Overview
Two FAA notices effective on 26 October 2025 changed how air traffic personnel were to handle UAP reports. Notice 7110.800 required notification of the operations supervisor or controller-in-charge. Notice 7210.970 specified escalation to the National Tactical Security Operations Air Traffic Security Coordinator team on the Domestic Events Network and supplied a reporting checklist.
The notices also replaced UFO terminology with UAP and identified AARO’s website as a possible referral for other people wishing to report. Their substantive change was the route through the air traffic organisation. A report entering that route remained an observation requiring assessment, rather than an official confirmation of anomalous performance.
Chronology
September 2025 FAA issues the paired controller and facility notices.
26 October 2025 The new procedures take effect.
22 January 2026 The temporary notices reach their cancellation date; the facility notice is superseded by JO 7210.3EE.
November 2026 source review The FAA’s online standing order retains the UAP reporting route and checklist.
The two parts of the reporting route
The controller-facing notice gives a short instruction: notify the operations supervisor or controller-in-charge of reported or observed unexplained activity. The facility notice then identifies the security coordination team and network. Reading only the first notice leaves out the destination and the requested contents of the report.
The facility procedure covers both pilot reports and air traffic personnel’s own observations. It separately permits referral of other persons to AARO’s website and retains referral to local law enforcement when danger to life or property is expressed. These are different routes for different circumstances; the text does not say that every member of the public submits directly through the air traffic security network.
Why the checklist matters
The requested information, when available, includes the aircraft call sign or observing personnel, the observer’s location and flight information, the UAP’s position relative to the observer, a general description and whether the UAP appeared on an ATC radar display. The distinction between observer location and object location helps preserve the geometry needed for a later reconstruction.
The radar item is especially useful. A visual report relayed through an air traffic facility is not automatically radar-confirmed. Recording whether a display actually depicted the reported object can prevent that distinction being lost when the account is passed between offices or retold publicly.
The phrase “if available” also has practical consequences. A report can enter the system without every field being supplied. A later count of reports therefore cannot be assumed to be a count of fully characterised events, and the checklist itself supplies no fixed data-completeness threshold for a technical conclusion.
The notices and the standing order
Both temporary notices show 22 January 2026 as their cancellation date. The FAA catalogue identifies JO 7210.3EE as the successor to the facility notice. The currently accessible order’s section 4-7-4 continues the UAP routing and checklist. Expiry of the notice should therefore not be described as withdrawal of the reporting process.
The historical page records the 2025 change and its subsequent incorporation. Operational users should consult the current FAA publication, since a preserved temporary notice is evidence of a change at a particular date rather than an assurance that no later amendment exists.
Evidence assessment
The notices make a procedural change that can improve the consistency of reporting: they name the escalation route and distinguish several kinds of information which otherwise become blurred. Their effect on actual report quality depends on how the instructions were implemented and how often the requested fields were available.
Neither terminology nor compulsory internal notification establishes a cause for the reported activity. To measure the policy’s effect, researchers would need comparable pre- and post-change records of reporting volume, missing fields, retained sensor information and completed assessments. An increase in reports alone could reflect the reporting change rather than an increase in unusual objects.
Source library
FAA Notice 7110.800
Controller-facing instruction, effective 26 October 2025, including supervisory notification and the companion-order reference. Read source
FAA Notice 7210.970
Facility procedure, security-reporting destination, requested fields and referral provisions. Read source
FAA JO 7210.3, section 4-7-4
Standing-order text checked during this review; confirms continuation beyond the temporary notice’s cancellation date. Read source
FAA catalogue: Notice JO 7210.970
Publisher’s record identifies issue, cancellation and successor order. Read source