CRIDOVNI

CRIDOVNI is the Fuerza Aérea Uruguaya's Comisión Receptora e Investigadora de Denuncias de Objetos Voladores No Identificados, the Air Force body for receiving and investigating UFO reports in Uruguayan airspace.¹²

  Founding and Mandate

The FAU's own anniversary record lists CRIDOVNI's creation on 7 August 1979.¹ Official CRIDOVNI material describes the commission as a response to repeated public UFO-sighting reports from different parts of Uruguay, with the practical objective of complementing air-traffic-control work.²

CRIDOVNI's stated purpose is to receive, study and evaluate reports of unidentified flying objects in national airspace, supporting airspace control and aviation safety.² That mission sits inside the FAU's broader statutory and operational responsibility for the country's air domain: Uruguay's Air Force organic law is the legal basis cited in CRIDOVNI descriptions, and the FAU's Comando Aéreo de Operaciones describes its mission as surveillance and control of the Republic's jurisdictional airspace.²³⁴

  Investigation Model

CRIDOVNI's public methodology centers on collecting and classifying reports, building a case database, and testing each report against possible fraud, conventional phenomena, non-conventional phenomena, and psychological illusion.² In a 2012 interview, Colonel Ariel Sánchez described the commission's procedure as a standard protocol adapted from J. Allen Hynek-style strangeness and witness-credibility scales rather than an exotic or secret method.⁵

  Public Case Work

CRIDOVNI's case load is best treated as time-bounded because public totals vary by year and source. El País Uruguay reported in 2010, citing Sánchez and CRIDOVNI's history, that the commission had received about 2,300 complaints, opened about 1,200 investigations, and kept about 40 cases without explanation at that time.⁶

Several public cases show the commission's typical role: sort claims first, explain what can be explained, and leave unresolved cases open rather than turning every report into an extraordinary conclusion. FAU Comunicado No. 46/2020 identified a wave of reported lights as SpaceX Starlink satellites and published CRIDOVNI contact details for further reports.⁷ In August 2021, CRIDOVNI responded to viral Maldonado videos about alleged UFOs and foreign aircraft by concluding, after review, that the claimed events were not real.⁸

  Transparency and Access

CRIDOVNI's transparency posture has evolved from informal, request-based access claims into a formal access-to-information dispute. In 2012 Sánchez told an interviewer that civilians could request specific case files for review and that the commission did not hand over the entire archive at once.⁵

In 2020, Ezequiel Pereira López filed an access request for UFO incidents and reports held by Uruguay's Ministry of Defense system. The Ministry of National Defense denied the request after FAU Commander-in-Chief Resolution 027/020, issued with CRIDOVNI and FAU legal-division advice, classified the requested information as reserved and confidential.⁹

Uruguay's Unidad de Acceso a la Información Pública then issued Resolution No. 16/020, finding that FAU had missed the legal response deadline and that the broad reservation did not show the required damage test, reserve term, or individualized classification. The UAIP instructed FAU to deliver the requested information except for material correctly classified under Law No. 18.381 and Decree No. 232/010.¹⁰

  International Links

Sánchez has described CRIDOVNI as an air-force channel for exchanging information with counterparts in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru when cases require cross-border or specialist consultation.⁵ In the same interview, he specifically named Chile's CEFAA and Peru's anomalous-aerial-phenomena office as contacts, while framing international cooperation as a way to compare experience and improve case analysis.⁵

  References

  References

1. Fuerza Aérea Uruguaya - Anuario FAU, anniversary list naming CRIDOVNI's creation date https://www.fau.mil.uy/uploads/archivos/file_b63f73301f.pdf ↩ ↩²

2. Fuerza Aérea Uruguaya - "Comisión Receptora e Investigadora de Denuncias de Objetos Voladores No Identificados (CRIDOVNI)" https://www.fau.mil.uy/es/articulos/182-comision-receptora-e-investigadora-de-denuncias-de-objetos-voladores-no-identificados-cridovni.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. IMPO - Decreto Ley No. 14.747, Ley Orgánica de la Fuerza Aérea https://www.impo.com.uy/bases/decretos-ley/14747-1977/7 ↩

4. Fuerza Aérea Uruguaya - "Comando Aéreo de Operaciones" https://www.fau.mil.uy/es/articulos/47-comando-aereo-de-operaciones.html ↩

5. The UFO Chronicles - A. J. Gevaerd interview with Colonel Ariel Sánchez, "Uruguay Air Force Openly Researches UFOs for More Than Three Decades," Part IV https://www.theufochronicles.com/2012/03/interview-with-colonel-ariel-sanchez.html ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

6. El País Uruguay - "¿Alienígenas llegan en 2012?" https://www.elpais.com.uy/domingo/alienigenas-llegan-en-2012 ↩

7. Fuerza Aérea Uruguaya - "Comunicado No. 46/2020: Avistamiento de OVNI" https://www.fau.mil.uy/es/articulos/361-comunicado-n-46-2020.html ↩

8. Montevideo Portal - "Comisión Investigadora de Denuncias de OVNI aclara que posibles sucesos no son reales" https://www.montevideo.com.uy/Noticias/Comision-Investigadora-de-Denuncias-de-OVNI-aclara-que-posibles-sucesos-no-son-reales--uc795107 ↩

9. Ministerio de Defensa Nacional - Resolución M.D.N. 75477, access request for UFO incidents and reports https://www.gub.uy/ministerio-defensa-nacional/sites/ministerio-defensa-nacional/files/2020-05/Resol75477.pdf ↩

10. Unidad de Acceso a la Información Pública - Resolución No. 16/020 sobre entrega de información e información reservada y confidencial https://www.gub.uy/unidad-acceso-informacion-publica/institucional/normativa/resolucion-n-16020-sobre-entrega-informacion-informacion-reservada ↩