Has the U.S. reverse-engineered alien technology?

“No. AARO's 2024 Historical Record Report explicitly stated AARO 'found no empirical evidence' for any program that reverse-engineered non-human technology. Public claims to the contrary are uncorroborated by any declassified record.”

As of May 2026, there is no declassified U.S. government document acknowledging any program that reverse-engineered extraterrestrial or non-human technology. AARO's 2024 Historical Record Report — the most comprehensive U.S. government review of 80 years of UAP records — addressed the reverse-engineering narrative directly and stated that AARO "found no empirical evidence" for any such program. The most-public claims of such activity are Bob Lazar's 1989 statements about "Element 115" at S-4 (Nevada), and David Grusch's 2023 congressional testimony about a "multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program." Neither has been corroborated by any U.S. government source. PURSUE Release 01 contains no recovered material, and no entry references a reverse-engineering program. Some technologies attributed in popular narratives to alien sources — notably stealth coatings and integrated circuits — have been independently traced to human development by historians and the U.S. patent record.