Federal Aviation Administration
UFO Acts & Statements Archive (2001-Present)
The FAA was founded in 1958, taking over the responsibilities of the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA). The Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM): Basic Flight Information and ATC Procedures was first published in 1975. Prior to that this manual was called the Airman’s Information Manual, first published in 1964. Prior to that title the FAA published a Flight Information Manual.
Link to the current AIM.
2001
U.S. Army colonel John B. Alexander, Ph.D. (retired 1988), working for Robert Bigelow’s National Institute for Discovery Sciences (NIDS), facilitates meetings with an unnamed Deputy Director of Security for the FAA that results in the FAA directing operators to share UAP reports with NIDS. (The Debrief)
“So I went to Washington and had an initial conversation, and said look, we’re interested in [UAP],” Alexander says. Following this meeting, the FAA Deputy Director “was able to set up a secondary meeting where we had Bob [Bigelow] and Colm [Kelleher] with us. And we came in and met with some senior FAA officials.”
“Interestingly, the guys who had experience as air traffic controllers were pretty supportive,” Alexander said. “Many of them had experiences of reports coming in while they were on duty. Organizationally, they were just happy to have an outlet to make this go away.”
February 2010
FAA Briefing Guide: “Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) is a new organization that is devoted to exploration of extremely advanced aerospace technology, including the so-called unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) or unidentified flying object (UFO) topics.”
“In 2001, another of Mr. Bigelow’s organizations, the National Institute for Discovery Sciences (NIDS), succeeded in becoming the ‘go-to’ organization for the reporting by pilots and air traffic control of UFOs in the United States.”
“NIDS is now defunct and has been replaced by the larger, more capable BAASS. Therefore, pilot and air traffic control reporting of UFOs in the United States should now go to BAASS, vice NIDS. So we are deleting the NIDS acronym and adding the BAASS acronym.” (The Debrief)
2014
The 2014 AIM directed operators to report UFOs to Bigelow Aerospace (BASSS), or the National UFO Reporting Center.
7−6−4. Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) Reports a. Persons wanting to report UFO/unexplained phenomena activity should contact a UFO/unexplained phenomena reporting data collection center, such as Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) (voice: 1−877−979−7444 or e−mail: Reporting@baass.org), the National UFO Reporting Center, etc. b. If concern is expressed that life or property might be endangered, report the activity to the local law enforcement department.
December 2015
The 2015 AIM and JO Order provided updated guidance on UFO reporting. This removed Bigelow Aerospace as a suggested contact. Signed October 27, 2015, and went into effect December 10, 2015.
FAA JO Order 7110.65W, Air Traffic Control link
Black Vault FOIA release
June 2021
The FAA begins database of civil and commercial aviation UAP reporting logs that is shared with the Pentagon (Department of Navy) UAP Task Force, which will eventually become part of AARO’s UAP database. All FAA UAP reports in the official UAP tally start from this month, according to the 2024 UAP Report.
The UAP Task Force’s UAP report, Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, released June 25, 2021, stated the following about FAA UAP reporting:
The UAPTF is currently working to acquire additional reporting, including from the U.S. Air Force (USAF), and has begun receiving data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)…
• The FAA captures data related to UAP during the normal course of managing air traffic operations. The FAA generally ingests this data when pilots and other airspace users report unusual or unexpected events to the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization.
• In addition, the FAA continuously monitors its systems for anomalies, generating additional information that may be of use to the UAPTF. The FAA is able to isolate data of interest to the UAPTF and make it available. The FAA has a robust and effective outreach program that can help the UAPTF reach members of the aviation community to highlight the importance of reporting UAP.
August 2021
The FAA provides a statement to The Debrief, clarifying its UAP reporting:
“The Federal Aviation Administration documents Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) sightings whenever a pilot reports one to an air traffic control facility,” an FAA spokesperson told The Debrief in an email.
“If the pilot report can be corroborated with supporting information such as radar data, it is shared with the UAP Task Force,” the spokesperson added. The statement marks a notable shift from the FAA’s previous positions regarding UAP, and its insistence even in days following the release of the ODNI report that it has limited involvement with the collection of such data.
May 31, 2023
Mike Freie presents on behalf of the FAA to the NASA Independent UAP Study Team at a public meeting.
“There is a process by which air traffic controllers can report UAP sightings or events. Historically those have been in the range of about three to five reports per month that have been reported. We did see an uptick of reports in August of ‘22 that went up to about 8 to 10, perhaps due to Starlink launches, and finally the with the Chinese weather or the Chinese balloon incidents in February [2023] we did see a significant up tip and uptick, and there's like 68 UAP reports that started in February and we've seen a large number you know subsequent to them.
…that is three to five reports per month for all the controllers in all of the US. So there's a process by which if they see something and they want to report that they can go to report that to the the [Den] we call it, but report ‘hey I saw something I don't know what it was’ so that's three to five per month across the entire you have 14,000 controllers per month. So you know 45,000 operations any given day, 30 months 30 days however many days in a month, you know it's a very small percentage.”
Panel Question: “How do you encourage to report? Do you feel like the stigma on UAPs is impairing the reporting?”
“I'm not aware of--I'll answer it this way, the process by which UAP is reported is part of the air traffic controller order so basically the air traffic controllers are allowed, it says you know if you see something here's a process by which, the procedure by which you would report it. Other than that I'm not aware of any specific stigma or limitations and I’m really probably not in a good position to you know to speak to that other than there is that process and that is the process that we used and is what represents those numbers I talked to.”
Freie states that UAP reports are submitted through the FAA’s Domestic Events Network, which is primarily for collecting threats, suspicious activities, and laser incidents. This also suggests that UAP reports are not collected directly from pilots but filtered through reports made to and verified by Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC), which are responsible for submitting DEN reports.
FAA explanation of the DEN: “Domestic Events Network (DEN). A 24/7 FAA sponsored telephonic conference call network (recorded) that includes all of the air route traffic control centers (ARTCC) in the United States. It also includes various other Governmental agencies that monitor the DEN. The purpose of the DEN is to provide timely notification to the appropriate authority that there is an emerging air‐related problem or incident.”
The NASA UAP Study Teams final report (issued September 2023) recommended the FAA require its operators to report UAP through the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS):
“A particularly promising avenue for deeper integration within a systematic, evidenced-based framework for is the NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), which NASA administers for the FAA. This system is a confidential, voluntary, non-punitive reporting system that receives safety reports from pilots, air traffic controllers, dispatchers, cabin crew, ground operators, maintenance technicians, and UAS operators that provides a unique data source for emerging UAS safety issues.… Although not initially designed for UAP collection, better harnessing it for commercial pilot UAP reporting would provide a critical database that would be valuable for the whole-of-government effort to understand UAP.”
The Debrief article on ASRS (2021)
September 2024
The FAA’s AIM annual update does not include any changes to it guidance on how operators should report UFOs.
Section 8. Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) Reports
Persons wanting to report UFO/unexplained phenomena activity should contact a UFO/unexplained phenomena reporting data collection center, such as the National UFO Reporting Center, etc.
If concern is expressed that life or property might be endangered, report the activity to the local law enforcement department.
AIM Section 8
The Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) has no explicit UAP/UFO reporting category in its reporting portal.
November 14, 2024
AARO releases its 2024 UAP Report, which provides an update on FAA reporting:
Of the 757 reports [from the May 2023-June 2024 reporting period] 392 were from the FAA, which consisted of all of the FAA’s UAP reports since 2021.
…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.
…Of the 392 FAA reports received during the reporting period, only one report mentioned a possible flight safety issue during the event. In this instance, a commercial aircrew reported a near miss with a “cylindrical object” while over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New York. AARO continues its research into, and analysis of, this case.