PURSUE Release 3 — 72 New Declassified UAP Files: Western US Event 2023, First FBI Orb Videos, Apollo Astronaut Audio

On June 12, 2026, the U.S. Department of War published the third batch of declassified UAP records under the PURSUE program — 72 new files that push the public catalog to 294 records across three releases. Release 03 is the most evidentiary batch yet: it includes the first dedicated FBI video series in the archive, the first astronaut audio testimony, and the most complete single case file the program has published — the Western United States Event of 2023.

What's in Release 03 at a glance

The release adds 53 PDFs, 10 images, 6 videos, and 3 audio files. Source agencies are wider than in either of the previous batches: Department of War, FBI, CIA, NASA, the Intelligence Community Agency (ICA), and U.S. Government correspondence. All files are linked on war.gov/ufo.

The Western United States Event, 2023 — Release 03's headline case

This is the most complete single-case package the PURSUE program has published. It bundles eight Department-of-War files (DOW-UAP-D077 through D083) with AARO's unresolved-case analysis update, a notional incident map, and five separate operator narrative statements covering two incidents in 2023. The FBI complements the bundle with eleven digital renderings (FBI-UAP-D014 through D023) and two video recreations (FBI-UAP-PR005 and PR006) — meaning a reader can now cross-reference the AARO assessment, individual eyewitness statements, FBI 3D renderings, and a digital recreation of the event sequence in one sitting. Nothing in the first two PURSUE drops came close to this level of triangulation on one event.

FBI video series debuts — Triangle Orbs, Red Orb Rotation, Orbs Over the Pond

The FBI-UAP-PR series is brand new — Release 03 introduces the first six entries. The headline is FBI-UAP-PR001 "Triangle Orbs", a 2 min 42 sec sensor clip from the Northeastern United States in 2021, showing three orbs in triangular formation. PR002 covers a rotating red orb from 2022; PR003 "Orbs Over the Pond" is the longest at 4 min 25 sec (2024); PR004 is a 49-second Northeastern orb capture from 2025. PR005 and PR006 are the Western US Event recreations noted above. Some supplemental review material indicates probable sky-lantern explanations for portions of the Northeastern series — the videos are released as source material, not as proof of any single conclusion.

NASA — first astronaut audio testimony in the catalog

NASA-UAP-D023 is a 2 min 03 sec audio excerpt from a 1962 interview with astronaut Gordon Cooper. It is the first astronaut audio file in the PURSUE archive. Two longer audio files accompany it: NASA-UAP-D024 (96m 32s) and NASA-UAP-D025 (55m 41s), both Apollo 16 scientific debriefings — roughly 2.5 hours of mission audio combined. Eight new PDF debriefing documents (NASA-UAP-D015 through D022) cover the Mercury and Gemini programs, including the Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing Parts I and II from 1965 and the Gemini 7 and Gemini 9 technical debriefs.

The CIA Cold War batch — 18 files spanning 1950–1973

Release 03 quietly contains the largest single CIA disclosure of UFO-related records to date: CIA-UAP-002 through CIA-UAP-019. Notable entries include the Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects report (the "Robertson Panel," 1952–1953), the agency's history of the U-2 and OXCART overhead reconnaissance programs (1954–1974) — important because much classic-era U.S. UFO sighting traffic was eventually attributed to those classified flights — and a speculative paper by Soviet physicists N. Kardashev and A. Sakharov (1972). There are also five separate Hungarian and Soviet-bloc sighting reports from the 1950s and 1960s, a German scientist's article on "flying discs" (1950), the Sary Shagan weapons testing range file (1973), and a sighting record from Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan (1968).

Other significant Release 03 entries

• CIA-UAP-017 — "Placement on High Alert, Harare Zimbabwe 2008": a disc-shaped object with rotating lights reported above Harare International Airport, with internal debate over whether it represented advanced foreign reconnaissance or anomalous activity.
• FBI-UAP-D001 / D002 (FD-302 and FD-1057) — Colorado Springs 2022: the "potato"-shaped object with articulating panels described as resembling "fish scales." Official assessment suggests possible sunlight reflection off snow but explicitly notes low confidence in that explanation. ICA-UAP-D001 is the Intelligence Community Agency's standalone analysis of the same incident.
• FBI-UAP-D004 through D008 (FD-1057-02 through -07) — Northeastern United States 2024: a five-document investigation packet.
• DOW-UAP-D084 / D085 / D086 / D087 / D088 — historical: the U.S. Army Flying-Saucer-Study (1949), CIA Scientific Advisory Panel Report transmission (1953), U.S. Navy Report of Flying Discs (1948), and U.S. Air Force Analysis of Flying Objects covering incidents 1 through 172.
• USG-UAP-D001: Congressional, White House, and UFO-related constituent correspondence from 1998.

How Release 03 compares to Releases 01 and 02

Release 01 (May 8, 2026) was an evidentiary mass drop — 162 files heavy on Department of War mission reports, FBI sensor stills, Apollo and Gemini transcripts, and State Department cables. Release 02 (May 22, 2026) was a video-heavy follow-up — 64 files including more than 50 sensor videos, headlined by the F-16 shootdown footage over Lake Huron and a 17-minute Persian Gulf formation. Release 03 is structurally different. It is smaller in raw count (72 files) but adds three things the first two batches did not: a fully triangulated single-case package (the Western US Event), the first FBI dedicated video series, and a substantial CIA historical archive that pulls disclosure framing back to the Cold War era. It also introduces the Intelligence Community Agency (ICA) as a contributing source for the first time.

What SkyLens will cover next

Each Release 03 file will receive its own SkyLens deep-dive over the coming days — source link, agency context, what the official record does and does not conclude, hedged interpretive framing, and sky-context overlays where applicable. The full archive is browsable on the SkyLens UAP files page, and the official portal remains at war.gov/ufo.

SkyLens is editorially independent and not affiliated with any government agency. All Release 03 files are sourced from the official PURSUE portal at war.gov/ufo. Some files contain supplemental analyses that suggest conventional explanations for parts of the released material — those are noted in the per-file deep-dives.