Tour / 17 stops
Stop 1: The Air Force closes its public UFO program, and official interest goes quiet for decades.
Air Force Secretary Robert Seamans Jr. announced the end of Project Blue Book, citing the Condon study and its review by the National Academy of Sciences. The Air Force said no case it had studied showed a threat to national security or evidence of extraterrestrial vehicles.
Stop 2: Out of public view, the Defense Intelligence Agency funds a study of advanced aerospace threats.
The Defense Intelligence Agency contracted Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies of Las Vegas for the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, officially a study of future aerospace threats. It produced dozens of technical papers; funding of about $22 million ended in 2012.
Stop 3: The New York Times reveals a Pentagon program and runs Navy videos with the story.
The New York Times reported that the Pentagon had run a little-known Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, funded with about $22 million from 2008 to 2011. The story ran with two Navy videos and said Luis Elizondo had led the program.
Stop 4: Navy pilots go on the record in the Times about objects seen almost daily off the East Coast.
The New York Times published on-record accounts from Navy F/A-18 pilots, including Lt. Ryan Graves and Lt. Danny Accoin, of objects seen almost daily off the East Coast in 2014-2015, including a near collision. The Navy said it was updating its guidance for reporting such sightings.
Stop 5: The Pentagon officially releases the three Navy videos and says the objects remain unidentified.
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.
Stop 6: The Defense Department sets up a Navy-led task force to catalog UAP reports.
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.
Stop 7: Intelligence officials deliver their first public assessment to Congress: almost nothing explained.
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.
Stop 8: 60 Minutes puts Navy aviators on national television weeks before the intelligence report lands.
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.
Stop 9: Congress writes a permanent UAP office and annual public reports into law.
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.
Stop 10: Congress holds its first open UAP hearing in about half a century.
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.
Stop 11: A new Pentagon office takes over UAP work with a wider remit.
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.
Stop 12: A former intelligence officer testifies under oath about claims he says he was told.
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.
Stop 13: Senators propose a records-collection law modeled on the JFK files.
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.
Stop 14: A narrowed version of the disclosure act becomes law: UAP records go to a new National Archives collection.
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.
Stop 15: AARO's historical review says it found no verifiable evidence of recovered alien technology.
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.
Stop 16: A second House hearing puts four more witnesses under oath.
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.
Stop 17: A House Oversight task force hears more sworn testimony and a member shows a video filmed off Yemen.
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.
