Decade
UAP history in the 2020s: 20 entries in date order, each with public sources. By track: Government (14), Media (2), Whistleblowers (2), Experiencers (1), Military (1).
History premiered The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, a series following a team funded by owner Brandon Fugal, including astrophysicist Travis Taylor, as it investigates reported phenomena at the Utah ranch. It has continued for several seasons.
The Defense Department authorized the release of three Navy infrared videos, FLIR1, Gimbal and GoFast, that had already circulated publicly. It said the objects in them remain unidentified.
Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist approved a Navy-led task force to detect, analyze and catalog UAP that could threaten national security. The Pentagon announced it on August 14.
CBS's 60 Minutes aired Bill Whitaker's report in which former Navy pilot Ryan Graves said his squadron saw unidentified objects over restricted airspace off Virginia for years, and Navy aviators David Fravor and Alex Dietrich described the 2004 Nimitz encounter, weeks before the ODNI report.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a preliminary assessment of military UAP reports from 2004 to 2021. It explained one case with high confidence, a deflating balloon, and said limited data left the rest unresolved.
Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb announced the Galileo Project, a privately funded effort to search systematically for evidence of extraterrestrial technological objects, including UAP and interstellar visitors, using purpose-built instruments and publishing data openly.
The FY2022 defense bill, signed Dec. 27, 2021, ordered the Pentagon and intelligence community to set up an office on unidentified aerial phenomena, with unclassified annual reports and semiannual classified briefings to Congress. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand pushed the provision.
A House Intelligence subcommittee held an open hearing on UAP with Under Secretary of Defense Ronald Moultrie and Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray, who showed newly declassified video. It was described as the first open congressional hearing on the subject in about 50 years.
NASA said it would commission an independent team, chaired by astrophysicist David Spergel, to study unidentified aerial phenomena using only unclassified data and recommend how NASA could help. The 16-member team began work in October 2022.
The Defense Department announced the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, replacing an earlier group with a wider remit covering air, space, undersea and transmedium objects. Sean Kirkpatrick was named its first director.
Days after downing a Chinese balloon, U.S. fighters shot down unidentified objects off northern Alaska (Feb. 10), over Canada's Yukon (Feb. 11) and over Lake Huron (Feb. 12). President Biden later said they were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research.
Senators Chuck Schumer and Mike Rounds filed the UAP Disclosure Act as an amendment to the Senate defense authorization bill. Modeled on the JFK records law, it would have created a UAP records collection at the National Archives and an independent review board.
Former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch testified under oath that he had been told of a decades-long program to recover craft of non-human origin, which he said he learned through interviews rather than firsthand access. The Pentagon and AARO have said they found no verifiable evidence of such programs.
NASA's independent UAP study team released its final report, urging better-calibrated sensors and data and a larger NASA role. It said the scientific literature holds no conclusive evidence of an extraterrestrial origin. NASA said it was appointing a director of UAP research.
The FY2024 defense bill, signed Dec. 22, 2023, kept a reduced version of the Schumer-Rounds UAP Disclosure Act, ordering agencies to send UAP records to a new National Archives collection. Conferees dropped the proposed independent review board and the push to obtain privately held material.
The Pentagon released volume one of AARO's review of U.S. government UAP efforts since 1945. AARO said it found no verifiable evidence that the government or private companies had recovered or reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology.
Luis Elizondo, who says he led the Pentagon's AATIP effort, published Imminent: Inside the Pentagon's Hunt for UFOs, arguing that UFOs are a serious national security issue the Defense Department withholds. The Pentagon said in 2019 he had no responsibilities for AATIP.
Two House Oversight subcommittees held a joint hearing at which Tim Gallaudet, Luis Elizondo, Michael Gold and Michael Shellenberger testified under oath. The witnesses alleged excessive secrecy around UAP and urged more disclosure and better reporting.
The Pentagon's AARO reported 757 UAP reports received from May 2023 to June 2024, bringing its caseload above 1,600. It resolved 118 cases to balloons, birds, drones and similar objects, and said it had found no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's House Oversight task force heard sworn testimony from Navy and Air Force witnesses and journalist George Knapp. Rep. Eric Burlison showed a video he said was filmed off Yemen in October 2024 of a Hellfire missile apparently failing to down an object.
