FBI-UAP-D043: FD-302 and Nine Forensic Sketches - Two Special Agents Watch a Black Delta-Shaped Object Climb Over a Western Ridge, 2026

Source file: FBI-UAP-D043-FD_302_Unidentified_Aerial_Object_Observation_Report-2026.pdf Originating agency: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Document type: FD-302 (Rev. 5-8-10) with FD-302a continuation page, reproducing a co-signed written statement; nine digitally rendered forensic sketches (pages 3-11) Date: 2026; date of entry, date of investigation and date of the event are redacted except for the year Classification: No classification marking on the released pages; standard FBI caveat that the document "contains neither recommendations nor conclusions of the FBI". Released in 2026 Page count: 11 VIRIN: 260508-O-D0360-1170 PURSUE Release: 7

Summary

This file is the FBI's side of the triangular-object sighting that AARO debriefed in DOW-UAP-D176. It is unusual in form. The FD-302 is not an interview summary written by the FBI agent in his own words, as most FD-302s in this archive are: it records that the FBI "received from" a redacted office "a written statement co-signed by" two Special Agents, and states that "The statement will be attached to this FD-302 and is provided verbatim below for ease of reading". What follows, in quotation marks, is the agents' own first-person account, headed "Unidentified Aerial Object Observation Report evening of [redacted]/26".

The text occupies only a page and a quarter. The remaining nine pages are full-page colour images, which the official war.gov description calls "9 digitally rendered FBI forensic sketches depicting the primary incident, as confirmed by the Special Agents in their eyewitness account". None of the nine pages carries a caption, label, scale or annotation.

The statement is shorter and in places different from the AARO memorandum: it gives the time as about 1923 hours (AARO: 2023L), describes no hover, and sets the total duration at about three seconds.

Research Article

The FD-302 frame

Page 1 carries the standard FD-302 (Rev. 5-8-10) heading, an "Official Record" stamp, and a redacted "Date of entry" ending in 2026. The footer fields read "Investigation on [redacted]/2026 at [redacted], United States", with the file number, the drafting date and the author all redacted. Page 2 is the FD-302a continuation sheet, headed "Statement of [redacted] SA [redacted] and", page "2 of 2". The statement ends "Co-signed SA [redacted] and [redacted]".

Because the redactions remove names and units, some sentences on page 1 can no longer be parsed with certainty: a passage naming the writer, a second Special Agent and someone "stationed several miles to the west" is broken up by black bars, so the exact positions of the three people involved cannot be fully recovered from this page alone. What is clear is that the detection came from another post, called "Observation Post 6", and that the two co-signers were together at a second post.

The statement: detection and first sight

"On [redacted] 2026, at approximately 1923 hours," a Special Agent at a redacted location "called out a detection for a thermally elevated aerial object located west of his position at an estimated bearing of 251 degrees." The writer, "accompanied by" the co-signer, "ran from the eastern side of our observation post to the western side in an attempt to collect further data related to the detection from Observation Post 6."

They "almost immediately observed a substantial, nonreflective, dark black triangular object most resembling a delta wing drone." The size estimate is given in three dimensions: wingspan "approximately nine to fifteen feet", depth "six to nine feet", thickness "one to two feet". The division of labour is explicit: the writer "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", while the co-signer "tracked the object unaided for the duration of the sighting."

The statement: climb, dash and loss of contact

The second paragraph gives the geometry. Both agents saw the object "ascend vertically over a ridge line situated approximately 3.2 miles west of our location on a heading of about 268 degrees." It "climbed to approximately 200 feet above the ridge line, then transitioned from vertical to horizontal flight at a very significant velocity, approaching our position, then descending southeast into the [redacted] along [redacted]." Contact was lost "while the object was flying along this [redacted] at an estimated range of about 1.5 miles from our position."

Two closing sentences matter most for comparison: "The total duration of the sighting was approximately three seconds", and "Throughout the observation, neither [redacted] nor I detected any auditory output from the unmanned aerial system." The statement thus calls the object an "unmanned aerial system" outright, an assumption about its nature that the AARO memorandum, which uses "unidentified craft", does not make.

(On the scan, the leading digits of "251", "268" and "3.2" are faint; the readings above agree with the clearest rendering of the page and, for 3.2 miles, with the AARO figure.)

The nine forensic sketches

Pages 3 to 11 are nine renderings of one fixed viewpoint: from a brush-covered hilltop in the foreground, across a canyon, to a dark central ridge, with distant ranges and a pale flat basin beyond on the left and a bright disc low in the sky on the right. Only the object changes position, so the nine pages read as a sequence of frames:

1. Page 3: a thin, level dark sliver against the face of the ridge, the object seen edge-on.
2. Page 4: the sliver higher on the ridge face, still perfectly level.
3. Page 5: the sliver at the ridge crest.
4. Page 6: the highest frame: a flat black triangle clear of the ridge against the sky, above and to the right of the crest.
5. Page 7: the object just above the crest, now a fuller, more symmetrical triangle, as if seen in a bank.
6. Page 8: below the crest, on the upper ridge face, slightly left.
7. Page 9: lower and further left across the ridge face.
8. Page 10: low on the ridge, near where the slope meets the canyon.
9. Page 11: a small triangle deep in the canyon drainage, the last frame.

The sketches add what the text does not: the object's change from a thin edge-on line during the climb to a visible triangle at its highest point and during the bank, and the path of the descent down the ridge face into the canyon. Several cautions apply. The sketches have no captions, so the statement that the agents confirmed them comes from the war.gov description, not from the file. The backdrop is a brightly lit, photograph-like scene, not the late-dusk sky both accounts describe, so it should not be read as a record of the lighting. And the sequence shows more motion than three seconds would suggest: four frames of climb and apparent hold before the descent, closer to AARO's phased account than to the statement's duration.

Comparing the FBI statement with the AARO debrief (DOW-UAP-D176)

The same two agents appear in DOW-UAP-D176 as SOURCE 1 and SOURCE 2, with the detecting official as SOURCE 3. The two accounts match on: a matte or dark black, nonreflective triangle; depth of six to nine feet and thickness of one to two feet; a vertical climb over a ridge to the west; a uniform thermal signature with no exhaust; a fast exit and descent into terrain; total silence; a range envelope (3.2 miles to the ridge, about 1.5 miles at loss) that fits AARO's 1.4 to 3.2 miles. They differ on:

• Time: 1923 hours here against 2023L in AARO, an unexplained one-hour gap.
• Wingspan: nine to fifteen feet here, 13 to 15 feet in AARO.
• Altitude: about 200 feet here, 200 to 300 feet in AARO.
• Hover and duration: no hover here and "approximately three seconds" in total; in AARO a ten-second climb, a twenty-second hover and a two-to-three-second exit.
• Heat: only this statement says the object looked "hotter than ambient temperature".
• Optics: here the co-signer tracked it "unaided" throughout; in AARO binoculars were passed from SOURCE 2 to SOURCE 1.
• Direction: this statement says the object came "approaching our position" and went southeast; AARO describes a banking, terrain-hugging run along the ridge into the canyon.
• Aftermath: this file mentions no ground search; AARO records a survey the next morning that found nothing. Neither document contains the "secondary observation on the following evening" mentioned in the war.gov description of D176.

The FBI file says nothing about any link to other western-US incidents, including the earlier 2026 FBI interviews FBI-UAP-D037 and FBI-UAP-D040 in this archive.

Significance

The file combines a first-person, co-signed account by two federal agents with a visual reconstruction of the event in nine frames, and it can be checked line by line against an independent AARO debrief of the same witnesses. That is rare in the PURSUE collection. Its weaknesses are just as clear: everything that would locate or date the event is redacted, the sketches are uncaptioned, no sensor recording is mentioned, and the statement's three-second duration sits awkwardly beside both the AARO timeline and the sketches themselves. The score of 8 reflects the quality of the witnesses and the uniqueness of the sketch sequence, held back by these gaps.

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

"called out a detection for a thermally elevated aerial object located west of his position at an estimated bearing of 251 degrees." -- page 1

"We initiated a visual survey of the western horizon and almost immediately observed a substantial, nonreflective, dark black triangular object most resembling a delta wing drone." -- page 1

"We estimated the object's wingspan at approximately nine to fifteen feet, its depth at six to nine feet, and its thickness at one to two feet." -- page 1

"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" -- page 1

"The total duration of the sighting was approximately three seconds." -- page 2

"Throughout the observation, neither [redacted] nor I detected any auditory output from the unmanned aerial system." -- page 2

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