Washington — Federal agents in the western United States reported seeing a large, triangular aircraft rise vertically from a stationary position, accelerate to fighter-jet speeds and make no sound or produce visible exhaust, according to newly released Pentagon records.
The accounts appear in the Defense Department’s latest release of documents concerning UFOs, now officially known as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP. Friday’s disclosure marked the seventh release made under an executive order President Trump signed earlier this year requiring the publication of sensitive UAP records. The new collection contains 28 PDF files.
The triangular object is described in two of those records: a Pentagon memo summarizing an interview conducted by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, and a signed FBI statement from the agents.
The sighting took place in June near an unnamed “national security site” somewhere in the western U.S.
The agents said another officer at a nearby post first alerted them to the object. They moved to a better vantage point and saw the craft above a ridgeline several miles west, silhouetted against the fading light shortly after sunset.
“We initiated a visual survey of the western horizon and almost immediately observed a substantial, nonreflective, dark black triangular object most resembling a delta wing drone,” the agents wrote in their FBI statement. They estimated its wingspan at roughly nine to 15 feet, its depth at six to nine feet and its thickness at one to two feet.
The FBI file also contains illustrations depicting the observation site and the reported shape of the aircraft.
According to the AARO memo, the “unidentified craft was executing a slow, controlled, perfectly vertical ascent directly over the ridge line.” It rose an estimated 200 to 300 feet while holding a fixed position, without tilting, swaying or wobbling. Investigators described its matte-black surface as nonreflective and featureless.
The report said the climb took place in “absolute acoustic silence.”
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Viewed through an infrared scope, the agents said, the object appeared warmer than its surroundings. Its thermal signature was uniform across the entire craft, and no exhaust gases were visible.
After reaching an altitude of approximately 200 to 300 feet above the ridgeline, the object stopped “instantaneously” and hovered motionless for about 20 seconds, according to the AARO debrief.
It then accelerated rapidly, reaching a speed the agents compared with that of a military fighter jet. They lost sight of the craft within seconds.
“Absolute acoustic silence persisted throughout the high-velocity phase,” the memo stated. Investigators found no impact, smoke, dust or other physical disturbance. A survey of the canyon drainage the next morning uncovered no wreckage, ground scars or damage to vegetation.
The report joins a growing series of unusual sightings described by federal agents in the western United States and documented in earlier UAP releases.
In 2023, law enforcement agents at an undisclosed site reported seeing orange orbs that released smaller red orbs over two days, according to records published in May. A subsequent release included firsthand accounts: one agent said the red lights “accelerated instantly,” while another likened the phenomenon to “grapes being expelled from a basketball.”
In another case, reported in August, an agent captured infrared footage of two “black-hot” objects traveling together at the same slow speed.
The Pentagon said AARO considers the June sighting worthy of additional study because the reported shape and movement of the object closely match the “morphological features and kinematic profiles” documented in other incidents across the western United States.
