PURSUE Record — FBI Photo B9: FBI · Western United States · Late 2025

FBI Photo B9 is a single-page PDF declassified as part of PURSUE Release 01 on May 8, 2026 by the U.S. Department of War. It contains one still image derived from a U.S. military system, capturing what the operator described as an unidentified anomalous phenomenon over the Western United States in late 2025. The image was submitted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). The operator could not positively identify what appears in the frame.

What this record contains

The releasing agency is the FBI, and the document consists of a single file part — one PDF with a monochrome still pulled from a military-operated imaging system. The incident location is identified only as the Western United States; no city, installation, or specific geographic coordinates are named in the public release. The incident date falls in late 2025, though the official description notes that the timestamp embedded in the image itself is wrong: the system's internal clock was not properly configured, making the date displayed in the image unreliable. The original imagery was redacted before being forwarded to AARO, and no accompanying mission report was provided.

The description offered in the release is deliberately narrow in scope. The image shows a monochrome, grainy frame with a central crosshair reticle — the kind of targeting or tracking overlay typical of military optical and sensor platforms. Just below and to the left of that reticle sits a small, dark, circular object. The background shows what appears to be an indistinct mountain range. Beyond that geometric arrangement, the record itself offers nothing further. The release explicitly states that the narrative description "should not be interpreted as reflecting an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination."

Historical & documentary context

Unlike the older FBI files in PURSUE Release 01 that trace back to the post-Roswell investigation era of 1947–1968, FBI Photo B9 is a contemporary record. It reflects the post-2022 legislative and institutional environment in which the FBI has formal reporting obligations to AARO for UAP observations made in connection with U.S. military systems. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office was established precisely to centralize these reports across agencies — military, intelligence, and law enforcement — and what appears here is that pipeline in action: a military asset captures something, an operator flags it, the FBI processes and redacts the imagery, and AARO receives it for analysis.

The crosshair reticle and monochrome rendering visible in the described frame are consistent with electro-optical or infrared targeting systems common to military aircraft, ground installations, and unmanned platforms. These systems are engineered for precision tracking, which makes the operator's inability to identify the object notable — not because that absence of ID implies anything extraordinary, but because trained operators working with military-grade optics typically have a ready taxonomy for most airborne objects. The incorrect system timestamp is a mundane but important caveat: it removes one of the most basic tools analysts use to cross-reference the image with radar tracks, flight logs, or other sensor data from the same window.

What this does and does not prove

What the record documents is narrow: a U.S. military imaging system captured a small, circular, dark object in the Western United States in late 2025; the operator could not identify it; the FBI forwarded the redacted image to AARO without an accompanying mission report; the system clock was wrong. That is the totality of what the public release establishes. It does not document any flight characteristics, speed, altitude, or behavior. It does not name witnesses, reference radar correlation, or include any analytical conclusion from AARO or the FBI. "Unresolved" in this context means the case has not been explained — not that anything anomalous has been confirmed. The redactions, the missing mission report, and the corrupted timestamp collectively limit what outside analysts can do with this single frame. You can see the object. You cannot determine what it is from this document alone.

How it fits PURSUE Release 01

FBI Photo B9 sits within the FBI-sourced portion of PURSUE Release 01's 120-PDF tranche, which spans from mid-twentieth-century investigation reports to contemporary AARO submissions like this one. Its inclusion alongside historic case files demonstrates that the FBI's role in UAP documentation did not end in the 1960s — the bureau remains an active reporting channel. Among the 162 total records in the release, contemporary sensor-derived images like this one are among the most operationally current, offering a glimpse into how the current reporting architecture actually functions rather than how it functioned decades ago. For broader context on how this record relates to the military and NASA materials in the same release, the SkyLens PURSUE coverage index catalogs the full set by agency and type.

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.