AARO Unresolved Case Analysis Update: Western United States Event

This memorandum is AARO’s own assessment of the western United States case known from its witnesses’ phrase as “orbs launching orbs.” Signed by AARO director Jon T. Kosloski and dated 5 June 2026, it summarizes the October 2023 reports by six federal special agents, working in pairs at dusk near a sensitive national security site, and explains how far the office has got in explaining them.

What the agents reported, and what is missing

The agents described an orange “mother orb” appearing for a second or two, releasing two to four red orbs and vanishing, over and over for hours; the red orbs moved in apparently coordinated ways, and one was said to sit over a ridgeline for hours. AARO notes that no video, photographs or instrument data were collected and that judging distance and size by eye in low light is unreliable, but it found the accounts consistent and the agents well informed about military systems.

How AARO split the case

Checking flight logs, radar and ADS-B transponder data, AARO found U.S. military aircraft in the area firing infrared countermeasure flares during an exercise, and judged about 60 percent of the activity plausibly explained by them; it notes these flares look different from the illumination flares the agents knew. For the remaining 40 percent, no known aircraft was in the line of sight, and a light hovering for hours does not fit any flare. AARO rated drones unlikely, exhaust ruled out, foreign activity highly unlikely, weather and astronomy unlikely, and U.S. programs plausible but unconfirmed. Its provisional “unrecognized technology” category rests, it stresses, only on testimony and elimination. The witness statements begin with Witness 1, and the illustrated overview is DOW-UAP-D078.