NEWS · WASHINGTON, D.C.
Congress weighs testimony from intelligence officials who saw ‘glowing orbs’
Rep. Eric Burlison wants witnesses to a 2025 encounter near a sensitive military site to testify. Oversight chairman James Comer hopes to hold a UAP hearing in November.
Rep. Eric Burlison, a Missouri Republican, told the New York Post on October 10 that he is exploring whether U.S. intelligence personnel who witnessed a reported encounter with unidentified “orbs” in late 2025 could testify in public. One potential witness is a serving official at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who has not been named.
The encounter is already part of the public record. The Pentagon’s May 2026 releases include an FBI interview with a senior intelligence official and the official’s own written account. They describe a team investigating unusual noises and sightings near a sensitive military facility in the western United States. Riding in a helicopter, the official reports seeing “glowing orbs” up close and at a distance, a fast object low to the ground that appeared to split in two, and a “swarm” of lights moving in all directions.
Who might testify
Burlison acknowledged the difficulty of putting serving officials in front of cameras. “There’s some people that are working for the agency that having them come forward publicly may expose other things,” he told the Post, as quoted by IBTimes UK. Some witnesses have met members of Congress privately but have not handed over all of their video, according to the reports.
A hearing in November?
Separately, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer of Kentucky wants to revive a UAP hearing planned for the third week of September, which fell through when the House cancelled session days. “We’ll try to pick it back up in November,” he said, adding: “I don’t know that we ever agreed on a topic.” Expecting “an aggressive lame duck period” after the election, he said that “getting good witnesses in is always a challenge,” and referred detailed questions to Reps. Tim Burchett, Anna Paulina Luna and Burlison.
No date or witness list has been announced. If it happens, it would be the sixth public UAP hearing since 2022 — see every hearing so far.
What is known — and what isn’t
The accounts come from trained observers, and the government’s description of the files says other pilots and ground-based observers with night vision also saw the objects. But neither document identifies what the orbs were, and the infrared imagery the government released has been edited for security. IBTimes UK noted that it could not independently verify some of the more dramatic descriptions circulating online. The FBI’s files in the releases also include other orb videos from the northeastern United States, like the one below — also unidentified, and also without enough data to explain.
▶ Watch the official video: “Orbs Over the Pond,” 2024
