The Pentagon office investigating reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena, the government’s term for UFOs, received 21 reports last year that contain enough data for the intelligence community to continue actively investigating. 

The majority of the reports the office received described orbs, lights, cylinders, but about 4% fell into the category of “other” and included unique descriptions like “green fireball,” “a jelly fish with [multicolored] flashing lights” or a “silver rocket approximately six feet long.”  

“There are interesting cases that with my physics and engineering background and time in the [intelligence community], I do not understand, and I don’t know anybody else understands them,” Dr. Jon Kosloski, director, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) told reporters during a briefing on the unclassified version of the annual report mandated by Congress.  

Kosloski said the office has found “no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technologies,” and he said none of the cases point to foreign adversaries or breakthrough technologies. 

In total, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office received 757 reports of UAP between May 1, 2023 and June 1, 2024. Of the 757 received, 485 occurred during that time period, while 272 occurred outside of the reporting period but were not included in previous reports. 

The office resolved 49 of the cases by identifying the object as various types of balloons, birds or drones, and it expects to resolve 243 others by identifying them as one of those objects, as well. 

Another 444 didn’t have enough data to keep investigating, so the office will go into the its active archive to see if other data can be found.

Twenty-one merit further analysis, and these cases Kosloski found interesting because they correspond with the typical shapes the office receives reports on, like orbs, triangles, and cylinders, and at least “one of those cases has been happening for an extended period of time.” 

Kosloski acknowledged that even though investigators have not identified any of the cases as breakthrough technologies, the office can’t rule it out. 

“We’re open to that as an explanation for it, but we’re just not attributing breakthrough technology as the explanation to it,” Kosloski said. “An open mind works both ways. So if we don’t understand what it is, we can’t say that it is or it is not breakthrough technology.”

The AARO expects to soon release the second volume of the U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena detailing the government’s investigatory efforts from November 2023 to April 2024. The first volume released earlier this year looked at efforts from 1945 to 2023.