2021 ODNI Preliminary Assessment
| 2021 ODNI Preliminary Assessment | |
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| Date | June 25, 2021 |
|---|---|
| Location | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Type | Official government report |
| Investigation | |
| Cases reviewed | 144 |
| Explained | 1 (balloon) |
| Status | Confirmed official report |
Mandated by Congress in the 2021 intelligence authorization act, the ODNI‘s nine-page unclassified preliminary assessment reviewed 144 UAP reports collected mostly by U.S. military aviators since 2004, finding that the majority described genuine flight characteristics that current analysts could not explain and identifying only a single case, involving a deflating balloon, with high confidence.
Assessment
The report explicitly stated it found no evidence that any UAP were of non-U.S. or non-terrestrial origin, but also stated it could not rule this out given limited data, and it called for improved reporting standardization. It is widely regarded as the most significant formal U.S. government acknowledgment of the UAP issue’s legitimacy up to that point, and directly led to the creation of AARO Establishment.
[1]See also
References
- ^ Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” June 25, 2021.