The United States Department of Defense (DoD) is the primary federal agency responsible for national security and the armed forces of the United States, headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Within the context of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena research, the DoD has occupied a central and contested position — simultaneously operating investigative programmes, controlling the classification and release of relevant footage, and being the subject of congressional and inspector general scrutiny over the adequacy and transparency of its UAP-related activities.
The DoD’s most publicly documented UAP-related initiative was the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which investigated reports of unidentified flying objects according to DoD officials, programme participants, and records obtained by The New York Times.4 The programme operated with a budget of $22 million within the DoD’s approximately $600 billion annual budget.1 The DoD had never acknowledged the existence of AATIP prior to 2017-12, when Pentagon officials confirmed it in response to questions from the Times.5,2 Pentagon spokesman Thomas Crosson stated at the time that the programme had ended because “it was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding."3 The DoD’s official position was that the programme was shut down in 2012,6 though backers of AATIP maintained that officials continued to investigate UAP episodes brought by service members while carrying out other DoD duties after formal funding ceased.7
Luis Elizondo, who served as a career counter-intelligence officer within the DoD across multiple offices including the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSD(I)), resigned his position on the staff of the Secretary of Defense in late 2017 in protest at what was described as excessive secrecy and internal opposition to UAP research.12 In his resignation letter, Elizondo stated that bureaucratic challenges and inflexible mindsets continued to plague the Department at all levels, particularly regarding anomalous aerospace threats.18 Christopher K. Mellon, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and oversaw all DoD intelligence activities and Special Access Programs, subsequently became a prominent advocate for greater UAP transparency outside the Department.
On 2020-04-27, the DoD authorised the official release of three previously circulating, unclassified Navy UAP videos as part of the Pentagon UAP Video Release 2020.8 Following a thorough review, the Department determined that the release of the three videos — which included the Gimbal Video and the Tic Tac UAP Full Video — did not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems.9 The DoD stated it released the footage in order to clear up public misconceptions about whether the material was authentic.10 As of the date of release, the aerial phenomena observed in the videos remained characterised as “unidentified."11 In November 2021, the DoD announced the creation of a new investigative body, the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG), situated within the OUSD(I).16 This was subsequently succeeded by the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
The DoD’s internal handling of UAP matters has drawn sustained scrutiny from both Congress and its own inspector general. The Department of Defense Inspector General determined that the DoD had not used a coordinated approach to detect, report, collect, analyse, and identify UAP,13 and further found that the Department had not issued a comprehensive UAP response plan identifying roles, responsibilities, and coordination procedures.14 At the First Open Congressional UAP Hearing 2022, DoD witnesses revealed that more than 400 UAP cases had been logged in the preceding year, compared to 143 unresolved cases in a prior 180-day report.17 Senator Harry Reid and members of the Senate Intelligence Committee pressed for greater disclosure; Senator Marco Rubio separately expressed concern that the Defense Department had not been sharing information on hundreds of UAPs with investigators and scientists at AARO.15 Legislative measures under the National Defense Authorization Act subsequently required the DoD to ensure reporting on all activity relating to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, including material retrieval, analysis, and reverse engineering.20 The DoD’s new UAP office, AARO, stated publicly that it had not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that programmes involving the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials had ever existed.19