Government and military
What the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA and ODNI collected, concluded and released. 148 events, newest first.
GovernmentMar 2021
In a March 2021 Fox News interview, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said the intelligence community knew of many UAP incidents around the world, only some of which had been declassified.
Photo: Office of the Director of Intelligence, Public domain
Sightings21 Feb 2021
A pilot on American Airlines Flight 2292 from Cincinnati to Phoenix radioed that a long cylindrical object had passed rapidly over the plane. The airline confirmed the call, the FBI said it was looking into it, and the FAA said controllers saw nothing on radar.
Photo: Colin Brown from St Ann, MO, USA, CC BY 2.0
Skinwalker Ranch2021
James Lacatski, Colm Kelleher and George Knapp published an insider account of AAWSAP, the DIA-funded program run through Bigelow's company that studied UFO reports and Skinwalker Ranch. A Pentagon review cleared it with amendments; DoD said clearance did not imply accuracy.
Photo: Paul from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
GovernmentJan 2021
The Black Vault posted about 2,780 pages of CIA UFO-related records from a CD-ROM it bought from the agency, which the CIA described as its entire UFO collection. The site's founder noted that claim could not be independently verified, and many pages are redacted.
Government27 Dec 2020
The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, signed Dec. 27, 2020, carried the FY2021 Intelligence Authorization Act. The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on that bill directed the DNI to deliver a UAP report within 180 days of enactment, leading to the June 2021 assessment.
Photo: The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain
Government16 Dec 2020
On the Conversations with Tyler podcast, former CIA director John Brennan called the Navy pilot videos eyebrow-raising and said some phenomena might reflect something not yet understood, possibly another form of life. He framed it as keeping an open mind, not as a conclusion.
Photo: CIA photo, Public domain
Sightings14 Oct 2020
A China Airlines crew told controllers they saw what looked like a person in a jetpack at about 6,000 feet, seven miles northwest of LAX, the second such report in two months. The FAA notified police and the FBI said it was investigating; no explanation was made public.
Photo: Alfred Twu, CC0
WhistleblowersOct 2020
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon said in the documentary The Phenomenon that he received the three Navy videos from a Defense Department contact and gave them to the Times for its 2017 story. The Times said DoD was its on-record source.
Photo: Max Moszkowicz, CC BY 3.0
Media23 Jul 2020
The New York Times reported that Pentagon UFO work had continued inside the Office of Naval Intelligence as the UAP Task Force and that a Senate report expected periodic public findings. Consultant Eric Davis said he had briefed officials on 'off-world vehicles'; none has been publicly verified.
Photo: U.S. Navy, Public domain
Government17 Jun 2020
In the report on its intelligence bill, the Senate Intelligence Committee, then chaired by Marco Rubio, directed the DNI and Defense Secretary to report on UAP within 180 days of enactment. The resulting preliminary assessment was released in June 2021.
Photo: US Senate, Public domain
Whistleblowers2020
Former Pentagon official Luis Elizondo and former intelligence official Christopher Mellon, who joined Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy in 2017, left the company at the end of 2020. They later said the firm's science mission was losing out to entertainment.
Photo: Max Moszkowicz, CC BY 3.0
Sightings29 Sep 2019
Security officers at Arizona's Palo Verde nuclear plant reported five or six drones over the site on Sept. 29, 2019, and more the next night. NRC records released under FOIA show the reports went to the NRC, FBI and others; operators were never found and the reports were closed unresolved.
Photo: Cuhlik, Public domain
Government19 Jun 2019
Senate Intelligence vice chairman Mark Warner and two other senators received a classified Pentagon briefing on Navy pilot encounters with unidentified aircraft. His office said unexplained interference with naval pilots was a safety concern; the Navy confirmed the briefing but gave no details.
Photo: U.S. Senator Mark Warner, Public domain
Whistleblowers1 Jun 2019
Pentagon spokesperson Christopher Sherwood told The Intercept that Luis Elizondo had no responsibilities for AATIP while in his intelligence office. Days later spokesperson Susan Gough said he had no assigned AATIP role, starting a long dispute with Elizondo, who says he ran the program.
Photo: Txint445444, CC BY-SA 4.0
WhistleblowersJun 2019
Notes said to record a 2002 talk between physicist Eric Davis and retired Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson, ex-DIA director, about being denied access to a UFO program, spread online. They have no provenance; Wilson called them fiction and denied the meeting, and Davis has not commented.
Photo: U.S. Navy, Public domain
Whistleblowers2019
In sworn 2023 testimony, former intelligence officer David Grusch said that as a National Reconnaissance Office reservist he was a member of the UAP Task Force from 2019 to 2021. He said this work was the basis for his later claims, which the Pentagon disputes.
Photo: U.S. House Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, Public domain
Media9 Mar 2018
Former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence Christopher Mellon argued in the Washington Post that military UAP encounters were going largely unanalyzed and urged a serious collection effort. Later commentary credited the piece with helping move the topic into mainstream news.
Photo: Max Moszkowicz, CC BY 3.0
MediaAug 2017
To The Stars Academy's August 2017 SEC filing lists Christopher Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence and Senate Intelligence Committee staff director, on its advisory board. He was presented with the team at its October launch.
Photo: Max Moszkowicz, CC BY 3.0
Government17 Jan 2017
The CIA posted about 930,000 declassified documents, more than 12 million pages, to its online reading room. The CREST collection, which includes the Star Gate remote viewing files, had until then been viewable only on a standalone system at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.
Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, Public domain
Government21 Jan 2016
The CIA published two web features pointing readers to declassified UFO documents in its FOIA collection: one sorted files for X-Files characters Mulder and Scully, the other drew lessons from how agencies investigated sightings such as the Socorro, New Mexico case.
Photo: Carol M. Highsmith, Public domain
Government15 Aug 2013
A CIA history of the U-2 and OXCART programs, released under FOIA to the National Security Archive, openly named Area 51. It says high-altitude U-2 flights sparked many 1950s UFO reports and that U-2 and OXCART flights accounted for over half of reports in the late 1950s and most of the 1960s.
Photo: CIA, Public domain
MediaJun 2013
Mirage Men, a documentary based on Mark Pilkington's book of the same name, premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest. The book argues that U.S. intelligence agencies promoted UFO stories for disinformation and cover purposes rather than simply hiding them.
Photo: Sheffdocfest, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sightings4 Mar 2013
An Alitalia pilot approaching JFK radioed that he had seen a drone about 1,500 feet up, a few miles from the airport. The FBI described a small black four-rotor craft and asked the public for tips; the FBI and FAA investigated, and no operator was publicly identified.
Photo: formulanone, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government12 Jul 2012
The UK National Archives released the ninth batch of Ministry of Defence UFO files. Papers showed defence intelligence staff weighing possible explanations in the 1990s, and a 2008 note from the UFO desk officer saying the MoD knew of no evidence of alien visits.
Photo: Eirian Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government2012
Dedicated funding for the program began in 2008 and ended in 2012, the Pentagon said in 2017, because other priorities merited the money. A later Pentagon statement said DIA found the contractor's reports of limited value; people who worked on it say UAP study continued informally.
Photo: MSGT KEN HAMMOND, Public domain
