The US Department of Defense revealed a new website on Thursday that will serve as a "one-stop shop" to declassified information on all things UFOs, or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).
Despite crashing on launch day, the "All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office" (AARO) page was quickly reestablished by officials, and is now expected to be available for reports from “current or US Government employees, service members, or contractors with direct knowledge of US Government programs or activities related to UAP dating back to 1945.” The reports, according to the website, will then be used to “inform AARO’s congressionally directed Historical Record Report.”
The reporting feature will be a major step for those wishing to report UAP incidents, as there were neither hotlines, email addresses, nor an official channel available when AARO was first formed in July 2022.
However, the Pentagon has also acknowledged the site will have to ensure that reporting doesn’t fall victim to pranksters or become open to non-serious reports.
“[T]hat’s a critical aspect of this, is ensuring that information can be received in a way in which it will be properly handled to ensure, again, privacy, both from a statutory and regulatory standpoint, but then also to ensure that that website and the information there is secure,” said Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder.
“So this will be something that we’ll continue to keep the public updated on. AARO is focused on the facts, taking in information, reviewing the facts, and then when possible, declassifying that information making it available," he added.
The Pentagon said they will make an announcement when the feature is made available. In April, officials said that they were tracking more than 650 potential cases of UAPs.
While the website remains mostly under construction, it presently allows the public to review items such as UAP reporting trends, which include reported UAP altitudes, typically reported UAP characteristics, reported UAP morphology and reported UAP hotspots. The website also has a section for videos of UAPs, with at least eight on the site as of Friday night. At least four of those videos have been marked as “unresolved cases.”
Some of the resolved UAP cases in government reports have been attributed to “balloon or balloon-entities,” as well as drones, birds, weather events and plastic bags.
Grusch claimed during his testimony that witnessed firsthand what he thought was extraterrestrial life. The claim of alien life, however, has been denied by AARO’s director, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, who stated during an earlier April hearing that there was no “credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology or objects that defy the known laws of physics.”