• DOCUMENTED A nine-page unclassified report, released 25 June 2021. Full title: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Drafted by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) and ODNI's National Intelligence Manager for Aviation, with input from USD(I&S), DIA, FBI, NRO, NGA, NSA, the Air Force, Army, Navy/ONI, DARPA, FAA, NOAA and three ODNI components.
• DOCUMENTED It exists because Congress ordered it. The mandate is Senate Report 116-233, accompanying the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, which directed the DNI — in consultation with the Secretary of Defense — to submit "an intelligence assessment of the threat posed by unidentified aerial phenomena" and on the UAPTF's progress. The report reproduces the eight required elements verbatim in its Appendix B.
• DOCUMENTED Scope: November 2004 to March 2021, US Government reporting only. The report states its dataset "is currently limited primarily to U.S. Government reporting of incidents occurring from November 2004 to March 2021." It is not a survey of civilian sightings, historical cases, or anything before 2004.
• DOCUMENTED 144 reports, 80 of them multi-sensor. "144 reports originated from USG sources. Of these, 80 reports involved observation with multiple sensors." The report notes most described objects that "interrupted pre-planned training or other military activity" — Navy aviators' term for this is a range fouler.
• DOCUMENTED A classified version went to Congress. The unclassified nine pages are the public tier; the successor 2022 report states plainly, "Additional information is provided in the classified version of this report." A file named Classified-2022-Annual-Report-UAP.pdf appears in ODNI's document directory index. Nobody outside cleared channels has seen either annex.

Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, ODNI, 25 June 2021. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf (note: the filename misspells "Preliminary" — that is ODNI's own typo, not ours). Congressional mandate: Senate Report 116-233, Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.

• DOCUMENTED The exact sentence. "We were able to identify one reported UAP with high confidence. In that case, we identified the object as a large, deflating balloon. The others remain unexplained."
• DOCUMENTED What "unexplained" meant in context. The report is explicit that the shortfall is data, not physics: "With the exception of the one instance where we determined with high confidence that the reported UAP was airborne clutter, specifically a deflating balloon, we currently lack sufficient information in our dataset to attribute incidents to specific explanations." Unattributed for want of evidence — not adjudicated as anomalous.
• DOCUMENTED The report names its own biggest weakness. "The limited amount of high-quality reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent of UAP." That is the first sentence of the Executive Summary. It is a report about not knowing.
• DOCUMENTED Collection bias is stated up front. Sightings clustered around US training and testing grounds, but "we assess that this may result from a collection bias as a result of focused attention, greater numbers of latest-generation sensors operating in those areas, unit expectations, and guidance to report anomalies." UAP appear where the sensors and the reporting culture are.
• DOCUMENTED The sensors were never built for this. "The sensors mounted on U.S. military platforms are typically designed to fulfil specific missions. As a result, those sensors are not generally suited for identifying UAP." The assumptions section adds that "some UAP may be attributable to sensor anomalies."
• RESOLVED It was not a weather balloon. Wikipedia and a long tail of news write-ups describe the single identified object as a "weather balloon." The report says "a large, deflating balloon" and categorises it as airborne clutter. It never specifies a weather balloon.

Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, ODNI, 25 June 2021, pp. 3–5.

• DOCUMENTED The framing sentence. "Our analysis of the data supports the construct that if and when individual UAP incidents are resolved they will fall into one of five potential explanatory categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, USG or U.S. industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and a catchall 'other' bin."
• DOCUMENTED None of the five is "extraterrestrial." The words extraterrestrial, alien and non-human appear zero times in the 2021 report, zero times in the 2022 report, zero times in the FY2023 report and zero times in the FY2025 report. The "other" bin is defined as objects requiring "additional scientific knowledge to successfully collect on, analyze and characterize" — a placeholder for our ignorance, not for a hypothesis about origin.

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• DOCUMENTED The national-security finding was negative. "We currently lack data to indicate any UAP are part of a foreign collection program or indicative of a major technological advancement by a potential adversary." Every annual report since has repeated some version of this. The FY2025 report: "None of the cases AARO resolved indicate advanced foreign adversarial capabilities or breakthrough technologies in any domain."

Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, ODNI, 25 June 2021, pp. 5–6; FY2025 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP, AARO, information cut-off 30 May 2025, p. 5.

• DOCUMENTED "In 18 incidents, described in 21 reports, observers reported unusual UAP movement patterns or flight characteristics." The described behaviours: objects that "appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion." In a small number of cases, "military aircraft systems processed radio frequency (RF) energy associated with UAP sightings."
• DOCUMENTED The report immediately hedges its own headline. Two sentences earlier: "In a limited number of incidents, UAP reportedly appeared to exhibit unusual flight characteristics. These observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception and require additional rigorous analysis." And: "The UAPTF holds a small amount of data that appear to show UAP demonstrating acceleration or a degree of signature management. Additional rigorous analysis are necessary by multiple teams or groups of technical experts to determine the nature and validity of these data." The grammatical error is ODNI's.
• DOCUMENTED Note the word "reportedly." Every performance claim in the 2021 assessment is attributed to observers, not asserted by the analysts. The report describes what aircrews reported seeing. It does not certify that the objects did those things.
• DOCUMENTED 11 near-miss reports. "The UAPTF has 11 reports of documented instances in which pilots reported near misses with a UAP." The 2022 report adds: "To date, there have been no reported collisions between U.S. aircraft and UAP."
• UNSUPPORTED "The report confirmed craft performing impossible manoeuvres." Widely repeated across podcasts, cable segments and social media in the weeks after publication. What is missing: any statement in the report that the manoeuvres were confirmed, any released sensor data underlying the 21 reports, and any public technical analysis of them. Five years on, the 18 incidents remain undescribed in public beyond the two paragraphs quoted above.

Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, ODNI, 25 June 2021, pp. 3, 5; 2022 Annual Report on UAP, ODNI, released 12 January 2023, p. 6.

• DOCUMENTED Established 4 August 2020, announced 14 August 2020. DoD press release: "On Aug. 4, 2020, Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist approved the establishment of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force (UAPTF). The Department of the Navy, under the cognizance of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, will lead the UAPTF."
• DOCUMENTED Its stated mission was threat detection, not discovery. "The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security." The release frames the problem entirely as "incursions by unauthorized aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace."
• DOCUMENTED It was Navy-run and Navy-fed. The 2021 assessment: "The majority of UAP data is from U.S. Navy reporting." Standardised reporting did not exist anywhere in the US military until March 2019 — "No standardized reporting mechanism existed until the Navy established one in March 2019. The Air Force subsequently adopted that mechanism in November 2020."
• DOCUMENTED It was replaced on 20 July 2022. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was created under Section 1683 of the FY2022 NDAA (Public Law 117-81) "to carry out the duties of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force." AARO was "established as the UAPTF's successor entity on 20 July 2022." The FY2022 NDAA also expanded the definition of UAP to cover air, sea and transmedium objects.
• DOCUMENTED The reporting spike is partly a reporting-culture artefact. The 2021 report devotes a boxed section to stigma: aviators and analysts "describe disparagement associated with observing UAP, reporting it, or attempting to discuss it with colleagues... reputational risk may keep many observers silent." The 2022 report attributes the subsequent surge in cases partly to "reduced stigma surrounding UAP reporting." More reports does not mean more objects.

"Establishment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force", US Department of Defense press release, 14 August 2020. Preliminary Assessment, ODNI, 25 June 2021, pp. 4, 6. 2022 Annual Report on UAP, ODNI, 12 January 2023, pp. 2–4 and Appendix B. AARO's founding authority: FY2022 NDAA, Public Law 117-81, §1683.

• DOCUMENTED September 2019 — the Navy says the objects are unidentified. Joseph Gradisher, spokesman for the deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, told researcher John Greenewald Jr. of The Black Vault: "The Navy designates the objects contained in these videos as unidentified aerial phenomena." He added that the term "provides the basic descriptor for the sightings/observations of unauthorized/unidentified aircraft/objects that have been observed entering/operating in the airspace of various military-controlled training ranges."
• DOCUMENTED Gradisher's own framing was drones and range safety. In a follow-up interview with The Washington Post (18 September 2019) he said the term was not new, that the Navy preferred it to "UFO" because of stigma discouraging pilot reporting, and that one possible explanation was the proliferation of quadcopter-type unmanned systems: "All of this is about incursions into our training ranges by what we're calling UAPs. These incursions cause a hazard to the safety of our aviators and the security of our operators, and that's what the Navy's investigating, these range incursions."
• DOCUMENTED 27 April 2020 — DoD formally releases FLIR1, GIMBAL and GOFAST. "The Department of Defense has authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, one taken in November 2004 and the other two in January 2015, which have been circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017... DOD is releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos. The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as 'unidentified.'"
• DOCUMENTED The release was narrow and deliberate. DoD's stated reason for declassifying was that release "does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations." Two claims, and only two: the videos are genuine, and the objects have not been identified.
• UNSUPPORTED "The Pentagon confirmed UFOs are real." Made constantly in headlines from April 2020 onward. What DoD confirmed is that three specific videos are authentic Navy footage and that the objects in them remain unidentified. It made no statement about what they are. The mundane candidates proposed by outside analysts — distant aircraft, birds, balloons, and infrared-sensor optical artefacts including glare and parallax — were neither endorsed nor excluded by the release.

"Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos", US Department of Defense, 27 April 2020. Kayla Epstein, "Those UFO videos are real, the Navy says, but please stop saying 'UFO,'" The Washington Post, 18 September 2019. Gradisher's September 2019 statement as reported by John Greenewald Jr.: "U.S. Navy Confirms Videos Depict 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomena'", The Black Vault.

• DOCUMENTED The reporting requirement is statutory and time-limited. Originally FY2022 NDAA §1683(h) — annual reports through 31 October 2026 — as amended by §6802(k) of the FY2023 NDAA and codified at 50 U.S.C. §3373(k). Authorship migrated over time: 2021 was ODNI alone, 2022 was ODNI with AARO input, FY2023 was a joint ODNI/DoD "consolidated" report, and FY2024 and FY2025 were issued by the Defense Department through AARO.
• DOCUMENTED Cumulative holdings grew from 144 to 1,870 in four years — driven overwhelmingly by new reporting channels (FAA logs, Air Force adoption, reduced stigma), not by a rising rate of anomalous events.

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• DOCUMENTED FAA reporting reshaped the dataset. FY2024 folded in 392 FAA reports — every UAP report the FAA had logged since 2021 — in a single tranche. By FY2025, civil aviator reports via the FAA were 21% of AARO's intake. The FY2023 report had already flagged the consequence: military-airspace bias falling, US-centric bias rising.
• DOCUMENTED Almost nothing is maritime or transmedium. FY2023: 290 of 291 air, 1 maritime, zero transmedium or space. FY2024: 708 air, 49 space, zero maritime or transmedium. FY2025: 274 air, 44 space, 1 maritime. AARO notes none of the space-domain reports came from space-based sensors — they are ground and cockpit observers looking up.
• DOCUMENTED The FY2025 report is issued under the name "Department of War." The cover page of the FY2025 Consolidated Annual Report reads "DEPARTMENT OF WAR / ALL-DOMAIN ANOMALY RESOLUTION OFFICE," reflecting the department's 2025 renaming. Document control number 26-P-0880; information cut-off 30 May 2025. The document is a late release — the earliest public web archive capture is July 2026.

Preliminary Assessment (ODNI, 2021); 2022 Annual Report on UAP (ODNI, Jan 2023); FY2023 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP (ODNI/DoD, Oct 2023); FY2024 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP (DoD/AARO, Nov 2024); FY2025 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP (AARO, cut-off 30 May 2025). Statutory basis: FY2022 NDAA §1683 (P.L. 117-81), as amended by FY2023 NDAA §6802 (P.L. 117-263), codified at 50 U.S.C. §3373.

• DOCUMENTED 2022: the first bulk triage. AARO's initial characterisation of the 366 new reports judged more than half "unremarkable": 163 balloon or balloon-like, 26 unmanned aircraft systems, 6 clutter — leaving 171 uncharacterised. The report is careful: "Initial characterization does not mean positively resolved or unidentified."
• DOCUMENTED FY2023: the forward-leaning assessment. "Based on the ability to resolve cases to date, with an increase in the quality of data secured, the unidentified and purported anomalous nature of most UAP will likely resolve to ordinary phenomena and significantly reduce the amount of UAP case submissions." The same report notes "only a very small percentage of UAP reports display interesting signatures."
• DOCUMENTED FY2024: birds, Starlink, and one near-miss. AARO reports that birds are commonly misread as orbs because sensor compression and pixelation render them as "amorphous blobs," with wingbeats appearing as "flickering." It attributes a growing case class to Starlink and other low-earth-orbit megaconstellations. Of 392 FAA reports, exactly one alleged a flight-safety issue — a commercial aircrew reporting a near miss with a "cylindrical object" off the New York coast, still under analysis.
• DOCUMENTED FY2025: satellite flaring becomes the single biggest explanation. A new analytic capability let AARO resolve 238 reported UAP as satellite flaring — reflected sunlight off satellite surfaces appearing as "intense, bright orbs of light many times brighter than surrounding stars," lasting from a fraction of a second to several minutes. All 44 space-domain cases resolved this way. AARO also logged one case each attributable to a commercial rocket launch and to a manned jet pack.
• DOCUMENTED Resolution badly lags intake — and the reports say why. "A lack of timely and actionable sensor data continues to constrain AARO's ability to resolve cases" (FY2025). Cases without enough data go to the "active archive," a holding category: 444 cases in FY2024, 191 in FY2025. They are neither explained nor declared anomalous.
• DISPUTED AARO's own FY2024 report gives two different resolution counts. Its Executive Summary says "AARO resolved 118 cases during the reporting period... an additional 174 cases queued for closure." Its body text says "AARO resolved 49 cases during the reporting period... An additional 243 cases were recommended for closure." Both pairs total 292, so the discrepancy is where the line between "resolved" and "queued" was drawn, apparently at different drafting dates. AARO has not published a correction. Whichever figure is right, the office resolved fewer than 300 of 757 incoming reports that year.

2022 Annual Report on UAP, ODNI, p. 5; FY2023 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP, pp. 3, 8; FY2024 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP, pp. 2, 5, 10–11; FY2025 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP, pp. 2, 4–5, 8.

• DOCUMENTED Four of the five reports never raise the question at all. The 2021, 2022, FY2023 and FY2025 reports contain no instance of "extraterrestrial," "alien," or "non-human." They are threat-and-airspace documents written to a congressional tasking about foreign adversary capability and flight safety. Reading them for a verdict on alien life is reading them for something they were never asked to address.
• DOCUMENTED The one exception is the FY2024 report, and it is a negative finding. "It is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology." An absence-of-evidence statement about AARO's own holdings — not a demonstration that nothing exists.
• DOCUMENTED No material, ever, per AARO. FY2025: "To date, no evidence suggests that a USG or private entity has ever captured or exploited UAP-derived materials." AARO says it is nonetheless building a formal handling process for such material, modelled on existing foreign-materiel recovery procedures, should any ever arrive.
• TESTIMONY David Grusch testified the opposite. On 26 July 2023, former National Reconnaissance Office and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency officer David Grusch testified under oath before the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs that he had been informed of a multi-decade US crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering programme, and of the recovery of "non-human biologics." He stated he had not personally seen craft or bodies and was relaying accounts from named individuals he had referred to the Intelligence Community Inspector General. The fact of the sworn testimony is a matter of record; the underlying claims have not been independently substantiated in public.
• DISPUTED AARO versus the crash-retrieval claims. AARO's position, in its FY2024 report and its Historical Record Report Volume I (released March 2024), is that it found no evidence supporting such programmes. AARO's report also documents KONA BLUE — "a Prospective and not approved Special Access Program" that interviewees claimed was a Department of Homeland Security compartment covering "the retrieval and exploitation of 'non-human biologics'" — and posted the underlying records publicly. Proponents including Grusch and members of Congress argue AARO lacked the access to look where the programmes allegedly sit; AARO's then-director Sean Kirkpatrick has argued publicly that the claims trace to a small circle of individuals recycling the same unverified accounts. Stakes on both sides: Kirkpatrick was defending the record of an office he built and has since written paid commentary on the subject; several prominent proponents of the crash-retrieval account have book deals, paid media appearances, and institutional roles in UAP advocacy organisations. Neither set of incentives settles the factual question.
• UNSUPPORTED "ODNI confirmed non-human craft." Circulated persistently since 2021, usually citing the "other" category or the 21 anomalous reports. What is missing: any sentence in any of the five reports asserting non-human origin, and any released underlying data. The "other" bin is defined in the 2021 report as a holding category "pending scientific advances that allowed us to better understand them."

FY2024 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP, DoD/AARO, November 2024, pp. 2, 14; FY2025 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP, AARO, p. 9; AARO Historical Record Report Volume I, March 2024; The History and Origin of KONA BLUE and the underlying DHS KONA BLUE records, AARO; House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, hearing "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety and Government Transparency", 26 July 2023.

• DOCUMENTED The Virginia coast maritime case. The single maritime report in FY2025 came from US Navy assets operating off Virginia and "described approximately 100 airborne UAP and two, likely uncrewed, surface systems." AARO says it is "actively investigating this event in coordination with the reporting unit." No resolution has been published. Note what it plausibly is and is not: a large number of small airborne objects alongside uncrewed surface vessels is also a fair description of a drone incursion.
• DOCUMENTED Cases flagged for further technical analysis. FY2024: 21 cases referred to Intelligence Community and science-and-technology partners "based on reported anomalous characteristics and/or behaviors." FY2025: 9 cases. AARO commits to immediate congressional notification if any indicates a foreign breakthrough capability. None has been so notified publicly.
• DOCUMENTED Narrative reports near sensitive sites, with no data behind them. FY2025: "Some narrative reports were suggestive of phenomena whose performance characteristics exceed the known state-of-the-art within a given domain. No technical data accompanied these reports. If validated, the attendant phenomena underlying these reports may represent a currently unmitigated threat vector." That is the strongest sentence in the current record — and it is explicitly conditional on validation that has not happened.
• DOCUMENTED Two electronic-interference reports, undetermined. FY2025 logged two reports "describing electronic or avionic interference as attributable to UAP in proximity to an operational aircraft." AARO "has not yet rendered a determination on whether, and to what extent, the reported effects are attributable to UAP."
• DOCUMENTED Drones over nuclear sites are a separate and growing problem. AARO received 50 reports from the Administrator for Nuclear Security and the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission concerning incidents near US nuclear infrastructure, weapons and launch sites in FY2025 — up 177.8% from 18 the prior year. Critically: "None of these incidents were reported as UAP." They were categorised as unmanned aircraft systems, mostly quadcopters, mostly at night, 33 of 50 involving a single aircraft.
• DOCUMENTED No health effects, in any report, ever. All five reports state that no UAP encounter has been confirmed to cause adverse health effects in an observer, while noting effects could emerge later and would be tracked.

FY2025 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP, AARO, pp. 2, 5, 9; FY2024 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP, DoD/AARO, pp. 5, 11.

• Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena ODNI, 25 June 2021 · the original nine-page report
• 2022 Annual Report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena ODNI, released 12 January 2023 · 510 cumulative reports
• Fiscal Year 2023 Consolidated Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena ODNI/DoD, 25 October 2023 · first joint consolidated report
• ODNI landing page for the FY2023 consolidated report ODNI, October 2023 · official publication record
• Fiscal Year 2024 Consolidated Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena DoD/AARO, 14 November 2024 · 757 new reports, FAA tranche
• ODNI landing page for the FY2024 consolidated report ODNI, November 2024 · official publication record
• Fiscal Year 2025 Consolidated Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena AARO, cut-off 30 May 2025, DCN 26-P-0880 · satellite-flaring report
• Senate Report 116-233, Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 Senate Select Cttee on Intelligence, 17 June 2020 · the mandate
• S. Rept. 116-233 on Congress.gov (browsable text) Congress.gov · same report, HTML version
• FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act, Public Law 117-81 (§1683 creates AARO) US Congress, 27 December 2021 · AARO's founding statute
• FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act, Public Law 117-263 (§6802 amends the reporting duty) US Congress, 23 December 2022 · amended annual-report requirement
• 50 U.S.C. §3373 — Office to address unidentified anomalous phenomena Office of the Law Revision Counsel · codified reporting law
• Establishment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force US Dept of Defense, 14 August 2020 · press release creating UAPTF
• Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos US Dept of Defense, 27 April 2020 · FLIR1, GIMBAL, GOFAST release
• Naval Air Systems Command FOIA Reading Room NAVAIR · where the three released videos are hosted
• U.S. Navy Confirms Videos Depict "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" John Greenewald Jr., The Black Vault, September 2019 · Gradisher statement
• Those UFO videos are real, the Navy says, but please stop saying "UFO" Kayla Epstein, Washington Post, 18 Sept 2019 · paywalled, URL verified
• Hearing: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena — Implications on National Security, Public Safety and Government Transparency House Oversight subcttee, 26 July 2023 · Grusch, Fravor, Graves testimony
• Congress.gov record of the 26 July 2023 UAP hearing Congress.gov · official hearing event record
• AARO Historical Record Report Volume I AARO, March 2024 · review of alleged crash-retrieval programmes
• The History and Origin of KONA BLUE AARO, June 2024 · the unapproved DHS prospective SAP
• AARO/DHS KONA BLUE source records AARO, 2024 · declassified underlying DHS documents
• AARO Electronic FOIA Reading Room AARO · released records and case documentation
• Classified annex to the 2021 Preliminary Assessment ODNI, June 2021 · no stable public URL found — not publicly released
• Classified-2022-Annual-Report-UAP.pdf ODNI, January 2023 · no stable public URL found — classified version, index entry only

Links verified August 2026. Unlinked items in this section are ones for which no stable public URL could be confirmed.

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