AARO’s UAP Reporting Trends page at aaro.mil covers January 1, 1996 through January 15, 2026. The data is the most comprehensive public statistical record of US government UAP cases ever published. Here is the full breakdown.
What Closed Cases Were Resolved As
- Balloons: 510 cases (52.1%) — The single largest resolved category by a significant margin.
- Satellites: 314 cases (32.1%) — The second largest. Includes Starlink-era proliferation of low-earth-orbit objects.
- UAS (drones): 76 cases (7.8%) — Consumer and commercial drone misidentification.
- Birds: 28 cases (2.9%)
- Aircraft: 20 cases (2.0%)
- Jetpack: 15 cases (1.5%) — Fifteen UAP reports that turned out to be jetpack operators.
- Missile/Rocket: 9 cases (0.9%)
- Sensor Artifact: 2 cases (0.2%)
- Ordnance, Fireworks, Laser, Natural Atmospherics: 1 case each.
What UAP Reporters Describe Seeing
Morphology data (from reports that include shape descriptions):
- Orb/Round/Sphere: 214 cases (39.7%) — The dominant shape category.
- Lights: 174 cases (32.3%)
- Cylinder: 35 (6.5%)
- Oval: 23 (4.3%)
- Triangle/Delta: 22 (4.1%)
- Square/Oblong/Polygon: 17 (3.2%)
- Disk: 9 (1.7%)
- Tic Tac: 8 (1.5%)
- Vector/Boomerang: 3 (0.6%)
Where UAP Are Reported
Altitude distribution peaks sharply at 20,000–25,000 feet, which accounts for approximately 41% of all altitude-reported sightings. This is the primary cruise altitude band for commercial aviation — consistent with the high satellite and balloon resolution rates, and consistent with military pilots operating at altitude encountering misidentified civilian airspace objects. A small percentage (1.7%) are reported above 60,000 feet — above the Kármán line.
The Jetpack Number
Fifteen closed UAP cases were identified as jetpacks. This is a data point that deserves more attention than it receives. It means US military personnel, on fifteen separate occasions over 30 years, observed a human-operated jetpack and submitted a formal UAP report. The jetpack cases confirm that even trained military observers can misidentify known objects under operational conditions. They also confirm AARO’s classification system is doing what it is supposed to — identifying prosaic explanations where they exist.
The Oracle Assessment
The 52% balloon resolution rate is exactly what critics of AARO claim proves the office is a debunking operation. The 7.8% UAS resolution rate is what disclosure advocates point to as evidence of genuine uncertainty. The honest read of the data is that AARO is doing what a resolution office is supposed to do: applying known explanations where they fit and flagging what remains. The number that matters most is not in this dataset — it is the percentage of cases that were not closed at all.
Source: aaro.mil/UAP-Cases/UAP-Reporting-Trends/. Data period: January 1, 1996 – January 15, 2026.