A practical guide to filing a single sighting with multiple receiving organizations — the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), and the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Each has different requirements; doing all three correctly takes about 90 minutes.
The Council’s earlier filing guide (Field Guide FG-001) covers what makes a sighting publishable in the Council’s archive. This guide is the practical complement: how to file the same sighting with the three other organizations a serious witness should also report to — the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), and the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
Filing with all three plus the Council takes about 90 minutes total once you have the underlying observation documented. The Council’s recommendation is that any sighting worth reporting at all is worth reporting to all four; the receiving organizations have different methodologies, different audiences, and different downstream uses, and a sighting in only one database is much less useful than the same sighting in four.
What this guide does NOT do
This guide does not promise that the receiving organizations will respond, follow up, or formally evaluate every submission. NUFORC and MUFON are private nonprofits with limited investigation resources; AARO is a U.S. government office with statutory authority but a constrained scope. Filing is about contributing to the institutional and citizen-science record, not about getting an investigator dispatched to your location.
Step zero: the documentation
Before filing anywhere, the underlying documentation needs to be in place. Following Field Guide FG-001:
- Observer position (latitude/longitude to four decimal places). The Garmin GPSMAP 67 is the Council’s recommended GPS.
- Observation date and time (UTC and local).
- Direction (bearing) and elevation angle of the object at first sighting and at last.
- Apparent angular size and angular rate.
- Visible features (color, structure, lights, sound).
- Witnesses (if any) with separately-recorded independent descriptions.
- Equipment used; any photographs or video files (with intact EXIF/container metadata; see Field Guide FG-039).
- Notes from the field, ideally in a Rite in the Rain notebook.
With this documentation in hand, the four filings are straightforward.
NUFORC (National UFO Reporting Center)
What it is. Founded 1974, currently directed by Christian Stepien (succeeding the late Peter Davenport). The largest publicly-searchable civilian UFO sighting database in North America. Tens of thousands of reports per year; the database is searchable by date, state, and shape.
How to file. nuforc.org → “Report a Sighting.” The form is HTML-based, single-page, and asks for:
- Date, time, and time zone of the sighting.
- City, state, country.
- Shape (drop-down menu: disc, triangle, sphere, oval, formation, light, fireball, other).
- Duration of the sighting.
- Number of witnesses.
- Description (free-text, no length limit).
- Reporter name and email (optional; submissions can be anonymous).
The form is short. A Council-quality submission takes 15–20 minutes including a careful description.
What happens next. The submission is reviewed by NUFORC volunteer staff. Most submissions are added to the public database within a few weeks. NUFORC does not investigate individual sightings; the database is the contribution.
Strengths. Long historical record; free public access; widely cited in UAP literature; useful for pattern detection across sightings.
Limits. No formal investigation; uneven submission quality; the database includes a substantial fraction of likely-mundane misidentifications alongside the genuinely unexplained.
MUFON (Mutual UFO Network)
What it is. Founded 1969, currently the largest civilian UFO investigation organization globally with several thousand members and certified field investigators. Reports are entered into a database (the MUFON Case Management System); selected reports are assigned to certified field investigators for follow-up.
How to file. mufon.com → “Report a UFO.” The form is more detailed than NUFORC’s, asking for:
- All the basic information (date, time, location, witnesses).
- Specific shape and color details.
- Reported altitude and distance.
- Photographic or video evidence (uploadable directly).
- The reporter’s contact information (required for case-management follow-up).
The form is longer; a Council-quality submission with photo upload takes 20–30 minutes.
What happens next. The submission enters the MUFON Case Management System and is assigned a case number. Selected cases are referred to a state-level field investigator who may follow up by phone or email. Most cases do not receive individual investigation; the database is the primary contribution.
Strengths. More-detailed schema than NUFORC; field-investigator follow-up on a subset of cases; integration with international MUFON affiliates; more-rigorous database quality control than NUFORC on average.
Limits. Membership-organization with sometimes-uneven quality across local chapters; MUFON’s official editorial positions have varied over time and across leadership; not all members agree the organization currently meets its own historical standards.
AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office)
What it is. The U.S. Department of Defense’s statutorily-funded UAP investigative office, established in 2022. Reviews UAP reports from U.S. government sources (military, intelligence community, federal civilian agencies) and from civilian sources via a public reporting form.
How to file. aaro.mil → “Report a UAP Sighting.” The form was launched in late 2023 for civilian reports (initially the office accepted only government-source reports). The form asks for:
- Standard information (date, time, location, description).
- Whether the witness has any current or former affiliation with the U.S. government, military, or intelligence community (some categories of submission are routed differently).
- A specific question on whether the observation included any sensor data (radar, FLIR, etc.) — most civilian submissions answer no.
The form is short; a Council-quality civilian submission takes 10–15 minutes.
What happens next. Civilian-source AARO submissions enter a public-input queue. AARO investigates a subset; most submissions contribute to the aggregate case-resolution statistics published in the annual reports (Council case #00471 documents the FY2025 report). Witnesses may or may not be contacted.
Strengths. Statutory institutional engagement; submissions become part of the official U.S. government record; AARO’s annual reports include the kinds of pattern analysis that civilian databases do not.
Limits. AARO investigates a small fraction of incoming reports; the office is constrained by its statutory mandate (which focuses on U.S. national-security relevant cases); civilian submissions outside that scope contribute to the database without individual follow-up.
The Council (aliencouncil.com/sighting/new)
The Council’s submission form is described in detail in Field Guide FG-001. Briefly: the form mirrors the structured-report fields above, includes a narrative section, and runs the submission through the Council’s verdict engine, which produces an Inconclusive / Confirmed / Debunked / Watching verdict typically within 48 hours, with reasoning citing relevant existing cases.
The Council differs from the three above organizations in that it publishes a verdict rather than simply archiving the report. Submissions made with intact metadata, multiple witnesses, and instrumented documentation (e.g., SiOnyx Aurora Pro recordings, Garmin GPSMAP 67 coordinates) are scored higher in the engine.
Filing all four: the workflow
A practical 90-minute workflow for filing all four.
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First 5 minutes: prepare the documentation package. Coordinates, time, narrative, equipment list, file checksums (if photographs or video are involved). Have it open in a single document.
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Next 15 minutes: file with NUFORC. The form is straightforward and the submission is fast. NUFORC’s date format and shape categories are slightly different from the others; pay attention.
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Next 25 minutes: file with MUFON. The longer form requires more detail. Upload any photographs or video files. Select the appropriate state chapter (the form auto-suggests based on the location).
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Next 15 minutes: file with AARO. The shortest form. Confirm the no-government-affiliation status (or yes, if applicable). Include the same narrative.
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Next 20 minutes: file with the Council at aliencouncil.com/sighting/new. The most-detailed form. Include the verdict-engine context (any reference to other Council cases that are relevant; the field is open-text).
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Final 10 minutes: archive your own copy. Save the submission text, the file uploads, and the case numbers (NUFORC and MUFON both assign case numbers; AARO and the Council do as well). The case numbers are how you can later reference your submission across the four organizations and how you can tell whether your submission has been actioned.
Total: 90 minutes for the first time; 45–60 minutes once the workflow is routine.
Why all four
Each organization serves a different downstream purpose.
- NUFORC is the long-running public database — historical depth, broad searchability, useful for large-N pattern analysis.
- MUFON is the field-investigation network — the only organization that may dispatch a certified investigator.
- AARO is the statutory U.S. government engagement — the report enters the official record and contributes to the institutional case-resolution statistics.
- The Council is the verdict-and-publication path — a serious, reasoned verdict is published with the report (where appropriate) and archived in the Council’s case file system.
A sighting filed with only one is a fraction of its possible value. A sighting filed with all four is in every relevant database and is positioned for any subsequent follow-up that any of the four organizations may pursue.
What success looks like
For a serious witness with a documented observation, the success metric is all four submissions filed within 48 hours of the sighting with consistent narratives, identical timestamps, and (where applicable) the same uploaded files with intact metadata.
A sighting filed at this standard is in the institutional and citizen-science record at the strongest quality the witness alone can produce. Whether any specific submission produces individual follow-up is largely outside the witness’s control; what is within the witness’s control is the quality and completeness of the filing.
Council recommended
- Garmin GPSMAP 67 — the precise-coordinates source that strengthens all four submissions
- Rite in the Rain notebook — the field-notes record that anchors the narrative across all four submissions
- SiOnyx Aurora Pro — the night-vision recording standard whose footage is scored highest in the Council’s verdict engine
Related cases
- Case #00041 — USS Nimitz Tic Tac (2004) — modern case where multi-channel reporting (military chain plus public disclosure) was the path to the case becoming the modern reference standard
- Case #00131 — Hessdalen lights — the citizen-science case where sustained multi-channel reporting was the methodology
- Case #00471 — AARO FY2025 report — the institutional baseline that civilian AARO submissions contribute to