Overview
On 31 October 2023, the Department of Defense launched the second phase of AARO's secure mechanism for authorised reporting, allowing current and former U.S. government employees, service members and contractors with direct knowledge of alleged government UAP programmes or activities dating back to 1945 to contact the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
The reports were explicitly intended to support AARO's congressionally mandated Historical Record Report and its investigation of allegations concerning hidden U.S. government UAP programmes. Department of Defense — secure reporting mechanism, 31 October 2023 AARO — UAP Program Report User Guide
The statutory mandate and the October 2023 reporting-channel launch provide the clearest historical anchors for the review's development.
The review itself had been mandated by Congress on 23 December 2022 through the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023. The statute required AARO to examine the U.S. government's UAP record beginning on 1 January 1945 and to report not only earlier investigations and sightings, but restricted-access programmes, efforts to track UAP and any government activity intended to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide or provide incorrect information concerning UAP. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — FY2023 Intelligence Authorization Act, §6802
By October 2023, therefore, the historical investigation was already underway.
What changed on 31 October was that one of the most important evidence channels became publicly operational: people claiming first-hand knowledge of government programmes could enter AARO's historical-review process under a specific statutory disclosure framework.
That distinction matters.
The 2023 event was not the first publication of the Historical Record Report; Volume I did not become public until March 2024.
Nor was the review created in response to David Grusch's public allegations during 2023. Congress had enacted the historical-review requirement months before those allegations became public.
The October reporting mechanism instead marks the point at which a congressionally required archival investigation became visibly connected to a protected witness-intake system designed specifically to test claims of hidden programmes.
Statutory framework
Congress designed a broader review than a history of Project Blue Book
The statutory task was unusually ambitious. Section 6802 required the AARO director to submit a written report detailing the historical record of the United States government relating to UAP. The source base was specified by law.
It included Intelligence Community records and documents, oral histories, open-source analysis, interviews with current and former government officials, classified and unclassified material at the National Archives—including records previously obtained by third parties through FOIA—and other historical sources the AARO director considered relevant. FY2023 Intelligence Authorization Act, Historical Record Report requirements
This was not simply a requirement to summarise SIGN, GRUDGE and BLUE BOOK. The review had to focus on the period from 1 January 1945 until the investigation was completed and specifically include: programmes or activities protected by restricted access that had not been explicitly and clearly reported to Congress; successful and unsuccessful government efforts to identify and track UAP; and any efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide information or otherwise provide incorrect classified or unclassified information concerning UAP or related activities. That last requirement is historically exceptional. Congress was directing a Department of Defense office not merely to investigate unexplained observations, but to investigate allegations concerning the government's own conduct and truthfulness.
This changes the evidential problem completely. A modern UAP sighting may be analysed through sensor geometry, radar, weather and flight data. An allegation of a decades-old hidden programme requires programme records, access rosters, budgets, contracts, archival holdings, classification history and witness interviews. AARO's historical mission therefore became a form of institutional forensics.
The statutory deadline was June 2024, not December 2023
The law required the report within 540 days of enactment of the FY2023 Intelligence Authorization Act. The Act became law on 23 December 2022, placing the statutory deadline in mid-June 2024. DoD's October 2023 announcement simplified this to a report “due to Congress by June 2024.” DoD — secure reporting release Late 2023 was an evidence-gathering phase, not a period in which AARO was publishing findings. AARO was interviewing people, searching archives, coordinating access to restricted programmes and building the reporting channel that would feed additional programme allegations into the review. The first public Historical Record Report volume was dated February 2024 and released publicly on 8 March. AARO split the work into more than one volume.
The statute itself required a historical report; the multi-volume structure was AARO's implementation of that requirement.
Congress also placed the review under GAO oversight
The historical investigation was not intended to operate without external government scrutiny. Section 6803 of the FY2023 Intelligence Authorization Act required the Comptroller General, through appropriately cleared Government Accountability Office personnel, to audit the Historical Record Report process. GAO personnel could work on-site as appropriate.
The law required periodic communication of audit findings to AARO and semiannual classified briefings to the congressional defence committees, intelligence committees and congressional leadership concerning AARO's progress and compliance with legislative requirements. FY2023 Intelligence Authorization Act, §6803
This provision is easy to overlook. AARO was itself part of the government whose history it was reviewing. Congress therefore created an additional oversight layer through GAO. That does not make the investigation fully independent in the academic sense. AARO still possessed the core records-access and interview function. But the audit requirement shows that legislators anticipated a potential credibility problem and did not rely solely upon AARO's own assurance that it had searched adequately.
The FY2025 Intelligence Authorization Act later amended the GAO provisions so that audit activity and congressional briefings continue until after delivery of the final volume of the Historical Record Report. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — FY2025 Intelligence Authorization Act, §6802
That later amendment is important evidence that the historical-review process remained institutionally open beyond the first volume.
Historical interpretation and implementation
The secure reporting mechanism had its own statutory origin
Congress created a second system alongside the historical-report requirement. Section 1673 of the FY2023 NDAA required a secure mechanism for authorised disclosures concerning UAP-related information. The purpose was to allow current and former government personnel and contractors to speak to the authorised investigation without automatically violating nondisclosure restrictions.
AARO's user guide states that an authorised disclosure to AARO is not subject to an individual's current or former nondisclosure agreement and is treated as a lawful disclosure under the applicable classified-information framework.
The law also prohibits reprisals, including adverse personnel action or security-clearance consequences, for authorised disclosures. AARO — UAP Program Report User Guide This was a major change in the architecture of UAP investigation. Historical programme allegations often depend upon people who worked inside highly classified projects. Telling those people simply to “come forward” is meaningless unless there is a lawful recipient, a secure venue and explicit protection against the claim that disclosure itself breaches secrecy obligations. The 2023 mechanism was designed to solve that problem inside government. It did not create permission for unrestricted public disclosure of classified information. That distinction is essential.
The public form was not a place to paste classified information
The word secure can be misleading if the process is not explained. AARO's public website form was an initial point of contact. The user guide explicitly instructed people not to submit classified information through the website. Instead, an eligible person supplied contact information and a basic unclassified description. AARO could then arrange follow-up in an appropriate secure environment. AARO — User Guide Sean Kirkpatrick explained the process at the 31 October media roundtable.
He said subsequent interviews could involve classified information and that AARO was authorised by law to receive UAP-related information at all levels of classification, including information subject to restrictive access controls, Special Access Programs and compartmented programmes. DoD — Kirkpatrick media roundtable, 31 October 2023
This two-stage structure was sensible. An ordinary public web form cannot safely receive Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information or SAP material. The form's role was to identify the potential source. The substantive disclosure could occur later in an authorised environment.
ODNI formally authorised protected disclosures to AARO
A later-released Office of the Director of National Intelligence memorandum provides important documentary support for how the system was intended to function. The memorandum states that AARO representatives were authorised to interview people with current or former access to sensitive U.S. government information. Individuals whose UAP-related information was covered by a government nondisclosure agreement were authorised to provide that information to AARO representatives for AARO's assigned mission.
The memorandum says such disclosure is authorised when provided through the proper process and that classified information should be handled at the classification level claimed until its status can be determined. AARO FOIA Reading Room — ODNI authorisation memorandum CAPCO-23-003
This strengthens one part of the evidential chain considerably. The mechanism was not merely a webpage promising that whistleblowers would be heard. There was formal intelligence-community guidance authorising AARO personnel to receive protected information. The same document also preserves the other side of the boundary: sources remained responsible for safeguarding classified information from unauthorised disclosure.
The launch came later than Congress originally contemplated
The reporting mechanism was an implementation achievement, but it was not especially rapid.
A federal information-collection notice filed in 2023 stated that Section 1673 required clear public guidance for accessing the authorised-reporting mechanism within 180 days of enactment—placing the statutory target in June 2023.
The notice explained that the AARO contact form was needed so the office could meet both the authorised-reporting requirement and the Historical Record Report mandate. Reginfo.gov — AARO Contact Form for Authorized Reporting The public AARO website launched on 31 August 2023, and DoD said at the time that the secure historical-reporting tool would follow in the autumn. DoD — AARO website launch The mechanism finally became public on 31 October. That is a real implementation delay relative to the timetable Congress had set. It should not be inflated into evidence of intentional obstruction. Federal information-collection systems require privacy review, technical implementation and approval under records and information-collection law. The public record demonstrates lateness. It does not establish the motive for it.
The form was not for ordinary UAP sightings
AARO repeatedly tried to separate historical programme reporting from operational sighting reporting. The October mechanism was for current or former U.S. government employees, military personnel and contractors with direct knowledge of U.S. government UAP-related programmes or activities dating back to 1945. The user guide said not to submit general UAP sightings, second-hand programme information or current operational reports through that form. People with second-hand knowledge were encouraged to ask the person with direct knowledge to contact AARO. Current military observations were to continue through service and Joint Staff operational channels. Civilian pilots were encouraged to report through air traffic control. AARO — UAP Program Report User Guide This distinction improved evidential discipline.
A historical investigation into alleged secret programmes needs witnesses who can identify a programme from personal access rather than merely repeat a story heard from another person. It also means the form cannot be interpreted as a public UAP reporting portal in the ordinary sense. Its purpose was much narrower.
First-hand-only reporting helps with circular claims—but does not solve them automatically
One of the major problems later identified by AARO was circular reporting. A small number of people can repeat the same claim through separate conversations until several interviewees appear to corroborate one another even though all ultimately depend upon one originating source. Requiring direct knowledge is one way to reduce this. A source who personally worked on a programme can potentially provide a facility, programme name, contract number, manager, date, access-control system or documentary lead. Those details can be checked. The rule does not guarantee independence. Two first-hand witnesses can still have interpreted the same conventional programme incorrectly. A person can have direct access to one part of an activity while inferring more about the whole. Memory can degrade. Programme names can change.
A compartmented system can give different people different fragments. The first-hand criterion therefore improves the starting evidence without turning testimony into proof. AARO still needed records.
The review was already wider than the public 2023 whistleblower debate
The historical-review mandate is often described as a response to David Grusch. Chronologically, that is incorrect. Congress enacted the requirement in December 2022. Grusch's allegations became public in June 2023 and he testified before the House Oversight Committee on 26 July. His claims undeniably increased the political importance of the historical programme review, particularly allegations concerning crash retrieval, reverse engineering and improper withholding from Congress. They did not create the mandate. This distinction matters because the statute's language is broader than one witness's claims.
Congress required examination of government UAP history, restricted-access programmes, successful and unsuccessful identification efforts and possible information manipulation whether or not Grusch's specific programme allegations proved accurate.
The historical review should therefore not be treated as “the Grusch investigation.” His allegations became one important evidence stream within a much wider statutory task.
The historical review was also different from the UAP Disclosure Act debate
During 2023, Senators Chuck Schumer and Mike Rounds proposed a much broader UAP Disclosure Act modelled partly upon the JFK Assassination Records Collection framework. That proposal focused heavily upon records preservation, central archival custody and an independent review structure. AARO's Historical Record Report was different. It was an analytic investigation conducted by the government's UAP office. The two mechanisms could use overlapping records while asking different questions. A records collection asks what government documents exist and what can be released. AARO's historical review asked what those records and interviews supported concerning historical programmes, claims and government activity.
This difference remains important in 2026 because PURSUE and the National Archives now provide broader public access to source material that can be compared against AARO's own historical conclusions.
Volume I shows what AARO had actually done by the 2023 cut-off
The first published volume provides the best retrospective evidence of the review's scale by the time the October mechanism launched.
AARO says it reviewed official U.S. government investigative efforts since 1945, searched classified and unclassified archives, conducted approximately 30 interviews and worked with Intelligence Community and DoD officials responsible for Controlled Access Program and Special Access Program oversight. AARO — Historical Record Report Volume I
Volume I's research cut-off was essentially the end of October 2023. DoD later said Volume II would cover information obtained after 1 November 2023, including interviews generated through the newly launched secure reporting mechanism. DoD — Historical Record Report statement, 8 March 2024 That date boundary makes the October 31 launch especially useful as a timeline event. It sits almost exactly between two evidence phases: the archival and interview work that informed Volume I; and the later witness stream intended for the next volume. The separate UAPRAD deep dive on Volume I examines AARO's conclusions and criticisms in detail. This page is concerned with how the investigative machinery was built.
AARO's access authority was strong on paper
One of the most consequential claims in AARO's reporting guidance is that the office could receive UAP-related information regardless of restrictive access controls.
This matters because allegations of hidden UAP programmes almost always invoke extraordinary compartmentation.
If an investigator lacks authority to receive SAP or compartmented material, a source can truthfully say “I cannot tell you,” and the investigation stops.
Congress attempted to remove that structural barrier.
AARO says it can receive UAP information at every classification level and from any government department or agency, regardless of the originating classification authority. AARO — Submit a Report
That is substantial authority.
It is not the same thing as omniscience.
AARO still has to know that a record or programme exists.
A historical compartment may have changed names.
Records may have been destroyed under ordinary retention schedules.
Contractor documents may not sit in the obvious government repository.
An interviewee can provide an inaccurate programme name.
A highly compartmented conventional activity can resemble the allegation under investigation.
Legal authority to receive information solves access barriers only after the information has been found and connected to the review.
Restricted programmes create both an advantage and a public-verification problem
AARO's classified access creates an evidential asymmetry. The office can potentially determine that an alleged crash-retrieval programme was actually a classified sensor, aircraft or foreign-material exploitation activity. The public may not be able to inspect the programme record used to reach that conclusion. That does not make AARO's conclusion invalid. It makes the conclusion less independently reproducible. This is one of the unavoidable tensions in a national-security historical review. The office with the strongest access can produce answers the public is least able to audit directly. The statutory GAO audit partly mitigates this problem inside government. It does not create full public access to the classified source base.
That is why later archival releases through NARA and PURSUE are important complements to the Historical Record Report rather than substitutes for it.
AARO investigated claims about secrecy as well as sightings
The historical mandate should also be separated from AARO's ordinary case-resolution mission. AARO might analyse a modern infrared video in one part of the office. The historical team might be trying to determine whether a named contractor operated an unreported programme in another. The evidential methods are different. A modern case might require trajectory reconstruction. A historical programme allegation might require: contract records; security classification guides; Special Access Program oversight records; budget histories; facility records; archival correspondence; and interviews with officials who managed or audited the alleged programme. The secure reporting mechanism was therefore not primarily a mechanism for collecting dramatic sightings. It was a lead-generation system for institutional investigation.
This is an important reason the 2023 event deserves its own timeline page rather than being absorbed into the later Volume I publication.
The review's independence was necessarily limited
AARO was placed inside the Department of Defense and was asked to investigate allegations involving the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community and contractors. That creates a legitimate independence concern. The office also possessed advantages an external academic group could not replicate: classified access; statutory information-receipt authority; access to programme oversight officials; ability to interview cleared personnel securely; and direct relationships with the Intelligence Community. These advantages and limitations exist simultaneously. Calling AARO an internal government review is accurate. Calling it therefore worthless is not. Calling it fully independent is also inaccurate.
The better question is whether the process contains enough external checks, reproducible sourcing and later document release to justify confidence in specific conclusions. Congress's GAO audit provision was one attempt to provide such a check. Public release of supporting records is another.
The 2023 mechanism also had a credibility problem of its own
Potential witnesses who already believed government institutions had concealed UAP programmes might reasonably distrust a reporting mechanism operated by the Department of Defense. That is not evidence that the mechanism was compromised. It is a practical participation problem. A source may trust an Inspector General or congressional committee more than AARO. Another may prefer AARO because it has direct programme access. The FY2023 law therefore did not make AARO the only possible recipient of every whistleblower complaint. Existing Inspector General and congressional disclosure channels remained relevant. This matters when later arguments claim that an allegation cannot be serious because the source did not report it to AARO, or conversely that reporting to AARO validates it.
Choice of channel can depend upon legal advice, trust and programme history. The evidence still has to be tested once it reaches an authorised investigator.
What the review produced—and what remains unfinished publicly
Volume I became public on 8 March 2024. Its conclusions were strongly sceptical of crash-retrieval and extraterrestrial reverse-engineering claims.
AARO said it found no empirical evidence that the U.S. government or private industry possessed or reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology and said several named alleged programmes were misidentified authentic national-security activities, proposed programmes that never became operational or otherwise unsupported claims.
Those conclusions are examined separately in UAPRAD's Volume I deep dive. The important point for the 2023 start event is that AARO itself said the historical work was not finished. Acting Director Tim Phillips said Volume II would incorporate information obtained after 1 November 2023 and that existing leads remained under investigation. DoD — Tim Phillips media engagement, 8 March 2024 As of 26 August 2026, AARO's current Congressional/Press Products index publicly lists Historical Record Report Volume I, but no Volume II. AARO — Congressional/Press Products The absence of a public Volume II is significant as a transparency and compliance question. It does not reveal why the volume has not appeared.
A delay could reflect declassification, unresolved investigations, administrative issues, changing reporting architecture or other causes. The public record does not justify choosing one explanation without evidence.
The continuing GAO framework makes the unfinished status more important
The FY2025 Intelligence Authorization Act altered the GAO sunset provisions so that oversight continues until after the final volume of the Historical Record Report is delivered. This later law is easy to miss but analytically important. Congress did not treat Volume I as necessarily completing the mandated historical process. It preserved the audit and briefing framework around a final volume that remained outstanding. That makes the 2023 reporting mechanism more than a short-lived website feature. It became part of an ongoing statutory investigation whose final public documentary output was still incomplete at the UAPRAD review date.
Historical significance
AARO's historical review represented a major change in the scope of official UAP investigation. Project Blue Book investigated reports. The modern AARO historical mission was instructed to investigate the history of the investigators themselves. Congress asked who studied UAP. Which programmes existed. Which were restricted. Which were properly disclosed to oversight bodies. Whether information had been concealed or manipulated. And whether long-running allegations about recovered technology corresponded to real government activities. That is a fundamentally different institutional task from identifying a light in the sky. The 31 October 2023 reporting mechanism made that task operational in public view. It allowed an insider to say, in effect: I know a programme exists; I can identify it;
my NDA should not prevent an authorised disclosure; and AARO is legally empowered to receive what I know. The scientific and historical value comes only after that statement is tested. The mechanism did not validate extraordinary allegations merely by receiving them. It created a lawful route by which those allegations could become auditable. More than two years later, the incomplete public Volume II record means the historical process remains an open part of the UAP story. The 2023 event should therefore be remembered not as the moment AARO announced a conclusion, but as the moment Congress's unusually broad retrospective investigation acquired its most important public witness-intake tool.
Evidence assessment
The strongest interpretation of the 2023 event is not that AARO suddenly decided in December to “look into history.” Congress had already required the historical review in December 2022. The law was unusually broad. It required investigation of U.S. government UAP activity from 1945 onward, including restricted-access programmes not clearly reported to Congress and possible efforts to manipulate or conceal information. GAO was directed to audit the process. By 2023, AARO had begun archive research and interviews. The 31 October secure reporting launch is the clearest public operational milestone because it opened a protected pathway for people claiming direct programme knowledge to enter the review. The mechanism had real strengths. It created lawful authorised disclosure despite NDAs. It prohibited reprisal.
It gave AARO authority to receive material at every classification level, including highly restricted programmes. It separated the unclassified website contact from later secure interviews. And it required first-hand programme knowledge rather than encouraging unlimited hearsay submission. The limitations are equally real. The mechanism launched later than Congress's original public-guidance deadline. AARO remained an internal DoD office reviewing allegations partly about DoD and the Intelligence Community. Access authority cannot recover destroyed records or identify a programme whose name and location remain unknown. Testimony remains testimony until linked to records. And the public cannot independently inspect much of the classified evidence used to confirm or reject programme allegations.
These limitations do not make the historical review meaningless. They define what its conclusions can reasonably establish publicly. The most appropriate standard is therefore documentary. If a witness identifies a hidden programme, investigators should find programme records. If a programme was improperly withheld from Congress, oversight records should reveal the gap. If a material-exploitation activity existed, contracts, facilities, personnel and technical documentation should exist somewhere in the historical chain. If witnesses unknowingly described a conventional classified programme, the government's explanation should correspond to authentic records and chronology. The 2023 system was designed to create those testable leads. That is its historical significance.
Source library
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — FY2023 Intelligence Authorization Act, §§6802-6803
The controlling statutory source for AARO's historical review. Section 6802 requires a report covering the U.S. government UAP record from 1 January 1945, using intelligence records, oral history, government interviews, open-source analysis and classified/unclassified archives. It specifically requires consideration of restricted programmes not clearly reported to Congress and efforts to hide, manipulate or provide incorrect UAP information. Section 6803 creates GAO audit and congressional-briefing requirements.
Read the enacted intelligence legislation
50 U.S.C. §3373 — current AARO statutory framework
Current codified framework for AARO and the historical-review requirement, including statutory notes governing GAO audits and briefings. Useful for checking how later amendments affected continuing oversight of the Historical Record Report process.
Read the current statute
Department of Defense — secure reporting mechanism launch, 31 October 2023
The controlling source for this timeline event. DoD states that the newly launched mechanism was for current/former government personnel and contractors with direct knowledge of alleged U.S. government UAP programmes dating to 1945 and that the reports would inform AARO's Historical Record Report.
Read the official DoD announcement
Sean Kirkpatrick — AARO media roundtable, 31 October 2023
Primary transcript explaining the distinction between historical programme reporting and current operational UAP reports. Kirkpatrick also states that AARO can receive UAP information at all classification levels regardless of restrictive access controls, SAPs or compartmented programmes, while classified information must not be submitted through the public web form.
Read the official DoD transcript
AARO — U.S. Government UAP-Related Program/Activity Report User Guide
The strongest operational source for the 2023 mechanism. It defines eligibility, requires first-hand programme knowledge, explains NDA-authorised disclosure and anti-reprisal protections, separates historical programme reporting from ordinary sightings and explains how classified follow-up interviews are handled.
Read the AARO user guide
AARO FOIA Reading Room / ODNI — CAPCO-23-003 authorisation memorandum
Primary intelligence-community guidance authorising AARO representatives to speak with people possessing protected government information and authorising disclosure of UAP-related information covered by NDAs to AARO for its official mission. It also requires continuing protection from unauthorised disclosure.
Read the released ODNI authorisation memorandum
Reginfo.gov — AARO Contact Form for Authorized Reporting
Official information-collection record explaining that Section 1673 required public guidance for secure authorised reporting by June 2023 and that the contact form was necessary to support AARO's Historical Record Report. Useful for documenting the implementation timetable and the later October launch.
Read the federal information-collection record
Department of Defense — launch of AARO.mil, 31 August 2023
Primary source documenting the public website launch and DoD's statement that the secure historical-programme reporting tool would be added in the autumn. This establishes the staged implementation between website launch and the 31 October reporting mechanism.
Read the AARO website announcement
AARO — Historical Record Report, Volume I, 2024
Primary retrospective evidence showing the work AARO had conducted through the late-2023 cut-off: review of official government UAP investigations since 1945, classified and unclassified archival research, approximately 30 interviews and coordination with DoD/IC restricted-programme oversight officials.
Read the official Historical Record Report Volume I
Department of Defense — Historical Record Report Volume I statement, 8 March 2024
Primary follow-up confirming that the first volume had been delivered to Congress and explaining that Volume II would analyse information obtained after 1 November 2023, including interviews resulting from the secure reporting mechanism.
Read the DoD statement
Department of Defense — Tim Phillips media engagement on Volume I
Acting AARO Director Tim Phillips states that AARO's historical work was not complete and that Volume II would incorporate information acquired since 1 November 2023. Useful for preserving the difference between publication of Volume I and completion of the wider historical investigation.
Read the official media transcript
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — FY2025 Intelligence Authorization Act, §6802
Later statutory evidence that Congress continued GAO audit and congressional briefing requirements until after delivery of the final Historical Record Report volume. Important for understanding that the multi-volume historical-review process remained open after Volume I.
Read the FY2025 intelligence legislation
AARO — current Congressional/Press Products index
Current AARO publication index. As of the 26 August 2026 review date, it lists Historical Record Report Volume I but no publicly posted Volume II. This establishes the public publication status without inferring why the second volume has not appeared.
View AARO's current congressional products
Research category: Government historical investigation / authorised disclosure
Congressional mandate enacted: 23 December 2022
Historical review period required by statute: 1 January 1945 through completion of the review
Public website launched: 31 August 2023
Secure historical programme-reporting mechanism launched: 31 October 2023
Structured timeline date: 31 October 2023
Statutory report deadline: 540 days after enactment, approximately mid-June 2024
Volume I public release: 8 March 2024
Volume II public status at review date: not listed on AARO's public Congressional/Press Products index as of 26 August 2026
Review date: Evidence assessed through 26 August 2026
Research status: Continuing / incomplete in the public record — the statutory historical investigation produced Volume I and an authorised witness mechanism, while the promised later volume had not appeared on AARO's public report index by the review date.