PURSUE Record — FBI Photo B1: FBI · Western United States · Late 2025

FBI Photo B1 is a declassified PDF record released on May 8, 2026 as part of PURSUE Release 01, the U.S. Department of War's first coordinated public disclosure of UAP investigative material. The record originates from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and documents a single still image captured by a U.S. military system during an encounter that occurred in the western United States in late 2025. The operator could not positively identify what appears in the frame.

What this record contains

FBI Photo B1 is a single-part PDF submitted by the FBI to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). According to the official description, the record consists of one still image derived from a U.S. military sensor system. Before submission to AARO, the original imagery was altered with redactions — the nature and extent of those redactions are not disclosed in the public release. No accompanying mission report was provided. The official description also flags a notable data-integrity issue: the timestamp embedded in the image is incorrect because the system's internal clock was not properly configured. That caveat is directly relevant to any analysis of when, precisely, the image was captured.

The narrative description in the record depicts a monochrome, grainy image organized around a central crosshair reticle — standard framing for targeting or surveillance optics. In the upper right quadrant, near the center of the frame, a small, dark, circular object is visible. The background is described as showing an indistinct mountain range or cloud formation. The operator, reviewing the imagery in real time or after the fact, reported being unable to make a positive identification of the object.

Historical & documentary context

Although the FBI has maintained files on aerial anomaly reports dating back to 1947 — many of which also appear in the broader PURSUE Release 01 catalogue — FBI Photo B1 is a distinctly contemporary record. The late-2025 incident date places it firmly within the modern AARO reporting architecture, established under the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which created a centralized mechanism for U.S. military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies to route UAP encounters to a single coordinating office. The FBI's submission here reflects that pipeline: a field or operational element identified an anomalous phenomenon, imagery was collected via a military system, and the Bureau formally reported that imagery upward to AARO rather than resolving it internally.

The sensor characteristics described — monochrome rendering, crosshair reticle, grainy texture against a terrain or cloud background — are consistent with narrow-field electro-optical or infrared surveillance platforms widely used across U.S. military and federal law enforcement contexts. These systems are optimized for tracking and identification, which makes the operator's inability to classify the object more analytically significant than it might be for a consumer camera. The western United States geography adds no confirmed specificity; the release does not identify a state, facility, or operational mission associated with the imagery.

What this does and does not prove

The documented facts are narrow: a U.S. military sensor captured a small, circular, dark object against an indistinct background in the western United States in late 2025; the operator could not identify it; the FBI submitted the image to AARO; redactions were applied before submission; and the image timestamp is unreliable. What this record does not establish — and what the official description is careful not to assert — is any determination about the object's nature, origin, altitude, speed, or behavior. The word "unidentified" is a statement about the limits of available information, not a claim about what the object is or is not. The absence of a mission report means there is no supplementary sensor data, no radar track, no pilot account, and no environmental context in the public record to work from. Any interpretation beyond the literal image description would be speculation unsupported by the released material.

How it fits PURSUE Release 01

Within the 162-document PURSUE Release 01 set — which spans 28 videos, 14 images, and 120 PDFs — FBI Photo B1 represents one of the FBI's contemporary contributions, distinct from the Bureau's legacy archive files that stretch back decades. It sits alongside Department of War mission sensor reports and NASA archival imagery as an example of a case that entered AARO's system, was documented, and reached the public record without resolution. Browsing the full set on the SkyLens UAP files page provides the clearest picture of how this record compares to others in terms of sensor type, documentation quality, and analytical status. The inclusion of unresolved cases like this one is, per the release's own framing, a feature of analytical discipline rather than a gap in the investigation.

Editorial note: This analysis is independent commentary on a publicly released document. The original record, source links, and full release metadata are catalogued on the SkyLens UAP files page alongside every other case in the PURSUE Release 01 set.