THE SOURCE
(Unchanged: ODNI-UAP-D001, “USPER Narrative, Senior USIC Official”, a document from the U.S. Department of War’s PURSUE Release 02, published at war.gov/ufo on 22 May 2026. It is a first-hand written account by a currently serving senior official of the U.S. Intelligence Community, describing an encounter in the Western United States in late 2025.)
Why this one is worth your time
Most files in the PURSUE releases are sensor footage or procedural paperwork. ODNI-UAP-D001 is a sitting senior officer of the U.S. Intelligence Community, writing in the first person about what they saw, with their own government choosing to publish it: not a retired whistleblower on a podcast, not an anonymous leak, but a serving official’s signed account inside an official archive. It is also the first document from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to appear in either release. That combination is the reason this briefing sits second in the batch.
What the document says
The setting is an investigation. In late 2025, reports of unusual noises and sightings in and around a sensitive military facility prompted a team to look into them. The author was part of that team, and the encounter happened during the fieldwork rather than as a chance sighting. The witness is identified in the file by rank and role, a senior official of the U.S. Intelligence Community, and not by name; throughout the document the author is “the official”. A first-hand account records what a person says they saw.
What the official reports seeing. Riding as a passenger in a helicopter, the official reports several distinct things. Glowing orbs, seen both close and far. A fast object, low to the ground, that appeared to divide into two and accelerate away in two different directions. And a number of orbs at higher altitude, some of which the official assessed as being in close proximity to the helicopter they were riding in. Two features of that description are the most specific behaviour in the file: the apparent split, an object becoming two and the two parting at speed, and the proximity judgement, the official’s sense that orbs were near the aircraft.
What the account is, as a record. The document is a recollection set down in writing, not an instrument log. The orbs, the split and the close approach are the official’s own descriptions in their own words. The account itself fixes no distance, size or speed; those are not stated in it.
The account does not stand alone. The government’s description notes that the narrative is accompanied by infrared imagery, filmed from the ground during the same exercise by other federal officials, and released in PURSUE Release 01. That is the Western United States event this site covered in Release 01 Briefing 2: a written first-hand account from the air, and independent thermal footage from the ground, of the same exercise, with separate observers, separate vantage points and separate sensing methods.
What the document does not say
What the official saw. The account is a description, not an identification. Orbs, a split, a close approach: these are observations as recorded, and the document does not analyse or identify them.
The identity of the witness. The “USPER” convention gives a rank and a role and withholds a name, so the document offers the category, “senior intelligence official”, and not the individual’s training, record or reporting history.
Distance, size or speed. Those judgements were made by eye, from a moving helicopter at night. The document states none of them as measured figures, and the accompanying ground footage, like all infrared footage, has its own limits, set out in Release 01 Briefing 3.
From the record
“USPER Narrative, Senior USIC Official.” Title of the document, ODNI-UAP-D001, PURSUE Release 02
“glowing orbs” The official’s term for what they saw, as quoted in the released account
Where the case connects
This file has a close echo in the previous release. PURSUE Release 01 contains a three-page FBI sworn statement, the orb search this site covered in Release 01 Briefing 4: a helicopter, a military facility, luminous orbs in 2025, and one that “broke into two objects”. ODNI-UAP-D001 describes a helicopter, a sensitive military facility, glowing orbs in late 2025, and one that “appeared to split in two”. The two documents draw no line between themselves, and this briefing draws none either; Release 01 Briefing 4 reads the other one, and the two sit side by side.
The file also ties directly to the Western United States material from Release 01, covered in Release 01 Briefing 2: the government records the narrative as accompanied by ground-filmed infrared from the same exercise. The two are halves of one event, an account from the air and footage from the ground.
The file leaves its own threads. The witness is held behind the USPER convention, the late-2025 investigation that produced the account would generate further paperwork, and the ground-filmed infrared has not had a full analytical treatment on the public record. Any later tranche that adds material from that investigation, puts numbers on the ground footage, or names the witness lands in this series when it does.
Read it yourself
ODNI-UAP-D001 is hosted at war.gov in PURSUE Release 02, the senior official’s first-hand narrative in their own words.
Read the file. Decide for yourself.
References and further reading
- ODNI-UAP-D001, “USPER Narrative, Senior USIC Official”, PURSUE Release 02, 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
- Accompanying infrared imagery from the same exercise, PURSUE Release 01, war.gov/ufo
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 01 Briefing 2, on the Western United States event, and Release 01 Briefing 4, on the earlier USPER statement
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 01 Briefing 3, “How to read infrared sensor footage, and the eight-pointed star”