UAP Glossary

UAP

Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena — the government’s modern term for UFOs. Until 2022 the ‘A’ stood for ‘Aerial’.

UFO

Unidentified Flying Object. The U.S. Air Force’s term from the early 1950s, now largely replaced by UAP in official use.

AARO

All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. The Pentagon’s UAP office since 2022, which collects and analyzes reports from every military branch.

AATIP

Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The secret Pentagon study revealed by The New York Times in 2017.

AAWSAP

Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. A Defense Intelligence Agency program (2008–2012) that funded UAP research; many of its papers were released in 2026.

DIRD

Defense Intelligence Reference Document. The technical papers produced for AAWSAP, on subjects from warp drives to metallic glasses.

MISREP

Mission Report. The standard form the U.S. military uses to record what happened on a mission — many 2026 UAP files are MISREPs.

NHI

Non-Human Intelligence. A term used in the UAP Disclosure Act and by whistleblowers.

PURSUE

Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters — the 2026 file-release program at war.gov/ufo.

Project Blue Book

The U.S. Air Force’s UFO investigation, 1952–1969. With its predecessors it logged 12,618 reports from 1947 on, 701 of them never identified.

Project Sign

The Air Force’s first UFO study (1948), followed by Project Grudge and then Blue Book.

Condon Report

A 1968 University of Colorado study, funded by the Air Force, which concluded that further UFO study was unlikely to be useful. Blue Book closed the next year.

ODNI

Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Its June 2021 Preliminary Assessment said UAP ‘clearly pose a safety of flight issue’.

FLIR

Forward-Looking Infrared. The camera system that recorded the Navy videos.

Tic Tac

Nickname for the white, wingless object Navy pilots reported off San Diego in 2004.

Trans-medium

An object reported moving between air, space and water.

Five Observables

Five characteristics Luis Elizondo says AATIP used to flag cases: anti-gravity lift, sudden acceleration, hypersonic speed without signatures, low observability, and trans-medium travel.

Crash retrieval

An alleged program recovering downed craft of unknown origin.

Close encounter

J. Allen Hynek’s scale for sightings: a close encounter of the first kind is a sighting at close range, the second leaves physical evidence, the third involves occupants.

Swamp gas

Astronomer J. Allen Hynek’s much-mocked 1966 suggestion for sightings in Michigan — later shorthand for official dismissals.

Disclosure

The idea that governments will officially acknowledge what they know about UAP — and possibly non-human intelligence.

Last updated October 13, 2026