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A cluster of UFO sightings at Loring, Wurtsmith, Malmstrom, and other US and Canadian air bases over several weeks in late 1975 prompted Air Force and NORAD attention.
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Leaked Navy videos and photographs show triangular or pyramid-shaped objects near USS Russell and other vessels off the California coast in 2019.
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The Office of the Director of National Intelligence's June 2021 report to Congress reviewed 144 UAP cases, finding most unexplained and one attributable to a deflating balloon.
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A July 2023 House Oversight hearing featured public testimony from three former military officials, including David Grusch, alleging a decades-long government UAP retrieval and reverse-engineering program.
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AARO officials briefed Senate committees in 2024 on the office's case backlog, resolution rate, and continuing review of historical and current UAP reports.
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The Pentagon's current official office consolidating UAP investigation, analysis, and reporting across the US government.
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The Department of Defense established AARO in July 2022, consolidating and expanding UAP investigation authority across air, sea, space, and undersea domains.
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AARO's first historical record report reviewed U.S. government UAP-related investigations back to 1945, finding no evidence of extraterrestrial visitation, crash retrievals, or reverse-engineering programs.
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Defense Intelligence Agency program investigating UAP as potential threats, revealed publicly in the 2017 New York Times story.
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DIA-funded program contracted to Robert Bigelow's BAASS to study UAP and related anomalous phenomena, including Skinwalker Ranch.
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A declassified CBP infrared aircraft video shows an object moving over water near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, submerging without a visible splash; later publicized by UFO researchers.
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Investigated numerous Cold War-era UFO reports occurring near US air bases.
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Retired Navy pilot who flew alongside David Fravor during the 2004 Nimitz encounter and later became a public advocate for serious UAP study.
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US Representative from Florida who has chaired congressional subcommittee sessions dedicated to UAP disclosure and transparency.
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Local legend claims a mystery airship crashed and its pilot was buried in 1897; historians regard the story as an unverified, likely fabricated hoax.
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Prominent Harvard astrophysicist who has argued interstellar object 'Oumuamua could be artificial and who founded a project to scientifically study UAP using rigorous instrumentation.
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Claimed 1948 crash and recovery similar to Roswell, widely regarded by researchers as a hoax originating from a con artist's story.
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Former US Senator, presidential candidate, and Air Force Reserve general whose reported request to view classified Area 51 material was denied even to him.
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US anti-aircraft batteries fired over a thousand rounds at a perceived aerial intruder over the city; an Army review attributed the alarm to a weather balloon.
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Astrophysicist and former observatory director who has written extensively proposing theoretical physics frameworks potentially relevant to UAP propulsion claims.
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New Hampshire couple whose 1961 account of a UFO encounter and subsequent hypnosis-recovered abduction memories established the template for the modern abduction narrative.
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A New Hampshire couple's account, partly recovered under hypnosis, became the first widely publicized alien-abduction case in the US.
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Former US Senator and NASA Administrator who oversaw NASA's independent UAP study and made notable public comments about the possibility of non-human intelligence.
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Claims to have reverse-engineered alien propulsion technology at 'S-4' near Area 51 in 1989; his account and credentials remain disputed and unverified.
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Bob Lazar claims to have worked reverse-engineering alien craft at a secret 'S-4' site near Area 51; his account and educational credentials remain unverified and disputed.
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Longtime national security journalist at Politico whose extensive reporting has tracked congressional and Pentagon UAP policy developments throughout the 2020s.
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Artist turned self-taught UFO researcher whose hypnosis-based investigation methods for alleged abduction cases became widely influential and widely criticized.
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World-renowned astronomer and science communicator whose rigorous, evidence-based skepticism toward UFO claims shaped mainstream scientific attitudes toward the topic for decades.
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Three Texas motorists reported severe radiation-like burns after encountering a diamond-shaped object escorted by helicopters.
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Retired Air Force deputy base commander whose contemporaneous memo and audio recording documenting strange lights at Rendlesham Forest remain central evidence in the case.
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Two Mississippi shipyard workers whose consistent, independently corroborated 1973 abduction account and hypnosis sessions became one of the most studied cases of its decade.
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United Airlines employees reported a saucer-shaped object hovering over a gate before shooting upward, punching a hole in low clouds.
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Two airline pilots reported a close pass by a cigar-shaped object with windows near Alabama.
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A Chinese government surveillance balloon transited the continental United States in early 2023 before being shot down; the episode preceded and briefly overlapped with several unrelated UAP object shootdowns.
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North Carolina businessman whose 2007 UAP encounter and subsequent reported health and life changes have drawn sustained attention from medical researchers and documentary filmmakers.
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Former senior Pentagon intelligence official who helped bring Navy UAP videos to public attention and has advocated for congressional oversight of the issue.
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Senate Majority Leader who co-sponsored the UAP Disclosure Act, one of the most ambitious legislative attempts at government transparency on the topic.
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Investigated early Cold War-era sightings and later acknowledged that its own U-2 and SR-71 spy plane programs explained many 1950s-60s reports.
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Biochemist who served as a lead investigator for Bigelow Aerospace's National Institute for Discovery Science and later AAWSAP, focusing on the Skinwalker Ranch phenomena.
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University of Colorado study commissioned by the Air Force concluded UFOs did not warrant further scientific study, effectively ending Project Blue Book.
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Self-described secret space program whistleblower whose extensive claims of decades of covert off-world activity remain entirely unverified and widely disputed.
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An Army Reserve helicopter crew reported a near-collision with a cigar-shaped object that allegedly caused an unexplained altitude change over Mansfield, Ohio.
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Independent UFO case researcher and blogger known for meticulous archival work re-examining classic cases using original documents and contemporaneous records.
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Public-interest attorney known for civil-rights cases who has represented several UAP whistleblowers and advocated for government disclosure through legal channels.
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Retired Navy commander and fighter pilot who personally observed and pursued the object during the 2004 Nimitz encounter, becoming one of the most prominent military witnesses in ufology.
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Former intelligence officer who testified to Congress in 2023 that the US runs a secret UAP crash-retrieval program; claims remain unverified by the Pentagon.
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Former intelligence official David Grusch publicly alleged the existence of a decades-long, multi-agency program retrieving crashed non-human craft; the claims remain uncorroborated.
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Temple University historian who spent decades using hypnosis-based interviews to research self-described alien abduction accounts, developing controversial theories about their purpose.
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Former US Representative and two-time presidential candidate who publicly discussed UFO sightings and supported disclosure efforts throughout his career.
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Cabinet department overseeing AARO and military UAP reporting requirements; renamed by executive order from 'Department of Defense' in September 2025.
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Ran the AAWSAP/AATIP research contracts and continues to support AARO's technical and historical analysis.
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University of North Carolina religious studies professor whose academic work examines UFO belief and experience through the framework of comparative religious studies.
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Retired Marine Corps major and aviation writer whose bestselling 1950s books established the extraterrestrial hypothesis and government cover-up narrative in mainstream American culture.
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UFO researcher who co-authored several influential Roswell-focused investigations alongside Kevin Randle over multiple decades.
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Independent researcher recognized for unusually meticulous documentation and fact-checking of congressional testimony, legislative text, and government UAP records.
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Wisconsin farmer Joe Simonton claimed men aboard a landed craft gave him pancakes; a famously odd contact claim never substantiated.
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Apollo 14 astronaut and sixth man to walk on the Moon who became one of the most credentialed public figures to assert his personal belief in extraterrestrial contact with Earth.
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Prominent physicist who led the government-commissioned Condon Committee study, whose skeptical conclusions effectively ended official US government UFO investigation for decades.
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US Representative from Missouri who has participated in House Oversight Committee hearings and public questioning of UAP witnesses.
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Astrophysicist who has worked on theoretical exotic propulsion concepts for Pentagon-adjacent programs and has publicly discussed UAP-related briefings he says he received.
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Multiple witnesses in New Hampshire reported a large pulsating object; investigated directly by the Air Force's Project Blue Book.
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Investigated select UFO reports over the decades and maintains historical case files, including Roswell-era and Kecksburg records.
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In the week following the Chinese balloon shootdown, U.S. and Canadian fighter aircraft shot down three additional unidentified objects over Alaska, Yukon, and Lake Huron, none of which were ever recovered or identified.
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West Virginia witnesses described a tall, glowing entity after seeing a fireball land; researchers largely attribute the report to a misidentified barn owl and meteor.
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Stanford immunologist and geneticist who has applied rigorous laboratory methods to examine biological materials associated with alleged UAP encounters and claimed abduction cases.
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Self-described 'contactee' who claimed meetings with Venusian visitors in the 1950s; his claims and photos are widely regarded as fabricated.
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Emmy-winning Las Vegas television journalist whose decades of reporting brought Bob Lazar's Area 51 claims and the Skinwalker Ranch case to national attention.
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A widely circulated 2015 Navy infrared video appears to show a UAP rotating in place as it travels, a motion pilots involved described as inconsistent with a known aircraft.
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Former Roswell funeral home employee whose widely disputed testimony about small caskets and injured nurses became a significant source for later 'alien bodies' claims.
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Navy F/A-18 infrared footage of a fast-moving object over water off Florida; some analysts argue the apparent speed is a parallax illusion.
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Original Mercury Seven astronaut who described his own personal UFO sightings during his flying career and later publicly advocated for government disclosure of related information.
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Wave of 'mystery airship' sightings across the US Midwest and West predating powered flight; researchers attribute most reports to hoaxes and misidentification.
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A Florida photographer's widely publicized series of UFO photos sparked national attention but is now regarded by most researchers as an elaborate hoax.
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Physicist with a long career spanning classified remote-viewing research and later theoretical work on exotic propulsion concepts discussed in Pentagon-adjacent UAP circles.
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Former Senate Majority Leader who was later revealed to have been the driving force behind securing initial Pentagon funding for AATIP.
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Held the first open congressional UFO hearing in over 50 years in May 2022.
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Held the high-profile 2023 David Grusch hearing and the September 2025 whistleblower transparency hearing.
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Thousands of witnesses across New York reported boomerang-shaped light formations over several years; some researchers attribute the wave to organized ultralight-aircraft flights.
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Astronomer and former USAF scientific consultant who devised the 'close encounter' classification system and founded CUFOS.
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French-American computer scientist and former astronomer whose theories linking UFO reports to folklore and consciousness studies have made him one of ufology's most intellectually influential figures.
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Self-described former special operations contractor whose testimony to Congress in 2024 alleged personal knowledge of secret UAP-related retrieval activity.
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Documentary filmmaker whose series of films interviewing military and government witnesses has brought sustained mainstream media attention to the UAP topic.
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Former Defense Intelligence Agency official who managed the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program and later co-authored a controversial book on UAP retrieval claims.
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Respected atmospheric physicist who became one of the earliest mainstream scientists to publicly argue UFO reports deserved rigorous scientific investigation.
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A Japan Airlines cargo flight crew reported a large unidentified object pacing their aircraft over Alaska for nearly 50 minutes, corroborated in part by FAA radar.
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Career intelligence officer who served as the first director of the Department of Defense's UAP Task Force before its reorganization into AARO.
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Documentary filmmaker who has obtained and publicized several official US military UAP videos through Freedom of Information Act requests and government sources.
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Longtime UFO researcher and editor whose multi-volume encyclopedia of cases and figures became the field's standard reference work.
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Army Air Field intelligence officer who personally recovered debris from the 1947 Roswell site and later became a key source for researchers reviving the case.
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Physician who, as a child, reportedly handled Roswell debris material brought home by his father and has spoken publicly about the experience for decades.
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Independent podcast host whose long-form interviews with scientists, officials, and researchers have become a significant platform for UAP-related discussion.
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Retired Air Force security police sergeant who reported physically touching a landed craft during the Rendlesham Forest incident and later claimed to have recovered additional memories through hypnosis.
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Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard psychiatrist whose serious clinical engagement with self-described alien abductees challenged easy dismissal of the phenomenon while facing institutional scrutiny.
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Former Clinton and Obama White House official who repeatedly and publicly urged declassification of government UFO-related records.
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Physicist and career national-security official who became AARO's director in 2024, continuing its case-review and Senate-briefing work.
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Retired Army colonel and former national-security space official who has publicly supported David Grusch's account of a secret UAP retrieval program.
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Former Pentagon official and UFO researcher whose detailed independent investigation of Roswell concluded the case was most likely a combination of Project Mogul debris and unrelated later events.
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Residents reported a fireball and acorn-shaped object crashing in Pennsylvania woods, with an alleged but never officially confirmed military recovery.
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A rural Kentucky family reported besieging small metallic creatures around their farmhouse for hours.
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Private pilot whose 1947 sighting of nine fast-moving objects near Mount Rainier coined the term 'flying saucer' and launched the modern UFO era.
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Pilot's 1947 sighting of nine fast-moving objects near Mt. Rainier that coined the term 'flying saucer'.
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Retired Navy senior chief petty officer who operated the radar systems that first detected the object involved in the 2004 Nimitz 'Tic Tac' encounter.
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Physicist and former NASA research scientist who co-founded a scholarly journal applying rigorous data analysis methods to UAP flight-performance claims.
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Retired Army officer and prolific author who has published extensively on the Roswell incident and other military-connected UFO cases over several decades.
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Senior US Senator who chairs relevant Armed Services subcommittees and has been a lead sponsor of UAP reporting and disclosure legislation.
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Security personnel reported physical encounters with landed objects at the nuclear weapons storage area.
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Physician and former senior CIA scientific intelligence officer who has collaborated on rigorous medical examination of individuals reporting UAP-related health effects.
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Investigative journalist whose 2017 New York Times report, co-authored with Ralph Blumenthal and Helene Cooper, brought the Pentagon's UAP program to mainstream public attention.
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Emmy-winning documentary journalist whose decades of investigation into cattle mutilation reports and alleged government secrecy have made her a prominent figure in UFO media.
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Socorro, New Mexico police officer whose 1964 report of a landed egg-shaped craft, corroborated by physical ground traces, became one of the most credible early close-encounter cases.
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A V-shaped formation of lights was photographed repeatedly over Texas; officially attributed to streetlight reflections off birds, an explanation some researchers contest.
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Former military intelligence officer who says he led the Pentagon's AATIP program and resigned in 2017 to advocate publicly for UAP disclosure.
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Airmen reported nuclear missile systems going offline coinciding with a UFO sighting near the Montana missile base.
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Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell died chasing an unidentified object; later attributed to a Skyhook balloon.
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Senior US Senator and longtime Senate Intelligence Committee member who has consistently pushed for expanded UAP reporting requirements and disclosure legislation.
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An amateur film of two bright objects over Montana became one of the earliest UFO films subjected to formal analysis.
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Reported UFO/debris event in Washington state days before Arnold's sighting; long since concluded to be a hoax.
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The House Intelligence Committee's May 2022 hearing was the first open congressional hearing on UFOs/UAP since 1968, featuring Pentagon officials discussing the newly formed UAPTF.
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A farm couple's two photos of a disc-shaped object are among the most analyzed UFO images from the era.
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Former American University professor who left academia to found the field of 'exopolitics' and has promoted extensive claims about secret space programs.
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Science historian and founder of Skeptic magazine who has written extensively applying scientific skepticism to UFO, paranormal, and pseudoscientific claims.
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A wave of Michigan sightings that astronomer J. Allen Hynek initially attributed to swamp gas, a controversial explanation that spurred congressional hearings.
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Retired video game programmer whose detailed technical analyses of viral UFO videos, published through his Metabunk forum, have become widely cited reference debunking sources.
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Republican US Senator from South Dakota who partnered across party lines with Chuck Schumer to advance UAP disclosure legislation.
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Numerous Air Force personnel at Minot AFB, North Dakota, reported a UFO seen visually and tracked on radar near nuclear missile silos in October 1968.
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Purported top-secret papers describing a 1947 government panel managing alien contact surfaced anonymously; the FBI and most researchers concluded the documents are forged.
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A series of formations of lights over New Jersey turned out to be a hoax using flares attached to helium balloons.
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Commissioned an independent scientific study of UAP in 2023 and now shares data-collection expertise with AARO.
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NASA's independent study team released a 2023 report recommending better data collection for UAP research and finding no evidence UAP have extraterrestrial origin, while criticizing the stigma around reporting.
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A December 2017 New York Times investigation revealed the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and published the leaked FLIR1 and Gimbal videos, reigniting mainstream interest in UAP.
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Prolific British-American author whose many books have examined a wide range of government-secrecy and conspiracy-adjacent UFO claims.
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Navy pilots including David Fravor intercepted the 'Tic Tac' object during training exercises off California, later confirmed authentic by the Pentagon.
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Holds classified UFO/UAP-related signals intelligence files; current AARO director previously served at NSA.
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Publishes the congressionally mandated annual/periodic consolidated UAP report and coordinates intelligence-community UAP reporting.
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Following the 2021 preliminary assessment, ODNI and Congress have continued developing guidance and legislative proposals for the systematic declassification and disclosure of historical government UAP records.
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Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker reported being taken aboard a craft by claw-handed beings while fishing in Mississippi.
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The Department of Defense formally established the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force in August 2020 to standardize UAP reporting and investigation across the military.
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The U.S. Department of Defense formally released and confirmed the authenticity of three previously leaked Navy UAP videos, a watershed moment in official government acknowledgment.
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Stanford plasma physicist who organized a landmark scientific review panel examining physical evidence in UFO cases, concluding some data merited further study.
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Retired Army colonel whose posthumously controversial 1997 book claimed he personally oversaw the reverse-engineering of alien technology recovered at Roswell.
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Aviation Week editor and electrical engineer who spent decades as the most prominent and often combative skeptical investigator of UFO claims in the United States.
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Thousands witnessed a V-shaped formation of lights over Arizona; the Air Force attributed part of the display to flares from a training exercise.
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Long-running Air Force UFO investigation that closed after the Condon Report; concluded the large majority of sightings had conventional explanations.
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Second official Air Force UFO study, created after Project Sign was disbanded; generally skeptical in its conclusions.
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The US Air Force's first official UFO investigation, created after the 1947 Kenneth Arnold sighting and Roswell incident.
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Longtime New York Times journalist who co-authored the landmark 2017 report on the Pentagon's secret UAP program alongside Leslie Kean.
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USAF reconnaissance aircraft crew tracked an object simultaneously on radar, visually, and via electronic countermeasures gear across several states.
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Historian and author whose multi-volume history of alleged US government UFO secrecy has made him one of the field's most cited chronological researchers.
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Billionaire aerospace entrepreneur who funded the National Institute for Discovery Science and the Pentagon's AAWSAP program, among the largest private investments in UAP research.
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Independent researcher who has spent decades collecting testimony from military veterans describing UFO sightings at nuclear missile and weapons storage sites.
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Aerospace engineer and researcher whose detailed technical analysis of the Nimitz 'Tic Tac' encounter has become a widely cited scientific reference on the case.
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Retired Air Force officer who has spent decades publicizing his claim that a UFO caused nuclear missiles to shut down at Malmstrom AFB in 1967.
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Longtime skeptical writer and investigator whose decades of case-by-case UFO debunking columns have made him one of the field's most consistent critical voices.
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CIA-convened scientific panel that reviewed UFO evidence and recommended public education and debunking efforts to reduce reports.
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Debris recovered from a New Mexico ranch in 1947, first announced as a 'flying disc' then a weather balloon; USAF later attributed it to Project Mogul.
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A viral 2015 claim of photographs showing an alien body from Roswell was subsequently identified as a mummified Native American infant.
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Former Navy F/A-18 pilot who reported near-daily UAP encounters off the US East Coast around 2014-2015 and later founded an advocacy organization for military UAP reporting reform.
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Physicist and former US intelligence official who directed AARO from its creation through 2024, overseeing its initial historical case reviews.
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Receives classified and open AARO briefings on UAP findings.
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Oversees UAP-related legislation, including reporting mandates and whistleblower protections.
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A September 2025 House Oversight Committee hearing continued congressional scrutiny of UAP transparency, featuring further witness testimony and renewed calls for full disclosure legislation.
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Senior SETI Institute astronomer who has consistently distinguished the scientific search for extraterrestrial radio signals from UFO and UAP sighting claims, which he generally regards skeptically.
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Decades of reported anomalous events at a Utah ranch studied by NIDS, BAASS, and later a government-linked program; no findings have been independently verified.
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Police officer Lonnie Zamora reported a landed, egg-shaped craft and humanoid figures near Socorro, New Mexico; still considered one of the best-documented unexplained cases.
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Nuclear physicist turned full-time UFO researcher and lecturer whose decades of investigation into the Roswell incident made him one of the field's most prominent public figures.
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Numerous Texas residents, including a former police officer, reported large bright lights; the Air Force initially denied and later confirmed a training exercise was underway.
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Emergency room physician who left clinical medicine to found the Disclosure Project and CSETI, advocating meditation-based contact initiatives with extraterrestrial beings.
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Department of Defense spokesperson who has handled official public statements on UAP task forces, videos, and disclosure matters for much of the 2020s.
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Republican US Representative from Tennessee who has convened and questioned witnesses at several high-profile congressional UAP hearings.
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Former police lieutenant who became an investigative journalist specializing in UAP-related government transparency and disclosure reporting.
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Aerospace and optical scientist who has served in advisory capacity on government UAP analysis and become a widely recognized television commentator on the subject.
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Arizona logger who disappeared for five days in 1975 after his logging crew reported seeing him struck by a beam of light from a UFO, in one of the most extensively tested abduction claims on record.
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Arizona logger Travis Walton says he was abducted for five days in 1975, an account later dramatized in the film 'Fire in the Sky'.
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The Pentagon's initial task force for standardizing military UAP reporting, created after the 2017 NYT story broke; superseded by AARO.
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Air Force-funded academic study that concluded UFOs did not merit further scientific investigation.
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Crew of the littoral combat ship USS Omaha reported and recorded a spherical unidentified object off San Diego in 2019, later confirmed genuine by the Navy.
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Multiple Navy pilots reported near-daily encounters with fast-moving objects off the US East Coast, prompting internal Navy airspace-safety reports.
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A Minnesota deputy sheriff reported his patrol car was struck by a light source, cracking a windshield and stopping his watch and dashboard clock.
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Engineer who led the Mutual UFO Network for over three decades, building it into one of the largest civilian UFO investigation organizations in the world.
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Radar and visual sightings over the capital twice in one month triggered a major press event and Air Force response.
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Horror novelist turned memoirist whose bestselling 1987 account of a personal alien abduction experience became one of the most commercially influential works in abduction literature.
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Co-author of an influential early Roswell investigation who later publicly admitted to working with intelligence sources in ways that fueled controversy over disinformation in ufology.