How a UAP report actually reaches the government, and how it doesn’t yet
Most guidance circulating online about reporting a UAP sighting is either outdated or optimistic about what actually reaches the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. This page covers the honest current state, verified against AARO’s own published documentation. There is a real government reporting channel already open to ordinary pilots. There is real, legally significant whistleblower protection for government personnel. There is not yet a general public sighting portal, whatever a given forum post claims. Knowing the difference determines whether the time spent documenting a sighting is actually useful.
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A real evidence protocol: how to preserve photo metadata, rule out drones and satellites before you submit anything, and file a report that will actually hold up, to NUFORC and MUFON today, and to AARO the moment public reporting opens.
Get the kit: $8 instant download →AARO's own published documentation is specific about who its intake portal currently serves: current or former U.S. government employees, service members, or contractor personnel with direct, firsthand knowledge of UAP-related programs or activities, not general public sighting reports. Separately, and this is the real, live public-facing channel that exists today, pilots reporting UAP to air traffic control generates a formal Pilot Report, or PIREP, and the FAA forwards all UAP-related PIREPs directly to AARO. This is a genuine government pipeline operating right now, just a narrower one than most people assume.
Under the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, individuals may report to AARO without fear of violating the terms of a current or previous non-disclosure agreement. This is a genuine, legally significant protection, codified in real federal law, not a policy suggestion. It applies specifically to government, military, and contractor personnel disclosing information about UAP-related programs, not to a civilian describing what they personally saw in the sky.
AARO has stated it will announce when a general public reporting mechanism becomes available. As of this writing, that has not happened. In the meantime, the real, existing options for a civilian are the FAA pathway for pilots, and civilian organizations including the National UFO Reporting Center and the Mutual UFO Network, both of which maintain public case databases independent of the government.
This establishes that a real, functioning government reporting pipeline exists today for pilots via the FAA, that real federal law protects government personnel disclosing UAP program information to AARO, and that AARO's own published guidance confirms general public reporting is not yet available, a fact many secondary sources get wrong or state ambiguously.
What this does not establish is when public reporting will open, or what form it will take when it does. AARO has committed only to announcing it, without a stated timeline as of this writing.
Document: AARO UAP-Related Program/Activity Report, user guide and reporting form. aaro.mil.
Law: James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023.
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