Answers to the most common questions about UAP, declassified government files, the official archive ecosystem, and how to research UAP records.
UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) is the current official U.S. government term, adopted by the Department of Defense and AARO to describe aerial objects that cannot be immediately identified. UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) is the older, colloquial term from the Cold War era. They refer to the same category of phenomena, but UAP is now standard in official government reporting, legislation, and archive terminology.
NARA Record Group 615 is the National Archives and Records Administration's designated collection for UAP-related government records, created under the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It is the primary official archive for U.S. government UAP files, and is expected to grow on a rolling basis as federal agencies transfer additional records. Now Declassified indexes public material from this collection.
AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) is the U.S. Department of Defense office responsible for detecting, identifying, and attributing UAP. It publishes case resolution reports, official UAP imagery, and current records papers on its public website. AARO's case resolution pages are the strongest evidence-level content in the current official UAP public record, documenting official analytic conclusions for specific cases.
The primary sources for declassified UAP documents are: (1) NARA RG 615 — the National Archives UAP Records Collection at archives.gov; (2) AARO Records — case resolutions and imagery at aaro.mil; (3) NASA UAP Study — scientific findings at science.nasa.gov/uap; (4) FBI Vault UFO files — historical records at vault.fbi.gov/ufo. You can also file a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request directly with any federal agency to request unreleased records.
Yes. The U.S. government has officially acknowledged that UAP are real, unidentified objects encountered by military personnel. The 2023 NASA UAP Independent Study Team, the 2024 NDAA, and AARO's case resolution database all confirm that a subset of UAP reports cannot be explained by conventional means. The key question — what they are — remains officially unresolved.
PURSUE (Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters) is an executive-level UAP disclosure mechanism announced in 2025. It creates a formal process for the President of the United States to declassify and release UAP-related records. Files released through PURSUE become part of the public UAP archive indexed in NARA RG 615.
AARO has reported receiving over 1,000 UAP reports from military personnel. NARA RG 615 currently contains records spanning multiple tranches of transferred documents. Now Declassified indexes 15 fully profiled incidents drawn from publicly available official-source material, with 162 total files indexed across the archive.
A UAP file is declassified when a federal agency removes its classification status (TOP SECRET, SECRET, CONFIDENTIAL) and releases it to the public record — typically via NARA, AARO, or a FOIA request. Declassification does not necessarily mean the incident is explained; it means the information is now available for public review. Many declassified UAP files still contain redacted sections.
Officially documented UAP shapes in the indexed archive include: orbs (spherical luminous objects, the most common), triangles, discs (saucer-shaped), ellipsoids (tic-tac shaped, as in the Nimitz/USS Princeton encounter), diamonds, and unknowns (insufficient visual data for shape classification). Shape classification is based on witness reports, radar data, and in some cases official imagery released by AARO.
The agencies most prominently represented in the official UAP archive include: the Department of Defense (DoD) — with the most documented cases; the FBI — primarily historical files from the 1940s–1950s; NASA — primarily through the 2023 independent study; the State Department — diplomatic cables relating to international sightings; and the FAA — aviation-related reports. All of these agencies now feed records into NARA RG 615.
Yes. Now Declassified offers a free Sighting Matcher tool that lets you describe what you saw (shape, behavior, region, altitude) and cross-references your input against every indexed declassified incident. It returns match scores and links to the official archive context for the closest cases. No data is stored — the matching runs entirely in your browser.
No. Now Declassified is an independent research project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or funded by the U.S. government, AARO, NARA, NASA, FBI, or any official agency. We index and present publicly available official-source material for research purposes. All source links point directly to the original government portals.