Western US 'orbs launching orbs' (2023)

What happened

Over two evenings in October 2023, six federal law enforcement special agents working in pairs near a sensitive national security site in the western United States watched glowing orange orbs blink into view for a second or two, release clusters of two to four smaller red orbs, and vanish. The cycle repeated over several hours. The red orbs moved sideways in what looked like coordination, shifted altitude, and in at least one case sat above a ridgeline for hours. All of it was silent. The episode, catalogued as 'Orbs Launching Orbs', is the first of four linked incidents in a western US case first presented in briefing slides in PURSUE Release 01 on 8 May 2026. Release 03 on 12 June added an FBI digital recreation of one agent's account (FBI-UAP-PR005), an artist's rendering (FBI-UAP-D023) and a 5 June 2026 case update signed by AARO director Jon Kosloski (DOW-UAP-D077). No real footage exists: the clip widely shared as a law-enforcement video is the FBI recreation, and the memo states that the agents collected no video, photos or technical data.

The original account

Approximately 40 percent of the reported phenomena lack a plausible explanation after first stage analysis.

AARO memorandum for record, Unresolved Case Analysis Update: Western United States Event, 5 June 2026 (DOW-UAP-D077), US government work (public domain)

The official explanation

AARO's own analysis found that military aircraft in the area carried and released infrared countermeasure flares during a standard exercise, and it judged that about 60 percent of the activity lines up with those aircraft in radar and ADS-B records. It ruled out aircraft exhaust, judged drones unlikely because of the hours of loitering, rated foreign intelligence activity highly unlikely, and found weather and atmospheric effects poor fits; misidentified stars or planets were thought more plausible, though still unlikely, for the stationary lights. AARO said a US military capability could not be confirmed or excluded. It stressed that everything rests on testimony: there is no instrument data, and judging distance, size and speed by eye in low light is unreliable.

The anomalous case

This is the case in which the Pentagon's UAP office went furthest. Kosloski's memo says about 40 percent of the reported phenomena lack a plausible explanation, that radar and ADS-B showed no known aircraft in the observers' line of sight for that share, and that an orb holding station above a ridge for hours fits no known flare's burn time or fall rate. AARO rated the agents' situational awareness and familiarity with US military systems favorably, noted their accounts agreed across three viewing positions, and kept 'unrecognized technology' as a provisional hypothesis for the unexplained portion. It concluded the features were anomalous enough to justify continued investigation and said it would draw on scientific modeling from partner agencies and academic expertise. Coverage of the first release reported that AARO counted the episode among the most compelling in the archive. A large light seeding smaller ones that then maneuver together has no obvious conventional counterpart.

The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.

Documents

PURSUE Release 01 (8 May 2026), WAR.GOV/UFO official, war.gov
Western US event briefing slides, 8 May 2026 (PURSUE Release 01) official, war.gov
PURSUE Release 03 (12 June 2026), WAR.GOV/UFO official, war.gov
DOW-UAP-D077: AARO Unresolved Case Analysis Update, Western United States Event, 5 June 2026 (PURSUE Release 03; Black Vault mirror) official, documents3.theblackvault.com
FBI-UAP-PR005: Digital recreation, narrative statement 3-1, Western United States Event, 2023 (PURSUE Release 03) video, war.gov
FBI-UAP-D023: Digital rendering, narrative statement 2-7, Western United States Event, 2023 (PURSUE Release 03) official, war.gov

Sources

Witness reports elsewhere

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