Western US Test Range — LATE 2025

“We were virtually speechless after these observations.”

Incident summary

In late 2025, a senior U.S. intelligence officer and two pilots departed a Joint Operations Center on a Western U.S. test range to investigate loud thuds coinciding with prior UAP sightings. After radar detected hits up-range, ground teams reported a 'super-hot' FLIR target that rose from the ground, approached within 10 feet of the helicopter, dropped, split into two, and accelerated away. Hovering at 700 feet AGL, the witness and pilots observed two large oval orange orbs flare up beside the rotor disk, joined by additional orbs in a 'T' formation. When fighter jets entered the airspace at approximately 2,300 feet AGL, similar orbs appeared above them and flared in a horizontal formation matching the jets' speed. The narrative is recorded in PURSUE Release 02 as ODNI-UAP-D001 (DOC-142) with zero redactions.

Why this case matters

This incident is logged in the Pentagon's PURSUE catalog — the U.S. Department of War's rolling declassified UAP file release (Release 01 on 2026-05-08, Release 02 on 2026-05-22) — under identifier PURSUE-028. The originating agency is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; the case is currently classified UNCLASSIFIED and rated UNRESOLVED by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). UAP.WATCH mirrors the original record, adds a geographic and temporal index, and links every claim back to the canonical war.gov source.