Top NSA researcher tapped to lead Pentagon’s UAP investigation hub

Jon Kosloski, a longtime national security expert in quantum optics and other novel technology areas, has officially entered the Pentagon as the next permanent director of its All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Defense Department announced Monday.

Kosloski — who assumed this role on detail from the National Security Agency — will oversee all of the DOD’s work to address possible incidents involving unidentified anomalous phenomena (or UAP, the modern term for UFOs that encompasses objects that can also operate in space or underwater) impacting the U.S. military.

“As the AARO director, Dr. Kosloski will head DOD’s efforts, in coordination with the Intelligence Community, to minimize technical and intelligence surprise by synchronizing scientific, intelligence, and operational detection, identification, attribution, and mitigation of [UAP] in the vicinity of national security areas,” Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Monday during an off-camera briefing.

The department has employed multiple previous, and more secretive, iterations of UAP-investigating teams over the past few decades. But Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks formally established AARO in July 2022 in response to then-growing calls for more transparency from Congress, whistleblowers and the broader American public on this historically controversial topic.

At the time of its launch, Hicks named Sean Kirkpatrick as AARO’s first permanent director. He led the office for its initial 18 months. Following Kirkpatrick’s departure in late 2023, Tim Phillips stepped up to serve as AARO’s acting director during the hiring process for the next chief.

“Dr. Kosloski brings extensive experience working in multiple scientific fields, including quantum optics and crypto-mathematics, as well as leading mission-oriented research and analysis teams,” Ryder said.

Before joining AARO, Kosloski held a variety of technical and leadership positions in NSA’s Research Directorate — including as the spy agency’s subject matter expert in free space optics. According to his official DOD bio, Kosloski also invented an “advanced language-agnostic search engine” and served at the DOD Special Communications Enterprise Office.

“[Kosloski] possesses the unique set of scientific and technical skills, policy knowledge, and proven leadership experience required to enhance AARO’s efforts to research and explain unidentified anomalous phenomena to the department, Congress, and the American people,” Hicks said in a statement.

Among Kosloski’s primary early responsibilities as the office’s newest director will be supporting the team’s ongoing production of a second volume of congressionally-mandated reports detailing AARO’s caseload of resolved and unresolved UAP incidents.

AARO’s “Volume I Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with UAP” was released in March.

In response to DefenseScoop’s questions on Monday, Ryder said that officials at AARO “continue to conduct their review [for volume two], but we don’t have anything further to announce in terms of the timing of the report at this time.”