FBI-UAP-D033: FD-302 - A Signed Statement on a "Thermally Elevated Aerial Object", and a Black Hawk Used as a Ruler, Western United States 2026

Source file: FBI-UAP-D033_FD-302_Thermally-Elevated-Aerial-Object_2026.pdf Originating agency: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Document type: FBI form FD-302 enclosing a written statement signed by a Special Agent, reproduced verbatim within it 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-D0360-1153 PURSUE Release: 5

Summary

This FD-302, recorded in 2026, is unusual in form. Most FD-302s are an interviewing agent's summary of what a witness said. This one is a container: it records that a written statement, signed by a Special Agent, was received, and then reproduces that statement verbatim. The form itself says the statement "will be attached to this FD-302 and is provided verbatim below for ease of reading."

What follows is therefore the witness's own words, under his own signature and under a heading he gave it himself: "Unidentified Aerial Object Observation Report."

The observation it describes is slight. At approximately 2100 hours on an evening in 2026, from the same general area referenced in a prior statement, the agent saw a thermally elevated aerial object roughly two ridge lines farther west than the object of the previous night, flying southbound, until terrain and distance took it. He could not establish what it was.

What makes the document worth reading is not the sighting but the method. During the same operational period the agent deliberately filmed a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in the same area, for the express purpose of creating a scale and thermal reference against which the unknown could be judged.

Research Article

A document unusual in form

The FD-302 is the FBI's standard interview record, and it is normally written in the third person: the agent describes what the interviewee told him. Here the reporting agent notes that on or about a redacted date in 2026 he received "from [redacted] Special Agent [redacted] a written statement signed by [redacted] Special Agent [redacted]," and that the statement would be attached to the form and set out in it verbatim.

The distinction matters evidentially. An FD-302 summary is one person's account of another person's account: the interviewing agent's compression of what he heard. Here that layer is removed. The reader sees the observer's own composition, with his own headings, his own hedges, and his own choices about what to leave out. Statements of that kind are rarer in this collection than summaries, and they are more directly attributable, even with the name blacked out.

The statement is headed "Unidentified Aerial Object Observation Report evening of [redacted]/26" -- a title the agent supplied himself, which tells you he understood that he was filing an observation report rather than recounting an anecdote.

The observation: two ridge lines farther west

"On [redacted], 2026, at approximately 2100 hours, I, [redacted] Special Agent [redacted], positioned in the same general observation area referenced in my prior statement from [redacted]. While conducting observation in the area, I observed a thermally elevated aerial object in the same general western sector and along a similar heading as the object observed the previous night."

Three claims of continuity are packed into that sentence: the same observation area, the same general western sector, a similar heading, and an explicit comparison to "the object observed the previous night." This was a second night of watching, from a position the agent had used before, looking in a direction he had looked before.

The difference was range: "The object appeared approximately two ridge lines farther west than the location where the [redacted] object was observed."

That is a real unit of measurement in mountain country, because ridge lines are what an observer in such terrain actually has to reckon with, and it comes with an immediate cost, which the agent states: "Due to the increased distance and terrain separation, I was unable to identify specific physical characteristics of the object or determine its exact configuration."

What he would commit to was thermal and directional: "However, the object presented as a hot aerial object through thermal observation and appeared to be flying southbound, consistent with the general direction of travel observed during the prior night's sighting."

The Black Hawk as a reference point

Here is the passage that makes these two pages worth reading:

"During this same operational period, I also recorded video of a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter operating in the same general area. The purpose of recording the helicopter was to establish a visual and thermal reference point for scale, flight characteristics, and comparative size assessment."

This is calibration, and it is deliberate. A thermal image on its own yields no absolute size, because apparent size is a product of true size and range, and a lone observer has neither. The standard fix is to place a known object in the same field of view, through the same optic and in the same atmosphere, and that is precisely what the agent did, using a helicopter whose dimensions and thermal signature are documented and whose flight behavior is familiar.

The conclusion he drew is modest: "Based on my observation and comparison to the Black Hawk helicopter, the unidentified aerial object appeared to be approximately half the size of the Black Hawk."

And he immediately qualifies it: "This size comparison is an estimate only, based on observed appearance, distance, and available reference footage."

That is the correct caveat, because the comparison still assumes the two were at comparable range, which the agent could not verify. But the practice itself, filming a known aircraft in the same conditions in order to have something to measure against, is disciplined observational technique, and it is rare in witness material of any kind. Most reports offer size comparisons to coins, aircraft or buildings from memory. This one built a reference on purpose, at the time, on video.

What the witness refuses to determine

The statement closes with a list of things the agent will not claim: "I was unable to determine the object's make, model, propulsion type, or whether it was a fixed-wing, rotary-wing, or other unmanned aerial system due to the distance and limited observable detail. The object continued southbound and was eventually lost from observation due to terrain and distance."

Note what that sentence concedes. He does not exclude a conventional aircraft; he explicitly includes fixed-wing, rotary-wing and unmanned systems among the things he could not rule out. The document therefore does not assert that anything anomalous was seen. It asserts that a hot aerial object was seen, at a range that defeated identification, moving south.

The redactions remove the date, the location, the identity of the agent who wrote the statement and of the agent who transmitted it, the date of the prior statement, and the reference to the previous night's object. Page two carries only the closing sentences.

The relationship to FBI-UAP-D032

The temptation is to read this document as the sequel to FBI-UAP-D032, and it should be resisted, at least as a matter of record. The two share a great deal: both are FD-302s from 2026, both concern observations in the western United States, both involve U.S. Government Special Agents, both describe thermal observation of an unidentified aerial object, and both were released with consecutive document identifiers and consecutive VIRINs.

But this statement refers to "my prior statement" and to "the object observed the previous night," and neither the statement nor the FD-302 that carries it says which document that prior statement is. FBI-UAP-D032 records an observation at approximately 1604, which is late afternoon and not night, and the Department of War's own description places it at approximately 4:00 PM local time, against approximately 9:00 PM for this one. The prior statement referenced here may or may not be D032.

The language also differs in a way worth noting. The objects in D032 were recorded as "black hot," a phrase whose display polarity that document never explains. This statement is unambiguous: "a thermally elevated aerial object," "a hot aerial object through thermal observation." Whether that is a difference in the objects or a difference in two agents' vocabulary cannot be settled from the documents.

Significance

FBI-UAP-D033 is a small document, and it is honest about being small. One object, seen once, at long range, in the dark, and identified as nothing at all.

Its value is methodological. It preserves a first-person, signed observation report rather than an interviewer's paraphrase; it records an observer who understood that an unknown in a thermal image has no scale until you give it one, and who went and got one; and it records that same observer declining, in writing, to rule out a helicopter, an aircraft or a drone.

Read next to FBI-UAP-D032, it also shows what most of the 2026 FBI material in this release consists of: not spectacular encounters, but government personnel with thermal optics, in western mountain terrain, writing down carefully bounded descriptions of things they could not name. Whether those documents describe one operation or several is not something the released pages establish.

Key People

Locations

Incidents

Notable Quotes

"[The] statement will be attached to this FD-302 and is provided verbatim below for ease of reading." -- page 1

"Unidentified Aerial Object Observation Report evening of [redacted]/26" -- page 1

"I observed a thermally elevated aerial object in the same general western sector and along a similar heading as the object observed the previous night." -- page 1

"The object appeared approximately two ridge lines farther west than the location where the [redacted] object was observed." -- page 1

"Due to the increased distance and terrain separation, I was unable to identify specific physical characteristics of the object or determine its exact configuration." -- page 1

"However, the object presented as a hot aerial object through thermal observation and appeared to be flying southbound, consistent with the general direction of travel observed during the prior night's sighting." -- page 1

"During this same operational period, I also recorded video of a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter operating in the same general area. The purpose of recording the helicopter was to establish a visual and thermal reference point for scale, flight characteristics, and comparative size assessment." -- page 1

"Based on my observation and comparison to the Black Hawk helicopter, the unidentified aerial object appeared to be approximately half the size of the Black Hawk. This size comparison is an estimate only, based on observed appearance, distance, and available reference footage." -- page 1

"I was unable to determine the object's make, model, propulsion type, or whether it was a fixed-wing, rotary-wing, or other unmanned aerial system due to the distance and limited observable detail." -- pages 1-2

"The object continued southbound and was eventually lost from observation due to terrain and distance." -- page 2

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