Overview
The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is moving to secure access to one of North America’s largest private collections of UFO and UAP records, in a bid to fill historical gaps in the government’s own archives. A recent Defense Department contracting notice says AARO is pursuing a sole-source contract with the New Mexico-based National Unidentified Flying Object Historic Records Center (NUFOHRC), a nonprofit that holds an extensive trove of case files, books, photographs and artifacts not found in federal repositories.
According to the notice, AARO is specifically seeking access to pre-1990 materials, suggesting the office is trying to build a fuller picture of reported unidentified anomalous phenomena stretching back well before the modern era of government UAP reporting. The proposed arrangement would provide AARO with a commercial data subscription rather than outside labor or advisory services, underscoring the office’s interest in direct access to the records themselves.
Why the collection matters
NUFOHRC is led by David Marler, a longtime UFO historian, and is described as holding the largest private collection of historical UFO-related material in North America. That includes exclusive case files that exist outside the government’s own archives, which may be critical for investigators attempting to reconstruct how federal agencies responded to unexplained sightings over decades.
AARO’s interest in the collection also reflects a practical challenge: while the U.S. government has accumulated substantial UAP-related material of its own, not all relevant historical records were preserved in official channels. Private archives can help fill in missing timelines, corroborate witness reports, and identify cases that may have been handled by agencies whose records were never systematically centralized. As the contracting notice put it, market research showed that no other organization possesses the historical depth, volume of unique records and specialized analytical expertise needed to meet the government’s minimum requirements.
Congressional mandates driving the search
The move comes as AARO works to comply with a series of congressional mandates requiring a comprehensive historical review of the U.S. government’s involvement with UAP dating back to 1945. The office was created in 2022 under the Biden administration after lawmakers directed the Pentagon to establish a dedicated body to track and analyze anomalous aerial incidents that could pose national security risks.
Those concerns have only grown as legislators and the public have pressed for more transparency about unexplained incursions, including whether some sightings could involve advanced drones or other foreign systems. The fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act ordered AARO to produce a broad historical record of intelligence and military engagements involving UAP, while the fiscal 2024 NDAA went further by creating the UAP Records Collection at the National Archives and Records Administration.
Under that provision, federal agencies were instructed to review, organize, digitize and transfer UAP-related records to the National Archives for eventual public access. Access to NUFOHRC’s private archives could help AARO identify cases and documents that are absent from government holdings, while also offering a longer baseline for historical analysis.
Broader implications
The Pentagon’s effort highlights a less visible side of the UAP debate: the extent to which historical understanding depends on private researchers and independent record keepers. For AARO, the contract could help close gaps in a record spanning nearly eight decades. For advocates of greater disclosure, it suggests the government still lacks a complete picture of its own past.
At the same time, the sole-source approach raises questions about how much of the historical UAP record remains concentrated outside official archives, and how quickly those materials can be integrated into the public record. As AARO continues to meet Congress’s reporting requirements, the move signals that the Pentagon is looking beyond its own files to reconstruct a fuller account of the nation’s long-running UAP history.
