USPER Statement: A Senior US Intelligence Official's UAP Encounter at a Military Facility, 2025

Source file: usper-statement-redacted.pdf Originating agency: Federal Bureau of Investigation (302 interview) Principal witness: Senior US Intelligence Official Date range: 2025 (exact date withheld under redaction) Page count: 3 (all reviewed) Original classification: SECRET//NOFORN High-significance pages: all three

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Official Blurb (from war.gov)

This is an FBI 302 interview conducted with a senior US intelligence official regarding his first-hand account of a UAP encounter at a US military facility. USPER relayed to FBI agents that he and other federal and state personnel conducted searches to where orbs had been previously seen. After searching the area with a helicopter, they found a "super-hot" orb hovering over the ground. The orb is reported to have travelled for 20 miles at a speed too fast for the helicopter in pursuit. An additional "swarm" of lights were seen moving in all directions. A total of four or five additional orbs were seen shortly thereafter for a short time, flaring up and then down. This pattern of four or five orbs flaring up, then down continued over the next thirty minutes across the area.

Summary

This document is a written statement provided by a USPER — a US Person, the law-enforcement term for a US citizen or resident — to the FBI as part of an investigation into a UAP incident on the grounds of a US military facility during 2025. What makes the record exceptional is the witness's own standing: the document describes him as a senior US intelligence official who personally took part in a coordinated ground-and-air search, by helicopter, alongside federal and state partners. He was a direct eyewitness to a sequence of phenomena that included a "super-hot" orb hovering at ground level and capable of accelerating and splitting into two objects; a failed 20-mile helicopter pursuit in which the orb outran the aircraft; "a swarm of lights, too many to count, moving in all directions"; and a recurring pattern of four-to-five oval orbs, orange with a white-yellow center, "flaring up and down" in horizontal sequence across roughly thirty minutes. Eleven distinct appearances are logged over about two hours. The witness's naked-eye observations are cross-referenced with the helicopter pilots' night-vision goggles (NVG), a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor, and a listening post / observation post (LP/OP). It is one of the clearest and most detailed official UAP accounts ever released, largely because of the witness's position.

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Research Article

Why this is the most important case in Release 1

Within the mosaic of UAP documents that the Department of War and the FBI released under PURSUE Initiative Release 1 (May 8, 2026), this record occupies a singular place. Most reports in the archive are everyday filings: an after-action report, a mission report (MISREP), an AARO reporting form, or a record of an interview with a random civilian. This account is different. It is a SECRET//NOFORN document, given by a person the document itself describes as a "senior US intelligence official," to FBI agents who conducted a formal interview. This is testimony from an entirely different epistemic tier: a person whom the US government had already cleared to handle the most sensitive classified information, recounting in the first person a phenomenon he saw with his own eyes, during a planned operation coordinated across federal and state organizations.

This is not the report of a businessman who saw a light in the sky. It is not the report of a lone serviceman unknown to the community. It is the testimony of a person whose rank, clearance, and professional training to identify aerial threats were explicitly required for him to enter the room where this statement was written. When such a witness chooses words like "super-hot," "swarm," "oval, orange with a white-yellow center," and "flaring up and down," the evidentiary weight is very high.

Who the USPER is

The document states it plainly: "[WITNESS 1 (a senior US intelligence official)]." The name was redacted, but the title was not. In the US, "senior intelligence official" is a formal designation referring to personnel at the Senior Executive Service (SES) level or equivalent flag ranks within the federal Intelligence Community (CIA, NSA, DIA, FBI, NRO, NGA, and the rest of the 18 IC member agencies). These are division chiefs, mission directors, or senior advisors — people who must pass the most extensive security vetting (TS/SCI with polygraph), and who are not ordinarily available to sit and give a classified statement to the FBI about a phenomenon they did not personally witness.

Notably, the document indicates there were two senior intelligence officials present, not one: "[WITNESS 2 (a senior US intelligence official)]." WITNESS 1 provided this statement; WITNESS 2 was dropped from the helicopter during the operation (at 2050) to join a ground element belonging to "FEDERAL PARTNER 3." The coordinated deployment of two senior intelligence officials in parallel with federal and state partners points to a planned, high-level-approved operation rather than an ad-hoc response.

The setup: a ground search after earlier sightings

By the USPER's account, the operation that evening was not spontaneous. It was a response to earlier witness reports: "previous eyewitness reports from personnel who observed orbs/lights" in the area of [COORDINATES] (redacted) cited "hearing thuds as if something had fallen and hit the ground." This reinforces a pattern reported in other UAP events: not just a visual signature, but an acoustic signature of interaction with the ground (thuds).

The document adds an important note: earlier that same day a "successful test" of some system or capability had been conducted at [SITE CODE NAME] (redacted) at [FACILITY] (redacted). The key fact is that an "Office" (full name redacted) successfully completed a test of a system, and then during the following evening the intensifying UAP observations occurred. The temporal pairing of a technological test at a sensitive site with an anomalous surge of UAP activity is a pattern already documented in the historical record of Project Blue Book and Project 1947 — usually around weapons facilities or nuclear-energy sites. Its appearance here in 2025 suggests continuity.

The initial search departed [OPERATIONS CENTER] (redacted) around 1700. Aboard the helicopter (call sign 1, from a state partner organization) were WITNESS 1, FEDERAL PARTNER 1, FEDERAL PARTNER 2, WITNESS 2, and two pilots from the state partner organization. The flight's purpose was a "daytime aerial search" of a mountain range west of SITE CODE NAME at the FACILITY. At 1751 the helicopter spotted a "large cavern entrance" and even flew a brief orbit of the site, but that activity produced no direct results.

The discovery: a "super-hot" hovering orb

The critical moment is logged at 2202. After hours of seemingly fruitless searching, the LP/OP belonging to FEDERAL PARTNER 4 reported an object. The LP/OP was operating with FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) and NVG (Night Vision Goggles) — the full available sensor suite. They reported: "spotted an orb under FLIR and described as 'super-hot' hovering at ground level."

The word "super-hot" is not a vague descriptor. Under FLIR, a thermal signature is measured on a numeric scale and rendered as grayscale contrast or color. A "super-hot" object means one of two things: (a) it is hot enough to saturate the sensor and bloom into a bright white that washes out its surroundings, or (b) it is disproportionately hot relative to its environment (a Western desert after sunset, with substantial temperature drop). Either possibility points to a high energetic signature. An orb hovering at ground level and radiating heat at "super-hot" intensity is not consistent with commercial mini-helicopters, civilian drones, or military target drones — those emit heat, but at a far more moderate rate.

The LP/OP reported that after the orb appeared, it moved east and then south at high speed, and while in motion it "broke into two objects." UAP "splitting" is not unique to this case — it was reported in the FAA Glomar incident of 1986, in the 2004 Tic Tac incident, and in the Nimitz Fravor encounters. But its appearance here with a super-hot thermal signature adds evidence that this was a phenomenon and not an optical illusion.

The pursuit and its failure: 20 miles, speed unmatched

The LP/OP directed the helicopter to chase and cut off the object. The helicopter (CALL SIGN 1) attempted an intercept at the indicated coordinates, but the attempt failed in a way that is itself remarkable. The LP/OP reported that "the orb climbed in altitude, came within ten feet of CALL SIGN 1, then turned east." Ten feet from a helicopter (about three meters) is a close-interaction range that operating helicopters avoid at all costs. The orb deliberately crossed into that airspace. It then continued southeast.

The helicopter tried to give chase, but the LP/OP assessed that the orb should be estimated as crossing [ROAD NAME] some 20 miles from the previous location. In the document's precise words: "[CALL SIGN 1], unable to match speed, broke off pursuit." Modern law-enforcement and military helicopters have top speeds of 150–180 knots (270–330 km/h). An object that such helicopters cannot match in speed is an object whose velocity exceeds that, or whose acceleration profile exceeds a helicopter's. In addition, the co-pilot reported seeing under NVG "something emerge from the two objects and then travel in a different direction and a high rate of speed" — the split repeated, producing a third body.

The "swarm" of lights in all directions

At 2218 a new phase began. The USPER (by eye) and the two pilots (under NVG) observed "a swarm of lights, too many to count, moving in all directions but generally located west of [REDACTED] and headed south." The combination of "too many to count" with "moving in all directions" does not match a single drone or a set of coordinated drones. Coordinated drones move in formation; many objects moving in all directions simultaneously do not characterize modern military equipment. The JOC (Joint Operations Center) reported that it had scrambled five military aircraft already in the airspace on an unrelated training flight, en route to assist. At 2227 the helicopter lost contact with the swarm.

The pattern over thirty minutes

From 2227 to 2257 at least six distinct observation events were logged, all sharing a pronounced structural pattern: orbs that "flared up one at a time in a horizontal formation and after approximately ten–fifteen seconds, flared down in the opposite order." This sequence repeated west of SITE CODE NAME over the mountains, east toward a nearby town, near a local town, and over the military aircraft as they descended to land. At 2227 the witness described "two large orbs… oval shaped, orange in color with a white or yellow center and emitting light in all directions," followed by "a third orb flared up below the two, and then another one below that one until there were four or five in total below the original two."

A "flare-queue" pattern of four-to-five horizontal orbs, sequenced one after another, repeated at different geographic distances, is a distinct behavioral pattern. It is not the pattern of commercial drones, not military alert lighting, and not an atmospheric phenomenon like sprites. It resembles a coordinated visual display.

Energy and performance analysis

Examined via FLIR at night in a desert, a "super-hot" object hovering at ground level radiates heat at a high, bright rate relative to its cool surroundings. The energetic question this document leaves open is: what is the heat source? A chemical-combustion body would show a light envelope and smoke; a chemically propelled body (rocket, jet) would show an acoustic signature; an internal-heat-source body such as an electromagnetic energy burst would show an RF signature on certain bands. The document notes none of these were detected, which leaves the impression that the source of the "super-hot" heat is non-trivial. An object that exits ten feet from a helicopter and covers 20 miles while the helicopter cannot match its speed satisfies the AARO profile of a "kinetically anomalous" object, and displays at least three of the so-called Five Observables.

Comparison with the September 2023 composite sketch

On April 30, 2024 the FBI Laboratory produced a composite sketch based on witness reports from September 2023, describing an elliptical, metallic-bronze object 40–60 meters long that materialized "out of a bright light in the sky" and vanished instantly. Placed side by side, the two documents show a consistent behavioral pattern: a luminous phase first, then the appearance or disappearance of a solid object. The 2023 sketch froze the event at a single point in time; the 2025 statement lays out the full two-hour sequence.

Significance for UAP research — the highest-quality testimony

This document presents the gold standard of modern UAP testimony: a vetted source (a senior US intelligence official formally recognized by the system); multi-sensor documentation (naked eye, NVG, FLIR, JOC, LP/OP, all cross-referenced); multi-witness documentation (two senior intelligence officials, two pilots, an LP/OP crew, federal and state organizations); precise temporal logging (events tagged to the minute and second); a sustained event sequence (about six hours of operational activity, including thirty minutes of intense direct observation); and non-trivial behavior (performance exceeding modern helicopters, in quantity and display form). The document offers no interpretation, no classification, no comparison. It only records what happened — and being recorded by the most authoritative investigative body in the US, from a witness at the highest tier of the Intelligence Community, it sets a ceiling-level evidentiary bar.

A note on recordings

The USPER explicitly noted that "pilots indicated they were recording, however many sightings were above the helicopter which was outside of the helicopter's FLIR camera angle." Most of the pilots' and witnesses' visual observation did not enter the FLIR, simply because it points forward. A partial recording therefore exists, with the rest depending on eyewitness description. A future release of that raw FLIR file would provide objective documentation adding another evidentiary layer.

The USPER's final note

The document closes with WITNESS 1's observation: "The orbs appeared to break off from [CALL SIGN 1] and pursue the [MILITARY AIRCRAFT]." This is a critical behavioral observation. The orbs did not merely ignore the helicopter; they changed targets. They focused first on the helicopter, then shifted to the military aircraft. A "target-change" pattern implies objects with intent, not atmospheric phenomena — one of the strongest assertions in the entire document.

Key People

The senior USPER

• WITNESS 1 (a senior US intelligence official): the principal witness. A senior US intelligence official whose name and identity were fully redacted, but whose role was documented. He provided this statement to the FBI and carried the bulk of the evidentiary weight, present aboard the helicopter throughout the operation and authoring the summary remarks at the end of the statement.
• WITNESS 2 (a senior US intelligence official): a second senior US intelligence official, dropped from the helicopter at 2050 to join the ground element of FEDERAL PARTNER 3.

FBI agents

No names appear in the available document. The interview was conducted with the FBI as a unit; the investigating agents' identities were redacted. Supplemental 302 documents would be required to identify them.

Helicopter crew (CALL SIGN 1)

Two pilots from a STATE PARTNER ORGANIZATION (a state-level body, possibly state police or National Guard aviation), including a co-pilot who saw under NVG an additional object "emerge from the two objects" and travel in a different direction at high speed.

Federal partners

FEDERAL PARTNER 1 and 2 (aboard the helicopter), FEDERAL PARTNER 3 (a ground element that received WITNESS 2), and FEDERAL PARTNER 4 (operating the LP/OP with FLIR and NVG).

Locations

Specific locations were fully redacted, but the character of the environment was preserved: a mountain in the Western US, with a mountain range west of the FACILITY, a large cavern within the range, a "road" ([ROAD NAME]) about 20 miles away, and a local town in the area.

• United States (Western US) — western mountain range, military-facility environment
• US Military Facility — name redacted, covered by SECRET//NOFORN classification
• SITE CODE NAME — redacted, the operation's central reference point

Incidents

Time	Incident	Location (relative)	Observation mode
1700	CALL SIGN 1 departs for evening aerial search	OPERATIONS CENTER	planned search
1751	Large cavern entrance identified	west of SITE CODE NAME	eye
2050	WITNESS 2 dropped to ground element	west of the range	coordination
2202	LP/OP detects super-hot orb hovering at ground level, splits into 2	east-south of LP/OP	FLIR
~2210	Failed pursuit; object outruns the helicopter	20 miles from location	LP/OP description
2218	"Swarm of lights, too many to count, in all directions"	west, moving south	NVG + eye
2227	Two large orbs near helicopter (10 ft), orange w/ white center	west, above rotor	NVG + eye
2227 (cont.)	"Flare-queue" — 4–5 orbs below the two, one at a time	west	NVG + eye
2228	4–5 orbs over the military aircraft, horizontal pattern	west over mountains	NVG + eye
2233	Similar pattern east toward nearby town	east	NVG + eye
2241	Single orb flared over the mountain	west of SITE CODE NAME	NVG + eye
2249	"Swarm in all directions" with 3 orbs in a triangle	west	NVG + eye
2252	5–6 orbs flared near local town	east of SITE CODE NAME	NVG + eye
2257	4 orbs flared over military aircraft on landing	north	NVG + eye

Notable Quotes

"spotted an orb under FLIR and described as 'super-hot' hovering at ground level" — LP/OP, 2202

"[CALL SIGN 1], unable to match speed, broke off pursuit" — ~2210

"the co-pilot reported seeing under NVG something emerge from the two objects and then travel in a different direction and a high rate of speed" — co-pilot description

"spotting a swarm of lights (too many to count) moving in all directions" — WITNESS 1 and the two pilots, 2218

"two large orbs appear in close proximity to [CALL SIGN 1] to the west and above the rotor disk... they appeared to be oval shaped, orange in color with a white or yellow center and emitting light in all directions" — 2227

"a third orb flared up below the two, and then another one below that one until there were four or five in total below the original two" — 2227

"The orbs flared up one at a time in a horizontal formation and after approximately ten - fifteen seconds, flared down in the opposite order" — recurring pattern

"Pilots indicated they were recording however many sightings were above the helicopter which was outside of the helicopters FLIR camera angle" — WITNESS 1

"The orbs appeared to break off from [CALL SIGN 1] and pursue the [MILITARY AIRCRAFT]" — WITNESS 1's closing note