German Bundeswehr UAP Incidents — Ministry of Defence Reports

Throughout the 1990s, German Bundeswehr (Federal Defence Force) pilots and radar operators reported multiple encounters with unidentified aerial objects in German and NATO training airspace. The incidents occurred particularly over Bavarian military training areas and over the North Sea. NATO radar stations in Germany — part of the NADGE (NATO Air Defence Ground Environment) system — also tracked anomalous returns. The German Ministry of Defence maintained classified investigation files. In 1999, following a parliamentary inquiry by the Green party (Grünen), the German government formally acknowledged in a parliamentary response that the Bundeswehr maintained records of UAP incidents. The government response confirmed the existence of classified files but cited national security exemptions preventing release. The response acknowledged that some Bundeswehr pilots had formally reported encounters and that radar data had been preserved. German aviation regulatory body Luftfahrt-Bundesamt (LBA) also received reports from civil aviation. Germany's UAP files remained largely classified, but the 1999 parliamentary acknowledgment established the formal existence of the German military UAP record — making Germany one of the few NATO members to acknowledge via parliamentary procedure that such records exist.