UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 07 · OCTOBER 23, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · DOCUMENT · DOW-UAP-D176Triangular UAP AARO Memorandum for Record, 2026
This is a three-page memorandum for record written by AARO, the Pentagon’s UAP office, after a joint debrief of two federal special agents, called SOURCE 1 and SOURCE 2, with a third official (SOURCE 3) listed as a corroborating witness. Their names, their agencies, the interviewers, the site and the exact date are all redacted; the release dates the event to June 2026 somewhere in the western United States. The FBI’s own record of the same sighting, a statement the two agents signed, is FBI-UAP-D043.
What the agents described
At 2023 local time, at late dusk with a clear sky, SOURCE 3 was scanning west with long-range thermal equipment from a secondary post and radioed a contact over the ridge line. The two agents at the main post, whose tripod sensors faced east, ran across the peak with binoculars and a handheld thermal monocular.
The memo splits what followed into three phases. For about ten seconds a matte black, very thin triangle — an estimated 13–15 feet across, 6–9 feet long and 1–2 feet thick — climbed straight up, level and steady, to 200–300 feet above the ridge. It then hovered for about twenty seconds without drift. Finally, in two to three seconds, it went into fast horizontal flight, banked and dropped into a canyon, following the terrain; the agents compared its speed to a fighter jet’s. By terrain cross-reference they placed it 1.4 to 3.2 miles from their post.
They heard nothing at any stage, and on the thermal monocular the whole airframe looked evenly warm, with no hot spots or exhaust. They saw no seams, intakes, windows or control surfaces. No speed was measured with instruments.
What it does and does not settle
A collector note says both agents have long experience working around drones and argues that even a small quadcopter or a helicopter would have been audible from that hilltop at 1.4 miles; they judged size against trees on the ridge. No physical effects, odors or equipment interference were reported, and a search of the canyon the next morning found no wreckage or ground marks.
The memo reaches no conclusion about what the object was and opens with a caveat that the descriptions are the witnesses’ interpretations. AARO’s release text also mentions a second sighting the following evening and analytic material, but neither appears in these three pages. The FBI statement differs on several figures, including the time and duration; see FBI-UAP-D043.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released October 23, 2026, quoted in full
This document is a memorandum for record documenting an AARO witness debrief concerning reported unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) observations at a sensitive national security site in the western United States over two days in 2026. AARO considers this incident to warrant further investigation due to the close alignment of the phenomena’s reported morphological features and kinematic profiles with those of other reported incidents in the western United States region. The memorandum records an interview with two Federal Special Agents and incorporates a corroborating account from a third official positioned at a separate observation post.
The memorandum describes a primary event in which the reporting individuals stated that a triangular object rose vertically, remained stationary, and then banked and descended into a canyon. It records their descriptions of the object’s shape, color, apparent thermal signature, perceived lack of conventional propulsion features, and absence of an associated audible signature. The memorandum further records a secondary observation on the following evening, and a subsequent ground search that found no visible debris or evidence of an impact in the accessible survey area.
The file is an investigative record preserving witness accounts, chronology, and associated analytic support material developed by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and does not present a conclusive finding regarding the nature or origin of the reported object or objects. All descriptive and estimative language reported by the individuals interviewed reflects their subjective interpretations at the time of the event. Such characterizations should not be interpreted as a conclusive indication of the presence or absence of any intrinsic object features or performance characteristics.