Key figures
The first director of AARO, who found no evidence of alien technology. 8 events, newest first.
Select any year above to see what happened that year.
Open Sean Kirkpatrick as a timeline
Whistleblowers19 Jan 2024
Sean Kirkpatrick, AARO's first director, wrote in Scientific American that claims of a secret U.S. program to recover and reverse-engineer alien craft were unsupported by evidence, arguing they spread by circular reporting among a small group of advocates.
Photo: Defense.gov, Public domain
Media14 Dec 2023
University of Utah geographers Richard Medina and Simon Brewer, with Sean Kirkpatrick of the Defense Department, modeled about 98,000 U.S. public sighting reports from 2001-2020. More reports came where light pollution and tree cover allow open skies and where aircraft and military sites are near.
GovernmentDec 2023
AARO's first director, Sean Kirkpatrick, left the office in December 2023, as announced by the Pentagon in November. Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks credited his team with investigating over 800 cases; new deputy Tim Phillips led the office in an acting role.
Photo: Defense.gov, Public domain
Government1 Dec 2023
When Sean Kirkpatrick left AARO, new deputy director Tim Phillips, on assignment from ODNI, became acting director. The Pentagon said his priorities were interviewing people with firsthand UAP knowledge and fusing intelligence and sensor data on open cases.
Photo: U.S. Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Public domain
Government19 Apr 2023
AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick testified in open session to the Senate Armed Services emerging threats subcommittee and showed two declassified MQ-9 videos, including a spherical object over the Middle East that he said could not be identified from the available data.
Photo: Defense.gov, Public domain
Government7 Mar 2023
Pentagon UAP office director Sean Kirkpatrick and Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb released a draft, 'Physical Constraints on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena'. It was not peer-reviewed or an official Pentagon document; a speculative passage on a mothership releasing small probes drew wide headlines.
Photo: Christopher Michel, CC BY-SA 4.0
Government16 Dec 2022
Under Secretary Ronald Moultrie and AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick described the new office's mission to reporters and said it had received several hundred new reports. Both said they had seen nothing indicating alien visitation or a crash.
Photo: NASA/Joel Kowsky, Public domain
Government20 Jul 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.
Photo: U. S. Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Public domain
