Written by Christopher Sharp - 31 October 2026
The FBI has declined to explain why agents equipped with optical and thermal surveillance equipment were deployed to observation posts at a sensitive national security site in the western United States, where they reported encountering a silent black triangular object.
According to a Pentagon memorandum documenting the agents’ account of the encounter, the object rose vertically above a ridgeline, hovered for approximately twenty seconds, then accelerated rapidly before banking and descending into a canyon.
But the purpose of that surveillance assignment remains unclear.
The Bureau’s involvement in Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) investigations appears to extend beyond this encounter.
In reporting published on 3 September, journalist Matt Laslo documented Representative Anna Paulina Luna discussing an FBI unit called the Special Investigations Group, or SIG, and showing a commemorative UAP coin.
Luna told Laslo:
“We work directly with them for our investigation”
Luna’s comments follow earlier public acknowledgment of FBI investigations into UAP.
On 3 February 2025, The Debrief reported that an FBI spokesperson had confirmed:
“the FBI investigates Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena when there is potential for a violation of federal law”
The spokesperson also described the Bureau’s role in gathering and analysing intelligence to address security threats.
Former Navy pilot Ryan Graves told the publication that Americans for Safe Aerospace had spent approximately eighteen months working with an FBI team known as the UAP Working Group, assisting investigations involving reports from pilots and veterans.
The FBI operates within the Department of Justice, outside the leadership structures of the Department of War and CIA.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 535, it can investigate suspected federal crimes involving personnel from those organisations, providing a potential avenue for scrutiny of alleged UAP-related wrongdoing.
The released records do not establish whether SIG was involved in this encounter or whether the agents’ deployment concerned suspected criminal activity.
The Triangle Case
Two records released by the Department of War on 23 October, as part of its seventh tranche of UAP files, describe the encounter: an FBI statement and a witness debrief prepared by the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
The incident took place in 2026. The precise date, location and identities of those involved are redacted.
AARO describes the agents’ assignment as ‘routine observation support.’
Liberation Times asked the FBI why Special Agents were deployed with optical and thermal surveillance equipment, whether they were conducting a specific operation, and whether their presence was connected to previous reports of unidentified aerial objects.
Liberation Times also asked whether the Bureau had identified the object, whether the incident remained under investigation, and whether photographic, video or thermal evidence had been obtained.
The FBI National Press Office responded:
“We have nothing additional to add to the documents.”
AARO’s memorandum describes two witnesses at a primary observation post with optical equipment and a tripod-mounted sensor system initially facing east.
At a separate post, a third witness was scanning west with long-range thermal equipment.
That witness detected an object and alerted the others by radio.
The two agents moved across the hilltop to obtain a view to the west. The terrain prevented them from quickly repositioning the main tripod-mounted thermal system, so one advanced with binoculars and a handheld thermal monocular.
The FBI statement identifies the initial alert as coming from Observation Post 6.
The deployment suggests a coordinated surveillance assignment: personnel at separate observation posts were using optical and thermal equipment and communicating by radio, enabling them to respond when an aerial object was detected.
AARO also records that the two principal witnesses had extensive operational experience working alongside government agencies and academic studies involving unmanned aerial systems. They regularly observed conventional aircraft around the site.
What brought that experience and equipment together at this location is something the FBI has chosen not to explain beyond the released records.
In the statement reproduced in the FBI file, the agents described ‘a substantial, nonreflective, dark black triangular object most resembling a delta wing drone.’
They estimated its wingspan at nine to fifteen feet, its length at six to nine feet, and its thickness at one to two feet. AARO gave a wingspan estimate of thirteen to fifteen feet.
The thermal observation was unusual.
One agent wrote:
‘I viewed the object through a handheld thermal device and noted it appeared hotter than ambient temperature with a completely consistent thermal signature across the entire airframe and no visible exhaust gases.’
AARO’s account describes a featureless surface, without visible windows, rotating elements, intakes or control surfaces.
According to that account, the object climbed vertically for around ten seconds, reaching an estimated 200 to 300 feet above the ridgeline while maintaining a level orientation.
It then stopped climbing and hovered for approximately twenty seconds, with no apparent drift or oscillation.
The memorandum states:
‘The transition from stable hover to high-speed horizontal flight occurred without observable acceleration ramp, gradual pitching or momentum.’
The witnesses compared its departure speed to that of a military fighter jet.
AARO adds an important qualification:
‘No instrumented speed measurement was obtained.’
The object reportedly banked and descended along the canyon terrain, disappearing from view within approximately two to three seconds.
The handheld thermal device lost contact as the object moved beyond its narrow field of view. Visual tracking continued until the terrain obscured it.
The agents reported hearing no sound.
A ground survey the following morning found no wreckage, ground scarring or vegetation damage in the canyon drainage.
The reported behaviour overlaps with two of the ‘five observables’ popularised by former Pentagon UAP official Luis Elizondo.
Lift without apparent propulsion - reported: The memorandum describes vertical ascent and stable hovering without visible rotors, exhaust or another identifiable propulsion system.
Sudden acceleration - reported: AARO describes a transition from hovering to rapid horizontal flight without an observable acceleration ramp.
Hypersonic velocity without expected signatures - not established: The witnesses compared its speed to a fighter jet, but no instrumented speed measurement was obtained.
Low observability - not established: The matte-black appearance and lack of distinct propulsion hot spots do not demonstrate cloaking or radar evasion. The object was observed visually and through thermal equipment.
Trans-medium travel - not reported: Neither record describes the object crossing between air and water or travelling through another medium.
The FBI document also includes nine images depicting the same landscape, with a triangular shape appearing in successive positions.
They appear to illustrate the reported sequence, but the file does not identify them as photographs captured during the encounter.
The Department of War’s online description of the AARO memorandum states:
‘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 description does not identify which other incidents AARO was referring to.
Is The U.S. Government Luring UAP?
The FBI’s response comes amid allegations that U.S. officials deliberately tried to attract UAP during a separate series of encounters in late 2025.
That earlier case involved glowing orbs at a military installation and was documented in previous government releases.
Both cases were reported in the western United States, but the released records do not establish whether they occurred at the same facility.
Representative Eric Burlison has since described how previous sightings prompted officials to send personnel to the site - and how certain activity on the range appeared to attract further UAP.
Speaking to Dr. Phil in an interview released on 15 October, the Missouri congressman described a marked change in the briefings he received from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
In the autumn of 2025, he said, officials had been concluding an investigation which had lasted years and produced few answers.
He was then called back to the same office for a different briefing.
Burlison recalled being told:
“Sir, things have changed. We really need to bring you in and update you.”
He said the new briefing concerned an encounter late in the autumn of 2025, when personnel from ODNI, the CIA, FBI and Department of War intelligence were present at a western military installation.
According to Burlison, those personnel saw glowing orbs hovering silently, accelerating suddenly and, in some instances, splitting into two.
He said the first tranches of President Trump’s UAP releases had allowed him to discuss aspects of the incident publicly.
Burlison was discussing the same late-2025 encounter Liberation Times reported on in July, documented in an FBI interview with a senior intelligence official, a firsthand narrative and images of objects near a helicopter.
Sources have told Liberation Times that the late-2025 encounters occurred at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
Disclosure Foundation executive director Jordan Flowers characterised that event as a successful UAP luring operation.
Burlison described the location as “somewhat of a hotspot”, where objects had appeared historically.
More specifically, he said: “they tend to show up whenever they do certain activity.”
According to Burlison, recent reports prompted officials to send personnel to observe. During that deployment, he said, they experienced the interactions described in the released records.
He cautioned against interpreting this as an ability to summon the objects on demand.
Instead, he compared it to a hunter knowing where deer tend to travel and using scents to attract them.
He said:
“You can kind of attract them, but it doesn't guarantee an outcome.”
Burlison also said intelligence personnel in a helicopter came within approximately ten feet of the orbs, which appeared to respond and form deliberate formations.
He told Dr. Phil:
“These orbs were responding and operating intelligently.”
The White House has also faced questions about alleged UAP luring and shootdown operations.
As Liberation Times reported in September, the White House had not answered our questions about the alleged luring operation or journalist Ross Coulthart’s separate claim that President Trump authorised UAP shootdowns around White Sands and near Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
