AARO’s 2024 UAP Report (Excerpts & Commentary)
2024 Disclosure Yearbook
The reporting period for the 2024 UAP Report was May 1, 2023 to June 1, 2024. This spanned the last six months of Sean Kirkpatrick’s tenure as AARO director, and six months under acting director Tim Phillips. It was released November 14, 2024, the first AARO report issued under the directorship of Jon Kosloski.
The key findings for all 13 report requirements are excerpted below, followed by some commentary on how this report differs from prior AARO reports.
Requirement #1: Tally of UAP Events
(A) All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during the one-year period.
(B) All reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related events that occurred during a period other than that one-year period but were not included in an earlier report.
The report states the following facts for this requirement:
Reporting Period: May 1, 2023 to June 1, 2024
757 reports received during this reporting period
64% (485) occurred during the reporting period
56% (272) occurred from 2021-2022
Domain
air domain: 708 (93.5%)
space domain: 49 (6.5%) - none were observed from space
maritime: 0
transmedium domains: 0
Sources
originated from U.S. military operating areas: 81
FAA reports: 392
Administrator for Nuclear Security; Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: 18
“AARO notes that none of the space domain reports originated from space-based sensors or assets; rather, all of these reports originated from military or commercial pilots or ground observers who reported UAP located at altitudes estimated at 100 kilometers or higher, consistent with U.S. Space Command’s (USSPACECOM) astrographic area of responsibility.”
“Of the 757 reports 392 were from the FAA, which consisted of all of the FAA’s UAP reports since 2021.”
Requirement #2: Analysis, judgements, and explanatory categories
(C) An analysis of data and intelligence received through each reported unidentified aerial phenomena-related event.
(D) An analysis of data relating to unidentified aerial phenomena collected through--
(i) geospatial intelligence;
(ii) signals intelligence;
(iii) human intelligence; and
(iv) measurement and signature intelligence.
The report states the following facts and statements for this requirement:
Analytical Adjudication for this Reporting Period
¨ Case Closed: 49 (6.47%)
¨ Pending Closure: 243 (32.1%)
¨ Continued Analysis: 21 (2.77%)
¨ Active Archive: 444 (58.65%)
“AARO resolved 49 cases during the reporting period, all of which resolved to prosaic objects such as various types of balloons, birds, and UAS.”
“AARO determined 21 cases merit further analysis by its IC and science and technology (S&T) partners.”
“…the Active Archive where they will be held for pattern of life and trend analysis or reexamined if additional data becomes available. Archived cases may be reopened and resolved should additional information emerge to support analysis.”
“None of these resolved cases substantiated advanced foreign adversarial capabilities or breakthrough aerospace technologies.”
“AARO is working closely with its IC and S&T partners to understand and attribute the 21 cases received this reporting period that merit further analysis based on reported anomalous characteristics and/or behaviors.” [emphasis added].
“It is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology.”
“Reporting trends of UAP morphologies remain consistent with historical patterns. Unidentified lights and round/spherical/orb-shaped objects made up the bulk of cases in which reports provided distinct visual characteristics (see Figure 3). Objects within the “other” category include unique descriptions such as “green fire ball,” “a jelly fish with [multicolored] flashing lights,” and a “silver rocket approximately six feet long.””
“AARO is developing an S&T plan that discusses how AARO is approaching the UAP problem set in a scientifically and technically rigorous manner, as described by 50 U.S.C. § 3733(g). The plan outlines the challenges facing UAP detection and identification such as a lack of high quality sensor data and a series of gaps in the scientific knowledge base. The plan presents a way forward on incorporate relevant sensor technologies, advanced data processing capabilities, and maturing the UAP-related sciences to minimize the identified challenges.”
Requirement #3: Restricted airspace incursions (tally)
(E) The number of reported incidents of unidentified aerial phenomena over restricted air space of the United States during the one-year period.
No tally of incursions is presented in the unclassified report.
Requirement #4: Restricted airspace incursions (analysis)
(F) An analysis of such incidents identified under subparagraph (E).
No information on incursions is presented in the unclassified report.
Requirement #5: National Security Threat of UAP
(G) Identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by unidentified aerial phenomena to the national security of the United States.
The report states the following facts for this requirement:
“U.S. military aircrews provided two reports that identified flight safety concerns, and three reports described pilots being trailed or shadowed by UAP. To date, AARO has no indication or confirmation that these activities are attributable to foreign adversaries. AARO continues to coordinate with the Intelligence Community (IC) to identify whether these activities may be the result of foreign adversarial activities.”
Requirement #6: Adversarial foreign governments
(H) An assessment of any activity regarding unidentified aerial phenomena that can be attributed to one or more adversarial foreign governments.
The report states the following facts for this requirement:
“None of these resolved cases substantiated advanced foreign adversarial capabilities or breakthrough aerospace technologies.”
Requirement #7: Breakthrough aerospace capability
(I) Identification of any incidents or patterns regarding unidentified aerial phenomena that indicate a potential adversarial foreign government may have achieved a breakthrough aerospace capability.
The report states the following facts for this requirement:
“None of these resolved cases substantiated advanced foreign adversarial capabilities or breakthrough aerospace technologies.”
Requirement #8: Coordination with allies
(J) An update on the coordination by the United States with allies and partners on efforts to track, understand, and address unidentified aerial phenomena.
The report states the following for this requirement:
“AARO is also expanding engagement with foreign partners to share information and collaborate on best practices for resolving UAP cases.”
Requirement #9: Capture and exploit UAP
(K) An update on any efforts underway on the ability to capture or exploit discovered unidentified aerial phenomena.
The report states the following for this requirement:
“AARO Possesses No Data to Indicate the Capture or Exploitation of UAP
AARO is working with mission partners to formalize a process in the event UAP materiel is captured, drawing on current USG capabilities and operating procedures.”
Requirement #10: Health-related effects of UAP
(L) An assessment of any health-related effects for individuals that have encountered unidentified aerial phenomena.
The report states the following for this requirement:
“AARO received no reports suggesting any observers of UAP suffered any physiological impacts or adverse health effects.”
Requirement #11: U.S. nuclear technology and UAP
(M) The number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena associated with military nuclear assets, including strategic nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered ships and submarines.
(N) In consultation with the Administrator for Nuclear Security, the number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena associated with facilities or assets associated with the production, transportation, or storage of nuclear weapons or components thereof.
(O) In consultation with the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of unidentified aerial phenomena or drones of unknown origin associated with nuclear power generating stations, nuclear fuel storage sites, or other sites or facilities regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The report states the following for this requirement:
“AARO received a total of 18 reports from the Administrator for Nuclear Security and Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding incidents near U.S. nuclear infrastructure, weapons, and launch sites. The Administrator for Nuclear Security and Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission categorized all of these incidents as UAS.”
Requirement #12: Line organizations providing UAP data
(P) The names of the line organizations that have been designated to perform the specific functions under subsections (c) and (d), and the specific functions for which each such line organization has been assigned primary responsibility.
The report provides this table and statements for this requirement:
“AARO received the FAA’s civil and commercial aviation UAP reporting logs during this reporting period. These logs contained information on all UAP incidents reported to the FAA since June 2021.”
“AARO consistently receives UAP reports from the FAA on a weekly basis, which is a significant increase from the previous reporting period and reflects the success of AARO’s efforts to strengthen relationships with its reporting partners.”
“During the reporting period, AARO did not receive any UAP reports collected through national GEOINT, SIGINT, or MASINT platforms.”
“In May 2023, the Joint Staff (JS) issued a UAP GENADMIN message directing Combatant Commands and Services to report all UAP incidents, incursions, and engagements to Combatant Command Joint Operations Centers, Service Watch Centers, and respective CI elements, no later than 96 hours after the event.”
“The relationship between AARO and USAF, including the National Air and Space Intelligence Center and the Air Force Research Laboratory, continues to deepen and expand in terms of collection, analysis, exploitation, and resolution.”
Requirement #13: Unclassified format
(3) Form.--Each report submitted under paragraph (1) shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex.
The unclassified version of AARO’s 2024 UAP Report is an18-page document. AARO announced the release on its Twitter account on November 14, 2024, and also posted it on AARO’s website.
Non-Legislative Mandates
NOTE: AARO has 6 core functions, not all of which were stipulated by the 2022 NDAA. In ins 2024 report, AARO reported out on some of these.
Maintain Purpose-Built UAP Sensors
“AARO has begun collections using a prototype sensor system, GREMLIN, for detecting, tracking, and characterizing UAP. GREMLIN demonstrated functionality and successfully collected data during a test event in March of 2024. The next step for GREMLIN is a 90-day pattern of life collection at a site of national security.”
Receive Witness (Whistleblower & Civilian) Evidence on UAP
“On October 31, 2023, AARO launched the www.aaro.mil website, featuring a secure reporting mechanism for current or former U.S. Government (USG) employees, Service members, or contractors, who claim to have direct knowledge of purported USG programs or activities related to UAP, dating back to 1945, to contact AARO and submit a report. All information shared via this process is protected as personal and confidential and can generally only be shared with AARO staff for the purposes of contacting individuals for interviews.
AARO is authorized by law to receive all UAP related information including any classified national security information involving military intelligence or intelligence related activities at all levels of classification, regardless of any restrictive access controls, special access controls, or compartmented special access programs. There is no restriction on AARO receiving any past or present UAP-related information, regardless of the organizational affiliation of the original classification authority within the Department, the IC or any other USG department or agency.”
Commentary
This is the fourth annual UAP report issued by the Executive Branch, and the third one specifically authored by AARO staff. While it follows a similar format to the 2022 and 2023 reports, there are some additions that make it clearer and more substantiative.
Sean Kirkpatrick was director of AARO during the release of the 2022 and 2023 reports (both were released in 2023), and Kirkpatrick clearly had a hand in drafting those two. It is unclear how much he was involved in the production of the 2024 report. The reporting period for cases described in this report spans May 2023 through the end of May 2024. Kirkpatrick was involved with AARO for the entirety of this period, first as director and then as an unpaid consultant starting in December 2023. By mid-August 2024 Jon Kosloski became the permanent AARO director and Kirkpatrick exited his consultant role. Two months later the report was released. So we don’t know how much influence Kirkpatrick or Kosloski had on drafting the report.
That said, there does seem to be a subtle shift in tone from previous reports. In his November Senate hearing (described in the next chapter), Kosloski said that increased transparency is one of three priorities he set for AARO when he took over. He assured senators that “the Department is committed to declassifying and publicly sharing more information on UAP.” The 2024 report shows signs of this priority.
A major congressional requirement for the UAP reports is the officially tally, and prior reports have presented the tally in a less than straightforward way that would lead to muddled interpretations by members of Congress and the media. For example, the full data set would be subdivided into smaller sample sizes based on reporting periods, and conclusions would made about the subset rather than the whole. Imprecise and vague terms like “some,” “a small percentage,” and “more than half” were used. The 2022 UAP Report informed us that 195 of 366 reports exhibited “unremarkable characteristics,” most of which were balloons, but it did not tell us how many of the full data set of 510 were similarly unremarkable. As for the potentially remarkable cases, we were told that “[s]ome of these uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities.” The 2023 UAP Report informed us that “only a very small percentage of UAP reports display interesting signatures,” but failed to tell us how many, or why the signatures were so interesting.
During these years, AARO was also unclear about its case resolution rate. The reports described sorting cases based on “initial characterizations” of those that were likely conventional objects and those that “require further analysis.” Out of the hundreds of cases, only four case resolution reports were ever released—leaving us to wonder if “more than half” of UAP were balloons, why was it so easy to hard to prove that a balloon was a balloon.
The 2024 report does not clarify all of these issues, but shows a good faith effort to be more forthcoming.
First, the tally is more clearly presented. The first sentence of this section shares the total AARO UAP count of 1,652. Then it delves into the reporting period metrics. There are handy tables and graphs that break down the present the tallies visually. More important than presentation is AARO’s new framework for sorting and resolving cases called analytical adjudication. There are four categories: Case Closed; Pending Closure; Undergoing Analysis; Active Archive. The first two categories are UAP cases that were resolved or about to be at the time the report was issued (38.6% of the 757 cases for the year). The last category are cases that have too little data to allow for analysis, but which will be reopened should any new data come to light (58.6% of cases). The continued analysis category is most interesting. There is sufficient data for analysis, but something about that data rules out conventional explanations. The report lists 21 such cases (2.8% of cases). This is the number that AARO never made public when Kirkpatrick was running the office. Whether 2.8 constitutes “a very small percentage” is a matter of opinion, but the specificity of 21 UAP cases focuses the mind and stokes curiosity. What about these 21 cases make them potentially anomalous? (Senator Gillibrand called Kosloski before her Senate subcommittee to answer exactly that question, covered in the next chapter.) What percent of the total 1,652 cases fall into this category? (Perhaps future reports will tell us.)
The report made a few more transparency moves. Under its Scope section it listed the reporting requirements mandated by Congress’s 2022 NDAA, so that readers can judge for themselves to what except the report is meeting those requirements. I initially started the framework of this because I was afraid some of [] might be ingored and memory-holed—now they’re all listed right at the top of the report.
The 2024 report is the first time that AARO’s reports have addressed the nuclear reporting requirement. Prior reports were completely silent on this requirement, but this one tells us there have been 18 UAP reports from nuclear sites, though all were resolves to be standard drones.
Finally, analysis of UFO cases has always hinged on where you lay the emphasis. The statements It’s probably nothing and But it still can’t be explained can be said about the same case, and even both can be true at once. Your perspective about just how significant it may be that a UFO case defies explanation will shape your analysis. The truly objective analyst will not jump to either conclusion. A sighting that defies explanation is a mystery that deserves to be studied, one with the potential to go either way—a very strange balloon or an alien spacecraft or something else we haven’t thought of.
Here is the last sentence of the Executive Summary of the 2023 report, Kirkpatrick’s last annual UAP report:
“Based on the ability to resolve cases to date, with an increase in the quality of data secured, the unidentified and purported anomalous nature of most UAP will likely resolve to ordinary phenomena and significantly reduce the amount of UAP case submissions.”
Kirkpatrick was a probably nothing UFO analyst. There is nothing like that sentence in the 2024 report. Whether AARO’s new director, Jon Kosloski, shares a more objectives UFO stance will be explored in the next chapters.