UFO / UAP Glossary
Plain-English definitions of every acronym in the Trump PURSUE UAP disclosure. Each term links to one or more file examples on this site so you can see the concept applied in actual records.
- PURSUE
- Presidential Unsealings and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. The Trump administration's official program to declassify and publicly release U.S. government records on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. Spans the FBI, the Department of War, NASA, and the State Department. See the full archive →
- UAP
- Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. The current official U.S. government term, adopted in 2022 to replace UFO. Covers underwater and transmedium objects in addition to aerial ones.
- UFO
- Unidentified Flying Object. The historical, public-facing term used since the 1940s for the same phenomena now formally called UAP.
- AARO
- All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. The DoD office tasked with synchronizing UAP detection, identification, and reporting since 2022. Receives MISREPs from operational units. Example file →
- DVIDS
- Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. The U.S. military's public media platform. Hosts the PURSUE video archive. Every video on this site links back to its DVIDS source.
- MISREP
- Mission Report. The standardized form U.S. military services use to record operational events, including UAP sightings. MISREPs feed into AARO's analytical pipeline.
- FMV
- Full-Motion Video. Sensor footage from military aircraft and reconnaissance platforms. The source of most UAP video evidence in PURSUE.
- SWIR
- Short-Wave Infrared. A sensor wavelength band, roughly 1.0 to 2.5 micrometers. Some PURSUE files document UAP visible only on SWIR sensors and invisible on standard IR or EO. The Greece January 2024 file → is the canonical example.
- IR
- Infrared. A heat-based sensor band, longer wavelength than visible light. Standard on military FLIR pods.
- EO
- Electro-Optical. A visible-light sensor band, similar to a high-resolution camera. Often used in conjunction with IR for multi-sensor confirmation. The Syria July 2022 file uses simultaneous IR + EO capture.
- INDOPACOM
- U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. Geographic combatant command covering most of Asia and the Pacific. Source of several PURSUE entries.
- CENTCOM
- U.S. Central Command. Geographic combatant command covering the Middle East and parts of Central Asia. Source of the majority of PURSUE military entries (Iraq, Syria, Kuwait, UAE). Browse the Pentagon UAP files →
- AFRICOM
- U.S. Africa Command. Geographic combatant command covering Africa. Newly represented in PURSUE as of war.gov's May 11 revision, file DOW-UAP-PR43.
- 62-HQ-83894
- FBI headquarters case file aggregating UAP-related investigations from June 1947 through July 1968. The historical core of the PURSUE FBI batch, comprising the bulk of the 57 FBI files. Browse all FBI files →
- Anomalousness Index
- This site's 0 to 100 score reflecting evidentiary weight that an encounter remains unexplained after conventional analysis. NOT a probability of extraterrestrial origin. Six weighted components: sensor quality (0.25), witness credibility (0.20), corroboration (0.20), kinematic anomaly (0.15), mundane-explanation availability (0.10), official disposition (0.10). Full rubric (JSON) →
- DOW-UAP-PR##
- Department of War UAP file identifier prefix, introduced by war.gov in their May 11, 2026 revision to standardize PURSUE file naming. "PR" stands for Public Release. Twenty-eight existing files were renamed with this prefix.