The analysis of the first three years of the OGLE data revealed 12 microlensing events of the Galactic bulge stars , with the characteristic time scales in the range 8.6 < t _ { 0 } < 80 days , where t _ { 0 } = R _ { E } / V .
A complete sample of nine events gave the optical depth to gravitational microlensing larger than ( 3.3 \pm 1.2 ) \times 10 ^ { -6 } , in excess of current theoretical estimates , indicating a much higher efficiency for microlensing by either bulge or disk lenses .
The lenses are likely to be ordinary stars in the Galactic bar , which has its long axis elongated towards us .
At this time we have no evidence that the OGLE events are related to dark matter .
The OGLE color magnitude diagrams reveal the presence of the Galactic bar and a low density inner disk region \sim 4 kpc in radius .
A catalogue of a few thousand variable stars is in preparation .