What governments, legislatures, militaries, space agencies and courts have done about unidentified aerial phenomena, in date order, each entry resting on its document. Every nation that has acted. Newest first.100 entries since 1946.
In September 2025 the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), an office of the U.S. Department of War, published an information paper titled "AARO and the Declassification Process". The paper explained why much UAP-related information is classified, using the example of an F-35 camera image of a soda can that could be classified because of the sensor used rather than its subject. It stated that AARO cannot declassify information itself, since the originating office holds that authority, and described a review leading to full, partial or no release, followed by redaction checks with the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review. It said AARO had found no evidence of extraterrestrial beings or technology to date.
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AARO stated that it has found no evidence of extraterrestrial beings or technology to date (p. 1)
The paper says the vast majority of UAP reports are eventually determined to be mundane objects such as balloons, satellites and birds (p. 1)
AARO cannot declassify information on its own; the office that originally created the information has the primary authority to declassify it (p. 3)
Originating offices return one of three determinations: full release, partial release with redactions, or no release, and DOPSR must approve material before AARO publishes it (p. 4)
AARO is working with the National Archives and Records Administration to transfer UAP-related records for permanent storage and public access (p. 4)
On 21 June 2013 The National Archives released the final tranche of Ministry of Defence UFO files: 25 files of 4,400 pages covering the last two years of the MoD's UFO desk, from late 2007 until its closure in November 2009. The press release said the files set out the reasons for the closure, including a 2009 briefing to Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth that no reported sighting in more than 50 years had suggested an extra-terrestrial presence or military threat. The desk received over 600 reports in 2009, treble the previous year, which the files partly attributed to Chinese lanterns. Dr David Clarke said he believed this showed UFOs were a social phenomenon.
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The release comprised 25 files containing 4,400 pages, covering the UFO desk's work from late 2007 until November 2009.
The UFO Desk received over 600 sightings and reports in 2009, treble the amount of the previous year.
In 2009 Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth was told that in more than 50 years 'no UFO sighting reported to [MoD] has ever revealed anything to suggest an extra-terrestrial presence or military threat to the UK' (DEFE 24/2458/1).
The files note the desk 'serves no defence purpose and merely encourages the generation of correspondence', and its closure ended the UFO hotline and dedicated email address.
Briefings in the files suggested the surge in reports could be partly a result of the craze for releasing Chinese lanterns.
The New Zealand Defence Force released copied and redacted files of correspondence on unidentified flying objects dating from 1952 to 2009, declassified under the Official Information Act. This part, file AIR 39/3/3 Volume 1 titled "Flying Saucers", covers 1952 to 1955 and was declassified in September 2010. It holds public and military sighting reports, press clippings, saucer group newsletters and official opinions. Much of it concerns the sighting from a National Airways Corporation aircraft on 31 October 1955. Captain W. T. Rainbow told reporters the light was not a planet. The Royal New Zealand Air Force said it could not explain the light's apparent movement or establish definitely that it was Venus.
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The NZDF states that personal details of members of the public were removed and that no other information was removed or omitted.
The release notice says access to the original files at Archives New Zealand is restricted until 2050, while the file's own vetting sheet gives 2025, on privacy grounds.
Vetting of file AIR 39/3/3 was commenced and completed on 31 August 2010, and the vetting sheet records that the file held no classified documents.
Press reports in the file record that the Minister of Civil Aviation, Mr T. P. Shand, ordered an investigation into the 31 October 1955 sighting, and that Air Commodore R. J. Cohen, a passenger, believed the object was Venus.
A 17 September 1952 note records that enquiries at Carter Observatory found lights seen by the Director of Civil Aviation were consistent with "daylight meteorites".
The release on file is attributed to Library and Archives Canada, and the document is an Internet Archive compilation dated 10 December 2015 of declassified Canadian UFO records. The text shown is drawn from National Research Council of Canada files (RG 77, Vol. 306): fireball and unidentified flying object reports from 1965 to 1968, sent by RCAF stations, rescue coordination centres and the RCMP to Canadian Forces Headquarters, the NRC Meteor Centre and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. The reports record sightings across Canada. An RCMP file on a 12 July 1968 incident at Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, concluded that the object was probably a meteorite and closed the file. The text does not give a date for the digitisation itself.
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The files carry the reference National Research Council of Canada, RG 77, Vol. 306, and were routed to the NRC Meteor Centre and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
A 30 July report from Station Moosonee records Mr Norman Butler of the Department of Lands and Forest describing a disc-shaped object with a cylindrical bubble underneath near Inglis fire tower, north of Cochrane, Ontario.
On 31 July a Vancouver report states that the air traffic control tower could not locate the object either visually or by radar.
An RCMP report on the 12 July 1968 Sydney Mines incident states that rock and soil samples went to John Douglas of the Geological Survey of Canada, and that 'it is felt that the object was a meteorite and not a U.F.O.'
A Frobisher Bay memo of 20 June 1968 records the Department of Transport meteorological officer's opinion that an object seen there was an experimental or weather balloon above 100,000 feet.
The Spanish Ministry of Defence released its air force UFO files in batches, and this document is one of them: file number 761119, covering sightings over the Canary Islands on 19 November 1976. A cover sheet from the Air Force intelligence office (MOA) at Torrejón proposed declassification, stating that nothing made it advisable to keep it classified matter, and it was marked declassified under a letter dated 16 September 1994. The file holds Report 02/76 by an investigating judge, with statements from 14 witnesses, including the crew of the training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano and a T-12 aircrew. The Canaries air zone commander, himself a witness, wrote that it was an unidentified optical phenomenon.
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The file was marked "DESCLASIFICADO" under letter EMA/DOP number 814, dated 16-9-94, after the MOA intelligence officer found no reason to keep it classified matter.
At 19:15Z on 19 November 1976 the crew of the training ship "Juan Sebastián Elcano" reported a luminous point that spiralled, expanded to two to three times the lunar disc and formed a semicircle on the horizon; the active phase lasted more than 20 minutes.
Report 02/76 contains statements from 14 witnesses, 6 of them military or civil pilots, and the judge recommended studying it with the earlier reports 01/75 and 01/76.
In a letter dated 13 December 1976 the general commanding the Canaries air zone wrote that it was "indiscutiblemente" an unidentified optical phenomenon and suggested that specialists, possibly from the United States, be informed.
Crews of flights OM-300, IB-825 and IB-562 reported a very bright dome east of Málaga airport at about 30,000 feet that radar did not detect; the file records no investigation of that report.
The register here is the record's: what a body did, when, with the document. The archive's stories carry the longer reads, and the Latest feed carries this week's official news before it is entered here. Entries from the United Kingdom rest on material under the Open Government Licence v3.