USPER Statement about UAP Sighting

Investigation reading

This is a three-page redacted FBI PDF released in WAR.GOV/PURSUE Release 01. I reviewed the Open Sky release-file copy, the full three-page OCR text, the selectable text layer, pdfinfo/pdfimages metadata, and rendered images of all three pages. The file is a typed statement packet with black redactions and printed SECRET//NOFORN markings; it contains no photographs, maps, diagrams, sensor frames, or embedded video stills.

The verified release-file hash is 63deae172b2bd4923696ed097c0c25d1286f116be1efb313d14c0630ac0a1786; the PDF is 786,792 bytes and has 3 pages. The Open Sky draft status remains graph_investigation_draft; investigation status is needs_human_review; finding status is not_a_finding.

The source reads as an FBI 302-style interview/statement from a senior U.S. intelligence official describing a late-2025 helicopter search at a redacted U.S. military facility or range. The narrative is chronological and mostly page-bound: page 1 sets up the search and first LP/OP report; page 2 carries the closest and most detailed orb/light observations; page 3 continues later sightings and witness comments about recording limits.

Evidence media

• Official PDF: Open Sky release-file copy

Page 1 is a derived render from the official three-page PDF. It shows the redacted search setup, the first LP/OP report, and the source wording around the super-hot FLIR-reported orb; it is a text page, not an object image or sensor frame.

Page 2 is a derived render from the same official PDF. It contains the closest-approach and repeated flare-formation narrative, including the possible out of order 2227 entry; the page itself does not include FLIR/NVG imagery or a map.

Page 3 is a derived render from the same official PDF. It preserves the later 2249-2320 timeline, the 2257 line about four orbs over the [MILITARY AIRCRAFT] as they descended to land, and the witness comments about recording limits.

What the file appears to contain

Page 1 — search setup and first LP/OP report. At about 1700 hours on a redacted 2025 date, [WITNESS 1], other federal/state personnel, [WITNESS 2], and two pilots departed a redacted operations center by [STATE PARTNER ORGANIZATION] helicopter, [CALL SIGN 1], for a daytime aerial search west of [SITE CODE NAME]. The stated trigger was prior eyewitness reporting of orbs/lights near redacted coordinates, with personnel also reporting thuds as if something had fallen and hit the ground. The page also notes an earlier successful redacted test at [SITE CODE NAME], which is important context but not explained by the released text.

At 1751 hours, [CALL SIGN 1] spotted a large cavern entrance and orbited it briefly. Around 2050 hours, the helicopter dropped off [WITNESS 2] with [FEDERAL PARTNER 3] personnel; at 2052 it headed to refuel. At 2141, [CALL SIGN 1] lifted off again toward debris reported by a Listening Post/Observation Post, described as [FEDERAL PARTNER 4] personnel using Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) and Night Vision Goggles (NVG). The helicopter searched that location with NVGs, naked eye, and spotlight in near darkness but initially found nothing. At about 2149, LP/OP reported redacted “hits” about four miles out; the JOC provided coordinates and the helicopter moved to intercept.

At 2202, the helicopter crew saw a possible aircraft on the horizon moving west. LP/OP then reported an orb under FLIR, described as “super-hot,” hovering at ground level before heading away from LP/OP. The same paragraph says LP/OP reported the orb moving east and then south at high speed and “broke into two objects.”

Page 2 — closest approach, speed, and repeated orb formations. At 2207, JOC reported five [MILITARY AIRCRAFT] in the airspace conducting a training mission. Once on station, [CALL SIGN 1] searched with FLIR, NVG, and naked eye but did not locate the orb. LP/OP reported the orb gained elevation, came within ten feet of [CALL SIGN 1], then headed east. The helicopter moved to intercept, but LP/OP said the orb continued southeast, past a redacted road name, about 20 miles from the helicopter’s position; [CALL SIGN 1] could not match its speed and broke off pursuit. The co-pilot reportedly saw under NVG something emerge from the two objects and travel in a different direction at high speed.

At 2218, the pilots using NVG and [WITNESS 1] by naked eye saw a “swarm of lights,” too many to count, moving in all directions generally west of a redacted location and headed south. JOC said military aircraft were enroute to assist, with an ETA of two minutes; at 2227, the helicopter lost visual of the swarm.

A second 2227 entry is marked “possible out of order.” It says [WITNESS 1] and the pilots saw two large orbs west of and above the helicopter rotor disk. From naked eye, the two orbs appeared to flare up, remain stationary side by side, look oval, orange, and have a white or yellow center emitting light in all directions. Additional orbs then appeared below them until there were four or five below the original two; after a few seconds the group flared down in reverse order while appearing stationary.

At 2228, four or five similar orbs appeared west over the mountains above the [MILITARY AIRCRAFT], flaring up one at a time in a horizontal formation and then flaring down in the opposite order after roughly ten to fifteen seconds. Similar patterns were reported at 2233 to the east toward [NEARBY TOWN NAME] and at 2241 west of [SITE CODE NAME] over the mountain.

Page 3 — later formations and witness comments. At 2249, while positioned near [SITE CODE NAME], [WITNESS 1] and the pilots saw a swarm of lights moving in all directions west of a redacted location, with three distinct orbs in a triangle formation. At 2252, while about ten miles north of [SITE CODE NAME], they saw five to six orbs flare up near [LOCAL TOWN] east of [SITE CODE NAME], again one at a time in a horizontal formation before flaring down in the opposite order.

The rendered page clarifies a line that the stored OCR partly missed: at 2257, they saw four orbs flare up over the [MILITARY AIRCRAFT] as the aircraft descended to land at a redacted location. The same one-at-a-time horizontal flare-up and reverse flare-down pattern is described. A 2306 entry is mostly redacted. At 2316, [CALL SIGN 1] was low on fuel and returned to the operations center. At about 2320, the helicopter headed southbound and was already in air-to air contact with [FEDERAL PARTER AIRCRAFT] as the other aircraft headed north toward [SITE CODE NAME]; the rendered source appears to spell the placeholder as PARTER, not PARTNER.

The witness comments are narrow but important. The pilots reportedly indicated they were recording; however, many sightings were above the helicopter and outside the helicopter’s FLIR camera angle. [WITNESS 1] says some things could not be seen with naked eye, but the witness recalled pilots calling out sightings. The final line says the orbs appeared to break off from [CALL SIGN 1] and pursue the [MILITARY AIRCRAFT].

Source custody and provenance

• Official URL: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/usper-statement-redacted.pdf
• Open Sky release-file copy: war-gov-usper-statement-about-uap-sighting-be533a4a
• Release record: WAR.GOV/PURSUE Release 01, CSV row 153, agency FBI, redaction flag TRUE
• Release-record incident metadata: Late 2025, United States; the PDF body itself redacts the exact date, facility, coordinates, bearings, and most place names.
• File type and size: 3-page PDF, 786,792 bytes
• SHA-256: 63deae172b2bd4923696ed097c0c25d1286f116be1efb313d14c0630ac0a1786
• OCR coverage: 3 / 3 pages with text; rendered-page review found no embedded photos, maps, diagrams, or sensor imagery.

A direct probe of the official media URL returned HTTP 403, so this page relies on the verified Open Sky release-file copy while citing the official URL above.

Graph context

The Open Sky graph has two exact records for this item: the Release 01 row-level document for row 153, and the PDF asset document for the official file URL. The semantic layer currently indexes 171 extracted claims, 80 entity mentions, 7 sensor-event rows, and 0 table rows from this item.

The sensor-event rows should be read as extraction cues rather than independent sensor products. The source text mentions FLIR, NVG, naked-eye observation, a helicopter platform, LP/OP, JOC, and military aircraft, but the released PDF does not include FLIR footage, NVG images, radar plots, or the pilots’ recording. Several graph sensor rows are triggered by the word “AIRCRAFT” or platform context; they do not by themselves prove a separate sensor return.

The graph also surfaces related-document navigation that includes this asset, its row-level Release 01 record, and links to unrelated-looking Release 01 records such as FBI September 2023 Serial 4 and a State Department Tbilisi cable. There are no candidate crosslinks for this item in the current extractor output. Treat those related edges as graph/navigation leads until a human verifies why they were connected.

Leads to check

• Verify the CSV/provenance cleanup: current Open Sky release metadata and the exact release record point to row 153, while an older extracted release-text line appears to mention related row 156. Row 153 should be treated as the source-backed row for this PDF unless the CSV audit proves otherwise.
• Seek the underlying pilot/helicopter recording referenced in the witness comments. The source says the pilots indicated they were recording, but also says many sightings were above the helicopter and outside the FLIR camera angle.
• Correlate the redacted 2207 training-mission aircraft with flight logs, JOC logs, and any air-to-air communications. The PDF says five military aircraft were in the airspace and later describes orbs above or pursuing military aircraft.
• Check LP/OP logs, FLIR/NVG operator notes, and raw coordinates/bearings if unredacted versions ever become available. The strongest source language about “super-hot,” ten-foot proximity, speed, and the 20-mile estimate comes through LP/OP reporting rather than through a released sensor file.
• Investigate the earlier same-day redacted test, debris report, thud reports, and cavern-entrance orbit as operational/prosaic context. These are leads to examine, not explanations.
• Preserve the “possible out of order” note around the 2227 entry when building any timeline visualization.
• Re-check page 3 OCR if this item is used for downstream extraction: the rendered page includes “four orbs flare up over the [MILITARY AIRCRAFT] as they descended to land,” which the stored OCR compresses into a redacted fragment.

Lead check notes

• Checked — media scope: the release-file PDF is a three-page scanned-text packet. pdfimages shows one page image per PDF page and pdfdetach reports no embedded files; the public page now links the official PDF copy and shows all three derived page renders. No object photograph, map, FLIR/NVG frame, radar plot, or video still is present in the released PDF.
• Partial — release-row provenance: the stable identifiers are the official PDF URL and SHA-256. Current Open Sky release metadata maps this PDF to row 153; a release CSV check and older extracted text can surface nearby row references for the same URL/manifest area. Treat row numbers as a catalog-cleanup lead unless reconciled against the current official release table.
• Blocked — pilot recording and sensor files: the source says pilots indicated they were recording, but also says many sightings were above the helicopter and outside the FLIR camera angle. The released PDF includes no recording, no DVIDS/MP4 pairing, and no attached raw FLIR/NVG/JOC/LP/OP log; those materials need a separate authoritative source.
• Needs external source — aircraft, logs, and prosaic context: the five military aircraft, air-to-air contact, earlier redacted test, debris/thud reports, cavern entrance, exact coordinates, date, facility, flight logs, and weather/astronomy/traffic checks remain redacted or absent from this packet. Exact-anchor searches in the current linked Release 01 OCR corpus found the distinctive super-hot, possible out of order, FEDERAL PARTER AIRCRAFT, and recording-limit phrases only in this PDF.
• Checked — page-3 render/OCR issue: the page-3 render visibly supports the 2257 source wording that four orbs flared up over the [MILITARY AIRCRAFT] as they descended to land. The stored OCR compresses that line, so downstream timelines should cite the rendered page and preserve the 2227 possible out of order note.

Limits

This page does not resolve what the lights or orbs were. The released source is a redacted interview/statement packet, not a sensor file. It gives reported observations, platform context, and some operational timeline details, but no raw FLIR video, NVG imagery, radar data, photographs, maps, exact coordinates, or unredacted unit/facility names.

The text is heavily redacted and contains OCR-sensitive typography. For example, the rendered pages confirm FLIR where one text layer reads FUR, and the page 3 aircraft placeholder appears as [FEDERAL PARTER AIRCRAFT]. Exact spellings, time fields, and redacted sentence joins should be checked against rendered pages before reuse in tables or graph updates.

All claims here remain source-reading notes for human review. They are not findings, hypotheses, or resolution decisions.

Deep investigation — graph + web reconnaissance

Source reread

The strongest source-backed anchors remain in the three rendered text pages, not in any released sensor media. The PDF is a 786,792-byte, three-page, AES-256 copy-restricted scan with one page image per page and no embedded files. Page 1 ties the search to prior orb/light reports, reported thuds, an earlier redacted test at [SITE CODE NAME], a cavern-entrance orbit, LP/OP personnel using FLIR/NVG, a negative helicopter search with NVG/naked eye/spotlight, and the 2202 LP/OP report of a super-hot FLIR orb that moved east, then south, and reportedly split into two objects.

Page 2 is the highest-signal observation page. It places five [MILITARY AIRCRAFT] in the airspace on a training mission at 2207; says the helicopter still did not locate the orb with FLIR/NVG/naked eye; preserves LP/OP's report that the orb came within ten feet of [CALL SIGN 1]; and describes an estimated 20-mile southeast separation that the helicopter could not match in speed. The same page records the 2218 swarm, the 2227 lost visual, the separate possible out of order 2227 close-proximity orb description, and repeated flare-up/flare-down patterns at 2228, 2233, and 2241.

Page 3 extends the pattern to 2249, 2252, and 2257. Render review supports the 2257 wording that four orbs flared over [MILITARY AIRCRAFT] as those aircraft descended to land. The witness comments are an important limit: pilots reportedly indicated they were recording, but many sightings were above the helicopter and outside the helicopter's FLIR camera angle; the witness also says some things were not visible to the naked eye and were recalled from pilot callouts.

Graph connections

Read-only graph review found the current Release 01 row-level document for row 153 plus the exact PDF asset at the official URL, with the verified SHA-256 above. The semantic layer for this asset contains 171 machine-extracted Claim nodes, 80 EntityMention nodes, 7 SensorEvent nodes, and direct text chunks; there are no CANDIDATE_CROSSLINK relationships for this item in the current graph.

The seven SensorEvent rows are not released sensor products. Their source quotes are mostly AIRCRAFT/platform references, while the source-backed observation modes are LP/OP FLIR/NVG reports, helicopter NVG/naked-eye observations, JOC coordination, and military-aircraft context. Treat the graph sensor rows as machine_extracted_needs_human_review / not_a_finding, not as radar, telemetry, image, or video confirmation.

Graph provenance also exposes row drift that should stay in the audit lane: the current release row is 153, while older manifest-description/source-pack material and a non-current relationship can surface row 156 and neighbors such as FBI September 2023 Serial 4 or the State Department Tbilisi cable. Those edges are catalog/provenance cleanup leads unless a future source comparison proves a substantive relationship. A secondary UFO-USA/GitHub markdown conversion exists for the same official URL, but it is only a derivative transcription lead.

External provenance and web checks

Direct live requests to the official PDF, thumbnail, release landing page, CSV, and release press page returned HTTP 403 during this check. That access behavior does not invalidate the cached official-primary release-file copy because the local copy verifies against the Release 01 inventory by exact URL, byte size, and SHA-256.

The Internet Archive CDX index lists exact-URL captures of https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/usper-statement-redacted.pdf with 200 / application/pdf at timestamps 20260508131408 and 20260517083237. Their reported byte lengths differ from the verified release-file size and were not hash-compared here, so they are provenance leads rather than replacement custody.

Prosaic checks and open leads

Prosaic work is blocked by redaction before it can be responsible: the exact date, facility, coordinates, bearings, airspace, flight tracks, platform identity, camera geometry, local weather, traffic, astronomy, launch/satellite context, and the earlier redacted test are all absent or masked. The first non-exotic lanes are therefore operational and sensor-context checks: identify the earlier same-day test, the debris/thud report, the cavern-entrance search, the five training aircraft, LP/OP/JOC logs, raw FLIR/NVG or pilot recordings, and whether the alleged above-helicopter sightings were outside recorded fields of view.

The ten-foot proximity, 20-mile separation, high speed, and pursuit language should remain source-attributed testimony/LP-OP reporting unless raw tracks, timestamps, coordinates, or sensor files are released. Nothing in this page resolves the lights/orbs; it only preserves a redacted official statement packet and the investigation leads needed for a disciplined follow-up.

Audit note

This section adds graph/web context only. It does not create a finding, hypothesis, or resolution decision. Current public modeling should keep this as needs_human_review and not_a_finding, with row 153, the exact official PDF URL, and SHA-256 as the stable identifiers.

Sources

• WAR.GOV/PURSUE Release 01 official PDF: USPER Statement about UAP Sighting
• Open Sky release-file copy: war-gov-usper-statement-about-uap-sighting-be533a4a
• WAR.GOV/PURSUE Release 01 record anchor: row 153
• File verification: SHA-256 63deae172b2bd4923696ed097c0c25d1286f116be1efb313d14c0630ac0a1786; 3 pages; 786,792 bytes; OCR coverage 3 / 3 pages.