Fiscal Year 2023 Consolidated Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena/Executive Summary
I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is provided by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in response to a requirement established in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022, Section 1683 (h), as amended by Section 6802(k) of the FY 2023 NDAA (as codified at 50 U.S.C. § 3373).
The report covers unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) reports from 31 August 2022 to 30 April 2023, and all UAP reports from any previous time periods that were not included in an earlier report. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) received a total of 291 UAP reports during this period, consisting of 274 that occurred during this period and another 7 that occurred during previous reporting periods from 2019–2022, but had not been conveyed in previous submissions.
Reporting from this period continues to depict a strong but shifting collection bias. Most reports still reflect a bias towards restricted military airspace, a result of reporting from military personnel and sensors present in such areas. This bias has been lessened by reporting from commercial pilots showing a more diverse geographic distribution of UAP sightings across the United States. However, these reports mostly cover observations over U.S. airspace and littoral waters, and therefore, as these reports continue to come in, a U.S.-centric collection bias will grow significantly relative to the rest of the world.
During the reporting period, AARO received no reports indicating UAP sightings have been associated with any adverse health effects. However, many reports ftom military witnesses do present potential safety of flight concerns, and there are some cases where reported UAP have potentially exhibited one or more concerning performance characteristics such as high-speed travel or unusual maneuverability. AARO has de-conflicted these cases with potential U.S. programs and continues to work closely with its DoD and Intelligence Community (IC) mission partners to identify and attribute any objects found in these cases. Additionally, AARO continues to investigate and research all cases in its holdings.
While the mere presence of UAP in the airspace represents a potential hazard to flight safety, none of these reports suggest the UAP maneuvered to an unsafe proximity to civil or military aircraft, positioned themselves in flight paths, or otherwise posed a direct threat to the flight safety of the observing aircraft. Although none of these UAP reports have been positively attributed to foreign activities, these cases continue to be investigated.
AARO continues to make progress receiving, standardizing, analyzing, and resolving reports of UAP; working with military and technical partners to improve sensor placement and calibration to better collect against UAP; to elevate the quality of reporting; and to provide risk reduction for improved domain awareness.
While this progress is facilitating collection and analysis of the UAP problem set, the continued volume and unidentified nature of most UAP is a direct consequence of gaps in domain awareness. These gaps are the direct result of insufficient data secured by radar, electro-optical (EO)/infrared (IR) sensors; the presence of sensor artifacts, such as IR flare; and optical effects, such as parallax, that can cause observational misperceptions. 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.