The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is the U.S. Department of Defense office responsible for the synchronized detection, identification, and resolution of unidentified anomalous phenomena.
What does AARO do?
Established in July 2022, AARO consolidated and expanded earlier UAP efforts. It reports within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security and coordinates with the intelligence community to investigate UAP across all domains, air, space, sea, and transmedium, and to address potential threats to U.S. operations and national security.
How is AARO different from the UAP Task Force?
AARO is the successor to the UAP Task Force (UAPTF), with a broader, all-domain mandate and a permanent statutory footing established through defense authorization legislation.
What has AARO concluded so far?
AARO has reviewed hundreds of cases and, in its Historical Record Report, stated it found no verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial technology or of concealed reverse-engineering programs, conclusions contested by some whistleblowers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Intelligence
Tic Tac UAP (USS Nimitz Encounter)
A radar-confirmed UAP encountered by USS Nimitz carrier strike group pilots off California in November 2004, captured on FLIR footage.
Open file →Sean Kirkpatrick
Physicist and intelligence official who served as the first director of AARO and testified to the Senate in 2023.
Open file →AARO Historical Record Report, Volume 1
AARO’s March 2024 report reviewing U.S. government UAP investigations from 1945 to the present, finding no evidence of alien technology.
Open file →UAPTF (UAP Task Force)
A DoD task force established in August 2020 that produced the June 2021 preliminary assessment, predecessor to AARO.
Open file →Crash Retrieval Programs
Allegations of classified U.S. programs to recover and reverse-engineer non-human craft, the focus of the Grusch complaint.
Open file →Reverse Engineering Allegations
Claims that U.S. defense contractors have been tasked with reverse-engineering non-human craft and materials.
Open file →Non-Human Intelligence (NHI)
The hypothesis that some UAP represent craft or probes of non-human intelligent origin, central to 2023 congressional testimony.
Open file →Senate Armed Services Subcommittee UAP Hearing
A Senate subcommittee heard from AARO's founding director about the office's mission, methods, and early findings on UAP.
Open file →National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024
The FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act funds and sets policy for the U.S. military, and includes a major UAP records disclosure law.
Open file →James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023
The FY2023 defense bill sets military budgets, expands UAP reporting rules, and covers dozens of other national security topics. It became law in December 2022.
Open file →Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025
The FY2025 NDAA authorizes defense programs, military pay raises, and UAP oversight reviews, and became law on December 23, 2024.
Open file →To terminate the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office of the Department of Defense, and for other purposes.
H.R. 8197 would shut down the Pentagon's UAP office (AARO) within 60 days and ban creating any similar centralized UAP office.
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