UFO Investigations Just Got a MASSIVE Upgrade with AARO's Latest Tech

Show Transcript

AARO has recently hit the news with new updates and ideas and projects that they want to bring to the table, but the way things have been handled since their creation in 2022, I am a bit skeptical that the public will get to see any of the fruit that they wish to bear. Hey you followers, I'm Christina Gomez and welcome to this episode of UFO News Updates.

Hello and welcome to everyone catching this live. This is very interesting what AARO has just released to the public - the ideas and the things that they want to do to move forward. According to The Defense Scoop that was written by Brandy Vincent, she's really been on the ball with recent news about the conversation of UFOs on Capitol Hill, and she dropped some interesting information.

For the first time since the office was created in 2022, they're putting out this kind of contract and it's for something pretty significant. They want contractors to build them a secure custom case management system that will run on the Pentagon's most classified network - the one that handles top secret information. This system needs to track all of the data interactions and records from their ever growing pile of UAP cases that could threaten national security.

Right now, AARO is juggling multiple different tools to manage their work and they want to bring everything together under one roof. This has been an issue since the very beginning when Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick was the director of AARO before his resignation in December of 2023. He said "We need to get everyone on board - the CIA, the NSA, NASA, everything under the Pentagon." But he and his team had to reach to every single department and every office to get that information. They finally want to change that.

The new system they're envisioning would be able to automatically sort cases by how serious they are, convert documents into searchable data - that's really important - track every action taken on a case from start to finish, and even send automated responses to people who submit reports. Let me emphasize this: those that want to submit reports are only those that have been or are in the military and the government. AARO accepts reports from current or former US government employees, service members, or contractor personnel. So it's not open to everyone, just those that are a part of the military and government.

But there's more to this. They're also planning something that hasn't happened before - they're opening up reporting to the general public, not just government officials. What the heck took them so long, to be honest with you? First, they were very late to releasing their website. After their website was created, it took months for the reporting center to be open to government officials alone, and then now - actually not even right now, but soon - they want to make it open to the public.

As of November of 2024, they had already processed over 1,600 UAP reports and that number just keeps on climbing. The technical requirements for this system are pretty comprehensive because it needs to handle everything from weather data and speed measurements to location tracking, all while maintaining proper encryption for different security levels. AARO wants a customizable dashboard for different users and the ability to automatically pull out key information from documents and link it to very specific cases.

This is great news, this is awesome, and hopefully fingers crossed this will be open to the public and not just for the AARO team. If they move forward with the full contract, they're looking at buying not just the software development but also training for their staff, ongoing support, and future upgrades. This potential contract would run for maybe a year with options to maybe four additional years, and contractors need top secret clearance just to apply - so you and I can't apply for this really cool job, which is a little sad. Responses are due by June 9th, which is really close, and this is kind of marking a new chapter in how the government handles these encounters.

Now you might be asking, Christina, what does this all mean? Why should we care? That's a great question because as the office transitions from a very scattered operation juggling multiple disconnected tools to a professional enterprise level investigation bureau capable of handling this case load and the growth - they're getting reports consistently every day, every few days - AARO has opened hundreds of investigations since it was founded in 2022. Just a reminder, before AARO was the UAPTF and the AOIMSG, and half of these have been resolved with mundane explanations - "oh it was a weather balloon," "oh actually no, it was parallax" - that one always gets me. The other half remains unexplained. They don't have an answer. They say there isn't sufficient data, we need to look further into this, we don't have the technology to get sufficient answers. Those excuses are valid, and that's why they want to work on this new piece of tech, which is great news.

The unified system will automatically extract and cross-reference key data points like weather conditions, speed, and location across cases to reveal previously invisible patterns to AARO's eyes. Now there are other websites that are already doing what AARO wants to do - we know this - but if and when they open their reporting center to the public, they might receive more data than any other websites online. Now I could be wrong, but I feel a little optimistic there. What do you think about that? I want to hear from you in the live chat and in the comments as well.

This seems like decently good news, right? Well, for the public, this marks maybe the most significant development in UFO transparency in decades, according to AARO . This system will enable the first ever direct civilian reporting mechanism while delivering faster case resolution and quicker public disclosure of findings - again, so they say. Now will that actually happen? Will they actually launch this? Right now it's still being talked about. They want to get people in by June 9th, they want to pay for the system, they want to get their staff trained. From what we remember from Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick when he gave his briefings to Congress, it's only a few people on the team for AARO - it's very, very small. Will it grow after this? Are they taking positions? Because I want to get my hands on all of the data that they are collecting. I feel like there's so much juicy information there.

But as we've seen with Kirkpatrick, as we've seen with Kosloski, they brush it off like it's no big deal. Things are moving for the UFO conversation and for AARO . AARO's been in the dark since Kosloski became the director. Very little information has come forward since the report that was released last year and the briefing that he gave to Congress, very specifically to Kirsten Gillibrand.

But it's nice to see that we're finally getting information from them. They've been a little too quiet for a little too long. Question is why? There have been some very strange UFO sightings. AARO made no comments on the incident in New Jersey that took place over months during Thanksgiving weekend up until today - sightings are still taking place. With this new development that AARO wants to get into, it should be cool, right? It should be pretty awesome. It should be, but past actions set a foundation on how people view AARO today.

Maybe you know what I mean, maybe you don't. Well, let me explain to you what I mean. For starters, they were late to release their UFO reports every single time. Their website was launched way later than intended, and it took them several months after the launch for them to release the reporting center only for government officials. Then statements were not made under oath, like when Kosloski had mentioned "Oh we explained the Aguadilla incident, it was parallax." But there was almost no data to back up how he got that explanation that he wrote in his report that he gave in his briefing to Kirsten Gillibrand. There was no data. He just says "Uh, just take my word for it, bro."

Then the whole issue with David Grusch and Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, which we'll get into a little bit later if you're not familiar with that drama - because that's what it was. And then the lack of evidence just to back up their claims on their answers explaining things away. It's really just been a dumpster fire since the creation of the UAPTF and the AOIMSG. Who remembers the AOIMSG hearing? That was one of the first ones in 55 plus years and it was a mess from beginning to end. Moultrie said "Malmstrom Air Force Base? I don't know what you're talking about." They couldn't pause a video when trying to look at the UFO - that was pretty embarrassing. They couldn't answer any of the questions that were posed by the congressman.

A fun fact for you: Moultrie, even though he walked away from the AOIMSG, he was really the person above Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick when Kirkpatrick was the director of AARO . All the information that Kirkpatrick collected had to go through Moultrie. Isn't that strange?

You know what? I think we got to start from the beginning. We covered the latest updates with AARO , but maybe you're scratching your head and saying "Christina, I actually don't know a lot about AARO ." Well, that's why you come here, because let's talk about the birth of AARO .

According to AARO's website, AARO was established in July of 2022 by the DoD in response to growing public and congressional interest in UAP and increased reports from military personnel, and a mandate from the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. Its mission, according to the website, is to detect, identify, attribute, and if necessary, mitigate potential threats posed by unidentified objects in the air space, maritime (which is the oceans), or land domains near national security areas such as military bases or training zones.

AARO operates under the oversight of the deputy secretary of defense and the principal deputy director of national intelligence, with administrative support from the under secretary of defense for intelligence and security. Can I just say those titles are so long? Could you imagine introducing yourself at a party and then saying that title to every single person that you meet? Because some people just really love titles. I'd be exhausted after the second person. I'd say just forget it, just call me Christina, that's fine. Don't call me by the whole title - so much work.

AARO has been tasked with collecting and analyzing UAP reports from current and former government officials, military personnel, and contractors, with plans to expand to public submissions hopefully in June of this year, but we still don't know about it. As of November of 2024, AARO  has received over 1,600 UAP reports, resolving hundreds as just birds, balloons, drones, satellites, or aircraft. However, there is that small fraction where they're like "you know, we don't know what this is, we don't have the data, we don't have sufficient information, we don't have the technology that we can mention publicly that we know what it is" - until recently, and I'm going to get to that part because that part's juicy.

That's all cool, that's all great stuff, right? But remember, before AARO was the AOIMSG and the UAPTF - all the same office but with different names, and the directors have changed as well. Before the present one that we have right now, which is John Kosloski, before that was Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, who resigned in December of 2023. He is a physicist with over 20 years of experience in scientific and technological intelligence. Before leading AARO , he served as a chief scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency's Missile and Space Intelligence Center and was the deputy director of intelligence for US Strategic Command - that's also a lot.

He testified that AARO was tracking approximately 650 cases with no credible evidence of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects defying known physics. He noted that only a small percentage of reports displayed anomalous signatures, which were being studied with rigor according to him. He's like "We're looking into this, I have my best men and women on the team, I know what I'm doing."

But the biggest takeaway from the times that he presented himself in front of Congress - it really felt like it was an inconvenience for him to be there. His body language looked so dull and lackluster, and he really just wanted more funding to keep studying UFOs. That was the biggest takeaway that I got every time he spoke in front of Congress - "Do I have to be there? Like really? Okay, just give me more money, thank you for recommending people for us to interview, really appreciate it. Funding, give me more money" - and not even a thank you after that.

But Kirkpatrick's statements during his time as the director sparked a lot of controversy, and one of the biggest ones had to be with David Grusch. Who remembers this? Who remembers the whole drama between the two of them? During the hearing that Grusch - he was under oath - he said "AARO has my phone number, AARO has my email, but they never followed up with me. They didn't want to talk to me, they didn't really care, they brushed me off." And then Kirkpatrick wrote a paper and he says "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you saying Grusch? You actually stood me up. I wrote emails to you, we had meetings ready to go and scheduled, and you didn't show up, Grusch."

So it was really a battle between who said what. Here's the biggest difference: Grusch was under oath, Kirkpatrick just wrote a paper that he posted on LinkedIn, and that was it. So whose word are you going to take?

Not only that, but other things that Kirkpatrick has done in the past - it's like, do we believe him? Do we not? I'm a little bit on the seesaw over here because he wrote a paper - and people forget this - he wrote a paper with Dr. Avi Loeb. Co-wrote a paper that said "Okay, if there are UFO motherships, they are dropping what they classified as dandelion seeds, aka drones, to understand different solar systems in our universe." And this was really giving Kirkpatrick two faces here: in front of AARO , "nothing to see here, no, everything has a conventional explanation, things are boring, give me more money," and then in the comfort of his own home, writing up this paper with Harvard professor Avi Loeb, who we all know is a UFO fanatic who found Oumuamua, who created the Galileo project, and who has mentioned "the skies are not classified."

Kirkpatrick knows all of this, and yet he still signs the paper with his name about these hypotheses on UFO motherships dropping drones, aka dandelion seeds, to better inspect different solar systems. We are seeing two facets of Kirkpatrick. Which one is the real one?

People have made the comparison that maybe Kirkpatrick might be another J. Allen Hynek, who when he was getting his paycheck from the government, he said "okay, everything has an explanation," and then years after he left Blue Book, he starts making claims and it's like "actually no, that case over there was really, really strange." He helps write Close Encounters, he writes a bunch of books like The UFO Experience. Can we expect that same thing from Kirkpatrick years down the line? Some are optimistic, others not so much. I think after this paper that he wrote with Avi Loeb, it's a possibility, but he has not been in the spotlight since his resignation in December of 2023.

With all of this, we're left to question: do we believe AARO ? When it was under Kirkpatrick, people didn't. Now that it's under Dr. John Kosloski, can we have different ideas? Well, let's talk about that, shall we? Because we've only ever seen Kosloski once, and that was during the briefing that he gave to Kirsten Gillibrand that explained "Oh we know about the Aguadilla incident, it's parallax, that's all it is." His presentation was five minutes long, his report was dropped just the day before the briefing, he said everything not under oath, and that was the first and last time we've ever seen him, even though he was sworn in back in August of 2024.

Someone tell me, did he learn from Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick to not make any public statements because it will tarnish his image? That's a possibility, because Kirkpatrick did a few interviews during his time as a director, right after - like literally right after - he resigned as well, and he gave a few extra interviews, and it was all pretty contradicting, which was strange. Kosloski has not done one interview, at least that I could find online, and he's only ever spoken in front of the camera once.

But he has a pretty extensive background. He has a PhD in electrical engineering, he's also really experienced in quantum optics and cryptomathematics as well. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks has praised him for his ability to enhance AARO's efforts to research and explain UAP, and yet we've gotten nothing from him minus that one report we got back in November of 2024.

What the heck is going on, really? And I mean it. I want to ask you this: what is going on? What can we expect in the near future? Are they going to follow through by June 9th to get a new system to collect data more efficiently, to open their website to civilian UFO reports, or is it all just hype with nothing to back it up? Because we've kind of seen that time and time again, haven't we? The answer to that is yes, yes we have. They've followed through in some of the reports, but it's always been late, it's always been severely delayed. Do you think they're going to hit their target of June 9th? I'm not optimistic. I don't really think so, but you know what? I would love to be proven wrong. Please, Kosloski, prove me wrong. Will you have your information and systems ready by June 9th to get the hiring process done by June 9th?

One more thing that I got to mention that's really important is the Gremlin. This was in their report that was published in 2024, and this hit the news pretty quickly and then it died down pretty fast as well. So what is this? It's AARO's prototype sensor system developed with Georgia Tech Research Institute and the Department of Energy Labs for detecting, tracking, and categorizing UAP using radar, electro-optical and infrared cameras, and electromagnetic sensors.

They spoke about this in this report and then they said that testing is going to start - and this guy said already started back in March of 2024. This tech can detect bats, birds, solar flaring, and all these different things, and it was supposed to be deployed in the fiscal year 2025 for over 90 days, but we don't know where it is because they wanted to keep that information very private to not get people to tarnish the data.

What's interesting about this Gremlin - so from some of the images that we received, well they're drawings - it's like a backpack, which I think is really cool. It's a backpack tech system that you can just take anywhere in the middle of nowhere and it's no big deal. You plop it down and it detects UFO data. And yet we have received no information from AARO on what they've uncovered when their testing finished. All we know is the information that I shared with you and this diagram that was released in their report in 2024, and that it's named Gremlin - but it's in all caps as it is an acronym.

So I mean, there's some positive things to this. They're putting in some elbow grease, but it's all behind the scenes. We have almost no data as to what they have found in the last year or so, and really since Kosloski has become a director. Since November of 2024, we've got no information. We should be getting another UFO report pretty soon from AARO , to my knowledge. The question is exactly when. Whenever they drop any kind of date, they're always behind, and they usually drop it on a Friday when the news cycle isn't as ferocious because they want to keep it on the DL, on the down low, which is disappointing.

But I think the biggest question we have to ask ourselves here today is: can AARO fulfill its promises? Will AARO follow through? Let me know in the comments, let me know in the live chat. I want to hear it from you. If you place them in the comments, those will be permanent. I like to read them over when I can, and I want to spend these next few minutes with you asking you this question, hearing your answers on this, because data is limited. We're very lucky that The Defense Scoop even covered this because AARO  has been in the dark for way too long.

John says "No they won't, but I hope to be wrong." You and me both - I want to be proven wrong. Kosloski, I'm looking at you, prove me wrong. But yeah, like you, I'm not super optimistic. Dusty says "My birthday is at June 9th." Well, happy almost birthday if that is the case.

If you are enjoying the show, hit that like button right down below and subscribe if you haven't already if you enjoy UFO news updates, case studies, interviews and more. Darkstar says "Yes, AARO will fulfill its promise, just not in our lifetime." Oh, that started off really nice and then bam, dropped you off a cliff. But yeah, I hope we're wrong, Darkstar. Maybe it will be in our lifetime.

Robert says "AARO  equals Project Blue Book 2.0." Yeah, it does in many ways. They just keep trying to explain everything away, but they're not really doing any of the investigations, at least like what J. Allen Hynek did. He actually went to the sites where UFOs were seen, spoke to the locals, spoke to the witnesses. This time around, to our limited knowledge, they're doing everything from a computer screen - that's it, which is not ideal.

From what Kirkpatrick had mentioned during his briefings that were public, he said that he only interviewed a little less than 25 witnesses that were recommended from Congress to AARO , which isn't that many. When it comes to Kosloski, we have no idea how many people he's interviewed. But it's unfortunate that all of this data currently is classified, it's behind the scenes. But with this new system, maybe we might get that public information. I hope so, I really do. I mean, we're paying them, right? It's our tax dollars. We should get that data.

Gilbert says "The DoD signs Kosloski's checks." Yeah, so there'll be no data. You know, I hope we're wrong, I really do.

Well, that is it for today. Be safe and remember, keep your eyes on the skies.