A label used within the U.S. Department of Defense for a limited effort to evaluate UAP-related incidents, especially those involving U.S. military personnel and sensors. Public discussion often conflates AATIP with AAWSAP; AATIP is best understood as a smaller, defence-focused analytical effort rather than a broad research programme.

A Defence Intelligence Agency–funded research programme (c. 2008–2010) that commissioned studies and field investigations into advanced aerospace threats, including reported UAP events. The work was delivered under contract (BAASS) and produced technical papers, databases and case files.

A U.S. Department of Defense office, under the Office of the Secretary of Defense, that investigates and analyses Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) across all domains – air, sea, space and land – and coordinates with the intelligence community.

Physical retrieval of crashed UAP by humans, for reverse-engineering purposes.

The idea (and debate) around official public release of information about UAP.

Advanced materials – for example made up of unusual isotopic ratios – the origin of which cannot be explained.

Someone who has seen or experienced the “Phenomenon”.

Term for advanced beings from the future who have travelled back in time to interact with us today.

Non-human intelligence from somewhere other than the Earth (i.e. ‘aliens’).

A popular (though debated) set of reported UAP characteristics: instantaneous acceleration, hypersonic velocities without signatures, low observability, transmedium travel, positive lift without control surfaces.

CE-1 to CE-5 typology used historically to classify encounter reports.

Short for the “intelligence community.” May encompass both military and civilian agencies and personnel.

A proposal that UAP sightings are the result of experiencing other “dimensions” that coexist separately alongside our own.

Short for the “Military Industrial Complex”. That is, the government military establishment and the private sector that works along with it.

A blanket term for any intelligent life of non-human origin, whether from the Earth or from off-world origins.

A person’s or society’s sense of continuity, order and basic trust in the world that allows day-to-day functioning. When core assumptions are challenged (for example by disruptive information related to UAP), that security can be shaken, producing distress sometimes described as ontological shock. For uNHIdden this frames preparedness, trusted narratives and support pathways as matters of public health and societal resilience.

The anxiety that people feel as and when they realise that there are other non-human intelligences out there (and humankind is not top of the food chain).

A term used to denote a wider set of strange patterns and observations beyond UAPs that extends to the ‘paranormal’.

The idea of studying advanced craft or technology with a view to understanding how they work and recreating them.

Stands for ‘sensitive compartmented information facility’. It is an ultra-secure room where officials and government contractors take extraordinary precautions to review highly classified information.

Capacity of communities and institutions to absorb disruptive truths with minimal harm.

Highly restricted defence programmes; often referenced in UAP discourse.

Describing objects reported to move seamlessly through air, space and water.

A U.S. Navy-led task force established to improve the collection, analysis and reporting of UAP encountered by military operators, and to assess potential safety and national-security risks. UAPTF work fed into the 2021 preliminary assessment and later transitioned to successor bodies, culminating in AARO.

A more modern term for UFO that potentially avoids some of the stigma of the older term. (Aerial was changed to Anomalous as craft are potentially able to move through space and water, as well as the air).

An increasingly disregarded term for unexplained moving objects in the sky (with many practitioners preferring to use UAP instead).