EDITORIAL GUIDE

How to Report a UAP Sighting to AARO — Step-by-Step

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is the official U.S. government body for receiving UAP reports from current and former government, military, and contractor personnel. Civilians can submit sightings through the Now Declassified community sighting page, which cross-references reports against the indexed archive corpus.

Who AARO Accepts Reports From

AARO's statutory mandate covers reports from current or former U.S. government employees, military personnel, and government contractors. This scope is deliberate — the office exists primarily to capture information currently inside classified programs or military operational environments, not to aggregate public sighting reports. If you are a current or former government employee, military member, or contractor with information about a UAP incident or a classified program, AARO is the correct reporting channel.

AARO is required by law to protect the identities of individuals who report through proper channels. The historical stigma around UAP reporting in military environments has been formally addressed — AARO was created in part to provide a safe reporting channel for personnel who previously felt they could not come forward. Its secure reporting pathway is available on the official AARO website.

What to Document Immediately After a Sighting

The quality of any UAP report is almost entirely determined by the information captured in the first few minutes. Memory degrades rapidly for unusual events, and critical details — exact time, precise location, specific behavior, duration — are most accurate immediately after the experience. Write down or voice-record your observations before discussing the event with other witnesses, because shared discussion can inadvertently merge or modify individual memories.

Key information to capture immediately: exact date, time, and duration; precise location (GPS coordinates from your phone are ideal); weather conditions; number of independent witnesses and their viewing positions; the object's apparent shape, color, and size relative to known reference points such as the moon or nearby buildings; all observed movements including trajectory, speed changes, and acceleration patterns; any sounds (or notable absence of sound); and any effects on electronics or animals. Photographs and video should be taken immediately even if quality is poor — the GPS and timestamp metadata embedded in phone photos can be as valuable as the image itself.

Submitting a Civilian Report

Civilian witnesses can submit a community sighting report through Now Declassified's sightings page. Reports are reviewed and cross-referenced against the incidents in the indexed archive corpus. If your sighting matches the characteristics of an existing indexed case, the match is returned along with the official source documentation for that case. The Match My Sighting tool performs an automated version of this cross-reference using shape, behavior, region, and altitude as matching criteria.

The Now Declassified sighting database contributes to the broader citizen science picture of UAP distribution over time. Approved sightings appear in the public gallery and are available for other researchers to review. If your sighting is sufficiently unusual and well-documented, the archive team may reach out to discuss including it in the index or forwarding relevant details to appropriate research channels.

KEY POINTS
  • AARO was established in July 2022 under the National Defense Authorization Act and is the primary office for UAP reporting by U.S. government personnel, military, and contractors.
  • Key information to document immediately after a sighting: date, time, duration, location (GPS if possible), weather conditions, number of witnesses, object shape, estimated size, color, movement behavior, any sounds, and any effects on nearby electronics.
  • Photograph and video: point at the object with your phone immediately, even if the quality is poor. Metadata embedded in the file (timestamp, GPS) is as important as the image quality.
  • If you are a current or former government employee, military member, or contractor: AARO accepts reports directly via its official website at aaro.mil. Reports from qualified individuals are processed under official review protocols.
  • Civilians can submit a community sighting report via the Now Declassified sightings page. Reports are reviewed and cross-referenced against the 35+ indexed archive cases for potential matches.
  • The Match My Sighting tool on Now Declassified cross-references your reported shape, behavior, region, and altitude against every indexed case to find your closest official-source parallel.
  • Historical reports: the FBI Vault and NARA RG 615 archive contain historical UAP reports dating to the 1940s. If you have historical materials or family accounts, the NARA bulk download and contact form can route them to the appropriate archive office.