THE DOCUMENT
(Unchanged: a three-page FBI sworn statement, classified SECRET//NOFORN, describing a helicopter search for and encounter with luminous orbs at a US military facility on an unstated date in 2025. Recorded as a US person (USPER) statement and released in PURSUE Release 01 by the U.S. Department of War, hosted at war.gov.)
Why this one is worth your time
On an unstated evening in 2025, at a military facility somewhere in the United States, a senior US intelligence official watched luminous orbs that “flared up one at a time in a horizontal formation” and then flared down in reverse order, over and over, across half an hour of timestamps. They swore to all of it in front of the FBI, and the government published the statement. It is a first-person, narrative account in the voice of a named senior witness, three pages of it, and one of the more detailed single documents in PURSUE Release 01.
What the document says
The file is a three-page sworn statement, classified SECRET//NOFORN, written as a first-person chronological account timestamped through the evening and ending with a short block headed “[WITNESS 1] Comments”. Names, dates, coordinates, call signs and facility names are redacted throughout and replaced with bracketed placeholders such as “[CALL SIGN 1]” and “[SITE CODE NAME]”. The witness is identified in the text as “[WITNESS 1 (a senior US intelligence official)]”; a second senior US intelligence official, “[WITNESS 2]”, is named, along with several “[FEDERAL PARTNER]” entities and pilots from a “[STATE PARTNER ORGANIZATION]”. A sworn statement records what a person says they saw.
Why the search happened. The account opens with the reason for it: “previous eyewitness reports from personnel who observed orbs/lights” in the area, and reports of personnel “hearing thuds as if something has fallen and hit the ground”, which prompted a daytime aerial search of a mountain range west of the site. That search located “a large cavern entrance”. The statement also records, as a parenthetical, that “Earlier that day” an office “completed a successful test” at the facility; the subject of the test is redacted, and the statement draws no connection between it and the orbs.
The night sequence. The substance is the night sequence, from roughly 2141 onward. At 2202, after a Listening Post/Observation Post reported infrared “hits”, the helicopter crew were directed to intercept; the LP/OP reported “an orb under FLIR” they “described as ‘super-hot’ hovering at ground level”, which moved off at “a high rate of speed” and “broke into two objects”. The crew pursued but could not match its speed, and the co-pilot “reported seeing under NVG something emerge from the two objects”. At 2218 the crew and witness reported “a swarm of lights (too many to count) moving in all directions”. From roughly 2227 the witness, by naked eye, and the pilots, on night vision goggles, repeatedly reported orb formations; the most detailed entry describes “two large orbs” near the helicopter, “oval shaped, orange in color with a white or yellow center and emitting light in all directions”, which “flared up”, with a third, fourth and fifth flaring up below them in sequence before all “flared down in reverse order”. The pattern recurs at 2228, 2233, 2241, 2249, 2252 and 2257, in different directions and at different distances, sometimes near military aircraft aloft on a training mission; at 2249 the statement records “three distinct orbs in a triangle formation”.
The witness’s own comments. The closing block is the witness’s. The search was conducted “in near full darkness”, much of the detail coming from pilots on night vision goggles and from the LP/OP team relaying by radio. The witness notes the pilots “indicated they were recording”, but that “many sightings were above the helicopter which was outside of the helicopters FLIR camera angle”, and separates what they saw from what was called out: “Some things I could not see with the naked eye, but I recall the pilots calling out sightings.” The statement closes: “The orbs appeared to break off from [CALL SIGN 1] and pursue the [MILITARY AIRCRAFT].”
What the document does not say
What the orbs were. The statement is a firsthand account, not an analysis, and it does not identify them or fix their distance, size or speed beyond the witness’s description.
Whether the same-day “successful test” relates to the sightings. The statement records the test, redacts its subject, and draws no connection either way.
What any instrument captured. The pilots “indicated they were recording”, but the sightings above the helicopter fell outside its FLIR camera angle, and no imagery from the evening, from the helicopter or the LP/OP, is included in Release 01.
From the record
“Flared up one at a time in a horizontal formation.” The statement, on the recurring orb formations
“A swarm of lights (too many to count) moving in all directions.” The statement, at 2218
“Some things I could not see with the naked eye, but I recall the pilots calling out sightings.” “[WITNESS 1] Comments”
“The orbs appeared to break off from [CALL SIGN 1] and pursue the [MILITARY AIRCRAFT].” “[WITNESS 1] Comments”
Where the case connects
This statement has a close echo in the next release. Release 02 contains ODNI-UAP-D001, a firsthand written account by a currently serving senior US intelligence official: a helicopter, a sensitive military facility, glowing orbs in late 2025, one of which “appeared to split in two”. This statement describes a helicopter, a military facility, orbs in 2025, and one that “broke into two objects”. The two documents draw no line between themselves, and this briefing draws none either; Release 02 Briefing 2 reads the other one, and the two sit side by side.
The file also leaves its own threads. The pilots “indicated they were recording” and the LP/OP team had its own FLIR, yet no imagery from the evening is in Release 01; and the same-day “successful test” at the facility is on the page with its subject redacted. Any future tranche that puts the footage on the record, or unredacts the test, lands in this series when it does.
Read it yourself
The three-page sworn statement is hosted at war.gov in PURSUE Release 01, redactions and all.
Read the file. Decide for yourself.
References and further reading
- Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, U.S. Department of War, war.gov/ufo
- Source document: USPER Statement about UAP Sighting, FBI, PURSUE Release 01, hosted at war.gov
- Briefing 1, Release one, what is actually inside the Department of War’s first UAP document drop
- AARO UAP Records, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, aaro.mil/UAP-Records
- On the limits of eyewitness testimony and night-time observation, AARO Historical Record Report Volume I, 2024, aaro.mil