United States.Colorado Springs · a witness sees a triangle emerge from a cloud

On a night in October 2023, between 8:00 and 9:30 p.m., the witness, who said he frequently observes military, commercial and civilian air traffic over Colorado Springs, walked over to a co-worker and began looking up at the stars on a clear night. He noticed a very bright star that caught his attention and watched it for about 5 to 10 seconds before noticing movement in his left peripheral vision. Looking further up and to his left, he saw what appeared to be a dark-gray cloud phasing into view, stationary, with a strange appearance, as if pixelated or distorted in some other way.

As he watched the cloud, he saw a constant, diffuse red light on the bottom-front point of a solid black triangular object emerging from it toward the south-southeast. The part of the object behind the point widened as it exited the cloud, until the witness could see the full equilateral triangle, with a red light at each of its three corners. He estimated the object was enormous (possibly as large as the parking lot he was standing in) and put its thickness at the equivalent of 3-5 stories. At arm's length, each of the three lights was the size of a fingernail.

Initially the object moved south, slightly east, at a steady speed comparable to a helicopter, at an altitude the witness estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 feet, similar to a small civilian aircraft on a training flight. It then accelerated almost instantaneously to what the witness calculated as Mach 1 or 2, turning slightly to head directly south or slightly southwest. He noticed waves surrounding and radiating from the object, which he compared to the mirage effect seen looking down a hot road into the distance. He heard no noise, could see no means of propulsion, and smelled nothing out of the ordinary.

As it moved away, the object abruptly banked 90 degrees on its left side, with the three lights still visible, veering to the right, then quickly banked back to level flight; the witness specifically noted that banking motion was opposite to what a conventional aircraft would do turning in that direction. He believed the object passed almost directly over his position, and lost sight of it as it went south over a place whose name is redacted in the FD-302. Looking back to where it had first appeared, the gray cloud had already disappeared.

About 60 seconds later, he called his wife to tell her what happened; she said his voice sounded "robotic", as if there were electronic interference on the call. The FBI interview, summarized in an FD-302 form (the one the bureau uses to record an interview), took place in October 2025, two years after the sighting. In its legible parts, the form records only this witness's statement and does not say whether the co-worker saw the object; the third page is fully redacted.

Everything known about the object comes from a single witness, interviewed two years later, with no radar or video. The figures for size, altitude and speed (from helicopter speed to Mach 1 or 2) are his own estimates, made by eye, at night, with no known distance to the object. The witness anchors them in concrete comparisons: a helicopter, a training aircraft, the mirage over a hot road.

The wife appears only through the witness: the FD-302 records what she told him about his "robotic" voice. The form also mentions the witness's phone service provider, whose name is redacted.

The FD-302 "contains neither recommendations nor conclusions of the FBI", and neither that form nor the press coverage of the release proposes an explanation for the object. Another FBI file records a triangle with lights over Colorado Springs in the same month (↗); a different witness saw it, at a different time and with a different description, and no source links the two events.