uap.watch
// COMPARISON //

PURSUE vs FBI Vault — The Two Main U.S. Government UFO Document Repositories

The Pentagon's 2026 PURSUE Release at war.gov/UFO and the FBI Vault are the two primary official U.S. UFO document repositories. They differ in scope, era, format, and how to search them.

The Pentagon's PURSUE Release 01 at war.gov/UFO and the FBI Vault at vault.fbi.gov are the two principal official U.S. government repositories of declassified UFO/UAP records. They overlap less than most researchers expect. PURSUE is a curated 2026 release of 162 files from the FBI, USAF, USN, NASA, State, and DoD, centered on the modern military UAP record (2004-2025) with selected historical FBI and USAF anchors from 1947-1950. The FBI Vault, by contrast, is the Bureau's running FOIA reading room: it hosts the 1949 Hottel memo (the famous "Guy Hottel" Roswell memo) and a 1,600-page general UFO file but no modern Navy ATFLIR videos or AARO assessments. PURSUE is curated and AARO-classified; FBI Vault is raw FOIA. Researchers typically use both in parallel: PURSUE for modern military encounters, FBI Vault for 1947-1965 civilian-FBI correspondence.

“PURSUE is curated and AARO-classified; FBI Vault is raw FOIA.”

Side-by-side

// PURSUE RELEASE 01 (WAR.GOV/UFO) //
LAUNCHED
2026-05-08
TOTAL FILES
162 (120 PDFs, 28 videos, 14 images)
SOURCE AGENCIES
FBI, USAF, USN, NASA, State, DoD
ERA COVERAGE
1947 to 2025, weighted modern (2004+)
CURATION
Curated, AARO-classified
VIDEO CONTENT
28 FLIR/IR/EO clips on DVIDS
FULL-TEXT SEARCH
Via UAP.WATCH mirror
// FBI VAULT (VAULT.FBI.GOV/UFO) //
LAUNCHED
Reading room — running FOIA reads since 2011
TOTAL FILES
1,600+ pages across multiple files
SOURCE AGENCIES
FBI only
ERA COVERAGE
1947 to ~1990, weighted historical
CURATION
Raw FOIA — no classification or assessment
VIDEO CONTENT
None
FULL-TEXT SEARCH
FBI Vault search box (limited)

What's in PURSUE but not in FBI Vault

PURSUE Release 01 contains 28 declassified video clips on DVIDS — Greek airspace UAP, INDOPACOM "football-shaped object," Mediterranean January 2024 metallic triangle, and Syria 2024 orange-area video — none of which are in the FBI Vault. PURSUE also contains modern AARO classifications (corroborated, anomalous, unresolved, resolved) and U.S. Navy ATFLIR sensor clips from F/A-18 Super Hornet aircrew. The FBI Vault has no aerial sensor data and no modern military encounters.

What's in FBI Vault but not in PURSUE

The FBI Vault contains a much broader 1947-1965 civilian-FBI correspondence record — citizen complaint letters, J. Edgar Hoover personal annotations, regional field-office memos, and the 1949 Hottel memo on three flying-disc recoveries in New Mexico (the so-called "Guy Hottel memo"). PURSUE includes only a small curated subset of FBI material — the 1947 Dallas hexagonal-object memo and the 1950 Idaho "hysteria, or panic" memo are the two highest-profile FBI items in PURSUE.

How to use both together

Modern military UAP research starts with PURSUE: it is the only repository with current AARO classifications and aerial sensor data. Historical FBI research starts with the FBI Vault: it has the broadest 1947-1965 raw record. For a comprehensive look at any one incident, UAP.WATCH cross-references both repositories — the 1947 Roswell debris memo appears in both PURSUE (as PURSUE-001) and the FBI Vault (as the Hottel memo), with subtly different metadata.

// PRIMARY SOURCES //
// RELATED COMPARISONS //