All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office

AARO is the central U.S. government office referenced by many modern public UAP and UFO imagery and report releases.

Overview

AARO-related records are grouped with the videos, source documents, and official metadata available in the archive. The grouping helps show which cases share the same office, release format, and status language.

Key facts

AARO appears across multiple modern UAP and UFO video and report records in the archive.
AARO-linked records often include an official status such as unresolved, resolved, or under analysis.
The archive keeps AARO-related videos connected to DVIDS metadata and related source files when available.

Related archive cases

Video-linked records1 Videos

PR-018, Unresolved UAP Report, Europe 2024

The United States European Command submitted a report of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) consisting of ten minutes and thirty seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 2024. AARO assesses, with high confidence, that the footage depicts the presence of a physical object. The object’s morphological features, performance characteristics, and behaviors are unremarkable and do not warrant further analysis. AARO will continue to investigate this case should further information become available to enable a more conclusive attribution. This unresolved report contributes to AARO’s historical and locational trend analyses.

Video-linked records1 Videos

PR-016, Resolved as Birds, Europe 2023

The United States European Command submitted a report of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) consisting of twenty-five seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 2023. AARO assesses, with high confidence, that the objects depicted in the video are almost certainly (>95% likelihood) birds. AARO bases its assessment on the objects’ strong morphological consistency with other resolved imagery featuring birds and the objects’ behavioral characteristics strongly aligning with those of birds, e.g. maintaining relative positioning for energy conservation during flight, pulsating infrared return at a frequency consistent with wing beats.

Video-linked records1 Videos

Unresolved UAP Report: Middle East 2024

This video is provided for informational purposes only. Viewers should not interpret any part of the video description below as reflecting an analytic judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the described event’s validity, nature, or significance. Viewers should not interpret the absence of a formal assessment as suggestive of anomalous characteristics. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office received a report from a U.S. military Service consisting of six minutes and forty-one seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform. The recording, captured in the Middle East in 2024, depicts an apparent thermal contrast within the sensor’s field of view. The area of apparent contrast exhibited characteristics that may be consistent with the presence of a physical object. However, due to the absence of corroborating telemetry or multi-modal sensor data, AARO cannot determine whether the observed signature represents a sensor artifact or a thermal emission or reflection from a physical source. The available data does not support a conclusive analytic evaluation.

Video-linked records1 Videos

Mt. Etna Object

In December 2018, a forward-looking infrared video sensor aboard an uncrewed U.S. Air Force platform captured this footage while operating over the Mediterranean Sea. This footage depicts an object that appears to be transiting a plume of superheated gas and ash produced by an eruption of Mt. Etna, a volcano in Sicily, Italy. AARO coordinated an interagency and international analytical effort that determined that optical effects from the intense atmospheric conditions near the volcano distorted the video, causing the object to appear to transit the plume. AARO assesses with moderate confidence that the footage instead depicts a balloon approximately 170 kilometers from the caldera traveling at wind speed and direction.

Video-linked records1 Videos

Al Taqaddum Object

In October 2017, an infrared sensor onboard a force protection aerostat near Al Taqaddum Air Base, Iraq, captured 17 minutes of video of an unidentified object. AARO assesses that the object was a cluster of partially and fully inflated balloons. The object's appearance is consistent with other recorded observations featuring balloon clusters. AARO employed full-motion video analysis and pixel examination techniques to inform its assessment. AARO assesses that the object did not demonstrate anomalous performance characteristics. AARO used geo-locational data from the aerostat to assess the object's speed and direction of travel.