Notional Map: Western United States Event, October 2023 — Department of War File
This image is a notional representation of four incidents reportedly involving unidentified anomalous phenomena in the western United States, as seen from above. This illustration depicts multiple incidents reported by U.S. federal law enforcement special agents over a period of several days in…
Incident Overview
October 2023, in the Western United States, the Department of War preserved a documentary record that was declassified and published on June 12, 2026 as part of the third tranche of the Department of War’s Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE).
What the government released
This image is a notional representation of four incidents reportedly involving unidentified anomalous phenomena in the western United States, as seen from above. This illustration depicts multiple incidents reported by U.S. federal law enforcement special agents over a period of several days in October 2023.
Primary-source excerpt
Drawn directly from the released document: “Agents reported observing a large “fiery orb” projected against a ridgeline at an approximate distance of 1 000 yards. Incident 3: “Dark Kite” Agents reported observing a “thin or dark kite shaped object” featuring one red light and one white light at a close estimated range. Incident 4: “Translucent Kite” Note: All images were artificially generated using https genai mil/ Phenomena are enlarged for illustrative purposes and are not to Agents reported observing a “translucent kite shaped relative scale. All locations are notional, object” at a close estimated range. and do not accurately represent the relative position of the”.
Status of the case
Records released under the PURSUE program are designated unresolved by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which means the federal government has not concluded the events were anomalous, has not concluded they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Where AARO has offered a likely source for an item — an infrared sensor aboard a military aircraft, a commercial camera, or a known optical effect — that attribution is the agency’s working assessment rather than a final determination. Conventional candidates such as drones, balloons, flares, satellites, parallax and forced-perspective artifacts, and ordinary aircraft remain on the table for any unresolved case absent better data than a single sensor pass or a witness recollection.