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The Pentagon Wrote “Submerged and Transmedium” Into a Founding Document

In July 2022 the Pentagon created a permanent body to chase unidentified objects in the air, in space, underwater and across the boundaries between them. The word "aerial" was dropped on purpose.

By The UFONN Desk Published Standards & corrections
Members of the U.S. Naval Academy band march through the Pentagon corridors Dec. 10, 2009, during the traditional pep rally that is the precurser to the annual Army-Navy football game, which is scheduled for Dec. 12, 2009.
Illustrative file photograph — related to the subject of this report, not an image of the reported event or object. Any people shown are not necessarily connected to it. Cherie Cullen · Public domain

On July 15, 2022, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks — coordinating with the Director of National Intelligence — renamed and widened an existing body, the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, into the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. The establishment memo was published on July 20. 14

Sean Kirkpatrick, previously chief scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency's Missile and Space Intelligence Center, was named director. 47

Read the mission statement

The office was chartered to detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in, on or near military installations, operating areas, training ranges, special use airspace and other areas of interest — including anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged and transmedium objects. 12

Every word in that list was chosen. The predecessor bodies had *aerial* in their names and their remits. AARO does not. Its charter explicitly covers space, the sea surface, underwater, and objects that cross between domains. 2

The Department of Defense wrote *submerged and transmedium* into a founding document. It did not have to. That single phrase conceded, in the driest possible language, that the reports it was chartered to resolve include objects that go into the water.

Oversight ran through an executive council chaired by Under Secretary Ronald Moultrie. 2 The office was established under the FY2022 defence authorisation, and Congress added a mandate in the December 2022 NDAA for the historical review that would surface in 2024. 36

What it was really for

Two things, in tension from the first day.

Publicly, AARO was the government's answer to the destigmatisation argument: a permanent address for reports, so aircrews would file them and analysts would work them. 5

Institutionally, it was the mechanism for closing the subject down. An office that resolves cases produces resolutions, and resolutions accumulate into a body of evidence that most of this is balloons.

Both functions were real, and the strain between them broke the first director inside eighteen months. Kirkpatrick left in December 2023 saying he had accomplished what he set out to do; his critics said his office had fostered an atmosphere of disinterest. The office he built is still the only one Congress can subpoena. 7

SOURCES

This report was written by UFONN from the reporting and primary documents below. Numbers in the text correspond to this list. Every link goes to the original publisher.

  1. 1Establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (DoD memo)U.S. Dept. of Defense
  2. 2DoD Announces the Establishment of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution OfficeHSToday
  3. 3Department Of Defense Establishes All-Domain Anomaly Resolution OfficePotomac Officers Club
  4. 4All-domain Anomaly Resolution OfficeWikipedia
  5. 5The truth is out there: DoD announces the All-domain Anomaly Resolution OfficeMilitary News
  6. 6All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office EstablishedLeonard David
  7. 7Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: AARO's Founding Director and His Impact on UAP InvestigationsUFOPulse

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