Colorado Springs, 2022: the 'bean-shaped' object the government still can't explain

In February 2022, U.S. military service members near Colorado Springs, Colorado observed an airborne object they later described to the FBI as 'bean shaped,' 'matte white' or 'off-white,' with a surface covered in 'intersecting lines or ridges which formed an abstract polygon pattern.' The object was 'motionless' and 'no sound could be heard coming from it.' The service members reported the incident to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office in 2023; the FBI recorded the primary witness interview in an FD-302 in March 2025, and AARO has since conducted follow-up interviews.

PURSUE Release 03 declassifies four records of the case: the FD-302 interview, an FD-1057 containing the first-hand narrative used to produce a digital artistic interpretation, the digital rendering itself, and — the analytically notable document — ICA-UAP-D001, an analysis by an AARO Intelligence Community partner agency. The IC partner assessed, with low confidence, that the reported phenomenon (which observers characterized as resembling 'an angular, non-symmetrical potato') was attributable to sunlight backscattering: sunlight reflecting from mountain snow cover illuminating the underside of low-altitude clouds.

The low-confidence qualifier is doing real work. The hypothesis contributes to AARO's consideration of the incident, but the office lists the case as unresolved as of June 2026 — making Colorado Springs one of the few modern domestic military-witness cases where the government has published both its best conventional explanation and its own assessment that the explanation is not strong enough to close the file.