“Are You Seeing This?” Inside the Pentagon's Red Orb Files

The third tranche of Department of War UAP files went up in mid-June, and it broke the pattern of the first two. 1 Where earlier releases were dominated by military sensor footage, this one leaned heavily on eyewitnesses — including federal agents. 24

The documents describe a run of orb sightings across the northeastern United States between roughly October 2024 and June 2025. 4 In one, two witnesses reported a glowing red sphere containing what appeared to be a basketball-sized white plasma sun. 4 Four of the videos in the batch are eyewitness footage rather than cockpit or drone imagery, a shift the department did not explain. 2

Fortune, working through the same files, catalogued the vocabulary the government is now committing to paper: fish-scaled potatoes, red orbs. Its verdict on the substance was blunt — still no aliens. 3

The helicopter photographs

The most contested item was a set of FBI photographs said to show orbs beneath a helicopter during a December 2025 incursion over a sensitive military facility in the southwestern United States. Advocates have characterised the flight as a deliberate luring operation run with Office of the Director of National Intelligence involvement, with a government official aboard describing glowing orbs at close range and in the distance. 6

That characterisation is a claim made about the documents, not a claim the documents make. UFONN notes the distinction because it is the exact seam where this story has repeatedly gone wrong.

The money question

Two days before the release, David Grusch — the former intelligence officer whose 2023 testimony opened the modern disclosure fight — stood on the Capitol steps and shifted the argument from imagery to accounting. 7

He alleged the existence of slush funds worth billions of dollars a year supporting UAP-related activity outside normal congressional oversight, and accused the Defense Intelligence Agency of obstructing lawmakers' records requests. 7

Files can be released and still explain nothing. Appropriations are harder to argue with, which is precisely why that fight is the one now being fought.

The Pentagon has consistently said it has found no verifiable information substantiating claims of concealed programs. That denial has not moved, through three releases. 3