Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force,

The UAPTF formalized work the Navy had already been doing. Most recent military UAP reports were coming from naval aviators, and the Department of the Navy had been assessing incursions into training ranges and designated airspace since about 2018. In 2019 the Department of Defense began efforts to institutionalize that work under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. A June 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report described a task force inside the Office of Naval Intelligence meant to standardize collection and reporting. Deputy Secretary Norquist approved it on August 4, 2020; the Pentagon announced it ten days later. The Navy led the task force, under USD(I&S) cognizance.

Its main public product was the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Preliminary Assessment of June 25, 2021, written with the task force. That report examined 144 UAP reports from 2004 to 2021, found that most remained unexplained, and identified flight-safety and possible national-security concerns. On November 23, 2021, Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks directed creation of the AOIMSG as the UAPTF’s successor, to synchronize detection, identification, and attribution across the department and the wider government. The July 2022 memo that stood up AARO then ordered the Secretary of the Navy to disestablish the UAPTF no later than AARO’s establishment and to transfer its data and analysis. AARO’s later historical review credited the task force with standardizing and destigmatizing reporting and with methods that later contributed to identification of Chinese high-altitude balloons over the continental United States.