FBI-UAP-D032: FD-302 - Two "Black Hot" Objects Cued by an RF Detection, Western United States 2026

Source file: FBI-UAP-D032_FD-302_Slow-moving-Objects_2026.pdf Originating agency: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Document type: FBI form FD-302, record of an interview Date: 2026 (the precise date is redacted) Classification: Not stated in the available text; released publicly with extensive redactions (2026) Page count: 2 VIRIN: 260807-O-D0360-1152 PURSUE Release: 5

Summary

FBI form FD-302 is the Bureau's standard record of an interview. This one, taken in 2026, records the account of a U.S. Government Special Agent who watched two slow-moving objects through a hand-held thermal optic in the western United States. It runs to two pages, and a substantial part of both is blacked out: the interviewee's name, the names of everyone with him, his organization, the exact date, the location, the make of the optical device and the number of private pilot hours he holds are all redacted.

What survives redaction is nonetheless unusually specific, and unusually useful, for one reason. The Department of War released alongside this document the footage the interviewee describes taking. It is catalogued as FBI-UAP-PR007, and the archive holds it. Very few witness statements in this collection can be checked against the imagery they describe.

The account is also notable for what the interviewee declines to claim. He offers no altitude, no speed, no size and no identification, and the FD-302 says so plainly.

Research Article

A witness who states his own limits

The 302 opens, as the form requires, with the interviewee's background, and almost all of it is blacked out: how long he has held his position, and how long he has been with his organization, are both redacted. Two statements survive, and they cut in opposite directions: "He has no aviation expertise. He has [redacted] of private pilot time."

That pairing is worth pausing on. The interviewee is not an air traffic controller, a fighter pilot or a professional sensor operator. He is a law enforcement officer with some private flying hours, and the form records him disclaiming aviation expertise before he describes anything at all. Every estimate that follows should be read through that admission, which is presumably why the interviewing agents wrote it down.

The sequence: a radio-frequency detection, then a bearing

The most distinctive feature of this document is that the sighting was not accidental. The interviewee did not look up and notice something; he was told where to look.

"At approximately time 1604 he was alerted to an RF detection at [redacted] at 10K MSL for 5-10s at 90 burst with an unknown bearing. Further communication clarified a request to observe at bearing 58 degrees."

Unpacked, that is a two-step cue. A radio-frequency detection system registered a signal, characterized in the record by an altitude of 10,000 feet above mean sea level, a duration of five to ten seconds, and the phrase "at 90 burst"; the frequency itself is redacted. The initial detection carried no bearing. A follow-up communication then supplied one: 58 degrees, with a request to observe there.

The document does not explain what equipment produced the RF detection, who operated it, what "90 burst" denotes, or what the operation the interviewee was engaged in actually was. These are exactly the details the redactions remove. What can be established is the order of events: an electronic detection came first, a bearing came second, and the visual observation came third, within a few minutes.

What the thermal optic showed

"Within a few minutes, [redacted] used a [redacted] Thermal optical device to look in the direction of 58 degrees. He saw a black object in the sky. It was not moving fast. He took pictures using the optical device."

Then a second appeared: "While observing he saw a second object to the right of the first and took additional photos/videos. The objects were moving together at the same speed. Both were black hot."

The behavioral detail is thin but consistent: two objects, moving together, at the same speed, slowly, above the mountain line. The observation lasted "approximately 5-10 minutes" and ended when "they traveled a distance out of view."

Then come the disclaimers, which are the most valuable lines in the document: "[redacted] is unable to estimate an altitude or speed." And immediately after: "Given the distance of the objects it was difficult for [redacted] to determine direction of travel."

Without a range, a thermal image yields no size and no speed; an object may be small and near or large and far, and the optic cannot distinguish between them. The interviewee says so, and the FD-302 records it rather than smoothing it over.

The paired footage, and the problem with "black hot"

The archive holds the video the interviewee describes taking. It is catalogued as FBI-UAP-PR007, "Slow-moving Objects," 2026, and runs ten seconds at a published resolution of 768 by 576. The official description states that a U.S. Government Special Agent captured the footage "via hand-held optical thermal imaging device during a 2026 incident in the western United States, as described in FBI-UAP-D032," and that it "features two, slow-moving 'black-hot' areas of contrast, visible in infrared imaging."

The imagery therefore corroborates the count (two), the pace (slow) and the sensor (infrared). That is a rare thing in this collection.

The phrase "black hot" itself is less settled than it looks. In thermal imaging, black hot and white hot are display polarities: black hot renders warmer scene elements dark against a lighter background, and white hot does the reverse. Read one way, an object appearing black under black-hot polarity was warmer than the sky around it. Read the other way, as many operators use the shorthand, a target showing dark in a thermal image is colder than its background. The FD-302 does not state which polarity the device was set to, and the official caption to the video avoids the question entirely, calling them only "areas of contrast."

The archive therefore cannot establish from this document whether the two objects were warmer or cooler than the background sky. The distinction matters, because a genuinely cold aerial contact is anomalous in a way that a warm one is not.

It is worth noting, carefully, that a separate document in this same release, DOW-UAP-D101, records the aircrew of an AC-130 over the Gulf of Oman in 2021 describing roughly twenty-five infrared contacts as "cold orbs." Nothing in either document connects the two events, the agencies, the years or the theaters, and neither document claims any relationship. The only point is that the collection contains more than one report in which the thermal signature of the object, rather than its shape or its speed, is the detail the observer chose to record.

What the redactions remove

Two pages, and the second contains a single sentence. Everything that would permit verification is gone: the date, the place, the interviewee's identity and organization, the identities of the colleagues with him, the nature of the operation they were conducting, the frequency at which the RF detection occurred, the make of the thermal device, and the agent to whom the photographs were provided.

One further gap is internal to the document rather than a product of redaction. The FD-302 records that the objects "were moving in the direction of SE, approximately 58 degrees to 62 degrees." A compass bearing of 58 to 62 degrees is east-northeast, not southeast. The two figures may refer to the interviewee's line of sight rather than to the objects' heading; the record does not say, and in the very next sentence the interviewee states that the distance made direction of travel difficult to determine at all. The archive notes the discrepancy without resolving it.

Finally, corroboration at the scene was limited to one man: "[redacted] was the only one at his location to see the objects. He was the only one who used the optic." Others were present, the form records colleagues with him and blacks out every name, but none of them saw what he saw. The corroboration in this case is instrumental rather than human: the RF detection that preceded the sighting, and the footage that came out of it.

The form's own boilerplate supplies the appropriate closing caution: "This document contains neither recommendations nor conclusions of the FBI."

Significance

The value of FBI-UAP-D032 is procedural rather than spectacular. Nothing in it describes extreme performance: two objects, moving slowly, together, at an unknown altitude and an unknown speed, seen for five to ten minutes and then lost to distance. Set beside the radar chases elsewhere in this collection, it is a modest report.

What makes it worth reading is the chain of custody. An electronic detection cued a visual search on a specific bearing. The search found something within minutes. The observer imaged it, could not identify it, and said so. The imagery was passed to another agent and was ultimately released. Very few entries in the archive preserve that whole sequence, and fewer still allow a reader to watch the footage the witness statement describes.

It is also a case of a careful witness. He disclaims aviation expertise, refuses to estimate altitude or speed, and concedes that distance left even the direction of travel in doubt. Documents of that kind are more useful, not less, than confident ones.

Key People

Locations

Incidents

Notable Quotes

"He has no aviation expertise. He has [redacted] of private pilot time." -- page 1

"At approximately time 1604 he was alerted to an RF detection at [redacted] at 10K MSL for 5-10s at 90 burst with an unknown bearing." -- page 1

"Further communication clarified a request to observe at bearing 58 degrees." -- page 1

"Within a few minutes, [redacted] used a [redacted] Thermal optical device to look in the direction of 58 degrees. He saw a black object in the sky. It was not moving fast." -- page 1

"While observing he saw a second object to the right of the first and took additional photos/videos. The objects were moving together at the same speed. Both were black hot." -- page 1

"He lost view of the objects when they traveled a distance out of view. Total observation time was approximately 5-10 minutes." -- page 1

"[redacted] is unable to estimate an altitude or speed. The objects were above the mountain line. They were moving in the direction of SE, approximately 58 degrees to 62 degrees." -- page 1

"Given the distance of the objects it was difficult for [redacted] to determine direction of travel." -- page 1

"[redacted] was the only one at his location to see the objects. He was the only one who used the optic." -- page 1

"The photos were provided to SA [redacted]." -- page 2

"This document contains neither recommendations nor conclusions of the FBI." -- page 1