The Federal Agents Who Watched a Ball of Light Over the Desert (Western US Event, 2023)

2026-08-17 · Declassified UAP records

In October 2023, multiple teams of U.S. federal law-enforcement agents working after dark in the western United States reported unexplained lights over two consecutive nights.

On the first night, several teams radioed in strange lights moving in groups, miles away. On the second, two agents driving through a valley saw a large glowing ball of light appear about ninety degrees to their right, close to a hillside a rangefinder later measured at roughly eleven hundred meters.

The witness described it as a well-defined circle of light, bright against the dusk, resembling a swirling pattern of 'bright lava,' with no visible structure at its edges. Through binoculars, he thought he could make out a thin line or spindle beneath it, nearly touching the ground. The account was provided to AARO, the Pentagon's UAP office.

Below is the declassified witness narrative, followed by the full transcript.

The Document

Narrative from Witness 1 — Western U.S. Event

Executive Summary

This memorandum presents the first-hand narrative from Witness 1 provided to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Witness 1 was one of several United States (U.S.) federal law enforcement special agents who reported observing unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) over a period of two days in October 2023 in the western United States.

Witness Narrative

"It started the first night with other teams reporting weird lights moving along in groups miles away. From my vantage point I could not see them, though in theory should have been able to. Because of my location I did not see anything specific the first night. The second night another team member and I were out working and driving to our destination. As we headed through a valley area we suddenly noticed a large glowing ball to our right 90 degrees from where we were. It looked like it was between us and a hill face, and initially I guessed it was 500 to 600 meters away, though another later day I was able to use a range finder to put the distance to the hillside at about 1100 meters. The ball appeared close to the hill face. It was just a circle of light that looked like a swirly pattern of bright lava. It was bright in the dusk light, the time was just before 7 pm I think. It was not visible up to the moment we first saw it, though the hillside face behind it was visible as we drove for some distance before we saw the object. The object's lighted area was a well defined circle, but had no visible structure at the edges to show what contained the light or why it was where it was. Looking at it through binoculars it almost appeared to have a line or spindle below possibly touching the hillside below. It was not possible to verify for sure because of the distance. There was no observed glow behind or below the object on the hillside or ground. It was only observed for a minute or two before we could no longer see it. It did not fade out, we just could not see it anymore. There was no particular sound heard with it. All seemed quiet and it was pretty remote. I would have guessed the circle to be 20 feet or more in diameter. We started driving and drove a few more minutes. Then we stopped and had to get out of the vehicle. About 20 minutes later to the front, another object that looked similar lit up in the sky over the top of another hillside slightly to the right of front. It appeared to be several miles away. It only lit up for a second or two and then was gone again.

While it was lit, it appeared three red lights flew out of and away from it. They seemed evenly spaced apart and moved pretty fast, quickly disappearing from sight. At the same time the orange light lit up, there appeared to be a flash from over the horizon to the left. The flash lit up the sky pretty well, though very briefly. About twenty minutes later the experience repeated except this time the orange ball appeared to the front and slightly to the left this time. This time however, the red lights appeared to leave in a different pattern as one flew straight out, one appeared to fly up horizontally and another flew down horizontally, appearing to fly away in a vertical alignment of three lights. A flash accompanied this event as well and all three sightings appeared to be similar though at different distances. Several hours later we departed from where we were at to drive to another location in preparation for work the next day.

It took several hours of driving, and as we were driving hours later still, we observed a car driving ahead of us on the road, we were gaining on the car and as we got closer I noticed it appeared one taillight cover was broken because one taillight was red and one was white. They were also different because one was round and one was square. Another vehicle approached from the opposite direction and as it was about to pass the vehicle in front of us, the car changed direction and moved off the road to the right. The oncoming vehicle continued driving and passed us, almost like it did not even see the vehicle move of the road as it passed. It did not bounce or move with the terrain, but seemed to hover. It did not kick up any dust either. It stopped on the road next to it, and the lights appeared to be in the same position facing us even though we were in a different direction from it. When we stopped the lights turned off and I could see a darker object moving up and toward behind us as it flew away. When we stopped we already had the windows rolled down and I did not notice any sound at any point. It reminded me of a Toyota Prius for some reason. It was hard to identify the exact shape though. The hillside was about 200 meters away, and when it stopped it was less than halfway to the base of the hillside. We started looking around the area and approximately an hour or two later as we were stopped we observed some dust and thick spider web looking material floating in-front of us. We then saw what looked like the same object floating in a more vertical orientation floating with the dust. It was still at an off angle. I could see where the spots were for the two lights and one being round and the other square. The lights were not on though. The object itself was still hard to define its shape and borders visually. It was in the air about 15-20 feet up and as it floated past I could see a star through the object, as well as the crest of the hill and some vegetation. It was almost like looking at something through water where it was not completely clear."

"We eventually continued to our destination and I did not have any other contact or sightings of those objects of that night that I observed."

— Jon T. Kosloski, Director, AARO

Office of the Under Secretary of War (Intelligence & Security) — Memorandum for Record; released via the AARO Western U.S. Event disclosure. · U.S. Department of War / AARO (DoW-UAP-D079, Narrative 1)

Full Transcript

Federal agents, working after dark in the western United States, watched a glowing ball of light hang over the desert. A swirling circle that one of them described as looking like bright lava.

October 2023. The first night, other teams radioed in strange lights moving in groups, miles away. The second night, two agents were driving through a valley when a large glowing ball appeared ninety degrees to their right, close to a hillside. A rangefinder later put that hillside about eleven hundred meters out.

It was a well-defined circle of light, bright against the dusk, with no visible structure at its edges. Nothing to show what was holding the glow, or why it was there. Through binoculars, one agent thought he could make out a thin line, or spindle, beneath it, almost touching the ground. This is their own account, written up for the Pentagon's UAP office.

Trained federal agents, more than one team, over two nights, all describing a ball of light that no one could explain. What do you think they saw? Tell me in the comments. Search Case D-79 at ufodata.org to read the file yourself, and subscribe to UFO Data.

All documents and footage are authentic, public-domain U.S. government releases. Narration is AI-generated text-to-speech.