Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Records from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena observed in the vicinity of nuclear facilities.
The Nuclear Connection
UFOs near nuclear sites have been documented since the earliest days of the atomic age. The pattern begins in 1945, when repeated aerial incursions occurred over the Hanford plutonium production complex in Washington State, the facility that manufactured the plutonium core for the Nagasaki bomb. Through the late 1940s and 1950s, Air Force and Atomic Energy Commission records logged unidentified objects over Los Alamos, Sandia, Oak Ridge, and other weapons facilities. The objects appeared over the most sensitive and heavily guarded installations in the country.
Robert Hastings spent decades compiling military witness testimony on this pattern. He interviewed more than 150 former Air Force personnel who reported UFO incursions at nuclear weapons storage areas, missile launch facilities, and weapons test ranges. His 2008 book documented cases at Malmstrom, Minot, F.E. Warren, and other Strategic Air Command bases where missile launch officers reported unidentified objects hovering over launch control facilities, sometimes coinciding with anomalous missile system malfunctions.
The connection extended beyond weapons sites. Civilian nuclear power plants also generated reports. But the NRC, created in 1975 as a successor to the AEC's regulatory functions, had no mandate or mechanism to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena near its licensed facilities. That gap persisted for nearly five decades.
Missile silos. Weapons storage igloos. Reactor complexes. Plutonium production plants. Military witnesses have reported objects over all of them since the mid-1940s, and the civilian nuclear regulator had no mechanism to collect or forward those reports until Congress forced the issue in 2022.
Legislative Mandate
The NRC's engagement with UAP came through congressional action, not internal initiative. The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act and subsequent amendments expanded the definition of UAP reporting to include civilian nuclear infrastructure. Congress directed regulatory bodies to collect and forward reports of anomalous phenomena observed near licensed facilities, folding the NRC into a reporting pipeline that had previously been confined to military channels.
The FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act (Section 1683) established AARO and directed UAP reporting across all military branches. Subsequent amendments extended that mandate to civilian regulatory agencies, including the NRC. Nuclear facilities, both military and civilian, were explicitly included after years of lobbying by researchers and former Air Force personnel who had documented incursions at such sites since the 1940s.
The collection captures the NRC's response to that mandate. An agency built around reactor safety inspections and materials licensing reviews suddenly had to handle a reporting requirement that decades of military secrecy had kept off its desk entirely. The NRC had no framework for classifying, investigating, or forwarding UAP reports. It built one from scratch, and these records document that process.
The archive covers the nuclear connection in its articles and case files. For sighting reports across the United States, including those near military and nuclear installations, see the United States sightings page. The Malmstrom AFB nuclear missile shutdown of 1967 is the best-documented case of a UFO disabling nuclear weapons systems. The MUFON UFO Journal published extensive investigation reports on nuclear facility incursions.
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View all 22 pages across 3 NRC documents in the page-scan viewer.
Open Document ViewerDocument Inventory
| Category | Source | Date Range |
|---|---|---|
| UAP reporting and compliance records | Nuclear Regulatory Commission | 2023 to 2025 |
| Facility incident documentation | NRC | 2023 to 2025 |
