This Pentagon-issued 16-page report covers the period from August 13, 2022 to April 30, 2023, as well as earlier UAP sightings not yet included in the agency's previous reports. AARO received a total of 291 UAP reports during this period, 274 of which occurred during the collection period. Finally, in April 2023, AARO was reported to have reviewed over 800 since its inception.
These sightings have come from a variety of sources, including military personnel, civilian pilots and detectors. By detectors, AARO specifies 'radar' and 'electro-optical (EO)/infrared (IR) sensors'. The report adds that 'the presence of artifacts in the images captured by these sensors, such as IR decoys, and optical effects, such as parallax, can lead to observation errors'.
Analysis of general trends in UAP sightings reveals a persistent bias towards restricted military airspace, due to reporting by personnel and sensors present in these areas. However, this trend has been somewhat mitigated by reports from commercial pilots revealing "Showing a more diverse geographic distribution of UAP sightings across the United States”.
AARO has also received reports from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which manages US civil air traffic, of more than 100 incidents involving these phenomena. These reports highlight sightings of unidentified luminous objects at varying altitudes. However, even with the increasing integration of reports from commercial pilots into the AARO database, his account highlights the fact that as “these reports continue to come in, a U.S.-centric collection bias will grow significantly relative to the rest of the world”.
The report indicates that UAP continue to represent a potential threat to flight safety. There are some cases where reported UAP have potentially exhibited one or more concerning performance characteristics such as high-speed travel or unusual maneuverability, raising concerns about potential flight safety issues that could result from aviators' encounters with UAP.
The AARO document provides an overview of the agency's progress in receiving, standardizing, analyzing and resolving UAP reports. It underlines the importance of working closely with military and technical partners to improve data collection and increase the quality of findings, to reduce risk and develop a better understanding of these phenomena.
It also points out that insufficient data from various sensors and other collection platforms "can cause observational misperceptions", noting that as better data are collected over time, "most UAP will likely resolve to ordinary phenomena and significantly reduce the amount of UAP case submissions.”
To date, the UAP observations collected by AARO indicate that "only a very small percentage of UAP reports display interesting signatures, such as high-speed travel and unknown morphologies”. The majority of unidentified objects reported to AARO “demonstrate ordinary characteristics of readily explainable sources”, although the lack of data has prevented many cases from being analyzed and explained. Among the most notorious cases is the Nimitz incident in 2004, which remains unsolved to this day.
The so-called Nimitz incident saw US Navy fighter pilots observe UAP off the coast of southern California. On November 14, 2004, fighter pilots including David Fravor of the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group investigated radar indications of a possible target. Fravor explained that the operator had told him that the USS Princeton had been tracking unusual aircraft for two weeks prior to the incident. David Fravor, then commander of the 41st Bombardment and Attack Squadron, better known as the "Black Aces", observed a Tic Tac-shaped object that performed aerial maneuvers impossible for any known aircraft. The sightings were recorded on video and widely reported in the media.
In 2021, Commander Fravor testified under oath before the US Congress and repeated his assertion: "the technology we faced was far superior to anything we had, and you could put it anywhere". The sightings were classified as "unidentified aerial phenomena" by the US Department of Defense.
Sean Kirkpatrick, the scientist and military intelligence officer leading the government's investigation into unidentified anomalous phenomena, spoke to ABC News in an exclusive first TV interview inside the Pentagon in July 2023.
As head of AARO, he declared that "Data and science has to guide where you go, and we will follow the data. (...) I have a full range of hypotheses: On one end of the spectrum, it's advanced technology that's coming from an adversary. Right in the middle, I have all my known objects -- balloons and drones and birds and whatnot. And then on the far end of the spectrum, we have extraterrestrials”. In the same interview, he pointed out that a small number of reports - "around 2-5% of cases" - are unexplained anomalies, including the so-called "Tic Tac" incident of 2004.
Although 65% of Americans believe in the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth, the report states that no irrefutable proof of extraterrestrial contact has been established.
However, it does provide details of the testimonies received and the results of studies of these various cases. Of all the sightings recorded, just over half (53%) contain no information on the shape of the objects observed. This raises the question of how these sightings are transmitted and processed, and how this percentage can be reduced. It seems fair to ask what this figure implies, since more than half the cases received by AARO are therefore classified as unexploitable, which could have a significant impact on the number of unsolved cases.
Among the reports, "irregular" shapes represent 6%, oval shapes 4%, while disks and rectangles make up 2% respectively, and cylindrical objects and triangles 1% each. In addition, 5% of reports are described as "ambiguous detections", meaning that it is not known whether the device that recorded the information was fooled or the victim of operator misinterpretation, poor calibration, an optical effect, or perhaps even a malfunction.
Of the most commonly reported shapes, a quarter (25%) were sightings of objects described as spheres, round or spherical.
In the 291 reports collected during the recent collection period, approximately one-fifth (21%) reported the presence of lights, while the vast majority (79%) did not appear to possess any, or at least none were visible at the time of the sightings.
At a Senate hearing in April 2023, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Department of Defense's All-Area Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), revealed that more than half of the UAP reports collected by the office were related to sightings of objects described as spheres or other spherical objects of white, silver or translucent color.
During the hearing, Kirkpatrick emphasized that AARO's main goal was to understand the nature of these objects. He then shared images captured by an MQ-9 Reaper drone in the Middle East in 2022, showing a flying object that looked like a metallic sphere crossing the skies.
The report boasts the idea that the integration of the space and maritime domains in current analysis efforts would be beneficial for the study of the subject, while specifying that "Collaboration with Space Force, U.S. Space Command, NRO, and NASA is well underway". It also states that AARO is “working to standardize and routinize this declassification process to ensure as much transparency as possible”, adding that “AARO successfully exercised its process for declassifying data and full-motion videos of UAP events”. It points out that this process had been used prior to the public release of this data at the Congressional hearings earlier this year.
The glossary included in the AARO report is of paramount importance. The report emphasizes that AARO is working closely with the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community to identify and link objects to these phenomena.
It is clear that UAP are no longer the object of mere speculation, but are now taken seriously at the highest levels of government.
"Analyzing and understanding the potential threats posed by UAP is an ongoing collaborative effort involving many departments and agencies” said Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder in a press release issued after the unclassified version of the 2023 Annual UAP Report appeared on the official AARO website.
"The safety of our service personnel, our bases and installations, and the protection of U.S. operations security on land, in the skies, seas, and space are paramount.”
He added:
"We take reports of incursions into our designated space, land, sea, or airspaces seriously and examine each one”.
The glossary, as presented in the report, details terms relating to UAP and procedures for recovering objects associated with these phenomena. It defines UAP as "sources of anomalous detections in one or more domains", and explicitly mentions the recovery of "UAP-related material". (UAP materials are samples, in whole or in part, of UAP objects).
This terminology suggests that behind the scenes, efforts are being made to recover, in whole or in part, objects related to these phenomena. As the agency's presentation on its official website shows: "AARO leads UAP recovery planning and execution in close collaboration with AARO S&T Group Advises Commands on the secure and safe handling, storage, transport, and transter of UAP Obiects and Material for AARC S&T exploitation”.
It also refers to the possibility of engaging UAP. It defines their engagement as "bringing UAP under kinetic or non-kinetic fire, or deny, disrupt, or destroy the phenomenon and/or its objects”. This statement suggests that attempts at active interaction with these phenomena have taken place or are envisaged.
This shift in military doctrine is significant, as it indicates that the entire US arsenal can potentially be mobilized to deal with these UAP, including the use of non-kinetic means to interact with them, hence the definition set out in the document's glossary: "UAP interrogation: the elicitation of UAP location, capabilities, characteristics, and/or intent using passive and/or active sensing capabilities-including but not limited to electro-optical/imagery, infrared/thermal, radiofrequency/radar, light/laser/lidar/ladar, electromagnetic, gravitational, and radioactive means”.
The definition of "UAP Intrusion", as presented in the glossary of the AARO report, is particularly revealing of the USA's willingness to broaden the scope of the study of these phenomena to international cooperation. This definition doesn’t just encompass UAP incidents "on, or near U.S. military installations, operating areas, training areas, special use airspace, proximity operations, and/or other national security areas of interest”.
It also includes "other areas of interest include but are not limited to U.S. critical infrastructure, IC installations and platforms, and national defense equities of Allied military and intelligence coalitions (e.g., Five Eyes)”.
This definition suggests that the U.S. is willing to share information and collaborate with its Five Eyes allies (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand) on UAP incidents. These countries have historically shared intelligence and worked closely together on security and intelligence issues.
This alliance was established after the Second World War to facilitate the sharing of sensitive information, primarily focused on surveillance, electronic intelligence and national security threats. Five Eyes members share intelligence on potential threats, terrorist activities, national security, military intelligence and adversaries' technological capabilities.
Examples of this collaboration include sharing information on the intelligence activities of adversary or hostile countries, tracking the movements of terrorists or extremist groups, and monitoring communications to prevent potential threats. Notable examples of this collaboration include :
Operation Anvil (1944): This joint operation between Five Eyes members involved coordination to secure the Marseille area in southern France during the Allied landings in World War II.
Operation Eikonal (2008): Reports suggested that Five Eyes intelligence agencies worked together to monitor internet traffic in Germany, using data cables located on German territory, sparking controversy over cooperation between the intelligence services.
Operation Unified Protector (2011): Although primarily a NATO initiative, this operation saw close cooperation between Five Eyes countries in the surveillance, intelligence and reconnaissance activities carried out during the intervention in Libya.
The inclusion of this terminology in the AARO report indicates an effort to extend this cooperation to the understanding of UAP. The report does not specify the details of this potential cooperation between member countries, but it does point out that UAP incidents continue to be investigated.
While this unclassified report still leaves many questions unanswered, the glossary terms could imply that the classified version of it would contain more detailed information on object recovery efforts related to these phenomena. One might also wonder about the nature of active communications and attempts to engage with these phenomena, as well as cooperation between the Five Eyes. It seems logical that the study of these phenomena should take on a global dimension, not only because of their presence across the entire globe, but also because of the strategic stakes involved in understanding them.
In exploring the subject of UAP, this AARO report offers a brief overview of the state of research into these phenomena. It raises vital questions: what real or potential threats do these objects pose to our air safety and military and civilian operations? The diversity of observations and data gaps raise questions about the reliability, calibration and analysis of the sensors used.
In addition, the mention of object recovery and active engagement with these phenomena raises questions about the exact nature and scope of these actions, and how might they influence our understanding of UAP in the future.
