On January 25th, the United States Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General issued a press release announcing the publication of an unclassified summary of a previously issued classified report titled, “Evaluation of the DoD’s Actions Regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.”
According to this press release, “The report reviewed the extent to which the DoD, Military Services, Defense agencies, and Military Department Counterintelligence Organizations took intelligence, counterintelligence, and force protection actions to detect, report, collect, analyze, and identify unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).”
The basic news here is that the DoD OIG found that “the DoD does not have a comprehensive, coordinated approach to address UAP,” pointing out that different departments and entities within the DoD have “varying processes to collect, analyze, and identify UAP incidents.” Additionally, the DoD OIG determined that “the DoD’s lack of a comprehensive, coordinated approach to address UAP may pose a threat to military forces and national security,” highlighting the absence of an overarching UAP policy.
Along with its determinations, the DoD OIG provided recommendations in this report to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, in coordination with the Director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office; the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
There have been plenty of opinions shared on social media about this report and the determination of the DoD OIG. Some have presented this report as a scathing review of the DoD’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, also known as AARO. It’s also being touted as evidence that AARO’s former director, Sean Kirkpatrick, has provided false statements to the press recently when discussing AARO’s work. What the report actually does is simply reiterate an issue that has already been raised — the fact that UFOs are a problem, and the biggest issue is the lack of coordination and information sharing between different departments and agencies. This is the exact reason Congress passed legislation and established the Pentagon’s UFO projects. So the conclusions reached by this report were already established realities and concerns, and things have been in motion to address those issues.
It’s true that one of AARO’s major objectives is to establish cohesive procedures and facilitate data sharing. At the time this report was originally published, August 2023, AARO was still in its infancy and not operating at full capacity. In fact, we’ve been told that it wasn’t projected to be fully operational until this year—2024. Additionally, the response provided by AARO and the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security in this report explains that they agree with the recommendation provided by the DoD OIG, but they pointed out that the DoD OIG’s assessment was “based on observations that largely predate the establishment of AARO.” Then they explain where they were in their process of achieving their goals.
The DoD OIG notes that the response from AARO and the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security “fully addressed the recommendation,” and that the recommendation was considered “resolved but open.” This is true of the other recommendations in the report as well. The DoD OIG feels its recommendations were addressed, and it will keep those issues open until the recommended policies, procedures, etc. are actually in place and in action.
Read the full report here: Evaluation of the DoD’s Actions Regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena
