The Pentagon has launched a new online form allowing former government employees, service members, and contractor personnel to submit information on alleged U.S. government programs related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs, also known as UFOs) dating back to 1945.
The U.S. Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomalous Resolution Office (AARO) launched its digital form on its website on Oct. 31 for personnel with “direct knowledge of U.S. Government programs or activities related to UAP”.
“These reports will be used to inform AARO’s congressionally directed Historical Record Report,” the digital form says.
The form is intended as an initial point of contact with AARO, it says.
“Following the submission of your report, AARO staff may reach out to request additional detail or arrange for an informational interview.”
However, it warns about communicating classified information via the online form.
“Any classified national security information may be provided to AARO in a secure location, but may not be provided through this form,” it warns.
“Do not submit classified national security information or unclassified information that is not publicly releasable (e.g. subject to export control regulations) through this form.”
UAP Website
The AARO launched its website in August to provide the public with information on UAPs.
AARO’s director, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, said the website is part of the U.S. government’s efforts to address anomalous phenomena on air, water, and land.
“Our team of experts is leading the U.S. government’s efforts to address Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) using a rigorous scientific framework and a data-driven approach,” he says on the site.
The typically reported UAP characteristics from 1996 to 2023 are round objects, 1-4 meters long, white, silver, or translucent in color, flying at 20,000 feet, with no thermal exhaust detected.
Reports have come from South Asia, the Middle East, and the United States.
Reports to AARO
Approximately 291 reports were made to the AARO between Aug. 31, 2022, and April 30, 2023, officials said in October.
A total of 274 of those reports occurred during those eight months, officials said, while another 17 took place from 2019–2022 but were not included in previous annual reports.
This brings the total cases that AARO is currently reviewing to over 800 as of April 30, 2023, officials have said.
This follows increasing media coverage about the UAP issue and what the U.S. government knows of such phenomena or is even involved in.
In July, a former intelligence official, David Grusch, testified in a House hearing that the U.S. government has knowledge of UAP technology and is trying to reverse engineer non-human origin crafts for its own use.
Mr. Grusch said that he knows the exact names of people involved and details of the program and that pilots retrieved from crashed aircraft were non-human.
Mr. Grusch served on the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force at the Department of Defense, the military office opened in 2020 for the purpose of studying UAPs.
He said he became a whistleblower after learning about the UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program and has experienced retaliation as a result.
Following the hearing, several lawmakers described concerns about limitations on what information could be shared and described a need to open a classified setting to discuss the UAP technology in greater detail and begin to access still-classified information.
In the same hearing, retired Navy Cmdr. David Fravor, a former F-18 pilot, described a 2004 incident in which his and another aircraft were dispatched to investigate an aerial phenomenon that had been appearing on the command ship’s radar for about two weeks.
He described a “small, white, Tic Tac-shaped object” that moved rapidly across the water’s surface before vanishing and appearing, arriving at a location about 60 miles away in less than a minute despite having no identifiable means of propulsion.
Ryan Morgan and Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.
