Government and military
What the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA and ODNI collected, concluded and released. 148 events, newest first.
Military6 Feb 2023
Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of NORAD and Northern Command, told reporters that earlier Chinese balloon flights over the U.S. had not been detected in real time, calling it a domain awareness gap; intelligence found them afterward. A U.S. official said the UAP review helped identify the program.
Photo: U.S. Northern Command, Public domain
GovernmentFeb 2023
After an F-22 downed the Chinese balloon off South Carolina, recovered debris went to the FBI laboratory at Quantico, where officials said specialists in 20-plus forensic disciplines focused on its electronics. The White House said the debris included electronics and optics from the payload.
Photo: U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Public domain
Government12 Jan 2023
ODNI's first annual UAP report, written with the new AARO, counted 366 reports beyond the 2021 preliminary assessment, for 510 in total. Initial review characterized 163 as balloon-like, 26 as drone-like and 6 as clutter, leaving 171 uncharacterized.
Photo: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Public domain
Skinwalker Ranch2023
AAWSAP program manager James Lacatski, deputy Colm Kelleher and journalist George Knapp published Inside the US Government Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations, an insider account of the DIA-funded AAWSAP program. Its claims are the authors' own and have not been officially confirmed.
Photo: Peabody Awards, CC BY 2.0
Government12 Jul 2022
The Senate Intelligence Committee reported its FY2023 intelligence bill (S. 4503) with UAP sections. One authorized witnesses to report UAP events or related government programs through a new secure system, notwithstanding nondisclosure agreements; a version was later enacted in the FY2023 NDAA.
Photo: Ryan Donnell, Public domain
Government17 May 2022
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.
Photo: U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Public domain
Government17 May 2022
At the House Intelligence subcommittee's UAP hearing, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray said triangle-shaped objects filmed by Navy crews were likely small drones, their shape an effect of light passing through night-vision goggles onto an SLR camera.
Photo: U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Public domain
WhistleblowersMay 2022
Former intelligence officer David Grusch filed an urgent-concern and reprisal complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General, alleging UAP information was withheld from Congress. He says the IG found it credible and urgent in July 2022; his underlying claims remain unverified.
Photo: ODNI, Public domain
GovernmentApr 2022
The Defense Intelligence Agency released nearly 1,600 pages on AAWSAP, the program it funded through Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, including contractor studies on topics like wormholes and antigravity. The release followed FOIA requests from Vice and The Black Vault.
Photo: MSGT KEN HAMMOND, Public domain
Whistleblowers2022
Stanford pathologist Garry Nolan and anthropologist Peter Skafish co-founded the Sol Foundation, a research institute and policy think tank on UAP that says it formed in 2022 after Congress received an intelligence report on the subject. It went on to hold annual symposia and publish policy papers.
Government27 Dec 2021
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.
Photo: The White House, Public domain
Government23 Nov 2021
Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks directed the intelligence under secretary to set up the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group as successor to the Navy's UAP Task Force, focused on objects in special use airspace. It was later replaced by AARO.
Photo: United States Department of Defense, Public domain
Government4 Nov 2021
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand filed an amendment to the FY2022 defense bill, cosponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio, to replace the UAP Task Force with a permanent office reporting to Defense and intelligence leaders. Her office said on Dec. 9, 2021 that a version was included in the final NDAA.
Photo: US Senate Photography, Public domain
Media30 Oct 2021
Harvard's Galileo Project, led by Avi Loeb, named former Pentagon intelligence official Christopher Mellon and former AATIP figure Luis Elizondo as research affiliates, to help choose sites for its sky-watching instruments and weigh the implications of any findings.
Photo: Max Moszkowicz, CC BY 3.0
Media20 Aug 2021
A Gallup poll taken in July 2021, weeks after the ODNI's preliminary UAP assessment, found 41 percent of U.S. adults thought some UFOs were alien spacecraft, up from 33 percent in 2019. Half said all sightings could be explained by human activity or natural phenomena.
Government25 Jun 2021
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.
Photo: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Public domain
Government25 Jun 2021
The day ODNI delivered its preliminary UAP assessment, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks directed the intelligence under secretary to plan how to formalize the UAP Task Force's mission, including reporting procedures, range security and a new follow-on office.
Photo: United States Department of Defense, Public domain
Government25 Jun 2021
Sen. Marco Rubio, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose committee requested the ODNI report, called it an important first step in cataloging incidents but only a first step, saying military personnel who reported encounters had often been ignored.
Photo: US Senate, Public domain
Government25 Jun 2021
Responding to the ODNI preliminary UAP assessment, Senate Intelligence chair Mark Warner called the report rather inconclusive and said the U.S. must understand and mitigate threats to its pilots, whether from adversary technology, drones or balloons.
Photo: Ryan Donnell, Public domain
Government16 Jun 2021
Days before the ODNI preliminary UAP report, House Intelligence Committee members received a closed briefing from Navy and FBI officials. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney said members wanted to know what they were dealing with; Rep. Andre Carson said he hoped for a public hearing.
Photo: Architect of the Capitol, Public domain
Media3 Jun 2021
Three weeks before the ODNI preliminary assessment, senior officials told the New York Times the report found no evidence that objects seen by military pilots were alien craft, nor that they were secret U.S. technology, while most incidents stayed unexplained.
Photo: DNI, Public domain
SightingsJun 2021
The SIGMA2 commission of France's aeronautics and astronautics association 3AF, drawing on former CNES, ESA, DGA and ONERA staff, released a progress report on unidentified aerospace phenomena days before the US intelligence report on UAP.
Media16 May 2021
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.
Photo: U.S. House Committee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, Public domain
MediaMay 2021
In May 2021, former President Barack Obama said officials could not explain how some objects seen in the sky moved or what their trajectories were. The remarks drew wide attention weeks before the ODNI preliminary UAP assessment.
Photo: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza, Public domain
Media30 Apr 2021
Gideon Lewis-Kraus published a long New Yorker account of how UFOs moved from punch line to Pentagon concern, centered on journalist Leslie Kean and the 2017 AATIP story. It ran online weeks before a promised intelligence report on UAP was due to Congress.
