THE SOURCE
FBI Photo B001 through FBI Photo B024, twenty-four still images from the U.S. Department of War’s PURSUE Release 01, published at war.gov/ufo on 8 May 2026. Each was submitted to AARO by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, derived from a U.S. military system in 2025, and altered with redactions before submission. None has an accompanying mission report.
What this briefing is
Most of the photographic material in Release 01 is the small NASA lunar set, which Release 01 Briefing 8 took up alongside the Apollo 17 photo VM6. The FBI Photo B-series is something different and much larger: twenty-four stills submitted by the FBI to AARO, all from the same kind of source system, all with the same general layout.
That uniformity is the point. The B-series is the structured photographic evidence behind the Western US Event of 2025 that Release 01 Briefing 2 covered as a written document. This briefing reads the photo set on its own terms, and on what twenty-four stills in one file do and do not establish. The general grounding for reading PURSUE primary documents is in Release 01 Briefing 1.
TL;DR
Each of the 24 photos shares a description AARO repeats almost verbatim across the set. The FBI submitted a UAP report to AARO consisting of a still image derived from a U.S. military system in 2025. The original imagery was altered with redactions before being submitted to AARO. No accompanying mission report was provided. The operator reported being unable to positively identify the UAP. A note on at least one image flags that the date stamp in the image is incorrect because the system’s date and time were not set.
Each image is described in similar terms: a monochrome frame with a central crosshair reticle, a grainy texture, and a small, dark, circular object visible somewhere in the frame, usually outside the reticle’s exact centre.
This is the largest single photo set in Release 01, characterised by volume and consistency: twenty-four images, on the same kind of system, in the same year, with the same kind of object in frame, form a photographic record of a recurring observation. The descriptions also set out its range: the images are low-resolution monochrome, the imagery has been redacted, there are no accompanying mission reports, the operator could not identify the object, and at least one image has an incorrect timestamp because the source system was not configured. The set is labelled source tier 2 as primary submissions, with the analytical content of each individual image quite thin.
What the uniformity of the set adds
A briefing on one of these 24 photos would be almost nothing. Each image is a low-resolution monochrome still with a reticle and a dot in frame. There is no spatial reference, no telemetry, no shape detail, no movement.
A briefing on 24 of them, taken together, is different in the same way the Release 02 Briefing 14 wave was different from a single 2020 clip. Twenty-four photos from the same kind of system, in the same year, all showing a similar small dark object in similar framing, are evidence of a recurring observation. Whatever the system was watching when these were captured, it captured the same kind of thing repeatedly. That repetition does not identify the object; it establishes that the encounters were not one-off, and that an operator chose, more than twenty times, to submit a still to the FBI for AARO routing.
Pair that with the Western US Event document (Release 01 Briefing 2), and the B-series becomes the photo evidence behind that written case. The written report carries the witnesses’ narrative; the B-series carries the image record from the system that was deployed in the same period. Read together, the document tells you what people thought they saw, and the photos show what their instrument captured. Neither identifies the object. Both are the file the FBI sent in.
What the redaction and the missing context cost
The B-series carries three repeated honesty signals from AARO that have to be flagged squarely.
First, the imagery was altered with redactions before submission. As Release 02 Briefing 10 set out for the Karaganda phone clip and Release 02 Briefing 12 for the acceleration clip, processed imagery cannot be analysed as if untouched. Redactions of identifying detail are routine in military and intelligence releases, but for image analysis they remove information that would otherwise help with location, distance and identification.
Second, no mission report is attached. The short clips in Release 01 Briefing 22 carry much of their analytical weight from the aircrew’s one-line description in the paired D-series report. The B-series has nothing equivalent. Each image stands or falls on what its few pixels show, plus the operator’s bare “unable to positively identify” note.
Third, the date-stamp issue. At least one image carries a notice that its embedded timestamp is wrong because the system was not configured. That is the kind of small operational detail that, in any other forensic context, would force careful re-establishment of when the image was captured. The set contains 24 images and at least that one with a known incorrect timestamp; how many of the others share the issue is not specified.
What the file says
It establishes that across 2025, a U.S. military system, with the FBI in the reporting chain, captured at least 24 still images of small dark objects that the operator could not identify, and that the FBI submitted these images to AARO with redactions applied. It establishes the photographic side of the Western US Event of 2025 that Release 01 Briefing 2 covered as a document. As a structured photo set, it is a substantial tier 2 record of the period and the encounter category, and the largest single grouping of related stills in Release 01.
What the file does not say
It does not establish what the objects were. The images are low-resolution monochrome, redacted, and unaccompanied by mission reports. The operator could not positively identify the UAP.
It does not establish the spatial or temporal precision of any single image. At least one carries an explicitly incorrect timestamp; redactions remove identifying location detail across the set.
It does not stand independently of the Western US Event narrative. Read alone, the B-series is 24 grainy stills of a circular dark object. Read with the written report, it is the photo record of a documented case; that is the appropriate frame.
And it does not rise above tier 2. The set is authentic and useful. Its honest contribution is the volume and consistency; identification still depends on data the redacted, mission-report-less imagery does not carry.
What to watch
Twenty-four stills, from the same kind of system in the same year, are a record of recurrence, which is a fact even where identification is not; they sit alongside the Western US Event document, the narrative beside the instrument record. Two threads stay open: the timestamps are only as good as a system that, at least once, was never configured, and how many frames share that fault is not specified; and the redactions mean any fuller analysis would need the unredacted originals the file’s description says exist. The 2025 date makes this one of the most recent bodies of evidence in the release.
Read the file. Decide for yourself.
References and further reading
- FBI Photo B001 through B024, PURSUE Release 01, U.S. Department of War, hosted at war.gov/ufo
- Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, U.S. Department of War, war.gov/ufo
- AARO UAP Records, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, aaro.mil/UAP-Records
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 01 Briefing 2, on the Western US Event document; Release 01 Briefing 22, on aircrew descriptions versus their absence; Release 02 Briefing 10 and Release 02 Briefing 12, on altered or redacted imagery