Triangular UAP AARO Memorandum for Record, June 2026 — Department of War File
This document is a memorandum for record documenting an AARO witness debrief concerning reported unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) observations at a sensitive national security site in the western United States over two days in 2026. AARO considers this incident to warrant further…
Incident Overview
In June 2026, in the Western United States, the Department of War preserved a memorandum for record that was declassified and published on October 23, 2026 as part of the seventh tranche of the Department of War’s Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The released copy carries redactions.
What the government released
This document is a memorandum for record documenting an AARO witness debrief concerning reported unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) observations at a sensitive national security site in the western United States over two days in 2026. AARO considers this incident to warrant further investigation due to the close alignment of the phenomena’s reported morphological features and kinematic profiles with those of other reported incidents in the western United States region. The memorandum records an interview with two Federal Special Agents and incorporates a corroborating account from a third official positioned at a separate observation post.
The memorandum describes a primary event in which the reporting individuals stated that a triangular object rose vertically, remained stationary, and then banked and descended into a canyon. It records their descriptions of the object’s shape, color, apparent thermal signature, perceived lack of conventional propulsion features, and absence of an associated audible signature. The memorandum further records a secondary observation on the following evening, and a subsequent ground search that found no visible debris or evidence of an impact in the accessible survey area.
The file is an investigative record preserving witness accounts, chronology, and associated analytic support material developed by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and does not present a conclusive finding regarding the nature or origin of the reported object or objects. All descriptive and estimative language reported by the individuals interviewed reflects their subjective interpretations at the time of the event. Such characterizations should not be interpreted as a conclusive indication of the presence or absence of any intrinsic object features or performance characteristics.
Primary-source excerpt
Drawn directly from the released document: “It executed a fluid banking turn and steep, terrain-conforming descent into the canyon with drainage similar in appearance to low-altitude terrain-masking flight. The unidentified craft did not wobble, oscillate, or drift in the wind during any part of its transit, and as it banked to follow the canyon’s path, its physical profile shifted relative to the observers. The entire horizontal transition, bank, and descent lasted approximately two to three seconds before the craft disappeared behind intervening terrain. Under banking angle, the silhouette flattened and presented as a more symmetrical isosceles triangle.”
Related records
The release pairs this record with FD-302, Unidentified Aerial Object Observation Report. Both are written accounts of interviews with federal special agents about a 2026 incident at a national security site in the western United States. The released summaries do not say whether they record the same sitting or separate ones, and either way two write-ups of one set of witnesses are one account told twice, not independent corroboration.
Other 2026 reports from the region
The memorandum says the shape and movement resemble other reports from the western United States, but the released text does not say which. The archive’s other 2026 records from the region describe different things, such as the multiple red lights and the slow-moving objects in the FBI files of Release 05, so none of them can be assumed to be the reports AARO means.
Status of the case
An AARO memorandum for record is the office writing down what it learned from a debrief. It is not a finding about what the object was. The memorandum says AARO regards the case as worth further investigation because the reported shape and movement resemble other reports from the same region, which is a statement about a pattern in reports, not a measurement of anything. The witnesses are federal agents who were already watching for activity, and they used binoculars and a handheld thermal monocular, but the released text includes no recording or sensor data. Its figures also lean on one another. The wingspan of thirteen to fifteen feet depends on a range estimate of 1.4 to 3.2 miles taken from terrain, at dusk, against a fading sky. A silhouette seen that way offers few cues to size or distance, and a small aircraft or drone nearer or farther away would change every figure. Silence at that range is also what a small craft would produce, since engine noise does not carry two or three miles. Those are candidates to test, not conclusions, and the redacted file does not give the detail needed to test them.