October 12–13, 2026UnverifiedNot under oath
Stratton: a nuclear submarine used as bait for a UAP
Claimant: Jay Stratton, first director of the UAP Task Force · See: Out of the Shadows (book breakdown)
- Claim
- That an operation he arranged positioned a nuclear submarine to draw a UAP close enough to monitor and track (“Our bait would be a nuclear submarine”), and that on the first mission “a UAP appeared.”
- Setting
- His memoir Out of the Shadows, published October 13, 2026, and an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News the evening before, in which Baier read the passage aloud. Not under oath.
- Evidence offered
- His own account. The passage says the aim was to monitor, track and “if possible, capture or recover”; he did not say anything was recovered. No date, location, imagery or sensor data from the operation has been made public.
- Official response
- No official statement on the operation has been found. A representative told People the book was reviewed by 21 agencies and departments before release; clearance for publication is not confirmation of a book's claims.
- Status
- Unverified: there is no public record of the operation either way, only Stratton's account of it.
Sources: Sentinel News, transcript of the Fox News interview (October 13, 2026); Fox News interview (video); People, “Pentagon's UFO Hunter Reveals Himself” (October 13, 2026).
November 21, 2025DisputedNot under oath
Stratton: he has seen non-human craft and non-human beings
Claimant: Jay Stratton · See: Out of the Shadows (book breakdown), AARO Historical Record Report, Vol. I
- Claim
- That he has seen non-human craft and non-human beings “with my own eyes,” and that “both the defense contractor community and the government have craft of non-human origin.”
- Setting
- Dan Farah's documentary The Age of Disclosure, released on Prime Video and in a limited theatrical run on November 21, 2025; repeated on Fox News on October 12, 2026, the eve of his memoir's release. Not under oath: no sworn congressional testimony by Stratton has been found.
- Evidence offered
- His testimony as the task force's former director. No document, photograph, video or material has been presented with it.
- Official response
- No response addressed to Stratton by name has been found. AARO's March 2024 historical review found “no empirical evidence” that the government and private companies have been reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology, and AARO's director, Jon Kosloski, said on November 14, 2024 that the office had “discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology.”
- Status
- Disputed: his claim that the government and contractors hold non-human craft runs directly against the Pentagon's published findings, and his personal sightings rest on his word alone.
Sources: Sentinel News transcript; AOL/SoapCentral (October 13, 2026); Motion Picture Association, release announcement for The Age of Disclosure; AARO Historical Record Report, Vol. I (PDF, archived copy); DefenseScoop (November 14, 2024).
November 13, 2024DisputedPresented under oath; report unsworn
“Immaculate Constellation”: a hidden Pentagon program holding UAP intelligence
Claimants: Matthew Brown (report author) and Michael Shellenberger (who presented it) · See: Immaculate Constellation case file
- Claim
- That an unacknowledged Defense Department special access program called Immaculate Constellation serves as “a central or parent USAP” consolidating imagery and other intelligence on UAP, managed without the knowledge of Congress.
- Setting
- A joint hearing of two House Oversight subcommittees, “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth.” Shellenberger described the report under oath, and Rep. Nancy Mace submitted it for the hearing record. Its author was not a witness and the report itself is not sworn testimony; he identified himself as Matthew Brown, a former Pentagon and State Department adviser, in April 2025.
- Evidence offered
- The written report, which describes categories of UAP and specific incidents. No underlying imagery, program document or second named witness has been made public.
- Official response
- In October 2024, soon after the story broke around October 9, Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough said the department has “no record, present or historical” of any special access program by that name. On January 26, 2026, the Pentagon declined a FOIA search for related emails, saying “the subject matter itself does not exist.”
- Status
- Disputed: the Defense Department has denied on the record that the program exists, and no document supporting it has been released.
Sources: Hearing transcript, Serial No. 118-135 (GovInfo); House Oversight hearing page; NewsNation via Yahoo, Pentagon statement; The Black Vault, FOIA case 25-F-3827 (January 27, 2026); Unexplained.ie, on Brown's identification (April 30, 2025); ODNI, description of the alleged program recording the Pentagon denial (approved for release 6 November 2024).
November 13, 2024DisputedUnder oath
Elizondo: the United States possesses UAP technologies
Claimant: Luis Elizondo · See: Imminent (book breakdown), AATIP case file
- Claim
- That non-government technologies are monitoring military installations, that “the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries,” and that a multi-decade secret arms race is hidden from Congress.
- Setting
- Opening statement at the same November 13, 2024 House Oversight joint hearing. Under oath. Asked whether he was read into crash-retrieval programs, he said he could discuss that only in a closed session.
- Evidence offered
- His testimony and his prior government service. He presented no documents or material at the hearing, and said documentation he had signed restricts what he can say about crash retrievals.
- Official response
- The day after the hearing, AARO director Jon Kosloski said the office had “discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology”; AARO's March 2024 review had found no empirical evidence of a reverse-engineering program.
- Status
- Disputed: the claim that the government holds such technology is contradicted by AARO's published findings, and no evidence for it has been made public.
Sources: Hearing transcript (GovInfo); Elizondo's written testimony (PDF); DefenseScoop (November 14, 2024); AARO Historical Record Report, Vol. I (PDF, archived copy).
November 13, 2024UnverifiedUnder oath
Gallaudet: a Navy email about UAP that vanished the next day
Claimant: Tim Gallaudet, Rear Admiral, USN (Ret.) · See: USS Roosevelt Gimbal & GoFast (2015)
- Claim
- That in January 2015 he received a secure Navy email from U.S. Fleet Forces Command headed “URGENT SAFETY OF FLIGHT ISSUE,” with the GoFast video attached, and that the next day “that email disappeared from my account” and from the other recipients' accounts.
- Setting
- Opening statement at the November 13, 2024 House Oversight joint hearing. Under oath.
- Evidence offered
- His own account. The email has not been produced. The Defense Department's April 2020 release of three Navy videos confirms that two were recorded in January 2015, which fits his timeline but does not bear on the email.
- Official response
- No official response to this account has been found.
- Status
- Unverified: nothing on the public record confirms or contradicts what happened to the email.
Sources: Hearing transcript (GovInfo); Defense Department statement on the release of the Navy videos (April 27, 2020, archived).
March 8, 2024CorroboratedOfficial report
The official counter-claim: no government inquiry has confirmed extraterrestrial technology
Claimant: the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), Department of Defense · See: AARO Historical Record Report, Vol. I, Sean Kirkpatrick (AARO's founding director)
- Claim
- That AARO “found no evidence” that any U.S. government investigation, academic research or official review panel has confirmed that any UAP sighting represented extraterrestrial technology. The same report also found “no empirical evidence” for claims of a government and industry reverse-engineering program.
- Setting
- The congressionally mandated Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP, Volume I, covering 1945 to October 2023, released publicly on March 8, 2024. An official report, not testimony.
- Evidence offered
- A review of government investigative efforts since 1945, plus interviews; the report says AARO located the programs, officials and companies that interviewees named. A Volume II was promised for later claims.
- Official response
- This is itself the official position. It has been sharply criticised: Christopher Mellon, writing in The Debrief, called it the most error-ridden government report he could recall, and its conclusions are contradicted by the accounts of several claimants on this page.
- Status
- Corroborated, for the narrow finding: the published conclusions of earlier official inquiries agree, among them Project Blue Book's that there was “no evidence” its unidentified cases were extraterrestrial vehicles. The report's separate verdict on reverse-engineering programs is the part in dispute, though challenged so far by testimony rather than documents.
Sources: AARO Historical Record Report, Vol. I (PDF, archived copy); NPR (March 8, 2024); National Archives, Project Blue Book conclusions; Christopher Mellon, The Debrief (April 12, 2024).
Proposed 2011 · disclosed March 8, 2024DisputedNot under oath
“Kona Blue”: a homeland-security compartment for recovered craft and biologics
Claimants: unnamed interviewees who described it to AARO; its advocates were supporters of the cancelled AAWSAP/AATIP program · See: AARO Historical Record Report, Vol. I, Skinwalkers at the Pentagon (book breakdown)
- Claim
- That Kona Blue was a sensitive Department of Homeland Security compartment created to cover up the retrieval and exploitation of “non-human biologics.”
- Setting
- Statements by interviewees to AARO during its historical review, reported in the March 2024 report. The proposal itself dates from 2011. Not under oath in any public setting.
- Evidence offered
- The proposal package, which planned an oral-history effort to locate “advanced aerospace technology and biological samples.”
- Official response
- AARO confirmed Kona Blue was a real proposal for a prospective special access program but said DHS leadership rejected it for lacking merit; it was “never approved or stood up,” and the craft and bodies were “only assumed to exist” by its advocates. The Defense Department released the declassified documents in April 2024; they record that no data or material was ever transferred to or collected by DHS under the name.
- Status
- Disputed: the name and the proposal are confirmed by declassified records, but those same records show a program that was never approved and never received anything.
Sources: AARO Historical Record Report, Vol. I, pp. 34–35 (PDF, archived copy); The Black Vault, “DoD Releases KONA BLUE Documents” (April 16, 2024).
July 26, 2023DisputedUnder oath
Grusch: a multi-decade crash-retrieval program and non-human “biologics”
Claimant: David Grusch, former NGA and NRO intelligence officer · See: David Grusch case file, Exotic Biologics Hypothesis
- Claim
- That in the course of his duties he was told of a “multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program” and denied access to it, and, asked by Rep. Nancy Mace, that “biologics came with some of these recoveries,” which he said were non-human.
- Setting
- House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency.” Under oath. He had first gone public in The Debrief on June 5, 2023.
- Evidence offered
- Second-hand testimony: he told the subcommittee he was “speaking to the facts as I have been told them.” He said names, programs and locations had been given to inspectors general and to Congress in classified settings; his lawyer filed a complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General in May 2022. None of it has been made public.
- Official response
- In June 2023, Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough told ABC News that AARO had found no verifiable information that any program to possess or reverse-engineer extraterrestrial materials had existed. AARO's March 2024 report found the reverse-engineering claims it examined to be inaccurate.
- Status
- Disputed: the Defense Department has denied the program on the record, and the testimony is second-hand with no public documents behind it.
Sources: Hearing transcript, Serial No. 118-53 (GovInfo); House Oversight hearing page; The Debrief (June 5, 2023); ABC News, Pentagon statement (June 2023); AARO Historical Record Report, Vol. I (PDF, archived copy).
July 26, 2023Partly corroboratedUnder oath
Fravor: the 2004 “Tic Tac” outperformed anything the Navy had
Claimant: David Fravor, Commander, USN (Ret.) · See: USS Nimitz case file, Alex Dietrich
- Claim
- That in November 2004, off San Diego, he and three other aircrew saw a white “Tic Tac” object with no visible wings or rotors, which accelerated away as he closed in, and that it was “far superior to anything that we had.”
- Setting
- The July 26, 2023 House Oversight subcommittee hearing, alongside Grusch and Ryan Graves. Under oath. He had described the encounter publicly for years before.
- Evidence offered
- His eyewitness account; that of the other pilot, Alex Dietrich, who described the encounter on 60 Minutes in May 2021; and the infrared video he said another crew from his squadron recorded later that day.
- Official response
- On April 27, 2020, the Defense Department authorized release of a Navy video taken in November 2004 and stated that the phenomena in the released videos “remain characterized as unidentified.” No official finding on what the object was has been published.
- Status
- Partly corroborated: the encounter, a second pilot's matching account and the authenticity of the video are on the record; what the object was, and its performance, are not established.
Sources: Hearing transcript (GovInfo); CBS News, 60 Minutes (May 2021); Defense Department statement (April 27, 2020, archived).
November 2019UnverifiedNot under oath
Nimitz: recordings collected and erased after the 2004 encounter
Claimants: Gary Voorhis (USS Princeton) and PJ Hughes (USS Nimitz) · See: USS Nimitz case file
- Claim
- That soon after the encounters, recordings were taken: Voorhis says he was told to hand over the Princeton's data recordings after two people arrived by helicopter, and to “erase everything that's in the shop”; Hughes says his commanding officer and two unknown men took the E-2C aircraft's data drives.
- Setting
- Interviews with Popular Mechanics, reported in November 2019. Not under oath.
- Evidence offered
- Their recollections. No receipt, log or order documenting the collection has been made public.
- Official response
- No official statement on these accounts has been found. Fravor's own account differs for his squadron: under oath in 2023 he said “The tapes were never taken” and that the incident was never investigated, though he did not speak to the Princeton's or the E-2C's recordings.
- Status
- Unverified: the accounts rest on the witnesses' word, and no record confirms or rules out the collection.
Sources: Live Science, reporting the Popular Mechanics interviews (November 14, 2019); 2023 hearing transcript, Fravor's statement (GovInfo).
Surfaced 2019DisputedNot under oath
The Wilson-Davis notes: an admiral denied access to a UFO program
Attributed author: Eric W. Davis · Subject: Admiral Thomas Wilson, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
- Claim
- Notes attributed to physicist Eric Davis describe a 2002 conversation in which Admiral Wilson said he had sought, and been denied, access to UFO-related information held in a secret program.
- Setting
- Unsigned notes posted online in April 2019, which drew wide attention from June 2019. Not under oath. Davis has not confirmed writing them.
- Evidence offered
- The notes themselves, which have no established provenance.
- Official response
- Wilson has denied the account. In 2020 he told journalist Billy Cox: “It's all fiction,” adding that he would not know Eric Davis if he saw him. Davis has not commented publicly.
- Status
- Disputed: the person whose words the notes record has denied them on the record, and the document has never been authenticated.
Sources: The Black Vault, “The Admiral Wilson Leak: An Analysis” (2020, updated 2021).
December 16, 2017DisputedNot under oath
Elizondo: he ran the Pentagon's AATIP
Claimant: Luis Elizondo · See: AATIP case file, Imminent (book breakdown)
- Claim
- That he ran the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program from the Pentagon until his October 2017 resignation, continuing its work with Navy and CIA officials after its funding ended in 2012.
- Setting
- Interviews for The New York Times article that disclosed the program on December 16, 2017; repeated in his 2024 memoir Imminent. Not under oath.
- Evidence offered
- His account, and a December 2017 confirmation by then-Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White, reported by Politico, that he ran the program. Under oath in July 2023, David Fravor described AATIP as “led by Lue Elizondo.” His resignation letter, as reported by The Intercept, does not mention AATIP.
- Official response
- In June 2019, Pentagon spokesperson Christopher Sherwood told The Intercept that Elizondo “had no responsibilities with regard to the AATIP program” in his office. AARO's 2024 report says AATIP “was never an official DoD program” and that the name was later used by an informal group with no dedicated personnel or budget.
- Status
- Disputed: the Pentagon has contradicted his role on the record, after an earlier spokeswoman had confirmed it.
Sources: The New York Times (December 16, 2017, archived); The Intercept (June 1, 2019); AARO Historical Record Report, Vol. I, p. 22 (PDF, archived copy); 2023 hearing transcript (GovInfo).
1996 onwardDisputedNot under oath
Salas: a UFO over the gate as Malmstrom's missiles went off alert in 1967
Claimant: Robert Salas, 1st Lt., USAF (Ret.) · See: Malmstrom AFB 1967 case file, Faded Giant (book breakdown), UFOs and Nukes
- Claim
- That in March 1967, while on duty in a Minuteman launch capsule, guards reported a glowing red object hovering over the facility's front gate, and that minutes later the flight's ten nuclear missiles went offline.
- Setting
- Told to the Great Falls Tribune in August 1996, in an article that connected it with the Echo Flight shutdown of March 16, 1967; later placed at Oscar Flight on March 24, 1967; repeated in books and at press conferences, including the National Press Club on September 27, 2010. Not under oath before Congress.
- Evidence offered
- His recollection and accounts from other former personnel. The wing's declassified unit history confirms that all of Echo Flight's missiles lost strategic alert on March 16, 1967. Skeptic Brian Dunning notes that the wing's records show nothing unusual reported on the night Salas describes.
- Official response
- The 1967 unit history states that UFO rumours around Echo Flight “were disproven.” In 2025 interviews, former AARO deputy director Timothy Phillips attributed the shutdown to a transformer failure and said AARO saw no evidence of UAP; a June 2025 Wall Street Journal report, citing government sources, attributed it to a classified electromagnetic-pulse test. No final official account has been published.
- Status
- Disputed: the Echo Flight shutdown is documented, but the Air Force's own 1967 record rejects the UFO link, and the Oscar Flight account rests on witnesses' recollections.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Malmstrom UFO incident” (quoting the unit history and the 1996 Tribune article); NICAP, 341st Strategic Missile Wing unit history pages; Robert Hastings, The UFO Chronicles (August 2025), with Phillips's quoted remarks.
1989 onwardDisputedNot under oath
Lazar: reverse-engineering alien craft at S-4
Claimant: Bob Lazar · See: Bob Lazar / S-4 case file, Dreamland (book breakdown)
- Claim
- That he worked on a classified project at a site called S-4, near Area 51, reverse-engineering extraterrestrial craft, one of which he said ran on a stable isotope of element 115.
- Setting
- Las Vegas radio and television interviews beginning in 1989, and many interviews and documentaries since, several with KLAS-TV reporter George Knapp. Not under oath.
- Evidence offered
- His account; a 1982 Los Alamos laboratory phone directory listing his name; and a 1982 Los Alamos Monitor article calling him a physicist at the lab's Meson Physics Facility. No record of S-4 or of his work there has been produced.
- Official response
- Los Alamos officials told KLAS they had no record of his working there; the directory entry was later read as showing a contractor, not a laboratory scientist. MIT and Caltech have no record of the master's degrees he claims. No government body has publicly addressed the S-4 claims.
- Status
- Disputed: records contradict key parts of his background, and element 115, synthesized in 2003, has no stable isotope; the S-4 claim itself has never been confirmed or directly ruled out.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Bob Lazar” (with KLAS-TV and Los Alamos Monitor citations); Stanton T. Friedman, “The Bob Lazar Fraud,” via The Black Vault.
No claims with this status.
