FBI September 2023 Sighting - Serial 004

This FD-302 records an interview, held over FaceTime video, with one of five people in three vehicles heading out for LiDAR tests at a U.S. test site one September 2023 morning. The interviewee, whose role is redacted, had ten to fifteen hours as a drone pilot. It is one of several serial-numbered FBI reports on the same sighting; another witness’s account is Serial 003, and the FBI also produced a composite sketch.

What this witness saw

The vehicles left around 7:30 a.m., heading south, with the sun in the east and good visibility, and stopped at a troublesome gate. About three-quarters of the way up the windshield, the witness saw a linear object with a very bright white light on its east side, bright enough that bands were visible within it. The body was metallic gray, with no wings or exhaust. The witness put it at one to two Black Hawk helicopters long, smaller than a 737 but definitely bigger than a drone, about 5,000 feet up and moving east to west, level with the ground. It kept the same size and brightness for five to ten seconds, then the light went out and it was gone. The sky was clear and it could not be found again.

The night after

The witness noticed no effect on the vehicles. That night a storm came through and the television in the hotel room went out; still unsettled, the witness went downstairs to check that every TV in the hotel was out, then had strange dreams and trouble sleeping for two nights. The interview offers no explanation.

A note on the download

The PDF linked from this entry, on war.gov and in our archived copy, is the file named “Serial 3”, and it holds the bronze-object interview described under Serial 003. The metallic gray account described above is the PDF linked from Serial 005. The mix-up is in the government’s release; the descriptions and file names don’t line up.