AARO Has Released the Unclassified Version of their 2024 Annual UAP Report

The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office has released the unclassified version of their annual report for 2024, the second such report released since the office’s establishment in July 2022, and the first since the departure of the office’s controversial head, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, in December of last year, with Dr. Jon Kosloski taking over as Director of AARO in August 2024. Although the report claims that AARO has resolved the majority of the hundreds of reports they’ve received, 21 of the cases “merit further analysis,” including two that involved near-collisions with UAP, and numerous drone incursions over sensitive nuclear facilities.

Titled “Fiscal Year 2024 Consolidated Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena”, the report covers UAP incidents from May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024, although it includes reports from earlier dates that hadn’t been previously documented by the office. 757 reports were collected for the period, with 272 of these—nearly a third of the total—from the time period between 2021 and 2022.

Of the 757 cases, AARO reports that 49 of them have been fully resolved, with “an additional 243 cases were recommended for closure as of June 1, 2024, pending peer review,” with many of them determined to be “prosaic objects including balloons, birds, UAS, satellites, and aircraft.” Although 444 cases “lacked sufficient data to facilitate analysis,” the report states that they will be “placed in the Active Archive” to help provide context for ongoing research into trends in UAP patterns, and will be “reexamined if additional data becomes available.”

This left 21 cases that “merit further analysis by its IC (intelligence community) and science and technology (S&T) partners,” according to the report.

“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,” the report continues. “AARO will provide immediate notification to Congress should AARO identify that any cases indicate or involve a breakthrough foreign adversarial aerospace capability.”

Out of the 757 reports, only two appeared to present a flight safety risk; one of these was amongst the 392 reports received from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that described “a near miss with a ‘cylindrical object’” by a commercial aircraft “while over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New York.” Although the report offers no further details, it does state that “AARO continues its research into, and analysis of, this case.”

While “three reports described pilots being trailed or shadowed by UAP,” the report states that, despite this seemingly ominous behavior, AARO’s investigation has revealed “no indication or confirmation that these activities are attributable to foreign adversaries,” although the report states that the office “continues to coordinate with the Intelligence Community (IC)” to determine whether or not this was the case.

The report also gave a brief outline regarding “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 document refers to the craft involved as UAS (unmanned aerial systems), as some of these incidents involved manmade drones, with one device having been recovered after it crashed near the D.C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant in Michigan, before being handed over to local law enforcement.

Although the report does not say how many of the reports involved prosaic UAS or truly anomalous UAP, the incidents typically involved only one craft, while two were spotted in two of the cases. Incursion durations lasted between five minutes and two hours, and one incursion at USPER BWXT’s Fuel Cycle Facility in Lynchburg, Virginia, occurred over “six consecutive nights” lasting from October 10 to 15, 2023.

The last two sections of the report’s overview includes one titled “AARO Possesses No Data to Indicate the Capture or Exploitation of UAP”; instead, the section simply states that the office is “working with mission partners to formalize a process in the event UAP materiel is captured, drawing on current USG capabilities and operating procedures.”

The second of these sections, titled “No Health/Physiological Impacts from UAP Incidents Reported”, states that “AARO received no reports suggesting any observers of UAP suffered any physiological impacts or adverse health effects,” although it offers the caveat that “health-related effects may manifest at any time after an event occurs,” meaning that most of the cases may be too recent for any potential health issues to have taken effect yet, and that “any reported health implications related to UAP will be documented and reported if they emerge.

AARO also reports that they have begun collecting UAP data using a prototype version of their GREMLIN sensor system, used for “detecting, tracking, and characterizing UAP.” Developed by the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the system employs a variety of sensors such as 2D and 3D radar, electro-optical and infrared sensors, and RF spectrum monitors.

“GREMLIN demonstrated functionality and successfully collected data during a test event in March of 2024,” and is expected to be deployed in the first few months of 2025 to analyze UAP trends by conducting a “90-day pattern of life collection at a site of national security.”