File / test-site-2023
Bronze, Gray, or Just a Light
One convoy, three FBI interviews: a bronze cigar, a gray linear object and a light that might have been a meteor. No photograph
In September 2023, according to three FBI interviews taken that month, five people in three vehicles were driving through a gate on their way to a test site when an object was seen in a clear sky for five to ten seconds before it vanished. One account describes a “cigar shaped object”, “metallic bronze in color”; another a “linear object”, “metallic / gray in color”; the third only “a bright light over the horizon” and the thought that it “might have been a meteor”. One interview records that no photos or video were taken. The day and every place name are blacked out, and the release holds no analysis. A sketch published with the interviews is dated, by its file name alone, seven months later, and none of the interviews mentions it.
Alternative hypotheses
- A meteor. The thought is in Serial 005: “[…] thought the light might have been a meteor coming straight toward them and burning up in the atmosphere.” That interview describes only a light: white, the same size throughout, stationary and then moving to the right, visible for ten seconds. The other two describe a body with a light at one end or side, crossing from east to west for five to ten seconds.
- An aircraft. Raised and set aside by the witnesses themselves. In Serial 003 she “was initially annoyed when she saw the object because she had restricted the ranges for the tests they were going to conduct that morning but then she realized the object was not an aircraft or drone”; Serial 004 says it “did not have any wings or exhaust” and was “smaller than a 737”. The release holds no flight records for that morning, so nothing tests either view.
- A drone. The convoy was on its way to drone and LiDAR tests, and the airspace had been restricted for them. Serial 004 calls the object “definitely bigger than a drone”; Serial 003 says it “was not an aircraft or drone”.
- An unidentified object. The description in Serial 003 and Serial 004: an elongated metallic body, one to three Blackhawk helicopters long by their two estimates, with a bright light at its eastern end or side, gone after five to ten seconds in a clear sky; Serial 003 adds that it “was completely silent”. It rests on eyesight alone, and the estimates of height and distance disagree: 500 to 3000 feet above a tree line about a mile away, 5000 feet above ground level, ten to twenty miles away.
Three interviews from one convoy
In September 2023 the FBI interviewed three people who had been in the same convoy on the same morning. Each interview is a two-page FD-302, dated “Investigation on 09/[…]/2023” and entered in October 2023; in each, the day is blacked out. All three carry the same caption on their second page, “September […] 2023 […] UAP”. The publisher titles them “FBI September 2023 Sighting - Serial 003”, “Serial 004” and “Serial 005”, and this page uses those numbers.
Serial 003 was taken in person, “in Building […]”, and a supervisor sat in. It is the account of a woman who “had restricted the air space in […] for the upcoming tests” and who was driving when she saw the object.
Serial 004 was taken “via Facetime video”. The man interviewed was there “with three other contractors” and “had ten to fifteen hours as a drone pilot”.
Serial 005 was taken “via Facetime video” too. The paragraph that would say who he is, four lines long, is blacked out in full.
All three describe a convoy of three vehicles. Serial 004: “the five of them got into three vehicles with […] driving the first vehicle and […] as her passenger.” Serial 003 has “[…] drove the first vehicle with […] as the front passenger”, and the contractors “in the second and third vehicles”. Serial 005 names the vehicles: “[…] and […] were driving an F150. […] was behind them, driving a GMC AT4 with […] as his passenger. […] was behind them driving a sprinter van.”
They had come for tests. Serial 003 speaks of “a special project” and “the upcoming tests”; Serial 004 of “LiDAR tests” and “the drone tests they were going to conduct”; Serial 005 of driving “to a test site to acquire data for LiDAR testing”.
What each of them saw
Serial 003. “As […] was driving through the gate she looked up and saw a cigar shaped object with an extremely bright light southwest of them approximately 500 to 3000 feet above the nearest tree line.” The agent adds in brackets that “the tree line was approximately one mile south west of […] position”. “The object was already there when she looked up. The object was almost hovering, slowly moving from east to west.” Its light was “an intense diamond white light with what appeared to be a ring around the light”, on “the eastern end of the object”, and it “was pointing south east and looking at it (the light) was like looking into the sun.” The FD-302 gives the colour in quotation marks: “metallic bronze in color”. It gives the length as “two or three Blackhawk helicopters lined up nose to tail” and the width as “approximately the width of one and a half Blackhawks”, hard to judge because the light “may have been obscuring part of the body”. “The object was completely silent.” She watched it with […] “for five to ten seconds and then the object just disappeared. The sky was clear with no clouds and the object did leave any contrails” [sic]. “She only observed the one object and felt it left when it saw them.”
Serial 004. “At about three quarters of the windshield up, […] saw a linear object with a super bright light on the east side of the object. The light was bright white and bright enough to see bands within the light. The object was metallic / gray in color. It did not have any wings or exhaust.” It was “smaller than a 737, one to two Blackhawk helicopters in length and was definitely bigger than a drone”, “approximately 5000 feet above ground level”, and “moved east to west parallel to the ground”. It “was visible for five to ten seconds and then the light went out and the object vanished”, having “stayed the same size and kept the same light intensity”. “He did not see the object as they were coming over the small bridge at the gate until they were going through the gate.”
Serial 005. “The vehicles drove through a couple of gates and […] saw a bright light over the horizon. The light was stationary in the air, then started moving to the right and then disappeared.” It was seen “through the top right of the vehicle’s windshield”; it was “bright white”, “visible for ten seconds”, and “stayed the same size throughout the incident”; it was thought to be “ten to twenty miles away”. The second page holds one sentence: “[…] thought the light might have been a meteor coming straight toward them and burning up in the atmosphere.”
None of the three noticed any interference with the vehicles: “her vehicle’s engine” in Serial 003, “their vehicles” in Serial 004, “his vehicle” in Serial 005.
Where the accounts part
The time. Page 1 of the Serial 003 file is ClearScan, that is, text reconstructed by OCR, not the scan itself. Its two times, the brief received “At 7:02 am” and the drive to the gate “Between 7:15 and 7:30 am”, stand only in that layer and cannot be checked against the scan. The same OCR adds stray letters at the ends of lines; we leave them out of our quotations. Serial 004 has the three vehicles beginning “driving south around 7:30 am”. Serial 005 puts the sighting “at around 9:00 am”. The documents do not reconcile these times, and neither do we.
The direction. Serial 003 gives no direction of travel; Serial 004 says the convoy was “driving south”, Serial 005 “driving east”. Serial 003 places the object “southwest of them”; Serial 004 “three quarters of the windshield up”; Serial 005 “over the horizon”, in the top right of the windshield. In Serial 003 and Serial 004 it moves east to west; in Serial 005 the light starts “moving to the right”.
The object. A “cigar shaped object”, “metallic bronze in color”, in Serial 003; a “linear object”, “metallic / gray in color”, in Serial 004; “a bright light” and nothing more in Serial 005.
The size. Two or three Blackhawks long and one and a half wide in Serial 003; “one to two Blackhawk helicopters in length” and “smaller than a 737” in Serial 004; no size in Serial 005, only that the light “stayed the same size”.
Height and distance. “500 to 3000 feet above the nearest tree line” in Serial 003; “approximately 5000 feet above ground level” in Serial 004; “ten to twenty miles away” in Serial 005.
The light. A “diamond white” light with a ring, at the eastern end, “like looking into the sun”, in Serial 003; “super bright”, “bright white”, with “bands within the light”, until “the light went out”, in Serial 004; “bright white” in Serial 005.
Duration. Serial 003 and Serial 004 give “five to ten seconds”; Serial 005 gives “ten seconds”.
The sky. “The sky was clear with no clouds” in Serial 003; “The sun was in the east with good visibility” and “The sky was clear” in Serial 004; nothing in Serial 005.
The second vehicle. Serial 003: “[…] drove to the test site where […] who was a passenger in the second vehicle said he saw the object too.” Serial 004: “[…] in the second vehicle tried to get […] to see the object but was unsuccessful.” Serial 005: “[…] pointed the light out to […] but […] looked in the wrong direction. […] was also tall and had his seat leaned back so he was not in a good position to see the light.” With the names blacked out, it cannot be established whether Serial 003 and Serial 005 speak of the same person.
The reactions. In Serial 003 she “was initially annoyed when she saw the object because she had restricted the ranges for the tests they were going to conduct that morning but then she realized the object was not an aircraft or drone”. Serial 004 records that “[…] was annoyed when she first saw the object because the air space had been restricted for the drone tests they were going to conduct.” Serial 005: “[…] was indifferent to the light until they got to the first test site and […] and […] said they saw it too.” Serial 003 adds that she “would not have reported the object if she had seen it by herself” and that “Several of her co-workers subsequently made fun of her due to her report.”
The gate, the storm and the television
Two details in the interviews come with no stated connection to the object. They are given here as the documents give them.
The gate. Serial 003, on its OCR page: “Between 7:15 and 7:30 am, […] drove down […] to a gate that restricted access to part of the […] attempted to open the gate remotely using a fob.” The gate “opened just a little and then closed on three separate tries. On the fourth attempt the gate opened completely and stayed open.” The interview adds: “There were no prior operational problems with that particular gate and there were no operating issues with the gate after September […]”. The next paragraph begins: “As […] was driving through the gate she looked up and saw a cigar shaped object”. Serial 004 says only that “The three vehicles came to a gate that was giving […] trouble”; Serial 005 that “The vehicles drove through a couple of gates”. None of the three connects the gate with the object.
The storm and the television. Only Serial 004 has them: “That night a storm came through and the TV went out in […] hotel room. He was still freaked out and went downstairs to make sure all the TVs were out in the hotel and not just his.” It goes on: “[…] had weird dreams and had trouble sleeping for the first two nights after he saw the object.” The interview does not connect the outage with the object, and Serial 003 and Serial 005 say nothing about that night.
A sketch dated seven months later
The release adds a fourth file to the set, “FBI September 2023 Sighting - Composite Sketch”. Its only date is in its file name, 2024-04-30-Composite-Sketch.pdf, seven months after the sighting. The image carries no date, caption, signature, scale or compass point. Our reading of the file’s metadata adds one thing: the file was made in Photoshop from a JPEG. When the drawing itself was made, and who made it, the documents do not say. The publisher’s description calls it an “Actual site photo with FBI Lab rendered graphic overlay”. None of the three FD-302s mentions a sketch.
It shows an elongated, bronze-coloured object lying level, with a white starburst at its left end, in a cloudless sky above a tree line, a field and a paved road.
Whose account it illustrates is not known. Serial 003 fits it: the cigar shape, the bronze, the light at one end, the tree line. Serial 004 says “gray”; Serial 005 saw a light. No document makes the connection.
The publisher’s description says more than any of the interviews: “an apparent ellipsoid bronze metallic object materializing out of a bright light in the sky, 130-195 feet in length, and disappearing instantaneously”. The word “materializing” contradicts Serial 003: “The object was already there when she looked up.” The publisher’s alternative text for the image, “Saucer-shaped object with a bright light hovers over a grassy field”, contradicts both “cigar” in Serial 003 and “ellipsoid” in the description itself. As for the figures: 130 to 195 is a ratio of 2 to 3, the same as “two or three Blackhawk helicopters” in Serial 003. That is our calculation; no document gives a conversion.
What the publisher says
The publisher’s listing, uap-data.csv, gives each of the three interviews the same sentence, “This is an FBI 302 interview conducted with a US citizen regarding their first-hand account of a UAP encounter at a US test site”, followed by a quotation from the interview: “metallic bronze in color” for Serial 003, “metallic/gray in color” for Serial 004, “bright light over the horizon” for Serial 005. It gives all four files the incident date “9/1/23” and the incident location “United States”. The date is a placeholder: no document gives the day.
The listing also links the three interviews to files shifted by one. Under Serial 003 it links the file of Serial 005, under Serial 004 the file of Serial 003, and under Serial 005 the file of Serial 004. The title, the description and the file name agree with one another; only the link does not. Our registry gives each record the file that matches its title and keeps the published link beside it: Serial 3, Serial 4, Serial 5.
Where it was: we cannot say
Every place name in the three interviews is blacked out: the building, the site, the road to the gate. The interviews give “United States” only as the place of the interview itself: “United States (In Person)” for Serial 003, “United States (Other (Facetime Video))” for the other two. Serial 003 mentions “the bases’ standard […] ([…] brief” and “the US military”. The publisher gives the location as “United States” and calls it “a US test site”. No state or region survives anywhere, so the case has no pin on the map. The publisher calls the background of the sketch an “Actual site photo”; it carries no caption.
No document in releases 01 to 06 links this convoy to any other case, the Western U.S. Event of October 2023 included, which is documented in a separate set of files.
Why this scores where it does
Witnesses score 3. Three first-hand accounts, each taken separately within weeks of the event. One comes from a woman who, by her interview, “had seen most of the aircraft and drones used by the US military during her fifteen years working at […]”; one from a contractor who “had ten to fifteen hours as a drone pilot”. They are not independent: they travelled in one convoy and talked about the object at the test site before any interview, and most of their roles are blacked out.
Radar and optics score 0. None of the documents mentions any measurement of the object, the LiDAR testing the convoy had come for included. Serial 003: “No photos or video of the object were taken by […] or the contractors.” The sketch is an illustration.
Physical trace scores 0. The gate and the television are not traces: no document connects either with the object.
Multi-channel scores 1: one channel, eyewitnesses from one group. The publisher describes the sketch as “depicting corroborating eyewitness reports”, so it adds nothing independent.
Documentation scores 3. Three interviews written down within weeks, with times, directions and estimates. Against that: six pages and a sketch, no covering note and no analysis; the day, the place, the names and the file number are blacked out, and page 1 of Serial 003 survives only as OCR text.
Anomaly scores 2. Two accounts describe an elongated metallic body with a bright light at its eastern end that vanished from a clear sky; the third saw a light and records the thought of a meteor. The estimates of height and distance do not agree. Serial 004 records both that “The sun was in the east” and that the light was “on the east side of the object”; the file does not comment on that.
Data today scores 1. Only the text survives, and with the day and the place blacked out, nothing in it can be checked against anything else.
The overall is 1.1: class D, testimony only.
What would settle it
- The interviews with the day, the site and the times restored, which would place the sighting in time and space.
- The record of the airspace restriction that Serial 003 and Serial 004 describe, and of what flew in that airspace that morning.
- Whatever data the LiDAR testing collected that morning, if any was collected.
- The rest of the FBI file: any interview of the others in the convoy who “said they saw it too”, and the record of how the sketch was made.
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