Official and academic sources on unidentified anomalous phenomena

State of the record

Updated 13 October 2026

The archive holds 1,214 documents, with little movement since the previous update. The Black Vault released records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from the US National Security Agency (NSA) describing the Pentagon's 1992 effort to establish what happened to aircrews lost during the Cold War. The files do not concern unidentified aerial phenomena, but they show how intelligence queries about unresolved air incidents were handled at the time. US coverage of the Pentagon's recent file release continues, alongside commentary on a military video submitted to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in 2023 that remains unresolved, and on an Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) memo whose content has yet to be confirmed against an official source. The arXiv preprint attributing the brightness flicker of the six objects in the Department of War's September infrared video to a bird-like wingbeat rhythm remains the main scientific reference on that case.