US Defence Department opens new office for “unidentified anomalous space phenomena”

THE US Department of Defence has opened a new office about “unidentified anomalous phenomena across space, air, and maritime domains” months after the country held a historic public hearing on UFOs – now called Unexplained Aerial Sightings.

On Wednesday, July 20, the new office for “unidentified anomalous phenomena” – dubbed the “All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)” – was announced via a press release from the US Defence Department.

“On July 15, 2022, Deputy Secretary of Defence Kathleen Hicks, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), amended her original direction to the Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence & Security by renaming and expanding the scope of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Group (AOIMSG) to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), due to the enactment of the National Defence Authorisation Act for fiscal 2022, which included a provision to establish an office, in coordination with DNI, with responsibilities that were broader than those originally assigned to the AOIMSG.”

It added: “On July 20, 2022, USD(I&S) Hon. Ronald S. Moultrie informed the department of the establishment of AARO within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence and Security, and named Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, most recently the chief scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Missile and Space Intelligence Center, as the director of AARO.

“The mission of the AARO will be to synchronise efforts across the Department of Defence, and with other U.S. federal departments and agencies, to detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in, on or near military installations, operating areas, training areas, special use airspace and other areas of interest, and, as necessary, to mitigate any associated threats to safety of operations and national security. This includes anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged and transmedium objects.”

“The AARO Executive Council (AAROEXEC), led by Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security (USD(I&S)) Ronald Moultrie, will provide oversight and direction to the AARO along these primary lines of effort:

    1. Surveillance, Collection and Reporting
    2. System Capabilities and Design
    3. Intelligence Operations and Analysis
    4. Mitigation and Defeat
    5. Governance
    6. Science and Technology”

As mentioned, a US House of Intelligence subcommittee held on Tuesday, May 17, heard testimony from two top defence intelligence officials on UFOs, which are now referred to as Unidentified Aerial Vehicles in the US.

The hearing focused on work from a group within the Pentagon – formerly the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, now the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronisation Group – which followed up on questions raised from a nine-page “Preliminary Assessment” released in June 2021 looking at 144 incidents of “unidentified aerial phenomena” dating back to 2004.

Of the 144 incidents, the report provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, at the request of US Congress, was only able to explain one.