Commander, and sent to RAF/CC. It reports that on 27 December 1980, security police patrolmen saw unusual lights outside the back gate at RAF Woodbridge and found a glowing, metallic, triangular object in the forest. Three depressions and radiation readings were later recorded at the site. It also describes further lights and star-like objects that numerous individuals, including Halt, witnessed.
This document is the National Academy of Sciences panel review of the University of Colorado report on unidentified flying objects, copyrighted 1969 and filed as an attachment in an Office of the Secretary of Defense release. The panel, chaired by Gerald M. Clemence, judged the study's scope adequate and its methodology sound. It concurred that further extensive UFO study is not justified and that extraterrestrial visitation is the least likely explanation. A directory listing of UFO organizations such as NICAP and APRO is appended.
This undated Office of Naval Research information sheet, filed with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, answers public questions about the so-called Philadelphia Experiment. It traces the story to letters that Carlos Miguel Allende sent Morris K. Jessup after Jessup published The Case for UFO's in 1955, and to an annotated copy of the book mailed to ONR in 1956. It attributes the tales to wartime degaussing research and to later generator tests on a destroyer. It states that ONR never studied invisibility.