THE DOCUMENTS
This briefing covers a multi-document cluster from the U.S. Department of War’s PURSUE Release 03, published at war.gov/ufo, cleared 12 June 2026. The written records are DOW-UAP-D077 (AARO Case Analysis Update, “Western U.S. Event ‘Orbs Launching Orbs’”), DOW-UAP-D078 (Notional Map of the event), and DoW-UAP-D079 through DoW-UAP-D083 (Narratives 1 through 5, the first-hand accounts of five witnesses). The accompanying image set is FBI-UAP-D014 through FBI-UAP-D023, ten digital renderings of incidents 1-1 through 2-7, generated in 2023. All carry AARO Director Jon T. Kosloski’s signature block; the witness narratives are dated 02 June 2026 and the analysis update 05 June 2026.
Why this one is worth your time
Release 01 Briefing 2 introduced the Western US Event through a short four-section deck: three two-person teams of federal law-enforcement special agents who, over two days at dusk in October 2023, watched orange orbs release smaller red orbs near a sensitive national security site. Release 03 opens the file much wider. It releases AARO’s own analysis of the case, a map of the incidents, and the agents’ full narratives in their own words, each running to several pages. This briefing sets out what that larger body of material records: AARO’s hypotheses and where it landed on each, and the five accounts in the witnesses’ own language, alongside the ten-image rendering set the release publishes with them.
What the documents say
The case, and where AARO has it. DOW-UAP-D077 is a memorandum for record summarising AARO’s “ongoing analysis of a reported incident near a sensitive national security site in the western United States” over two days in October 2023. Its first line of disposition is plain: “As of June 2026, the case remains unresolved.” The document states that six federal law-enforcement special agents, in teams of two, reported observing “orbs launching other orbs” from multiple viewing angles at approximately dusk, and that the agents “provided consistent accounts using similar language” to describe both the red and orange “orbs”.
The pattern, in the analysis document’s terms. The memorandum describes the phenomena’s “most distinctive reported feature” as the repeating nature of the behaviour: a luminous orange “mother orb” appearing for one to two seconds, releasing a cluster of two to four red “orbs”, then disappearing, multiple times over several hours. It records that the agents characterised the red orbs as anomalous, with “seemingly coordinated horizontal motion and apparent changes in altitude”, that in at least one instance a red orb remained “stationary above a ridgeline for several hours”, and that the agents described the phenomena as “silent”. The document also notes it cannot tell from the reporting whether there was a single orange “mother orb” or several.
The hypotheses AARO ran, and the verdict it recorded on each. D077 sets out the candidate explanations AARO considered and its own disposition on each, in the document’s own labels. Misidentified military aircraft exhaust is marked “Ruled Out”; unmanned aerial vehicles “Unlikely”; foreign intelligence activity “Highly Unlikely”; phenomenological and environmental factors (ball lightning, temperature inversion, meteors, satellite flaring) “Unlikely”. Military aircraft dispensing flares is marked “Partially Plausible”: the document records that flares “plausibly” account for about 60 percent of the reported activity, while for the remaining 40 percent radar and ADS-B data “indicate that no known aircraft were active within the observers’ estimated line-of-sight”, and a red orb staying stationary for several hours is “physically incompatible with the burn-time and descent rate of any known military flare”. A U.S. capability review (Blue Force) is “Plausible, inconclusive”, with the document noting that “no single Blue Force capability fully accounts for all the phenomena’s reported characteristics”. The last hypothesis, “Unrecognized Technology”, is marked “Pending”: the document states it may account for up to 40 percent of the phenomena but is “based solely upon narrative testimony” and “is unsubstantiated by technical data or physical evidence”.
The notional map. DOW-UAP-D078 is, by its own caption, “a notional representation of four incidents reportedly involving unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) in the western United States, as seen from above”. It depicts a large “fiery orb” projected against a ridgeline at an approximate distance of 1,000 yards, an Incident 3 “Dark Kite” (a “thin or dark kite-shaped object” with one red and one white light at close range), and an Incident 4 “Translucent Kite” (a “translucent kite-shaped object” at close range). The map states that all its images were artificially generated, that phenomena are enlarged and not to scale, and that “all locations are notional”.
The five witness narratives. DoW-UAP-D079 through D083 are the first-hand accounts of five witnesses, each submitted at AARO’s request as a “free-form narrative of the sequence of events exactly as they remember them”. They overlap on the core pattern and diverge in the language each witness reaches for.
- Witness 1 (D079) describes a glowing ball near a hillside, later ranged with a range finder “at about 1100 meters”, that “did not fade out, we just could not see it anymore”, and a later object that resembled “a Toyota Prius for some reason” through which the witness “could see a star”.
- Witness 2 (D080) describes the orange orb expelling red lights that “maneuvered with perfect, smooth coordination”, and offers two of the cluster’s most striking analogies in their own words: that the behaviour “looked like a mix of mechanical deployment and biological division”, and that they found “the characterization of portals oddly comparable to the event I witnessed”, while stating “I am not saying or suggesting that was what we observed”. This witness also likened the objects to “the flying car from the Harry Potter book series” and the horizon lights to “the Phoenix lights event/incident in the 1990s”.
- Witness 3 (D081) describes an orange orb “alternating between clear and orange” that expelled three red orbs in an expulsion that “appeared to be mechanical”, comparing the red orbs to “grapes being expelled from a basketball”.
- Witness 4 (D082) describes lights “as if being hatched from the larger very bright orange light”, a line of nine static lights above a ridgeline, and, the following days, what “appeared to be chemtrails”, a “Starlink deployment” string of lights, and clustered lights forming “diamonds, triangles”.
- Witness 5 (D083) gives a heavily redacted, numbered timeline noting a large orange light that “seemed to be hovering with zero resistance”, two smaller red orbs released from a larger one, a red-and-white light pair near the ground, and, the next morning, “odd scrapes in the ground” near a plant that “looked very sharp and very fresh”.
The rendering set. FBI-UAP-D014 through FBI-UAP-D023 are ten digital renderings of the event’s incidents (labelled 1-1 through 2-7), generated in 2023. They are the release’s image set for this case, illustrating the incidents the narratives describe. The witnesses’ own narratives say of such images that they are “AI-generated images of the three incidents based on prompts and descriptions I provided”, that they “make no reference to a specific location or geological features”, are “not to exact scale”, and were “generated two and a half years after the events”.
What the documents do not say
They do not say what the phenomena were. AARO’s analysis update closes the case as unresolved, and its own “Unrecognized Technology” line is marked pending, “unsubstantiated by technical data or physical evidence”.
The reporting carries no instrument data of the kind that would settle it. The analysis document states that “the reporting agents did not collect video footage, photographic imagery, or other technical data during the incident”, and that for about 40 percent of the observations radar and ADS-B data indicate no known aircraft in the line of sight. AARO records that it “cannot determine whether the phenomena’s reported silence corresponds to an inherent characteristic or to acoustic attenuation”, and that it cannot tell whether there was one orange “mother orb” or several.
The narratives are first-hand recollections submitted in 2026, two and a half years after October 2023, and the witnesses say so. Distances, sizes and speeds in them are the witnesses’ own estimates. Witness 5’s account is extensively redacted. The renderings are artificially generated illustrations made after the fact, “not to exact scale”, with “notional” locations, and are not photographs of the phenomena.
From the record
“As of June 2026, the case remains unresolved.” DOW-UAP-D077, AARO Case Analysis Update
reported observing “orbs launching other orbs,” near a sensitive national security site in the western United States at approximately dusk. DOW-UAP-D077, Incident Summary
Approximately 40 percent of the reported phenomena lack a plausible explanation after first stage analysis and thus remain unresolved. DOW-UAP-D077, Current Case Disposition and Hypotheses
However, this provisional assessment is based solely upon narrative testimony, as well as the elimination of competing hypotheses, and is unsubstantiated by technical data or physical evidence. DOW-UAP-D077, on the “Unrecognized Technology” hypothesis
It looked like a mix of mechanical deployment and biological division; it appeared too smooth and agile to be mechanical, but too structured/coordinated to be a biological division. DoW-UAP-D080, Witness 2
To offer an obscure yet similar description, I find the characterization of portals oddly comparable to the event I witnessed. DoW-UAP-D080, Witness 2
This image is a notional representation of four incidents reportedly involving unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) in the western United States, as seen from above. DOW-UAP-D078, Notional Map caption
Where the case connects
This is the expanded file for the case introduced in Release 01 Briefing 2 (western-us-event). That briefing read the short four-section deck and put a range and size on one orb via an AARO measurement; this Release 03 tranche releases the underlying material behind the case, AARO’s full analysis with its hypotheses and dispositions, a map, and the five witnesses’ complete narratives. The ten renderings (FBI-UAP-D014 through D023) are the release’s image set for this case. The half of the event seen from the air, ODNI-UAP-D001, was published in Release 02 and read in Release 02 Briefing 2; the infrared footage filmed from the ground during the same exercise was covered in Release 01 Briefing 3. Briefing 1 of Release 01 covers PURSUE and the tier system.
The documents also name their own loose ends. AARO closes the case unresolved and leaves “Unrecognized Technology” pending pending technical data; the single-versus-multiple “mother orb” question is open by the analysis document’s own statement; about 40 percent of the observations have no known aircraft in the line of sight on radar and ADS-B; Witness 5’s account is redacted; and Witness 5 records physical ground marks that the file does not resolve. AARO states it “may revise its assessment and provide updates if additional intelligence and data sources become available”. Any later tranche that releases that further data, or the video and audio the witnesses mention, lands in this series when it does.
Read it yourself
DOW-UAP-D077, DOW-UAP-D078, DoW-UAP-D079 through D083, and the rendering set FBI-UAP-D014 through D023 are hosted at war.gov in PURSUE Release 03.
Read the files. Decide for yourself.
References and further reading
- DOW-UAP-D077, “Unresolved Case Analysis Update, Western United States Event”, PURSUE Release 03, U.S. Department of War, hosted at war.gov/ufo
- DOW-UAP-D078, “Notional Map, Western United States Event”, PURSUE Release 03, U.S. Department of War, war.gov/ufo
- DoW-UAP-D079 through DoW-UAP-D083, “Narratives 1 to 5, Western US Event”, PURSUE Release 03, U.S. Department of War, war.gov/ufo
- FBI-UAP-D014 through FBI-UAP-D023, “Digital Renderings, Incidents 1-1 to 2-7, Western US Event, 2023”, PURSUE Release 03, U.S. Department of War, 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 (the original briefing this expands)
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 02 Briefing 2, on the air half of the same event (ODNI-UAP-D001)
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 01 Briefing 3, on the infrared footage from the same exercise