From Flying Saucers to AARO: A Plain-English Guide to UFO and UAP Jargon

In 1947 newspapers wrote about flying saucers. Today the Pentagon says UAP and studies it in an office called AARO. The words came from reporters, the military and lawmakers. A few came from people whose claims have never been proven.

§ 1The early words, 1944 to 1950s

Foo fighters

Foo fighters were glowing balls of light that Allied air crews saw late in World War II. Smithsonian's Air & Space magazine tells of one crew from the 415th Night Fighter Squadron in November 1944. Over the Rhine River, they saw eight to ten orange lights. Their radar man, Donald Meiers, took the name from the Smokey Stover comic strip. "Where there's foo, there's fire," its hero liked to say, the Center for UFO Studies says. No one ever proved what the lights were.

Ghost rockets

Ghost rockets were Sweden's version, in 1946. Sweden's National Archives counts about 1,000 witness accounts. Experts traced many to meteors, which are space rocks burning up in the sky. Others were never explained, and many people suspected the Soviet Union.

Flying saucer and flying disc

In June 1947, a pilot named Kenneth Arnold saw nine fast, bright objects near Mount Rainier in Washington State. He compared them to saucers. Within days, a Chicago Sun headline read "Supersonic Flying Saucers Sighted by Idaho Pilot." The military said "Flying Discs" instead. They were "something real and not visionary or fictitious," General Nathan Twining wrote that September.

UFO

UFO stands for unidentified flying object. Captain Edward Ruppelt was the first chief of Project Blue Book. He wrote in 1956 that he made up the term. He meant it as a neutral word to replace "flying saucers." Later, people came to hear UFO as alien spaceship. That is one reason the government later picked a new term. Ufology is the study of UFOs, and ufologists are the people who study them.

§ 2The Air Force and CIA projects, 1947 to 1969

Projects Saucer, Sign, Grudge and Twinkle

Project Sign was the Air Force's first formal UFO study, in 1948 and 1949. Ruppelt said Project Saucer was its nickname. Ruppelt also wrote that Sign's staff drafted a paper saying UFOs came from other planets. AARO calls that story "unsubstantiated and derived from only one source." No copy has ever turned up.

Sign became Project Grudge in 1949. One account cited by AARO says Grudge was meant to explain reports away. Project Twinkle studied green fireballs seen over New Mexico and Nevada in 1949 and 1950.

Project Blue Book

Project Blue Book was the longest-running UFO study by the government. It ran from 1952 to 1969, with the astronomer J. Allen Hynek as its science adviser. It logged 12,618 sightings. Only 701 of them, about one in 18, stayed unidentified.

When it closed, the Air Force said no UFO threatened the country or showed technology beyond known science. That is the Air Force's conclusion, not a proof. Ufologists still argue with it.

The Robertson Panel

The Robertson Panel was a group of scientists the CIA brought together in secret in 1953. The panel found sound answers for most sightings, the CIA's own history says. It found no threat to the country. It told the government to debunk, or knock down, UFO reports through public education.

The Condon Committee

The Condon Committee was a University of Colorado study paid for by the Air Force. The physicist Edward Condon led it. Its 1969 report said more big UFO studies "probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby." Hynek and others criticized it. The Air Force cited the report when it ended Blue Book.

JANAP 146 and CIRVIS

JANAP 146 is a military rulebook. It tells pilots and ship crews how to report urgent sightings, using a process called CIRVIS. A 1969 Air Force memo said some reports went outside Blue Book, the International Business Times says. These were reports that could affect national security. Researchers see that as a second channel. What went through it is mostly unknown.

Moon Dust and Blue Fly

Moon Dust was a Cold War Air Force effort. It tried to recover bits of foreign spacecraft, mostly Soviet, that fell back to Earth. Blue Fly rushed such finds to Air Force experts. Some researchers say the programs also handled UFO material. Released papers do not show that, so it is still a claim.

§ 3The civilian groups

APRO and NICAP

APRO is the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. Jim and Coral Lorenzen started it in 1952. NICAP is the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, founded in 1956.

MUFON, CUFOS and NUFORC

MUFON began in 1969 as the Midwest UFO Network and later became the Mutual UFO Network. CUFOS is the Center for UFO Studies, which Hynek founded in 1973 after Blue Book closed. NUFORC is the National UFO Reporting Center, a hotline in Washington State. Reporters often quote its numbers. But its reports are what the public sends in, not checked events.

The close-encounter scale

Hynek's 1972 book, "The UFO Experience," gave us the phrase "close encounter." CUFOS says the first kind is a UFO seen within about 500 feet. The second kind leaves an effect, such as marks on the ground. The third kind involves a reported being in or near the object. A fourth kind, for abduction reports, came later. Researchers still say CE1 through CE4.

§ 4The secret-program era, 2007 to 2017

AAWSAP and BAASS

AAWSAP stands for the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. AARO says Congress set aside $22 million for it at the urging of Senate leader Harry Reid. It ran from 2009 to 2012. A contractor called BAASS, short for Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, did the work.

AATIP, sometimes written ATIP

AATIP stands for the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The New York Times made it famous on December 16, 2017. That day it revealed a secret Pentagon UFO program by that name. AARO says AATIP "was never an official DoD program," just a name a loose group used.

The Times said Luis Elizondo, a military intelligence official, ran the program. Elizondo has said he led it. He "had no assigned responsibilities for AATIP," the Pentagon said in 2019. Hal Puthoff, a scientist who worked on the contract, disputed that, The Black Vault says. The question is not settled.

Kona Blue

Kona Blue was a planned secret program that never started. AARO says backers pitched it to the Department of Homeland Security. They wanted to reverse engineer, or take apart and copy, any recovered craft. Homeland Security said no. AARO says no craft or bodies were ever collected.

§ 5The modern offices and reports, 2020 to 2026

UAP: from "aerial" to "anomalous"

UAP first meant unidentified aerial phenomena, or things seen in the air. The Pentagon used that phrase in 2020. In December 2022, Congress changed UAP to mean unidentified anomalous phenomena. Anomalous means out of the ordinary. The new meaning also covers objects that seem to move between space, air and water.

USO and transmedium

USO is an older term for unidentified submerged object, something seen under water. Transmedium is the official word for an object said to pass between air and space, or air and water. The word describes what witnesses report, not proof that such objects exist.

UAPTF and AOIMSG

UAPTF was the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, led by the Navy from 2020 to 2021. AOIMSG replaced it in November 2021. Its full name was the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group.

The ODNI preliminary assessment

ODNI is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In June 2021 it put out a first look, or "Preliminary Assessment," on UAP. It looked at 144 reports and could identify just one. It said there was too little good data for firm answers.

AARO

AARO is the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the Pentagon's current UAP office. It began in July 2022. Jon Kosloski has led it since August 2024. He spoke to senators in November 2024, Space.com says. "To date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology," he said.

AARO's best-known work is its March 2024 history report. It looked at claims that the government or companies had been reverse engineering alien technology. It found "no empirical evidence," meaning no hard proof.

The annual reports

Congress wants a UAP report every year. The fiscal 2025 report came out in July 2026, The Black Vault says. It lists 319 new reports. AARO solved 114 of them. All were common things like balloons, birds, drones and satellites.

Satellite flaring is sunlight flashing off a satellite. The active archive holds cases with too little data to solve. The Pentagon calls such cases unresolved. That means not enough information, not proof of anything strange.

NASA's UAP Independent Study Team

NASA set up an outside study team in 2022, led by the astrophysicist David Spergel. It held a public meeting on May 31, 2023, and put out its report that September. The report said there are "limited high-quality observations" of UAP.

PURSUE and the Department of War

PURSUE stands for the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. Under it, the Department of War has posted UAP files at war.gov/UFO since May 8, 2026. That followed an order from President Trump, NBC News and CBS News said. By October 23, the total had reached 478 files, the Los Angeles Times says. Department of War is a second name for the Defense Department, set by a 2025 order.

UAP Governance Board and Science Advisory Council

DefenseScoop reported in June 2026 that the FBI, the Pentagon and the spy chief's office had formed a UAP Governance Board. Harvard physicist Avi Loeb announced a 12-member UAP Science Advisory Council. DefenseScoop said it reports to that board.

§ 6Congress and the law

The UAP Disclosure Act

Senate leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Mike Rounds introduced the UAP Disclosure Act in July 2023. It would have let the government use eminent domain, its power to take private property. The government could then take things private owners held. The bill named "recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence."

Most of it was dropped. The 2023 defense law kept only a UAP records collection at the National Archives. In July 2026 the House passed the Act inside its defense bill, 216 to 212. As of October 10, the Senate had not taken it up, a bill tracker said.

NHI, technologies of unknown origin and TNAO

NHI stands for non-human intelligence. The 2023 bill defined it as "any sentient intelligent non-human lifeform regardless of nature or ultimate origin" that may be behind UAP. The phrase is now in federal law, but that does not prove the thing exists.

Technologies of unknown origin means found hardware nobody can trace. Temporarily non-attributed objects, or TNAO, look strange at first but turn out to have a normal cause. A drone that fooled someone for a week is not a UAP record.

§ 7Famous case and video nicknames

Tic Tac

The Tic Tac is the 2004 Nimitz sighting off Southern California. Retired Navy Commander David Fravor spoke to Congress in 2023. He said he saw "a small white Tic Tac shaped object" with no wings. AARO lists the Nimitz video as unresolved.

FLIR, Gimbal and GoFast

FLIR stands for forward-looking infrared, the heat-sensing camera on a fighter jet. FLIR1, the Tic Tac video, is from 2004. Navy crews filmed GIMBAL and GOFAST in 2015. The Defense Department formally released all three clips in April 2020.

In 2025, AARO said it could not identify the GOFAST object. But it found that its speed was not unusual. The fast look was an illusion called motion parallax, caused by the moving jet's point of view. Skeptic Mick West argues the spinning in GIMBAL is camera glare.

Swamp gas

Swamp gas became a joke in 1966, when Hynek said marsh gas might explain lights seen over Michigan. Gerald Ford of Michigan, then the House Republican leader, asked for a hearing. That pressure helped lead to the Condon study. Today the phrase stands for any official answer people find hard to believe.

Black triangle

Black triangle names dark, three-sided objects. Waves of such reports came from New York's Hudson Valley in the mid-1980s and from Belgium starting in 1989, History.com notes. On October 23, 2026, PURSUE put out an AARO memo. It told of agents who reported a silent black triangle at a sensitive site in the West. AARO said the case calls for more study.

§ 8Insider and contested terms

SAP, USAP and "legacy program"

SAP stands for special access program, a secret program with extra-tight rules. Only people on a named list may know about it. USAP, for unacknowledged special access program, shows up in UAP claims. It means a secret program the government does not admit exists.

Legacy program comes from the 2023 bill. It means any effort to "collect, exploit, or reverse engineer technologies of unknown origin or examine biological evidence" of non-human intelligence. No government agency has confirmed that any such program exists.

Crash retrieval and non-human biologics

These terms come from claims by David Grusch, a former Air Force intelligence officer. Under oath in July 2023, he said he had been told of "a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program." He was asked about bodies. He said that "biologics came with some of these recoveries" and that they were not human.

Grusch has not made physical proof public. AARO's 2024 report found "no empirical evidence" for such claims. His claims remain unproven.

MJ-12

MJ-12, or Majestic 12, refers to papers that surfaced around 1984. They claimed President Truman set up a secret group in 1947 to handle crashed UFOs and alien bodies. Most if not all of these papers "have proved to be fabrications," or fakes, the CIA's own history says.

Immaculate Constellation

Immaculate Constellation is the name of a claimed secret program. It came up at a House hearing in November 2024. Journalist Michael Shellenberger turned in a report from an unnamed whistleblower. It claims the Pentagon created the program in 2017.

Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough said the department "has no record, present or historical," of any special access program by that name. In January 2026 the Pentagon refused to search for emails about it, The Black Vault says. It said the subject "does not exist." In May it agreed to search. The program has not been confirmed.

Disclosure

Disclosure is the hoped-for day when a government confirms contact with non-humans. The 2023 bill called for a "Controlled Disclosure Campaign Plan." What it would reveal depends on who is talking.

§ 9What the words tell you

In a UFO headline, AARO, PURSUE and Blue Book point to a real office and a paper trail. Unresolved and active archive mean a case lacks data, not that it is amazing. Legacy program, crash retrieval, MJ-12 and Immaculate Constellation point to claims not proven in public.

None of that settles the big question. The Air Force, the CIA, NASA and AARO have each found normal causes for most reports. None found proof of anything non-human. A small share of cases are still unexplained, usually because of thin data. Congress keeps pushing for more records, and more files are coming.