Congress told AARO to reconstruct the government's UAP history from 1945. In September 2026 the office moved to subscribe to a private pre-1990 archive.
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Follow AARO buys a look at the private stacks
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The historical-record mandate is older than PURSUE Release 06. DefenseScoop reports a sole-source commercial subscription to David Marler's NUFOHRC collection, with a War Department official saying no other organization meets the minimum need for unique pre-1990 files. The government is paying to see records it does not already hold. That is a procurement story, not a disclosure of what is in those boxes.
DefenseScoop restates the FY2023 historical-record mandate
DefenseScoop reports that the fiscal 2023 NDAA directed AARO to compile a comprehensive historical record of the U.S. government's UAP-related intelligence and military engagements and assets from 1945 onward. The statute itself is not quoted here; this event records the restatement.
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FY2023 NDAA enactment year-end; day not independently re-verified in this packet, so the restatement date is treated as the source publication and the occurrence is the commonly used December 2022 enactment window.
DefenseScoop restates the FY2024 NARA UAP collection mandate
The same article says multiple FY2024 NDAA sections mandated a UAP Records Collection at NARA and instructed federal agencies to review, organize, digitize and transfer government or government-funded UAP records. Again this is the journalist's restatement, not a newly located statutory excerpt.
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FY2024 NDAA enactment window as commonly dated; not independently re-read in this packet.
DefenseScoop reports a recent Defense Department contracting notice for a sole-source commercial data subscription to the National Unidentified Flying Object Historic Records Center, focused on pre-1990 material. A source asking to be called a War Department official says the subscription is not for professional labor, and that market research found no other organization with the historical depth and unique records to meet the government's minimum needs. Cost was declined. NUFOHRC did not comment to DefenseScoop.
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Article date; the notice itself is described as recent and was not separately dated here.
The government is buying access to files it does not already have
If the official's 'unique records' line holds, AARO is paying a private archive to see material outside the government's own cache while PURSUE is restamping old FOIA. That is a split record: official dumps on one table, purchased private stacks on another. It does not tell us what Marler's boxes contain.