Every case explainer on this site references an AARO case classification — usually “unresolved” — and it’s worth understanding exactly what that system means, because it’s one of the most consistently misunderstood parts of the entire UAP disclosure process. Getting this wrong is the single most common way honest reporting on this topic slides into speculation.
What AARO Is
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is the Department of Defense office established in 2022 to standardize the investigation, analysis, and public reporting of UAP cases across military branches and intelligence agencies. Before AARO, UAP investigation was scattered across different programs with inconsistent methodology and reporting; AARO consolidated that into a single office with a formal case-classification system, which is what makes cross-case comparison on a site like this one meaningful in the first place.
The Five Official Classifications
- Resolved: the case has a confirmed conventional explanation with sufficient supporting evidence — balloons, satellites, birds, conventional aircraft, drones, commercial rocket launches, and in at least one documented case, a jet-powered flying device, have all been confirmed explanations for cases that started as UAP reports.
- Probably resolved: a conventional explanation is strongly supported by the available evidence but doesn’t meet the full evidentiary bar for a definitive “resolved” classification — essentially high confidence short of certainty.
- Active investigation: the case is still being actively worked, with analysis ongoing and no classification yet assigned.
- Insufficient data: the available evidence — video quality, sensor data, witness corroboration — is too limited to support any classification, resolved or otherwise. This is a distinct category from “unresolved” and matters for a specific reason explained below.
- Unresolved: the case has been analyzed with available data and does not fit a confirmed conventional explanation, but also does not meet the bar for confirming an extraordinary one.
The Distinction That Matters Most: “Unresolved” ≠ “Extraordinary”
This is the core educational point of this entire page, and it’s worth stating as directly as possible: an “unresolved” classification is not AARO confirming that a case involves genuinely anomalous or extraordinary technology. It means investigators lack enough reliable data — a precise time signature, an accurate distance or range measurement, the original raw sensor file rather than a compressed public copy, independent corroboration from a second sensor or platform — to support either a conventional or an extraordinary conclusion with confidence. “We don’t have enough information to explain this” and “this is confirmed to be something beyond known technology” are fundamentally different claims, and conflating them is the single most common way UAP coverage misrepresents the official record.
Every case covered on this site — the Tic Tac, Gimbal, and GoFast videos, the Jellyfish UAP, and the Aguadilla Airport case — currently sits in the unresolved category. That places them in the “insufficient evidence to conclude either way” bucket, not a “confirmed anomalous” one, no matter how a headline might frame them.
Why “Insufficient Data” Is a Separate Category
The distinction between “insufficient data” and “unresolved” is subtle but real: “insufficient data” means the evidence is too thin to analyze meaningfully at all — a blurry photo with no metadata, a single uncorroborated witness account. “Unresolved” means there IS substantive data — video, radar, multiple witnesses — that has been genuinely analyzed, and that analysis still can’t produce a confident conclusion either way. A case moving from “insufficient data” to “unresolved” actually reflects more investigative work having been done, not less, even though neither classification confirms anything extraordinary.
How to Use This When Reading Any UAP Coverage
A simple, reliable check: if a source describes a case as “unexplained” or “unresolved” and then proceeds to describe it as confirmed evidence of something extraordinary, that’s a real signal the source is going beyond what the official classification actually supports. The classification system exists specifically to prevent that conflation — treating it as a rough proxy for “confirmed strange” rather than what it actually says is the single easiest way to be misled by otherwise-accurate footage or documentation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a case’s classification change over time?
Yes — as new data, corroborating records, or technical analysis becomes available (including through the ongoing PURSUE program and RG 615 releases), AARO can and does update classifications. An unresolved case today isn’t necessarily unresolved permanently.
Does AARO publish the reasoning behind each classification?
AARO’s public reporting varies in depth by case — some classifications come with detailed public explanation, others are more summary in nature. Checking the primary AARO reporting directly, rather than a secondary summary, is the way to see the actual level of detail available for a specific case.
Is “resolved” always a mundane explanation?
In every publicly documented resolved case to date, yes — resolved classifications have consistently mapped to conventional explanations (balloons, aircraft, drones, and similar). No case has been officially “resolved” as confirmed non-human or extraordinary technology.