Creech Air Force Base UFO Sighting, 1996 — AARO Records (D213P44)
A post-cold war case from Creech Air Force Base. The RQ-3 Dark Star, a stealth reconnaissance UAV, was developed by Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and DARPA in the mid-to-late 1990s.
Background
In 1996, in Creech Air Force Base, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) recorded the unidentified-phenomenon case described below. The case is preserved in AARO’s 2024-2025 publications and consolidated annual reports to Congress, declassified or released in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Defense reporting cycles.
A post-cold-war case predating the formation of the modern uap task forces.
The case appears in materials produced or curated by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office.
What the document records
The RQ-3 Dark Star, a stealth reconnaissance UAV, was developed by Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and DARPA in the mid-to-late 1990s. Some observers noted its resemblance to a flying saucer with long, narrow wings. The first prototype flew in 1996 but crashed a month later, and the program was terminated in 1999 due to cost and instability.
Verbatim from the file
“Some observers asserted that Dark Star resembled a flying saucer with long narrow wings.”
Type of case
The witnesses described the object as disc- or saucer-shaped.
Status
AARO designates unresolved cases as those for which the agency has not concluded the events were anomalous, has not concluded that they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Conventional candidates for sightings of recent periods include commercial drones, classified test platforms, satellite re-entry, balloon traffic, atmospheric optical phenomena, and astronomical objects.