The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is the U.S. cabinet-level office responsible for coordinating the seventeen agencies of the Intelligence Community (IC). Its UAP-related publication track began with the June 25, 2021 Preliminary Assessment on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, which was the first congressionally-mandated unclassified UAP report from the IC in modern history.
Since then, ODNI has published an unclassified annual UAP report each January under Section 1683(j) of the FY2022 NDAA, plus newer quarterly summaries beginning Q2 2025. Most ODNI UAP work coordinates with — but is distinct from — AARO's investigative work.
On May 22, 2026, ODNI published its first first-person UAP narrative through PURSUE Release 02: ODNI-UAP-D001, a USPER account from a currently-serving senior officer in the U.S. Intelligence Community of a one-hour, multi-witness UAP encounter — two large oval orange orbs stationary above a military helicopter's rotor disk, a swarm forming a triangle, a fighter scramble in which the same orbs trailed the responding jets. The narrative ends with the now-widely-quoted line: 'We were virtually speechless after these observations.'
Why this matters. ODNI is the IC body that controls what Congress, and through Congress the public, is told about UAP from sensitive collection sources. ODNI's reports are typically more conservative in language than AARO's and represent the consensus view across the IC. The fact that ODNI itself authored and signed the senior-officer USPER narrative in Release 02 — rather than letting AARO carry the testimony — is a meaningful escalation.
Frequently asked
- What is ODNI?
- The Office of the Director of National Intelligence — the cabinet-level office that oversees the seventeen agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Established by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.
- What was the 2021 ODNI preliminary assessment?
- The 9-page unclassified Preliminary Assessment on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, transmitted to Congress on June 25, 2021. It examined 144 reports from 2004-2021 and concluded that the data was insufficient to identify the phenomena, while flagging that some incidents demonstrated unusual flight characteristics.
- How does ODNI's UAP work differ from AARO's?
- AARO is a DoD/DoW office that conducts investigations and case closures. ODNI is the IC body that coordinates intelligence reporting across all 17 agencies and prepares the official IC consensus reports for Congress. AARO findings often feed ODNI reports.
- Are the annual reports public?
- Yes — the unclassified summary versions are public, posted to dni.gov. The full classified annexes are transmitted only to the relevant House and Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees.
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