The U.S. Department of War released its third batch of UAP files on June 13, 2026, under the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The release includes a previously undisclosed CIA document describing a disc-like object observed over Harare International Airport in Zimbabwe in 2008, reports of a translucent "potato"-shaped object seen near Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs in 2024, and footage of apparent luminous orbs assessed by analysts to likely be sky lanterns. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell stated that WAR.GOV/UFO had received over 1.7 billion hits worldwide since its May 8, 2026 launch and confirmed that the Department of War and agency partners are actively preparing the next release.
The article, written by Micah Hanks of The Debrief, also highlights a video from the second PURSUE batch — designated DOW-UAP-PR061, "Spherical UAP [CALLSIGN] 2021/04/12 vid 0" — which captured on April 12, 2021 from a U.S. military drone operating within USCENTCOM's area of responsibility appears to show a small, light-colored spherical object descending, changing direction, and moving into shadowed terrain. Hanks argues this video, while not extraordinary, is consistent with AARO's own "target package" for genuine UAP as characterized by former AARO director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick in April 2023, and raises the broader question of whether higher-quality UAP data that informed AARO's technical signature data remains classified and unreleased.
The third tranche of the Trump administration's PURSUE program: 72 files — 53 documents, 10 images, 6 videos, 3 audio files — bringing the public corpus to 294 files. The FBI dominates with 29 files, anchored by two modern American case clusters: a four-year series of orb sightings in the northeastern U.S. that the Bureau's own agents witnessed first-hand, and the first-person record of the October 2023 Western US Event. Also included: the CIA's 1953 Robertson Panel report in less-redacted form, NASA's Gemini-era crew debriefings, and the 1962 Cronkite–Cooper interview audio.
Exactly 14 days after PURSUE Release 01, the U.S. Department of War publishes a second tranche of declassified UAP records through war.gov/UFO: 51 sensor videos (the DOW-UAP-PR050–PR099 series), 7 NASA crew audio files, and 6 documents. The centerpiece is a first-person USPER narrative from a currently-serving senior U.S. intelligence officer describing a one-hour, multi-witness UAP encounter from a U.S. military helicopter in late 2025.
A never-before-released July 2008 CIA report — featured by the Department of War in PURSUE Release 03 — documents a UFO sighting at Harare International Airport, Zimbabwe, and an internal debate over whether the object was an advanced reconnaissance device of a foreign government or 'of extraterrestrial origins.' The report's routing context: perceived aggressive foreign posturing had placed personnel on high alert.
A previously-classified CIA intelligence report from 1973 documenting a Soviet citizen's observation of a luminous, bright-green airborne object in the summer of 1973. One of the few PURSUE entries with an explicitly Cold-War-era USSR provenance; reproduced in full as part of Release 02.
PURSUE Release 03 publishes the CIA's 1952-1953 Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects — the Robertson Panel — in less-redacted form, with the Department of War's own transmission copy to the Secretary of Defense. The panel found no direct physical threat but warned that public fascination could clog intelligence channels and that a 'morbid national psychology' could be exploited by adversaries — and recommended an official policy of 'debunking' to 'strip the UFO subject of its mystery.'