AARO

All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office — the U.S. Department of Defense entity established in 2022 to detect, identify, and attribute unidentified anomalous phenomena across air, sea, space, and transmedium domains.

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is a U.S. Department of Defense organization established in July 2022 by direction of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, succeeding several short-lived predecessor offices including the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) and the UAP Task Force. AARO’s authorities and reporting requirements were significantly expanded by the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act and refined by the FY2024 NDAA.

Mandate

AARO’s statutory mission covers detection, identification, attribution, and risk assessment of unidentified anomalous phenomena in all operational domains:

Airborne (UAP in conventional aerospace)
Maritime (the so-called USOs, unidentified submersible objects)
Transmedium (objects transitioning between domains, including water-to-air)
Space (anomalous orbital phenomena and trans-orbital objects)

The office reports to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, with a parallel reporting line to the Director of National Intelligence.

Outputs

AARO is required by statute to produce annual reports to Congress on UAP activity (see Case #00471 for the FY2025 report). The office has also produced a Historical Record Report in two volumes (Volume I, March 2024; Volume II is expected) reviewing the U.S. government’s historical UAP investigation activity from 1945 to the present. Volume I notably concluded that no documented evidence has been found of an extraterrestrial reverse-engineering program.

The “all-domain” framing

AARO’s “all-domain” branding distinguishes it from predecessor programs that focused narrowly on aerospace. The framing captures the intelligence community’s recognition that UAP reports include maritime and transmedium incidents — including the USS Omaha sphere encounter (Case #00088) and the Aguadilla CBP video (Case #00067) — that earlier programs were not chartered to address.

AARO’s establishment is the most significant institutional change in U.S. UAP investigation since the closure of Project Blue Book in 1969.

Related entries

AATIP

Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program — the secretive U.S. Department of Defense unit that ran from 2007 to 2012, studying anomalous aerospace events for potential threat implications.

UAP

Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (formerly Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) — the U.S. government's preferred term for what was historically called UFOs, deliberately broader to include maritime, space, and transmedium objects.

ODNI

Office of the Director of National Intelligence — the U.S. cabinet-level office overseeing the 18 components of the Intelligence Community, and the publisher of the 2021 Preliminary Assessment that catalyzed the modern UAP disclosure cycle.

UFO

Unidentified Flying Object — the older, original term for anomalous aerial phenomena, in U.S. government usage from approximately 1952 until replacement by 'UAP' in 2021.

Project Blue Book

The U.S. Air Force's primary UFO investigation program from 1952 to 1969, which examined 12,618 reports and concluded that 701 remained 'unidentified' after investigation.