Summary
CBS News covers PURSUE Release 03 (June 12, 2026), the third tranche of the department-of-war’s UAP file rollout. The batch contains 53 documents and 10 images from the cia, fbi, nasa, and DoD plus other unspecified agencies, along with six videos and three NASA audio recordings. A notable shift from prior releases is the prominence of FBI-collected eyewitness footage and witness-interview narratives over military sensor footage. Headline records include an October 2023 western-U.S. multi-agent encounter (five federal law-enforcement officers, the “Are you seeing this?” account), two 2024–2025 northeastern “orb” videos, the 1952–53 CIA Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects recommending an official “debunking” policy, a 2008 CIA report of a UAP over Harare airport in Zimbabwe, and a 2022 “potato”-shaped object near Colorado Springs. The releases stem from a Trump-signed executive order, with pete-hegseth framing them as “unprecedented transparency.”
Key Claims
- Release 03 contains 53 documents, 10 images, 6 videos, and 3 NASA audio recordings from CIA, FBI, NASA, DoD, and other agencies (CBS / Pentagon).
- Four of six videos are eyewitness (not military) footage collected by the FBI with witness-interview details — a shift from prior tranches.
- July 2025 “Northeastern Orb Sighting”: two silent, smooth lights moving in tandem “as though flying in formation or tethered” (FBI interviews).
- October 2024 “Orbs Over the Pond” (within 25 miles of the above): a “plasma-like sphere” hovering ~2,700 ft above a pond, intermittently changing shape/luminosity, stationary ~45 minutes (Pentagon description).
- October 2023 western-U.S. case: five “federal law enforcement special agents” gave AARO their accounts; Witness 4 saw smaller orbs “hatched” from a larger orange light (lost count after five); Witness 3 likened them to “grapes being expelled from a basketball” (AARO files).
- The 1952–53 CIA “Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects” (robertson-panel) concluded saucers posed no physical threat but recommended a policy of “debunking” to “strip the UFO subject of its mystery,” warning a “morbid national psychology” could be exploited by adversaries.
- July 2008 CIA report: a disc-like object with a “hollow center” and rotating underside lights emanating “beams” over Harare International Airport, Zimbabwe; transmitted to the White House Situation Room; origin unknown.
- 2022 Colorado Springs “potato”-shaped opalescent object; an intelligence partner assessed “low confidence” sunlight backscattering off Cheyenne Mountain snow; case remains unresolved as of June 2026.
- The rollout was prompted by an executive order Trump signed “earlier this year”; Hegseth called it proof of “the Trump Administration’s earnest commitment to unprecedented transparency.”
Notable Quotes
“Are you seeing this?” — Witness 3’s partner (federal law-enforcement agent), October 2023 encounter
“grapes being expelled from a basketball” — Witness 3, describing discharged orbs
a “morbid national psychology” around UFOs could be exploited by adversaries — 1952–53 CIA Robertson Panel
the move “demonstrates the Trump Administration’s earnest commitment to unprecedented transparency.” — Pete Hegseth