A Brief History of UFO Research: From Foo Fighters to AARO
UFO research has evolved from wartime pilot reports to Congressional hearings. Here's how the field went from fringe to official government business.
The study of unidentified flying objects has a longer and more complex history than most people realize. What started with confused World War II pilots has become a subject of Congressional legislation, Pentagon task forces, and serious scientific inquiry. Here's how we got from there to here.
World War II: Foo Fighters (1940s)
The modern UFO era arguably begins during World War II, when Allied pilots over both Europe and the Pacific began reporting mysterious lights that followed their aircraft. They called them "foo fighters," a term borrowed from a Smokey Stover comic strip. The lights were described as glowing orbs, sometimes red, sometimes orange or white, that would pace bomber formations, perform impossible maneuvers, and then vanish. Both American and British intelligence investigated, initially suspecting German or Japanese secret weapons. After the war, captured Axis documents revealed that German and Japanese pilots had reported the same phenomenon, and assumed the lights were Allied technology. Nobody's secret weapon, it seems.
The Kenneth Arnold Sighting and the Birth of "Flying Saucers" (1947)
On June 24, 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine bright, crescent-shaped objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier, Washington, at speeds he estimated at over 1,200 mph. Arnold described their movement as being "like a saucer if you skip it across the water." A reporter misinterpreted this description of their motion as a description of their shape, and the term "flying saucer" entered the American vocabulary. Arnold's sighting, combined with the Roswell incident two weeks later, triggered a wave of public interest that has never fully subsided.
Project Sign, Project Grudge, and Project Blue Book (1947-1969)
The U.S. Air Force established Project Sign in 1947 to investigate UFO reports. The project's initial analysis, known as the "Estimate of the Situation," reportedly concluded that UFOs were likely extraterrestrial in origin. Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg rejected this conclusion, and the project was reorganized as Project Grudge in 1949, which took a more skeptical approach. In 1952, Grudge was renamed Project Blue Book, which would become the longest-running official U.S. government UFO investigation, operating until 1969. Over its lifetime, Blue Book investigated 12,618 UFO reports. Of these, 701 (about 5.5%) remained classified as "unidentified." The project was shut down following the Condon Report, a University of Colorado study that concluded UFO research was unlikely to produce scientific results. Critics have argued the Condon Report was predetermined to reach a negative conclusion.
The Quiet Years (1970s-2000s)
After Blue Book closed, official U.S. government interest in UFOs appeared to go dormant. But investigation continued in other forms. The Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), founded by J. Allen Hynek (a former Blue Book scientific consultant who became increasingly convinced the phenomenon was real), conducted serious research. The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), established in 1969, built the largest civilian database of UFO reports. Internationally, France established GEPAN (later GEIPAN) in 1977, making it the first country with an ongoing, official, publicly transparent UFO investigation body. The UK's Ministry of Defence maintained a UFO desk until 2009. Chile's CEFAA continues to operate under its civil aviation authority.
During this period, several significant cases kept the subject alive: the 1976 Tehran incident, the 1980 Rendlesham Forest case, the 1986 Japan Airlines encounter, the 1989-90 Belgian wave, and the 1997 Phoenix Lights. Each case featured credible witnesses and, in some instances, official government documentation.
AATIP and the New York Times Revelation (2007-2017)
In 2007, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, along with Senators Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye, secured $22 million in funding for the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a Pentagon program to investigate UFOs. The program was run by Luis Elizondo from the Defense Intelligence Agency. AATIP investigated several high-profile cases, including the 2004 USS Nimitz encounter. When the program's funding ran out, Elizondo continued the work informally before resigning from the Pentagon in 2017, citing excessive secrecy and a lack of institutional support.
In December 2017, The New York Times published a front-page story revealing AATIP's existence and featuring the FLIR1, Gimbal, and Go Fast videos. The article, written by Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean, fundamentally shifted the Overton window on UFOs. Suddenly, it was no longer career suicide for military personnel, scientists, or politicians to discuss the topic seriously.
UAP Task Force, AARO, and Congressional Action (2020-Present)
In August 2020, the Department of Defense established the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF). In June 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a preliminary assessment of UAP, the first official government report on the subject in over 50 years. It examined 144 incidents reported by military personnel between 2004 and 2021 and was able to explain only one (a deflating balloon).
In 2022, the UAPTF was replaced by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), with a broader mandate to investigate anomalous phenomena across air, sea, space, and land. Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act with provisions requiring government agencies to report UAP information and protecting whistleblowers who come forward with UAP-related claims.
In July 2023, former intelligence officer David Grusch testified before Congress that the U.S. government possesses retrieved non-human craft and biological materials. His claims have not been independently verified, but they prompted bipartisan calls for greater transparency. Navy pilots Ryan Graves and David Fravor also testified, describing their firsthand encounters.
Where We Are Now
The field of UFO research has undergone a transformation that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago. What was once dismissed as the domain of conspiracy theorists is now the subject of Congressional hearings, Pentagon press conferences, and peer-reviewed scientific papers. The question is no longer whether unidentified objects exist in our skies. The question is what they are. And for the first time, the institutions with the resources to find out are actually trying.