Has the U.S. government recovered crashed UFOs?

“AARO's 2024 Historical Record Report stated AARO 'found no empirical evidence' for any U.S. government UFO crash retrieval or reverse-engineering program. The 1947 Roswell debris was officially attributed to Project Mogul, a high-altitude balloon program.”

There is no declassified, evidence-backed U.S. government acknowledgment of any UFO crash retrieval program. The 1947 Roswell debris — the foundational event in the broader retrieval narrative — was officially attributed by the U.S. Air Force to Project Mogul, a then-classified high-altitude balloon program for detecting Soviet nuclear tests. The 2023 testimony of former intelligence officer David Grusch alleged a "multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program," but Grusch presented no physical evidence and stated his testimony was based on conversations with other officials. AARO's 2024 Historical Record Report — the U.S. government's most-recent comprehensive review of 80 years of UAP records — directly addressed the retrieval narrative and stated AARO "found no empirical evidence" for any such program. PURSUE Release 01 contains no recovered material; the 1947 FBI Dallas memo describes the recovered Roswell object as "suspended from a 20-foot balloon by cable."