FBI Photo B24

Investigation reading

This Release 01 item is a one-page FBI PDF container holding a redacted monochrome still image. The official release description says the still image was derived from a U.S. military system in 2025, that the FBI submitted it to AARO, that no accompanying mission report was provided, and that the operator reported being unable to positively identify the object. The visible date in the image reads 12/31/99 18:19:40, but the official description says the date is incorrect because the system date/time was not set.

The source should therefore be read as a visual/provenance item, not as a complete incident report. It gives a released frame, a broad release-record location of Western United States, and a late-2025 incident window from the CSV record. It does not provide aircraft, sensor model, unit, coordinates, range, altitude, motion, weather, or a supporting mission narrative.

Evidence media

Official PDF release-file copy: open the one-page PDF.

Derived official PDF page render: FBI Photo B24

Derived render of the official PDF page. It shows the released redacted still-image sheet with a wide top redaction bar, shorter side redactions, a centered white reticle, the visible 12/31/99 18:19:40 overlay timestamp, and a compact dark unresolved mark near the reticle center.

Extracted embedded image object from FBI Photo B24 PDF

The embedded raster image extracted from the same official PDF shows the same reticle, redactions, timestamp, and compact dark mark without the PDF-page margin. This is still a released, redacted source image; it does not establish size, range, motion, or identity.

What the file appears to contain

The Open Sky release-file copy is a 440,280-byte, one-page PDF. The page contains one embedded RGB image at 1280 × 960 pixels. OCR for the page contains only the timestamp line: 12/31/99 18:19:40.

The original scene visible behind overlays is a noisy, low-contrast monochrome field with no clear horizon, terrain, stars, buildings, aircraft, or surface features resolved in the released image. A white reticle is centered in the frame: a vertical line crosses a horizontal line, with small 3 markings near the left and right portions of the horizontal reticle.

Release redactions are visually distinct from the scene. A long black rectangle covers much of the upper frame, and several shorter black rectangles appear along the left and right sides. Gray masked areas around some of those rectangles appear consistent with additional redaction or release-processing artifacts.

Near the reticle center there is a compact dark unresolved mark or small smudge. The official narrative describes it as a single dark, irregular-shaped object just above the center of the reticle. Visual inspection of the native extracted image and rendered page supports a cautious description: the dark feature is very close to the reticle intersection, with only a few pixels of separable structure, and should not be treated as having a resolved shape, size, range, or identity from this release frame alone.

Source custody and provenance

Official/source URL: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/fbi-photo-b24.pdf
Open Sky release-file route: /api/explore/war-gov/release-file/war-gov-fbi-photo-b24-6ded7ef2
Official CSV row: 128
Agency: FBI
Release-record incident window: Late 2025
Release-record incident location: Western United States
Verified release-file SHA-256: 3dab0652bc49b11624234042e65b3340a1146586ed9521f15731517ce042f8e1
Verified release-file size: 440,280 bytes
PDF page count: 1
Embedded image: 1280 × 960 RGB image

A prior browser-like official-server byte-range fetch returned a smaller one-page PDF payload with a different PDF hash, while visual inspection showed the same timestamp, reticle, redactions, and compact dark feature. Direct official-server access can also return 403, so this remains a provenance/versioning lead: the release-file copy used here is the verified Open Sky copy above, and the official-server representation should be reconciled before treating the two PDF files as byte-identical.

Graph context

The graph has two exact records for this item: the released PDF asset and the Release 01 CSV/source record for row 128. The semantic layer currently indexes 22 extracted claims, 14 entity mentions, 4 sensor-event records, and 0 table rows.

The most useful extracted claims are the source-level ones: FBI/AARO custody, still-image evidence, U.S. military-system origin, the operator's inability to positively identify the object, the late-2025/Western United States release-record metadata, and the official caution that the image timestamp is not the event time. The four sensor-event records are navigation cues produced from phrases such as still image and military system; they are not four independent sensor tracks.

The related-record context links this item to nearby FBI still-photo records, including B21 and B5. Those links should be treated as collection navigation until the image sequence, row numbering, thumbnails, and any original submission package are compared directly. One derived manifest-description chunk surfaces row 131 while the exact release record and source inventory associate B24 with row 128; keep that as a cleanup lead rather than silently merging rows.

Leads to check

Compare the Open Sky release-file PDF, official-server PDF, and official thumbnail for version/hash differences and any compression or redaction changes.
Confirm whether FBI/AARO have an original unredacted still, adjacent frames, sensor metadata, or a mission report not included in this release item.
Treat the visible 12/31/99 18:19:40 timestamp as a bad system-clock overlay unless a separate source establishes an event time.
Review the adjacent FBI Photo B-series items as a sequence, but do not assume they are the same event without source support.
For visual analysis, check image noise, compression, reticle overlay, redaction masks, and possible sensor/display artifacts before escalating the small dark mark.

Lead check notes

Partial — version and hash comparison: the Open Sky release-file copy verifies as a 440,280-byte one-page PDF with SHA-256 3dab0652bc49b11624234042e65b3340a1146586ed9521f15731517ce042f8e1. A direct official-server fetch returned 403 during review, so byte-level comparison with the current official-server representation and any official thumbnail remains unresolved.
Blocked — original source package: the released PDF provides the redacted still image and manifest description only. A less-redacted source frame, adjacent frames or video, sensor model, collection geometry, operator log, and any FBI/AARO mission-report package would need to come from a separate authoritative source.
Partial — timestamp and B-series context: the visible 12/31/99 18:19:40 overlay is preserved in the page render and embedded raster, but the release description says the system date/time was not set. Nearby B-series records remain collection context until their sequence, crops, row references, and source package are compared directly.
Needs external source — ordinary image checks: the page render and extracted raster show the same reticle, redactions, noisy monochrome field, and compact dark mark near the reticle center. Image-artifact, aircraft, bird, balloon, debris, weather, illumination, and line-of-sight checks need unredacted imagery, collection geometry, and event timing before they can be assessed.

Deep investigation — graph + web reconnaissance

Source reread

The source reread keeps this item in the still-image lane. The verified release-file copy is a one-page, copy-restricted PDF container titled FBI Photo B24, 440,280 bytes, SHA-256 3dab0652bc49b11624234042e65b3340a1146586ed9521f15731517ce042f8e1, with one embedded 1280 × 960 RGB image. Text extraction from the PDF page produced only a form-feed, while Frontier OCR preserved the visible overlay timestamp 12/31/99 18:19:40; the release description says that date/time is incorrect because the system clock was not set.

Visual review of the embedded raster supports a cautious reading: the black bars are release redactions, the white reticle and 3 markings are display overlays, and the only notable unredacted feature is a compact, soft-edged dark mark near the reticle center in a noisy monochrome field. The released frame does not resolve size, distance, motion, object class, sensor model, platform, or collection geometry.

Read-only graph context

The graph has an exact official PDF asset for https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/fbi-photo-b24.pdf and a Release 01 row record for CSV row 128. The exact asset is the stable identity anchor: same canonical URL, same full_download_sha256, content_length 440,280, and current-in-CSV status. Semantic coverage remains machine-extracted and review-gated: 22 Claim nodes, 14 EntityMention nodes, and 4 SensorEvent nodes are attached to the asset; the sensor events are generated from phrases such as still image and military system, not independent radar, IR track, or telemetry returns.

The graph also exposes provenance-cleanup leads. One manifest-description chunk still says related row 131, while the exact release record and asset inventory identify row 128. A row-record property can also retain a stale B21 final-URL value even though the row text and PDF/image URL fields identify B24. Related B21/B5 and secondary UFO-USA conversion links are therefore collection/navigation or derivative-copy context only, not corroboration of the same event. No CANDIDATE_CROSSLINK relationship was returned for the B24 asset during this read-only check.

Official-source and archive reconnaissance

Direct WAR.GOV probes for the official PDF, /UFO/ landing page, current CSV, and legacy CSV returned 403 Access Denied from this environment, so they are custody/access context rather than evidence of absence. Internet Archive availability for the exact PDF URL returned 429 Too Many Requests, leaving archived exact-URL confirmation unresolved in this pass. DVIDS exact-title search returned an empty 202 response, AARO and Defense.gov exact-title searches returned 403, and an FBI Vault exact-title search page loaded but reported 0 items matching your search terms; none of those checks produced a public mission report, adjacent frame set, or alternate official narrative for B24.

Prosaic checks and unresolved leads

The first prosaic lane is image/display handling: redaction masks, reticle overlay, compression/noise, raster extraction, and possible sensor or screen artifacts around a very small dark mark. Aircraft, bird, balloon, debris, weather, illumination, astronomy, launch, satellite, and line-of-sight checks cannot be meaningfully run from the public packet because the release omits event time, exact location, platform, sensor mode, look direction, range, altitude, and raw media. Follow-up should prioritize a current official-server byte comparison, the official thumbnail, any less-redacted or original still, adjacent B-series frames, operator log, sensor metadata, and reconciliation of row 128 versus stale graph/manifest row references.

Audit note

This section adds source-grounded context only. It does not identify the dark mark, does not promote the machine-extracted graph claims to findings, and does not create a hypothesis or resolution decision.

Limits

This page does not identify the dark feature and does not decide whether it is anomalous, ordinary, or an artifact. The released PDF provides one redacted still image and a manifest description, but no mission report, chain-of-custody narrative, sensor specification, motion sequence, coordinates, altitude, distance, weather, or independent corroborating sensor data. The broad Western United States and Late 2025 metadata come from the release record, not from visible text in the frame.

Sources

WAR.GOV PURSUE Release 01 official PDF: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/fbi-photo-b24.pdf
Open Sky release-file route: /api/explore/war-gov/release-file/war-gov-fbi-photo-b24-6ded7ef2
Release 01 CSV/source record: row 128, title FBI Photo B24, agency FBI.
Verified OCR text for the released page: === Page 1 === 12/31/99 18:19:40.