Pentagon Releases a Colorado Officer's Footage of a Silent, Flashing Orb, Filmed in 2023

COLORADO (sighting Oct. 1, 2023; footage released Sept. 18, 2026) — Nearly three years ago, a local law enforcement officer somewhere in Colorado raised a phone toward the sky and started recording. The officer later described what was up there as an orb hanging about 300 feet off the ground, silent, flashing red, blue and green. It held still for about 15 minutes, the officer said, and then began moving toward him.

That footage sat in government files until Sept. 18, 2026, when the Pentagon published it in its sixth batch of UFO records. The sighting isn’t new. The public’s first look at it is.

What we know

On the record: documents, statements, dates and places. Sources below.

The date. According to the Department of War and its media service, DVIDS, the footage was taken on Oct. 1, 2023, and posted on Sept. 18, 2026, as part of PURSUE Release 6.
The files. CBS News reports that four of the release’s videos came from local law enforcement in Colorado, who submitted reports to the Pentagon’s UAP office. The Pentagon said the footage was shot on cellphone cameras in October 2023. The Denver Gazette reports that one of the four clips runs 15 minutes.
Official status. The Department of War published the clips under the title “Unresolved UAP Report.” The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) lists the case as unresolved.
The officer’s description. In notes accompanying the clips, the military wrote: “The reporting officer described the phenomenon as ‘silent’ and as featuring ‘red, blue, and green flashing lights.’”
How it was filmed. DVIDS says the video came from a commercially available phone’s rear-facing camera. AARO blurred the bottom half of the footage to protect the privacy of a U.S. person or commercial entity. AARO appended a comment to the clips: “Cellular devices of the type used to capture this footage employ autofocus and other automated image-processing functions that may distort the apparent morphological and kinematic characteristics of distant subjects, particularly at high magnification.”
The transcript. A brief transcript was released with the videos, the Denver Gazette reports. The location appears to be noted in it but remains redacted.
Not the first Colorado file. Several Colorado UAP reports have been declassified already, the Gazette notes, but this release included video.

What’s claimed

Accounts, testimony and theories, as told by the people who tell them.

According to the Denver Gazette’s summary of the transcript, the officer described the object as orb-like and about 300 feet off the ground. A radar check showed no aircraft flying in the area at the time, the officer said. The object stayed stationary for about 15 minutes, then began flying closer to the officer.

Watch the Stars, a U.K. astronomy site, quotes the transcript directly. By its account, the officer says he is “watching another orb,” reports that it “has been flying stationary for about 15 minutes,” says he checked radar and “there is no aircraft flying in the area,” and then says: “the craft is flying closer to me now.”

The word “another” stands out. The released files don’t explain it.

The longest clip, the Gazette reports, appears to show the object while it’s stationary. In other clips it appears to be moving.

The questions that remain

What the files don’t include says as much as what they do. The exact location is redacted, and nothing released explains what happened after the object began to close in, or whether the officer had seen orbs before that night.

The Department of War has left the case where AARO left it: unresolved. A law enforcement witness, a radar check that came back empty and 15 minutes of phone video are now public. Almost three years after that night in October 2023, the explanation still isn’t.

✓ What we know

? What’s claimed

The questions that remain

Sources

What we know

What’s claimed