Argentina CNIE: Military UFO Research Program under Capitán Lima (1980–1985)
From 1980 to 1985, the Comisión Nacional de Investigación Aeroespacial (CNIE) — Argentina's National Commission for Aerospace Investigations — conducted official UFO research under the direction of Capitán Augusto Lima. The program's existence remained officially unacknowledged for decades; it was only in June 2020 that the private UFO research organisation CEFORA succeeded in using Argentina's freedom-of-information legislation to compel the Ministry of Defence to confirm the program had existed. All of CNIE's files were later transferred to the Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), the national space agency founded in 1991 and reporting to the Ministry of Science and Technology.
In June 2011, the Argentine Air Force publicly presented a newly established Comisión de Estudio de Fenómenos Aeroespaciales (CEFAE), a successor body tasked with contributing to airspace safety. CEFAE published a sighting-report questionnaire on the official Air Force website. By Resolution 364/2019, CEFAE was restructured into the Centro de Identificación Aeroespacial (CIAE), which received greater resources for field investigation, training, and public reporting of UFO cases.
Background
In 1980, the Argentine military established the CNIE (Comisión Nacional de Investigación Espacial) under Capitán Julio Lima to systematically investigate UFO reports. The program operated from 1980 to 1985, collecting and analyzing UAP sightings from military and civilian sources across Argentina.