UFO and UAP glossary

67 terms, in plain language.

AARO

All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the Pentagon office created in July 2022 to detect and resolve unidentified anomalous phenomena.

AATIP

Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a Defense Intelligence Agency-administered effort publicized in 2017; whether Luis Elizondo led it is disputed.

AAWSAP

Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, the DIA contract awarded to BAASS in 2008.

AAWSAP / AATIP

Related Defense Intelligence Agency-era programs: AAWSAP funded studies via Bigelow's firm; AATIP is the later-publicized name whose leadership is disputed.

Abduction

A claim that a person was taken against their will by non-human beings. Villas Boas's 1957 story is among the earliest widely discussed examples.

Active archive (AARO)

AARO's term for cases set aside because there is not enough data to resolve them yet.

APRO

The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, an American civilian UFO group. Olavo Fontes represented it in Brazil.

BAASS

Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, the contractor.

Blue Book (Project Blue Book)

The U.S. Air Force's public UFO reporting project; it closed on December 17, 1969 after 12,618 reports, 701 left unidentified.

Close encounter of the first, second and third kind

Hynek's categories: a close visual sighting (first), with a physical effect (second), with an animate being (third).

Condon Report

The University of Colorado's 18-month study for the Air Force under Edward Condon, published January 1969; it found nothing extraordinary.

CORONA

The first U.S. photo-reconnaissance satellite program, run by the CIA and Air Force.

Counterintelligence Corps (CIC)

The Army unit Sheridan Cavitt served in; he went to the ranch with Marcel.

Cross-contamination (witness)

When witnesses discuss events before interviews and their accounts converge, which weakens independence as evidence.

DA Form 66

The Army officer qualification record listing assignments and awards.

DIRD

Defense Intelligence Reference Document, a DIA-published technical paper; 38 were produced under AAWSAP.

Doodlebug

Slang for a dowsing-style device sold as a mineral or oil finder.

Dr. Gee

The pseudonymous scientist in Scully's book, identified by Cahn as GeBauer.

Echelon formation

A staggered line of aircraft, each slightly behind and to one side of the next; Arnold's objects were described this way.

EG&G

Defense contractor Lazar says interviewed him; he reported it had no record of him, and it ran the earliest Janet flights from 1972.

Element 115 (moscovium)

A superheavy element first made in 2003 and named moscovium in 2016; its longest-lived known isotope lasts about 0.65 seconds.

FLIR

Forward-looking infrared: a camera that records heat rather than visible light, used by Navy jets to track targets.

Flying disc / flying saucer

Phrases that entered newspapers in late June 1947 describing Arnold's objects, though he says he described motion, not shape.

Flying Saucer Review

A British UFO magazine in which the case was published for English-speaking readers in 1965.

Foreign Technology Division/desk

The Army research-and-development office tracking foreign weapons technology, where Corso served in 1961-62.

Foxfire

A faint glow from decaying wood caused by fungi, proposed as the source of the glowing grass.

Gravity amplifier

In Lazar's account, a device under the craft that focuses the reactor's gravity field; not a recognized physics device.

Halt memo

A one-page 13 January 1981 memo by Lt Col Charles Halt summarising the December 1980 events for the British base commander and the MoD.

Hottel memo

A March 22, 1950 FBI memo relaying a third-hand crashed-saucer claim.

Hypnagogic

A dreamlike state between waking and sleep that can produce vivid hallucinations and sleep paralysis; Nickell's proposed explanation.

ICIG

Intelligence Community Inspector General, an office created in 2010 inside ODNI that receives whistleblower complaints.

Island of stability

A theorized region of superheavy nuclei with longer lifetimes than their neighbors; known moscovium isotopes sit short of it.

Janet

Passenger service (called 'Janet' in lore) flying contractor staff from Las Vegas to Groom Lake and other test sites; documented to exist.

K/M

Mark beside Lazar's 1982 lab directory entry that investigators read as 'Kirk-Mayer', a contractor, rather than lab staff.

Keesler AFB

The Air Force base in Biloxi, Mississippi where the two men were examined for radiation.

KONA BLUE

A proposed DHS special access program that AARO says was rejected and never started.

Missing time

A stretch of hours a person cannot account for, central to the Hills' account.

ML-307B radar target

A lightweight foil-and-balsa reflector that balloon trains carried so radar could track them.

MoD

The UK Ministry of Defence, which received the memo and concluded the matter posed no defence threat.

MUFON

Mutual UFO Network, a volunteer-investigator group founded in 1969; critics say its methods are unscientific.

National Enquirer

A US tabloid that paid for Walton's hotel stay and arranged a polygraph in 1975.

NDAA

National Defense Authorization Act, the annual defense law; UAP provisions appeared in the FY2023, FY2024 and FY2026 versions (signed Dec 23, 2022, Dec 22, 2023 and Dec 18, 2025).

NICAP

A private civilian group (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) whose investigators interviewed the Hills.

Non-human intelligence (NHI)

A drafting term in the proposed and enacted records laws for any sentient non-human lifeform that might be behind UAP; no official body says it has found any.

ODNI

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which published the June 25, 2021 preliminary UAP assessment and houses the intelligence community's inspector general.

Orford Ness lighthouse

A lighthouse on the Suffolk coast whose flash sweeps over the forest; central to the skeptical explanation.

Polygraph

A lie detector that records heart rate, breathing and sweat. It is not accepted as reliable proof of truth and can be beaten or misread.

Project Blue Book

The US Air Force's public UFO investigation (1952-1969); it filed contact stories like this one in a separate category.

Project Mogul

A classified balloon project that tried to detect Soviet nuclear tests from the stratosphere.

Project Sign, Grudge, Blue Book

The three names under which the Air Force ran its UFO reporting program between 1947 and 1969; Blue Book is the best-known and last.

PURSUE

Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, the Department of War's 2026 program and website for releasing declassified UAP files in batches.

RAAF

Roswell Army Air Field, home of the 509th Bomb Group, then the only atomic-capable unit.

Retrieval (crash retrieval)

The alleged recovery of crashed craft or materials. AARO says it found no verifiable evidence that any such program exists; the claim comes from whistleblower testimony.

Reverse engineering

Studying recovered technology to copy it. In March 2024 AARO said it found no verifiable evidence the government or private companies are doing this with extraterrestrial technology.

Robertson Panel

A five-scientist panel convened in January 1953 that recommended public education to reduce interest in UFOs.

S-4

Lazar's name for a site said to lie south of Groom Lake near Papoose Lake; no official source confirms it as a program site.

SCIF

A secure room for classified discussion; Grusch said he could answer there.

Tic Tac

Nickname for a small, white, oblong object shape described by Fravor, after the breath mint.

Tikoloshe

A mischievous folkloric spirit in southern African (Shona/Ndebele/Zulu) tradition, mentioned by some children as what they saw.

UAP

Unidentified anomalous phenomena, the U.S. government's term replacing 'UFO'.

UAP Disclosure Act

A proposed law, offered in 2023, 2024 and 2025, to force records disclosure through a review board; only a weaker records-collection piece became law in 2023.

UAP vs UFO

UFO is the older term for any unidentified flying object; UAP now means unidentified anomalous phenomena by law and includes submerged and trans-medium objects.

UFO Afrinews

Cynthia Hind's southern African UFO newsletter in which the accounts were published.

Unidentified (Blue Book)

The Air Force label for a report it could not explain; 701 out of 12,618 carried it.

Unidentified (official sense)

The Navy and DoD word for phenomena that official channels cannot explain; it does not mean extraterrestrial.

Whistleblower

In this field, a current or former official who brings concerns to oversight bodies; the legal channel to Congress runs through the intelligence community inspector general's 'urgent concern' process.

Zeta Reticuli

The double-star system Fish matched to Betty's map; later distance data weakened the match.

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