PURSUE Record — FBI Photo B16: FBI · Western United States · Late 2025

FBI Photo B16 is a declassified PDF document released on May 8, 2026, as part of PURSUE Release 01 — the U.S. Department of War's inaugural public disclosure of coordinated UAP records. The record packages a single still image acquired by a U.S. military system in late 2025 somewhere over the Western United States. The Federal Bureau of Investigation submitted the image to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office with redactions applied to the original file. The operator who acquired the image reported a straightforward outcome: no positive identification was made.

What this record contains

The document is a single-part PDF released by the FBI on May 8, 2026, with the incident dated to late 2025 and the location identified only as the Western United States — no more precise coordinates or geographic details appear in the public release. The image itself is described as monochrome and grainy, dominated by a simplified central crosshair typical of military targeting or surveillance optics. Two dark, irregular-shaped objects appear just right of center in the upper right quadrant of the frame. The official narrative description is careful to note it "is provided for informational purposes only" and explicitly disclaims any analytical judgment or investigative conclusion about the nature or validity of what the image shows.

Two additional anomalies complicate the record at the source. The original imagery was altered with redactions before being submitted to AARO, meaning the public version does not reflect the complete raw capture. The mission report that would normally contextualize where, when, and under what operational conditions the image was taken was not provided alongside the image. The timestamp visible in the frame is also unreliable: the FBI's own submission notes that the date shown is incorrect because the operating system's date and time had not been properly configured at the time of capture.

Historical & documentary context

While the FBI's involvement in UAP documentation stretches back to 1947 — when Director J. Edgar Hoover corresponded with the Army Air Forces about "flying disc" reports — FBI Photo B16 is an entirely contemporary record. It reflects a different institutional role. Under the framework that established AARO in 2022 and subsequent legislation requiring government-wide UAP disclosure, the FBI became one of several federal agencies formally obligated to report anomalous phenomena to a central clearinghouse. This document is an example of that pipeline in action. The FBI did not acquire the image itself — a U.S. military system did — but the bureau functioned as the submitting agency, packaging and transmitting the record to AARO as part of its reporting obligations.

The image characteristics described — monochrome, grainy, crosshair-centered, two dark irregular objects — are consistent with outputs from infrared, electro-optical, or early-generation night-vision platforms, though the public record does not specify the sensor type. Military imaging systems of this class routinely produce low-resolution, high-grain results under certain lighting and atmospheric conditions. The absence of a mission report removes the standard analytical anchors: no documented sensor mode, altitude, range-to-target, or camera calibration data is available against which to assess what is visible in the frame. The corrupted timestamp further eliminates one of the primary tools analysts would use to cross-reference this image against other records from the same period.

What this does and does not prove

What the record documents, without dispute, is that a U.S. military sensor captured a frame containing two dark, irregular objects; that the operator was unable to make a positive identification at the time of observation; and that the FBI subsequently forwarded the record to AARO. Those are the bounded facts. What the record does not establish is the nature, size, altitude, speed, or origin of the objects. Redactions remove portions of the original image. The missing mission report eliminates the operational context that would ordinarily enable even a first-pass technical analysis. The corrupted timestamp means the image cannot be precisely time-anchored without additional corroborating data that is not publicly available. "Unresolved" in this context means the case has not been explained — not that anything anomalous has been confirmed. Readers consulting the full UAP files catalogue will find that many records in PURSUE Release 01 share this structure: genuine official documentation of something a trained operator could not identify, paired with significant gaps in the supporting data that would be needed to take analysis further.

How it fits PURSUE Release 01

FBI Photo B16 sits within the FBI-submitted portion of PURSUE Release 01, a release drawing from three broad source streams: AARO-coordinated contemporary military and agency records, NASA archive materials, and historic FBI files reaching back to 1947. This document belongs to the contemporary agency-reporting track — a 2025 observation forwarded through the post-AARO institutional framework rather than a decades-old file surfaced from a cold archive. Its presence in the same release as historical records illustrates one of PURSUE's stated goals: demonstrating continuity of documentation across eras while showing that even the current reporting apparatus, with all its mandated channels and centralized coordination, still produces cases that analysts cannot close. For broader case comparisons and context across the full 162-document release, see the SkyLens PURSUE series.

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.