A new batch of Pentagon UFO files released by the Trump administration on Friday includes an October 2023 case that remains only partly explained. The memo, signed by John Kosloski, head of the Pentagon office that studies anomalous phenomena across all domains, describes a two-day incident near a sensitive military site in the western United States, where six federal law enforcement agents saw glowing objects they could not fully account for.
According to the report, the agents worked in three two-person teams and observed the same pattern from different angles. They described an orange glowing “mother orb” that appeared in the sky for one or two seconds, released two to four smaller red lights, and then disappeared. The red lights sometimes moved horizontally, changed altitude, and in one case remained above a ridgeline for hours before vanishing. The agents said the activity was completely silent. The investigation relied mainly on witness accounts, flight records, and later-reviewed radar and air-traffic data, because no video, photos, or technical measurements were collected during the event.
Subsequent FBI interviews placed the sighting near Cheyenne Mountain, close to Colorado Springs, where the Cheyenne Mountain complex sits under about 610 meters of granite and serves as an alternate command center for NORAD and U.S. Northern Command. The Pentagon did not say aliens were involved or that the objects were nonhuman technology. Investigators instead examined military aircraft, flares, drones, atmospheric effects, stars, meteors, satellites, and possible foreign intelligence activity.
The report says about 60 percent of the reported activity may be explained by military aircraft in the area releasing infrared decoy flares during a standard exercise, and that the timing and direction largely matched radar data. But about 40 percent did not fit known aircraft activity, including one red light that seemed to hover for hours. The office therefore left the case unresolved. Officials also considered classified U.S. technology, but said historical records do not show whether any such system was operating there, and no known American capability explains all the observed features. Foreign intelligence was judged highly unlikely, and clear weather ruled out most environmental explanations. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the disclosure is meant to provide unprecedented transparency into unexplained phenomena.
