Departamento de Investigación de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (DIFAA)

The Departamento de Investigación de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (DIFAA) is the Peruvian Air Force office associated with receiving and analyzing reports of anomalous aerial phenomena in Peruvian territory.¹² Its public rationale sits inside the Fuerza Aérea del Perú's broader mission: the FAP is a Ministry of Defense executing body responsible for controlling, watching and defending Peru's airspace, and for participating in activities related to national aerospace interests.³

  Origin and Reopening

DIFAA's present public profile dates to 18 October 2013, when Peru's official Andina news agency reported that citizens could report anomalous aerial phenomena to the FAP through images or testimony.¹ Colonel Julio Vucetich Abanto, then responsible for the Dirección de Intereses Aéreos Espaciales (DINAE), said the service was being created or reactivated because reported sightings were increasing and because public reports were often being handled poorly in the media environment.¹

Andina identified DIFAA as the office charged with systematizing and analyzing the data so the FAP could build a case history showing how often the events occurred, where they occurred and at what times.¹ The same report said the office had been closed for five years because of administrative problems and had recently reopened.¹

The reopening was announced through a FAP-organized Encuentro sobre Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos, focused publicly on the Nazca Lines and claims about extraterrestrials.¹ A FAP directive template preserved on gob.pe includes the event title and states its purpose as setting general and specific provisions for carrying out the encounter.⁴ The Andina account also recorded a grounded note from archaeologist Manuel Aguirre Morales, who said there was no evidence that the Nazca Lines were related to UFOs or extraterrestrial presence.¹

  Mandate and Method

Public statements frame DIFAA less as an extraterrestrial office than as an aviation-safety and airspace-awareness channel. In a 2014 BBC Mundo report republished by El Comercio, Defense Minister Pedro Cateriano described unidentified, illicit or anomalous aerial objects as potential threats to civil and military air navigation, giving the FAP a duty to investigate them to safeguard national air corridors.⁵

The same report described the practical intake process: DIFAA personnel took reports, reviewed images, videos and witness questionnaires, and first checked nearby airport control towers when someone reported an unusual light.⁵ Marco Barraza, identified there as a DIFAA investigator, summarized the point as activating a protocol and creating a record to prevent accidents.⁵

  Institutional Placement

The 2013 relaunch placed DIFAA under DINAE, described by Andina as the FAP directorate that promotes civil and military activities in the aeronautical area.¹ The public administrative trail later uses the newer name Dirección de Información e Intereses Aeroespaciales (DIIA): a 2023 transparency ruling recorded that the FAP-DIIA answered a request for a list of UFO or unidentified-anomalous-phenomena sightings registered by DIFAA between January 2002 and July 2023.²

That 2023 access-to-information case is important because it confirms, through a Peruvian state tribunal record, that DIFAA was treated as the named repository or registration source for a two-decade span of FAP anomalous-phenomena records.² The FAP transparency portal separately identifies the Director of Information and Aerospace Interests as the responsible official for transparency and access-to-information matters, showing the same directorate's public-records function within the institution.⁶

  Key People

Public sources disagree on the predecessor chronology: the 2014 BBC Mundo account republished by El Comercio says Chamorro founded and led the Oficina de Investigación de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (OIFAA), which operated between 1999 and 2005, while the 2013 relaunch coverage emphasizes the office's recent five-year administrative closure and reopening.¹⁵ The strongest conservative reading is that DIFAA inherited an earlier FAP anomalous-phenomena effort and re-entered public operation under its current department name in October 2013.¹²⁵

  Public Record and Limits

Compared with Chile's SEFAA or Uruguay's CRIDOVNI, DIFAA has left a thinner public web footprint. The best-supported facts are the 2013 relaunch, the FAP/DINAE role in receiving and systematizing reports, the aviation-safety justification stated by Peru's defense minister, and the 2023 state transparency record confirming DIFAA-registered sightings over the January 2002 to July 2023 request window.¹²⁵

  References

  References

1. Agencia Peruana de Noticias Andina - "Fenómenos aéreos anómalos en Perú podrán reportarse a la FAP" https://andina.pe/agencia/noticia.aspx?id=478982 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

2. Ministerio de Justicia y Derechos Humanos - "Resolución N.° 003408-2023-JUS/TTAIP-SEGUNDA SALA" https://www.gob.pe/institucion/minjus/normas-legales/4903993-003408-2023-jus-ttaip-segunda-sala ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. Fuerza Aérea del Perú, gob.pe - "Información institucional" https://www.gob.pe/institucion/fap/institucional ↩

4. Fuerza Aérea del Perú, gob.pe-hosted PDF - Ord. FAP 5-4, Directiva FAP 190-4 event template for "Encuentro sobre Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos" https://cdn.www.gob.pe/uploads/document/file/2393654/ORDFAP5-4.pdf.pdf ↩

5. El Comercio, republishing BBC Mundo reporting - "¿Por qué el Perú reabrió la oficina de búsqueda de ovnis?" https://elcomercio.pe/tecnologia/ciencias/peru-reabrio-oficina-busqueda-ovnis-290775-noticia/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

6. Portal de Transparencia Estándar - Fuerza Aérea del Perú, transparency and access-to-information responsible officer https://www.transparencia.gob.pe/enlaces/pte_transparencia_enlaces.aspx?id_entidad=12670&id_tema=32&ver= ↩

7. Agencia Peruana de Noticias Andina - "Cada día más personas avistan cosas extrañas en los aires" https://andina.pe/agencia/noticia-cada-dia-mas-personas-avistan-cosas-extranas-los-aires-482325.aspx ↩