What the AARO Historical Record Report Found (2024)

In February 2024 the U.S. Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) produced its Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Volume I, released publicly in March 2024. It is the U.S. government’s most comprehensive single review of its own UAP investigative history, and it is the source most often searched for by its central conclusion: that AARO found no empirical evidence of extraterrestrial technology. This guide summarizes what the report itself states. The original report is authoritative; this archive is independent and is not an official or government source.

What the report covers

According to AARO, Volume I reviews U.S. government UAP investigatory programs since 1945 — among them Project SAUCER, Project SIGN, Project GRUDGE, Project TWINKLE, Project BLUE BOOK, the Condon Report, AAWSAP/AATIP, and the UAP Task Force. Alongside that historical review, the report assesses claims made by interviewees that the U.S. government and its contractors have recovered and concealed off-world technology or biological material.

The two principal findings

AARO states two principal findings:

1. No confirmed extraterrestrial sighting. AARO found no evidence that any U.S. government investigation, academic-sponsored research, or review panel has confirmed that a UAP sighting represented extraterrestrial technology.
2. No evidence of reverse-engineering. AARO found no empirical evidence for claims that the U.S. government or private companies have reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology.

These are AARO’s conclusions, stated in the report. They concern the historical record AARO reviewed; the report does not claim that every individual sighting in history has been explained.

How AARO addressed specific claims

The report describes how AARO assessed specific allegations of hidden programs. In AARO’s account:

• AARO assesses that the alleged hidden UAP reverse-engineering programs named by interviewees either do not exist; are misidentified authentic, highly sensitive national security programs that are not related to extraterrestrial technology; or resolve to an unwarranted and disestablished program.
• A claim that a named former CIA official managed UAP experimentation was, per AARO, not borne out — that official was not involved in moving extraterrestrial technology.
• An interviewee’s claim of witnessing a “test of off-world technology” almost certainly described, in AARO’s assessment, an authentic, non-UAP-related technology test that closely matched the time, location, and description in the account.
• AARO states that executives and chief technology officers of the companies named by interviewees met with the Director of AARO and denied on the record that they had ever recovered, possessed, or reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology.

What it does not settle

AARO notes that further claims are to be addressed in a Volume II. Volume I is a review of the documentary and interview record AARO examined; it is not a case-by-case adjudication of every reported sighting. For AARO’s resolutions of specific modern cases, see the office’s case resolution reports.

Read the primary source

The most reliable source is the official report itself. This archive hosts a machine-extracted full text for reference and links to the authoritative PDF on aaro.mil — open the AARO Historical Record Report record to read it or follow the link to the official source. Quotations and conclusions in this guide are drawn from the report; where this summary and the report differ, the report governs.