FBI 302 Interviews: Bronze Metallic UAP at a US Test Site, September 2023
In September 2023, FBI special agents conducted formal witness interviews at a US test site where multiple people reported watching a cigar-shaped bronze metallic object - estimated at 130 to 195 feet long, completely silent - hover briefly then vanish from a clear sky. The FBI Laboratory produced a composite sketch. All four documents are now in the PURSUE public release.
What these documents are
The four documents in this cluster are the product of a standard FBI field investigation into a UAP sighting:
- FD-302 Serial 003 - A formal FBI witness interview in the FD-302 format (the same format used in criminal investigations). One witness account.
- FD-302 Serial 004 - A second formal FBI witness interview. The most detailed account in the cluster; the primary witness had 15 years of experience at the facility.
- FD-302 Continuation Serial 005 - A third witness or continuation of a prior interview, with additional details about the object and its aftermath.
- Composite Sketch - Per the document manifest: "Actual site photo with FBI Lab rendered graphic overlay depicting corroborating eyewitness reports from September 2023 of an apparent ellipsoid bronze metallic object materializing out of a bright light in the sky, 130-195 feet in length, and disappearing instantaneously." The FBI Laboratory produced this, not a commercial illustrator.
The FD-302 is a law enforcement interview record - the same format used to document witness statements in federal criminal cases. The use of FD-302s means this was treated as a formal investigative matter, not an informal report. The interviewing agents are named (redacted in the release) and the document is official FBI property.
The sighting (verbatim from the FBI 302 interviews)
The following is drawn directly from the OCR-extracted text of the FBI 302 documents. Heavy redactions remove names, dates (day of month), and the facility's identity, but the substantive description of the object is intact.
Contractors receive "the bases' standard brief" and get into three vehicles to drive to the testing site. The airspace has been restricted for upcoming drone tests.
The primary witness drives toward a restricted-access gate. "The gate opened just a little and then closed on three separate tries. On the fourth attempt the gate opened completely and stayed open. There were no prior operational problems with that particular gate and there were no operating issues with the gate after September [redacted]."
As the primary witness drives through the gate, she looks up: "a cigar shaped object with an extremely bright light southwest of them approximately 500 to 3000 feet above the nearest tree line (agent note: the tree line was approximately one mile southwest of position). The object was already there when she looked up. The object was almost hovering, slowly moving from east to west."
"The light was an intense diamond white light with what appeared to be a ring around the light and was located on the eastern end of the object. The light was pointing southeast and looking at it (the light) was like looking into the sun. The object was 'metallic bronze in color' and was the length of two or three Blackhawk helicopters lined up nose to tail. The width of the object was approximately the width of one and a half Blackhawks but was hard to determine due to the light on the object's eastern end which may have been obscuring part of the body. The object was completely silent."
"[Witness] inched her vehicle forward while she and [redacted] watched the object. They watched the object for five to ten seconds and then the object just disappeared. The sky was clear with no clouds and the object did not leave any contrails. [Witnesses] searched the sky but did not see the object again. [Witness] did not notice any interference with her vehicle's engine while the object was visible. She only observed the one object and felt it left when it saw them."
"The object stayed the same size and kept the same light intensity during the time [redacted] observed it." A witness in the second vehicle attempted to see the object but was unsuccessful. Another person "did not notice any interference with their vehicles."
"That night a storm came through and the TV went out in [redacted's] 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. [Redacted] had weird dreams and had trouble sleeping for the first two nights after he saw the object."
The primary witness's professional context
Serial 004 records that the primary witness "had seen most of the aircraft and drones used by the US military during her fifteen years working at [redacted] and had never seen anything like the object she observed." This is the detail that pushes this beyond a typical civilian sighting report.
A 15-year employee of a US military test site - someone routinely exposed to experimental aircraft, drones, and classified test vehicles - who explicitly states she had never seen anything like the object carries a different evidentiary weight than a general public report. She also "would not have reported the object if she had seen it by herself" - the report only exists because of corroborating witnesses.
The witness's initial reaction is telling: "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." Her professional framing was immediate - not curiosity about a possible alien, but annoyance that someone had violated her restricted airspace. She ruled out aircraft and drone based on what she actually observed.
The FBI Laboratory composite sketch
The manifest description of the composite sketch document is: "Actual site photo with FBI Lab rendered graphic overlay depicting corroborating eyewitness reports from September 2023 of an apparent ellipsoid bronze metallic object materializing out of a bright light in the sky, 130-195 feet in length, and disappearing instantaneously."
Two elements here are significant. First, the FBI Laboratory produced this - not a witness sketch artist, but the FBI's own forensic lab overlaying a graphic on a site photograph. This is the same lab that authenticates evidence in federal criminal proceedings. Second, the manifest describes the object as "materializing out of a bright light in the sky" and "disappearing instantaneously" - language that goes beyond what the 302 text alone provides and suggests additional witness detail captured in the composite sketch process.
The composite sketch itself is an image - the OCR extraction yielded only the page header, not the visual content. The full image is available on the file page linked below.
The gate anomaly
One detail in Serial 004 that is easy to overlook: the gate failed three times before opening on the fourth attempt, at roughly the same time the object was presumably nearby. The document is explicit: "There were no prior operational problems with that particular gate and there were no operating issues with the gate after September [redacted]." The FBI agents noted this in the record but drew no explicit conclusion from it. Serial 005 separately notes that witnesses "did not notice any interference with their vehicles."
Whether the gate anomaly is related to the object, coincidental, or a normal mechanical fault that happened to occur that morning is not assessable from the documents. The FBI recorded it as a documented anomaly surrounding the event.
Why 58 / 55 out of 100
The composite sketch scores 58/100; the three 302 serials score 55/100. The primary constraint on the score is the absence of physical sensor data (no radar track, no instrumented capture) and the heavy redaction that prevents independent verification of location and witness identity. The site and dates remain classified, which means this cannot be cross-referenced against air traffic records, radar archives, or publicly available information.
What pushes the score up from a typical human-source report: the FBI formal investigation structure (FD-302, FBI Lab involvement), the corroborating witnesses, the professional credibility of the primary witness (15-year test site veteran), and the complete-sky-disappearance behavioral anomaly. A professional at a US military test facility who knows the inventory of classified test vehicles saying she had never seen anything like it carries more weight than a civilian sighting in an unknown context.
SKETCH
FBI Laboratory site photo with graphic overlay depicting the ellipsoid bronze metallic object from corroborating eyewitness reports. 130-195 feet in length. Anomalousness Index 58/100.
003
FBI formal witness interview. Object described as "metallic bronze in color." Anomalousness Index 55/100.
004
The most detailed account. 15-year test site veteran describes the cigar-shaped object, gate anomaly, silent departure, and the witness's professional context. Anomalousness Index 55/100.
005
Additional witness account. Object maintained consistent size and light intensity. Aftermath details including difficulty sleeping. Anomalousness Index 55/100.
How to verify everything on this page
- All quoted text is verbatim from the OCR-extracted text of the FBI 302 files linked above.
- The composite sketch manifest description is from this site's pipeline-generated manifest, derived from the document's content metadata.
- The 130-195 foot estimate: two to three Blackhawk helicopters (64 feet each) = 128-192 feet, consistent with the manifest's stated range. The FBI 302 uses Blackhawk comparisons; the manifest independently documents 130-195 feet.
- The 15-year tenure and professional context are from Serial 004 page 2: "had seen most of the aircraft and drones used by the US military during her fifteen years working at [redacted]."