Overview
On 23 November 2021, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks directed the creation of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG). The group was placed within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security and was intended to succeed the Navy-led Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF).
AOIMSG occupied an unusual position in the development of the modern U.S. government UAP programme. It was more formal than the Task Force it was replacing, with an executive council, a Department-wide synchronisation role and an explicit remit covering reporting, collection, intelligence analysis and risk mitigation. Yet it was created at almost exactly the same time that Congress was considering legislation for a broader and more prescriptive UAP office. That legislation became law little more than a month later and ultimately led the Department to expand and rename AOIMSG as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in July 2022.
The result was a transitional organisation whose institutional significance is clearer than its operational record.
The 23 November memorandum gave AOIMSG a defined mission and ordered the immediate transition of UAPTF activity into the new structure. However, testimony before Congress in May 2022 showed that the office was still being established: senior Department officials said a director had only just been selected, staffing and organisational work were continuing, and some processes were still being developed. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — UAP hearing transcript, 17 May 2022
This does not mean that no UAP work was occurring during the period. The UAP Task Force continued to provide an evidential and procedural foundation while the new office was being assembled, and Department officials described ongoing collection, analysis and interagency coordination. It does mean that AOIMSG should be understood primarily as a bridge between the UAPTF and the statutory office Congress required, rather than as a long-lived investigative programme with a large, independently visible body of completed casework.
Institutional context
Preliminary Assessment
AOIMSG emerged directly from the problems identified in the June 2021 ODNI Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.
That assessment had reviewed 144 U.S. government UAP reports and concluded that the available data were generally too limited and inconsistent to support firm conclusions about the nature or intent of most observations. It also identified problems in reporting culture, sensor collection, standardisation and interagency coordination. ODNI — Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
On the same day the assessment was released, Hicks issued a memorandum directing the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security to develop a plan to formalise the UAPTF mission.
That June memorandum is important because it shows that the creation of a successor organisation was not an improvised response several months later. The Department had already decided that the Navy-led Task Force was too limited for the wider problem.
Hicks wrote that UAP activity extended significantly beyond the purview of the Secretary of the Navy and directed the development of a plan that would synchronise collection, reporting and analysis, recommend measures to secure military test and training ranges, and identify the organisational alignment, resources, staffing and authorities needed for a follow-on activity. The memorandum also instructed Department personnel to ensure that the UAPTF, or its successor, received UAP reports within two weeks of an occurrence. Deputy Secretary of Defense — UAP Assessments memorandum, 25 June 2021
AOIMSG was the organisational answer produced by that planning process.
AOIMSG record
November memorandum
The formal establishment memorandum is more detailed than the short public announcement that accompanied it.
Hicks described the presence of UAP in Special Use Airspace (SUA) as a potential flight-safety risk and possible national-security concern. She directed the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security to establish AOIMSG in order to synchronise work across the Department and with other federal agencies to detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in this airspace and, where appropriate, mitigate associated risks. Deputy Secretary of Defense — Establishment of AOIMSG, 23 November 2021
The memorandum also created an Airborne Object Identification and Management Executive Council (AOIMEXEC) to oversee and direct the new organisation. The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security was made the senior DoD official responsible for managing the process and was to co-chair AOIMEXEC with the Director of Operations of the Joint Staff. Principal-level participation from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was to be invited.
This governance structure distinguished AOIMSG from a small analytical cell operating largely within one service.
The intention was to make UAP a Department-wide management problem involving intelligence, operations, policy and the wider federal government. Resourcing was to be addressed through the Department's Program Budget Review process rather than through a specific public funding level contained in the establishment memorandum. Deputy Secretary of Defense — Establishment of AOIMSG
The Director of AOIMSG was given a broad set of coordinating functions. These included standardising UAP incident reporting across the Department, identifying and reducing gaps in operational and intelligence detection capabilities, collecting and analysing operational, intelligence and counterintelligence information, recommending policy or regulatory changes, and identifying approaches to prevent or mitigate risks posed by airborne objects of interest.
The memorandum further required consideration of changes in doctrine, organisation, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, workforce, facilities and resources where those changes were needed to address the problem. This is more substantial than describing AOIMSG simply as a renamed UAP Task Force. At the same time, the remit remained noticeably centred upon airborne objects in Special Use Airspace. That boundary would become important once Congress enacted a broader statutory framework.
Original remit
The phrase Special Use Airspace appears repeatedly in the AOIMSG establishment material.
The choice reflected the Department's immediate operational concern: unidentified objects occurring in or around military ranges, training areas and other controlled airspace could interfere with operations, expose sensitive activity or represent foreign surveillance.
This is a defensible national-security focus. An unidentified object does not need to display extraordinary characteristics to create a problem within restricted military airspace. A conventional drone, balloon or aircraft can present a flight-safety or counterintelligence concern if its operator and purpose are unknown.
However, the Special Use Airspace framing also made AOIMSG narrower than the office Congress was in the process of designing.
The congressional model was not confined to events occurring around military training areas. The legislation ultimately enacted in the FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act called for standardised reporting across the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, field investigations, scientific and technical analysis, access to UAP data held across agencies, international coordination, reporting of adverse physiological effects, and a science plan capable of testing theories concerning apparently advanced characteristics. Public Law 117-81, §1683
The difference was therefore structural rather than merely semantic. AOIMSG began as a Department-led airspace-security organisation. Congress was creating a wider intelligence, scientific and investigative office.
Parallel legislation
It is tempting to present events in a simple sequence in which the Pentagon created AOIMSG and Congress later decided that a broader office was necessary. The chronology is more complicated. Congressional proposals for a permanent UAP office were already moving before the 23 November announcement.
In the House, legislation to establish a UAP office had been incorporated into the House version of the FY2022 NDAA. In the Senate, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand introduced a substantially more detailed UAP amendment in November 2021, with bipartisan support that included Senator Marco Rubio and others. The proposed structure called for a central office with broader reporting, field-investigation, scientific and interagency responsibilities.
AOIMSG was therefore announced while Congress was actively negotiating a statutory replacement for the UAP Task Force.
The timing generated uncertainty about how the Pentagon-created group would relate to the congressional model. Contemporary reporting recorded mixed reactions. Senator Rubio publicly welcomed greater Department of Defense attention to UAP while continuing to support legislation creating a more comprehensive structure. Air & Space Forces Magazine — 24 November 2021
By 9 December, Gillibrand's office announced that the final NDAA included the bipartisan UAP amendment. Her statement emphasised authorities extending across DoD and the Intelligence Community, improved data sharing, formal reporting mechanisms, consideration of health effects and a coordinated effort to investigate UAP. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand — UAP amendment included in final FY2022 NDAA
The critical point is that Congress did not create AOIMSG by name. AOIMSG was established administratively by the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Congress separately mandated an office with broader statutory duties. The Department later reconciled the two structures by expanding and renaming AOIMSG. That distinction is important when interpreting references in later hearings to the “office” Congress had created.
FY2022 NDAA
President Joe Biden signed the FY2022 NDAA into law on 27 December 2021.
Section 1683 required the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, to establish an office within the Office of the Secretary of Defense or a joint DoD-ODNI organisation to carry forward the UAPTF mission and perform additional duties. Public Law 117-81
The law required much more than centralised reporting.
It called for one or more line organisations able to respond rapidly to UAP incidents and conduct field investigations. It required scientific, technical and operational analysis of collected data, including provision for testing materials, conducting medical studies and developing theoretical models. It directed the government to make UAP data available to the office, establish direct reporting procedures for military, civilian and contractor personnel, and develop an intelligence collection and analysis plan.
The statute also required a science plan to test theories capable of accounting for reported characteristics or performance exceeding the known state of the art in science or technology. Public Law 117-81, §1683 These provisions did not imply that Congress had established that such extraordinary performance was real. They created a mechanism intended to test claims of that kind rather than leaving them outside the formal investigative structure.
The difference from the November AOIMSG memorandum is clear. The Pentagon document concentrated on detection, attribution and mitigation of airborne objects in Special Use Airspace. The statute required a broader research and reporting architecture and gave Congress a continuing oversight role.
It was this difference that ultimately made AOIMSG's original form temporary.
Operational maturity
May 2022
The first major public opportunity to examine AOIMSG's progress came on 17 May 2022, when the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation Subcommittee held the first open congressional hearing on UAP in more than fifty years.
The hearing is particularly valuable because it captures the organisation while it was still being built.
Chairman André Carson opened by noting that the statutory implementation deadline was approaching and that the organisation did not yet have a publicly named director. He asked the Department to explain the status of the office and what obstacles were delaying its establishment. House UAP hearing transcript, 17 May 2022
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie responded that the Department had moved forward and, during that week, selected a director. He said office space had been identified and work was underway with personnel across DoD and the Intelligence Community to establish a standardised methodology for bringing in, analysing and reporting data.
Moultrie also indicated that the organisation's name would probably change. That comment proved prescient.
The testimony suggests a programme in transition rather than a mature office already operating at full capacity. Just one week earlier, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby had similarly said the Department was still working to staff the organisation sufficiently and establish its operating rhythm. Pentagon press briefing, 10 May 2022
This should not be overstated into a conclusion that AOIMSG existed only on paper.
Scott Bray, then Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, described a continuing transition from the UAP Task Force and said that the Task Force's reporting mechanisms, analytical work and relationships would form the foundation for the new organisation. Moultrie described ongoing work on sensor capabilities, reporting requirements, interagency partnerships and data handling.
The more cautious conclusion is that AOIMSG was formally established in November but remained organisationally immature for much of its short existence.
UAPTF infrastructure
The May hearing also shows how much AOIMSG depended upon the UAP Task Force it was replacing.
Bray described the UAPTF's efforts to move investigation away from anecdotal reporting toward a more data-driven model. The Task Force had worked with naval aviators, developed reporting procedures, built relationships intended to reduce stigma and assembled the data that supported the 2021 ODNI assessment. He described the transition as an effort to preserve this infrastructure rather than begin again. House UAP hearing transcript
This helps explain why reports and analysis could continue even while AOIMSG's staffing and governance were incomplete. An institutional successor does not necessarily begin with an empty database or no personnel. It can inherit records, methods and relationships while the new organisational structure is still being formalised. At the same time, inheritance can create its own limitations.
The UAPTF had developed primarily through Navy reporting and military aviation encounters. Congress was now expecting a wider DoD and Intelligence Community system. Expanding the network required different authorities, data access, interagency agreements and technical capacity.
The difference between inheriting a functioning case process and creating a genuinely Department-wide programme is therefore significant.
Science and analysis
The May hearing also clarified how the Department wanted the new office to operate.
Moultrie described a methodical system intended to combine structured collection with scientific analysis. He identified training, reporting requirements, intelligence collection, operational surveillance, research and development, mitigation and policy as part of the intended programme.
He also told Congress that the Department was open to different hypotheses and intended to follow the evidence. This commitment should be read as a methodological statement rather than evidence for or against any particular explanation.
The most important issue was whether the organisation could obtain data of sufficient quality to test competing explanations. The 2021 ODNI assessment had already identified poor data as a central weakness, and the May hearing repeatedly returned to questions concerning sensor quality, range, velocity and the ability to compare observations with known U.S. or foreign systems.
This problem would persist after AOIMSG disappeared as an organisational name. Later AARO reporting repeatedly identified insufficient timely and actionable sensor data as a major obstacle to case resolution. In this sense, AOIMSG inherited a problem that could not be solved by organisational renaming alone.
Classification and access
Another important issue raised during the May hearing concerned access to classified U.S. programmes.
If an office investigating UAP cannot determine whether an observation corresponds to a classified American aircraft, sensor or other programme, it risks devoting investigative resources to an object already known elsewhere in government.
Chairman Carson asked whether AOIMSG would have a repeatable process for checking compartmented programmes and whether its staff would possess the necessary clearances and read-ins. Moultrie described plans for handling classified and compartmented material and for ensuring information reached analysts authorised to examine it. House UAP hearing transcript
This issue is central to assessing any government UAP office.
A highly classified programme can explain an observation without the original witness knowing what they saw. Conversely, excessive compartmentalisation can make it difficult for investigators to eliminate such explanations efficiently.
The hearing records the intention to solve that problem. It does not provide enough public information to determine how comprehensive AOIMSG's access became before it was replaced. AARO would later claim considerably broader access to sensitive programmes during its historical investigation. That later development should not be projected backwards automatically onto AOIMSG's short operational period.
Director
Moultrie told Congress on 17 May that a director had been selected but did not publicly name the individual during the hearing.
When AARO was formally announced in July, the Department identified physicist and career intelligence officer Dr Sean M. Kirkpatrick as its director. His official biography states that he had been asked by the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security to stand up and lead the new office in early 2022. Department of Defense — Sean Kirkpatrick biography
This is consistent with the timing described during the May hearing.
It is nevertheless useful to distinguish between his selection during the AOIMSG transition and the later public announcement of him as AARO Director. The Department did not publicly identify an extended period in which AOIMSG operated under a separately announced permanent director before the July reorganisation.
The leadership transition therefore appears closely tied to the transformation of AOIMSG into AARO.
Transition to AARO
Renaming and expansion
On 20 July 2022, the Department of Defense announced the establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
The Department explained that on 15 July, Hicks had amended her original direction by renaming and expanding the scope of AOIMSG because the FY2022 NDAA required an office with responsibilities broader than those originally assigned to the November organisation. Department of Defense — Establishment of AARO, 20 July 2022
This official explanation provides the clearest retrospective assessment of AOIMSG's role. AARO was not simply an unrelated organisation that happened to replace it. The Department treated AARO as an expansion and redesign of the structure Hicks had created in November.
The change broadened the mission beyond airborne objects in Special Use Airspace to include anomalous objects in space, air, submerged environments and cases appearing to move between domains. AARO also adopted lines of effort covering surveillance and collection, system capabilities, intelligence analysis, mitigation, governance, and science and technology.
AOIMEXEC likewise evolved into the AARO Executive Council. The continuity is therefore substantial, but so is the change. AOIMSG supplied an organisational bridge and management framework. Congress supplied broader statutory duties. AARO combined them.
Investigative output
This is the most difficult question to answer from the public record.
Unlike the UAPTF, which produced the dataset underlying the June 2021 ODNI assessment, and AARO, which later published annual reports, case resolutions and historical research, AOIMSG did not leave a comparable public catalogue of work produced under its own name.
That absence should be interpreted carefully.
It does not establish that the group conducted no analysis. The May hearing records active work involving reports, sensors, data analysis and interagency coordination, while Bray described a continuing transition from UAPTF casework.
However, the public record reviewed for this deep dive does not allow a reliable count of cases independently investigated or resolved specifically by AOIMSG between November 2021 and July 2022. This limits attempts to judge the organisation by resolution statistics. Its most visible outputs were institutional: creation of a successor structure, continued development of reporting and analytical processes, and transition toward the office Congress had mandated. The distinction is relevant because AOIMSG is sometimes discussed as though it were a fully mature seven- or eight-month investigative programme whose scientific performance can be compared directly with later AARO reporting. The available record does not support that level of precision.
Inspector General context
The Department of Defense Inspector General later examined how DoD components had addressed UAP.
In an unclassified summary released in January 2024, the Inspector General concluded that the Department still lacked a comprehensive, coordinated approach. Components had developed varying methods for collecting, analysing and identifying UAP incidents, and the Department lacked an overarching UAP policy sufficient to provide assurance that flight-safety and national-security threats had been identified and mitigated. DoD Inspector General — Evaluation of DoD Actions Regarding UAP
The Inspector General's review spans a wider period and should not be treated as a direct audit verdict on AOIMSG alone. It does, however, provide useful context.
The coordination and standardisation problems that motivated the June and November 2021 memoranda were not solved immediately by creating a successor organisation. They persisted into the period in which AARO was being established and developed.
This supports a cautious interpretation of AOIMSG's historical role. Its creation represented recognition of a genuine organisational problem, but formal recognition and operational solution were not the same thing.
Historical significance
AOIMSG existed only briefly, but it marks an important transition between two different phases of modern U.S. government UAP investigation.
The UAP Task Force had demonstrated that reports could be gathered and that enough military observations existed to justify formal assessment. Its limitations were equally clear: reporting was inconsistent, data quality was poor, much of the effort had developed around naval aviation, and the subject extended beyond one military service.
AOIMSG attempted to institutionalise the response.
Its establishment brought UAP management further into the Office of the Secretary of Defense, created a senior executive oversight structure and framed the problem in terms familiar to national-security organisations: domain awareness, operational security, intelligence, counterintelligence, detection and mitigation.
Congress then pushed the model further.
The FY2022 NDAA added requirements for rapid field investigation, scientific analysis, data access across the Intelligence Community, direct reporting channels, health-effect reporting, international cooperation and scientific testing of claims involving apparently advanced performance.
The July 2022 creation of AARO therefore represents both continuity and correction. The Department retained the organisational trajectory begun with AOIMSG but explicitly acknowledged that the statutory responsibilities were broader than those contained in Hicks's original direction. This makes AOIMSG historically significant without requiring it to be portrayed as more operationally mature than the evidence supports. It was neither merely a renamed UAPTF nor yet the fully developed AARO that followed. It was the institutional bridge between them.
Evidence assessment
AOIMSG is best understood as a transitional government structure whose importance lies in what it attempted to formalise and what its limitations helped reveal.
The November memorandum was significant. It moved responsibility away from a Navy-led Task Force and into the Office of the Secretary of Defense, created an executive council involving defence and intelligence leadership, formalised Department-wide responsibilities, and linked UAP directly to operational security, intelligence collection, detection capabilities and risk mitigation.
Those were meaningful institutional changes.
Yet the organisation's original mission was narrower than the system Congress was simultaneously legislating. Its explicit focus on airborne objects in Special Use Airspace reflected immediate military concerns but did not encompass the full range of field investigation, science, intelligence-community access and broader-domain responsibilities written into the FY2022 NDAA.
The public record also indicates that implementation was slow relative to AOIMSG's short lifespan.
Six months after the establishment memorandum, the Department was still describing the office as being stood up. A director had only just been selected, staffing and facilities were still being arranged, and public testimony continued to discuss capabilities and procedures in prospective terms.
This does not justify describing AOIMSG as a failure.
The organisation was created specifically during a period of transition, while Congress was rewriting the statutory framework around it. The UAPTF continued to supply the existing case infrastructure, and the Department was developing the broader system that became AARO.
It is more accurate to say that AOIMSG never had much opportunity to become a stable endpoint. Within five weeks of its creation, Congress had enacted a broader legal mandate. By May, Department leaders already expected the organisation's name to change. In July, the Pentagon formally expanded and renamed it. Its short history consequently reveals something important about the development of U.S. UAP policy.
The central debate was no longer whether government should collect UAP reports at all. By late 2021, the question had become what kind of institution was necessary to do the work credibly: how broad its jurisdiction should be, what data it could access, whether it could conduct field investigations, how science should be incorporated, how Congress would oversee it and whether it would be sufficiently resourced.
AOIMSG was the Department's first answer to that question after the 2021 Preliminary Assessment. Congress required a broader one.
Source library
Deputy Secretary of Defense — Establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, 23 November 2021
The primary establishment document. Defines AOIMSG's mission, Special Use Airspace focus, executive oversight structure, intended analytical functions, resourcing mechanism and transition from the UAPTF.
Read the AOIMSG establishment memorandum
Department of Defense — AOIMSG establishment announcement, 23 November 2021
Contemporary DoD release summarising the purpose of AOIMSG and connecting its creation directly to the problems identified by the June 2021 ODNI Preliminary Assessment.
Read the Department of Defense announcement
Deputy Secretary of Defense — Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Assessments, 25 June 2021
The planning memorandum that preceded AOIMSG. It directs the formalisation of the UAPTF mission, Department-wide reporting and development of a successor organisation.
Read the June 2021 Hicks memorandum
Office of the Director of National Intelligence — Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, 25 June 2021
The intelligence assessment that supplied the immediate analytical background to AOIMSG's creation, particularly its findings concerning inconsistent reporting and inadequate data.
Read the ODNI Preliminary Assessment
Public Law 117-81 — National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022
The controlling legislation enacted on 27 December 2021. Section 1683 mandated a UAP office with responsibilities broader than the original AOIMSG remit, including field investigation, scientific analysis, intelligence collection and reporting.
Read Public Law 117-81 on GovInfo
Public Law 117-81 — Section 1683 statutory text
Direct statutory PDF showing the original duties Congress assigned to the new UAP office, including field investigations, material testing, medical studies, theoretical modelling, intelligence collection and a science plan.
Read the statutory text
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, 17 May 2022
Primary hearing record providing the clearest public evidence of AOIMSG's implementation status. It documents congressional concern about the pace of establishment and Department testimony concerning the selection of a director, staffing, data processes, sensors, classification and the transition from the UAPTF.
Read the House hearing transcript
Department of Defense — Pentagon press briefing, 10 May 2022
Contemporary Department statement that AOIMSG was still being staffed and brought into an operating rhythm one week before the congressional hearing.
Read the Pentagon briefing transcript
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand — UAP amendment included in final FY2022 NDAA, 9 December 2021
Primary congressional position source describing the broader UAP office Congress was legislating while AOIMSG was being established. Useful for understanding the overlapping executive and legislative tracks.
Read Senator Gillibrand's statement
Department of Defense — Establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, 20 July 2022
The key retrospective institutional source. DoD states explicitly that Hicks renamed and expanded AOIMSG because the FY2022 NDAA imposed responsibilities broader than those originally assigned to the group.
Read the AARO establishment announcement
Department of Defense — Dr Sean M. Kirkpatrick biography
Official biography stating that Kirkpatrick was asked to stand up and lead the new office in early 2022. Useful when assessing the leadership transition described in the May congressional hearing.
Read Sean Kirkpatrick's official biography
Department of Defense Inspector General — Evaluation of the DoD's Actions Regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena
Later independent government oversight. The Inspector General found that DoD still lacked a comprehensive and coordinated approach to UAP and that components had developed varying processes. Relevant as retrospective context rather than as a direct audit of AOIMSG alone.
Read the DoD Inspector General summary
Air & Space Forces Magazine — contemporary coverage, 24 November 2021
Secondary contemporary reporting documenting the immediate policy context and Senator Marco Rubio's response to the establishment of AOIMSG. Included as a contextual source rather than as the basis for the institutional facts of the event.
Read the contemporary report
Research category: Government programme / institutional transition
Primary evidence profile: Department of Defense directives, congressional statute, congressional testimony and later government oversight
Establishment date: 23 November 2021
Successor: All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, announced 20 July 2022 following a 15 July expansion and renaming directive
Review date: Evidence assessed through 26 August 2026
Research status: Historical — AOIMSG no longer exists as a separate organisation. Its operational record is only partly visible publicly, while its principal institutional functions were absorbed and expanded within AARO.