DOW-UAP-D176, Triangular UAP AARO Memorandum for Record, 2026
WAR.gov / Department of War PURSUE Release 07
A 2026 memorandum for record by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), an office of the Department of War, documents a joint witness debrief of two federal law enforcement agents, who name a third person at a second observation post as an additional corroborating witness, about a matte black triangular craft seen at dusk.
Document Highlights
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Short overview
A 2026 memorandum for record by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), an office of the Department of War, documents a joint witness debrief of two federal law enforcement agents, who name a third person at a second observation post as an additional corroborating witness, about a matte black triangular craft seen at dusk.
Why this is interesting
The memorandum reconstructs the sighting at 20:23 local time in three timed phases: a vertical climb of about ten seconds to 200 to 300 feet above a ridge line, a hover of about twenty seconds, and a banking, terrain-hugging descent into a canyon drainage within two to three seconds. The witnesses estimated a wingspan of thirteen to fifteen feet, reported no sound and, through a handheld thermal monocular, a uniform thermal signature without exhaust or discrete heat sources; speed was only compared to a fighter jet, with no instrumented measurement. The collector notes that the agents have experience with unmanned aerial systems and that even a small drone would have been audible at 1.4 miles; a ground survey the next morning found no wreckage. The document makes no finding on what the object was and stresses that the descriptions are the witnesses’ interpretations. The paired FBI form FD-302 FBI-UAP-D043 contains the agents’ own written statement on the same event.
Selected passages
- “They noted that on this hilltop, even a conventional Group 1 drone, high-torque quadcopter motor, or rotary-wing aircraft operating at a distance of 1.4 miles would have been clearly audible.”
- “Range to the object was bounded between approximately 1.4 and 3.2 miles west of the primary observation post by terrain cross-reference.”
- “A ground survey of the canyon drainage conducted the following morning located no wreckage, ground scarring, or vegetation damage.”
Background
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.