Glossary

Key terms used across the UAP Records Archive — agencies, programs, and records vocabulary.

AARO: The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the Department of Defense office responsible for detecting, identifying, and attributing UAP across air, space, underwater, and trans-medium domains. It publishes case resolution reports, historical reviews, and annual reports to Congress. See in archive →
Annual UAP report: A yearly UAP report required by the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (as amended), produced jointly by ODNI and the Department of Defense — submitted to Congress with an unclassified version released publicly. This archive links the 2022 through 2024 editions. See in archive →
Case resolution report: A short AARO document explaining how a specific UAP case was analyzed and what cause, if any, the office attributed it to. Examples in this archive include the "Go Fast" report, which attributes the apparent high speed in that video to motion parallax. See in archive →
Declassification: The process by which classified U.S. government records are reviewed and approved for public release. Many UAP records in this archive were released through declassification review or transferred to the National Archives under statute. See in archive →
EFOIA Reading Room: AARO's electronic Freedom of Information Act reading room, which posts the office's responses to UAP-related FOIA requests since its establishment in July 2022. AARO describes it as updated periodically and not an exhaustive reference for UAP record requests across the U.S. government. See in archive →
FAA: The Federal Aviation Administration. Its records relating to UAP were transferred to the National Archives under the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and accessioned into Record Group 615. See in archive →
FOIA: The Freedom of Information Act, a U.S. law that gives any person the right to request records from federal agencies. Many UAP-related documents have been released in response to FOIA requests. See in archive →
Historical Record Report: AARO's Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP. Volume I, released in 2024, reviews U.S. government UAP investigation programs since 1945 and states that the office found no evidence confirming any sighting as extraterrestrial technology. See in archive →
NARA: The National Archives and Records Administration, the United States' national archives agency and the primary repository for declassified federal records. UAP-related holdings span several record groups, including the dedicated Record Group 615. See in archive →
NASA: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. civil space agency. NASA has conducted scientific study of UAP, including convening an independent study team, and makes its UAP reports and findings publicly available. See in archive →
NASA UAP Independent Study: A study NASA commissioned in 2022, in which an independent team of 16 experts examined how the agency could contribute to UAP research using unclassified data. The final report, released in September 2023, recommends rigorous, evidence-based analysis built on NASA expertise in data and sensors. See in archive →
ODNI: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates the U.S. intelligence community's reporting on UAP. It published the 2021 preliminary assessment and co-publishes the consolidated annual UAP reports with the Department of Defense. See in archive →
Preliminary assessment (2021): The Preliminary Assessment on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, submitted to Congress by ODNI on 25 June 2021. It relays the progress made by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force and preceded the annual UAP reports now published each year. See in archive →
Project Blue Book: The U.S. Air Force program that investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, closed in 1969. Its case files at the National Archives span 1947–1969 and are held in Record Group 341, alongside related Air Force record series. See in archive →
PURSUE: The Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, a records release program hosted at war.gov/ufo by the Department of War with ODNI support. It releases unresolved UAP-related records in tranches on a rolling basis, beginning in May 2026. See in archive →
Record Group (RG): The National Archives' top-level unit for organizing federal records, usually corresponding to the agency that created them. Record groups are cited as "RG" plus a number, such as RG 341 or RG 615. See in archive →
RG 341: NARA Record Group 341, Records of Headquarters U.S. Air Force (Air Staff). It holds the Project Blue Book case files and related Air Force record series on unidentified flying objects from the late 1940s through 1969. See in archive →
RG 615: NARA Record Group 615, the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection. It was established under the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act to receive UAP-related records transferred from agencies across the U.S. government, with releases beginning in 2025. See in archive →
UAP: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (earlier: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), the term used in current U.S. government reporting for objects or phenomena that cannot be immediately identified. The newer wording covers observations in the air, at sea, in space, and across mediums. See in archive →
UFO: Unidentified Flying Object, the older term used in U.S. Air Force-era investigations such as Project Blue Book. In current U.S. government reporting it has largely been replaced by UAP. See in archive →