IllustrationPhoto: a radar tower at sunset in Poland, used here as an illustration. It isn't connected to any case in this week's news. Photo by Bohdan Hyrovych on Pexels.
What's documented: The Release 07 date and the department's statement. The file count and the triangle report's wording, as quoted by CBS News. The memoir's publication date, from its publisher. A UK safety board's finding on an unidentified object near an airliner.
What's claimed: What the federal agents say they saw, and everything in the memoir about crashed craft and non-human beings. We attribute each one to whoever said it.
Status: Covers Oct. 19 to 26, 2026. This page is updated every Friday.
Last checked: October 26, 2026, against war.gov/ufo, the department's statement and the reporting linked below.
What's the latest UAP news?
Four stories led the week. The Pentagon posted its seventh release of UAP files. Jay Stratton's memoir, Out of the Shadows, kept drawing coverage and pushback. Congress still hasn't set a date for the next public UAP hearing. And a UK board published its report on an unidentified object that passed close to a British Airways jet.
Below, each item says what's on the record and what's only been claimed. For the full history of the file releases, see the Pentagon UFO files, release by release.
What was in the Pentagon's seventh UFO file release?
Documented: The Department of War posted Release 07 under its PURSUE program on October 23, 2026, 35 days after Release 06. A statement attributed to Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called it "the seventh release of declassified and historical Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) files" and said the department and its partners "are actively working on the next release."
CBS News reported that the batch held 28 PDF files. Three independent trackers that index the department's file list, UAP Browser, WARUFO and UAP.global, also list 28. That takes the public PURSUE archive to 478 records. We couldn't download the department's list ourselves this week, so we'll add Release 07 to our own count once we can.
| What's in Release 07 | Records | Dates covered |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 triangle report (AARO memo and FBI statement) | 2 | June 2026 |
| AAWSAP/BAASS contractor files, incl. a "Utah Ranch" report | 9 | 2008 to 2010 |
| U.S. Air Force sighting reports | 10 | 1950s |
| Catalina Island, California, sightings | 4 | 1949 to 1955 |
| Administrative files | 3 | Various |
Breakdown from UAP Browser's index of the file list. It adds up to 28.
What did federal agents report seeing in June 2026?
Claimed, in official records: Two documents describe the same June 2026 sighting near an unnamed "national security site" in the western U.S. One is a memo from the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) on its debrief of the agents. The other is the agents' signed statement to the FBI. CBS News quoted both.
The agents said a third agent alerted them. They saw the object over a ridgeline after sunset. In their FBI statement, they called it "a substantial, nonreflective, dark black triangular object most resembling a delta wing drone," with a wingspan of about nine to 15 feet.
The AARO memo says the object rose straight up 200 to 300 feet, hovered for about 20 seconds, then left at a speed the agents "compared to that [of] a military fighter jet." It says the "ascent occurred in absolute acoustic silence." Through an infrared scope, the object looked warmer than its surroundings, with an even heat signature and no visible exhaust. A ground survey the next morning found no wreckage or damage.
What it doesn't say: Neither document identifies the object. AARO said the case "warrant[s] further investigation" because it closely matches other reports from the western U.S. That's a reason to keep looking, not a conclusion. The speed and size figures are the agents' estimates. Neither document cites a radar track or other instrument data.
The two accounts also don't fully match. According to IBTimes UK's reading of the files, the FBI statement puts the whole sighting at about three seconds, while the phases in AARO's memo add up to more than half a minute. The memo's wingspan estimate, 13 to 15 feet, is narrower than the FBI statement's. Neither document explains the gaps.
Some early coverage, including the New York Post, described the batch differently, as triangles seen "on at least three occasions in the past year." CBS's account, which quotes the documents directly, describes one June encounter.
What else is in Release 07?
The tracker indexes list nine 2008 to 2010 files from the defense contractor behind the Pentagon's AAWSAP study. One is an April 2010 "Utah Ranch" report tied to Skinwalker Ranch. The New York Post reported that the 2010 records mention hair collected from a barbed-wire fence for DNA analysis.
The rest are older. There are ten 1950s Air Force reports, four sighting files from California's Catalina Island between 1949 and 1955, and three administrative records. One is 1960s correspondence on handling space debris. None of the indexes we checked describes a record that confirms a non-human craft.
What does Jay Stratton's memoir claim?
Documented: Out of the Shadows by Jay Stratton went on sale October 13, 2026, from HarperCollins' William Morrow imprint. Popular Mechanics describes him as a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who later directed the Pentagon's UAP Task Force.
Claimed: According to Popular Mechanics' October 20 feature on the book, Stratton describes an operation that used a nuclear submarine as bait to draw a UAP close enough to track. He writes that the 1947 Roswell recovery included non-human bodies, an account he attributes to an unnamed source. He says some intelligence personnel who saw the aftermath resigned, broke down or took their own lives. Paranormal Daily reported that in an October 12 Fox News interview, he said he'd seen non-human beings and craft himself.
What's missing: No document, image, sensor record or named program has been made public to support those claims. That's not proof they're false. It means they're testimony, and they have to be weighed that way. When AARO released its 2024 historical review, acting director Tim Phillips said, "AARO has found no verifiable evidence that the U.S. government or private industry has ever had access to extraterrestrial technology." For the Roswell record itself, see what happened at Roswell.
The pushback: Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who chairs the UAP Science Advisory Council, answered in an essay titled "Digital Data or Material Evidence Please." He asked for physical or sensor evidence rather than verbal testimony. Paranormal Daily reported that Loeb invited Stratton to present to the council and hadn't heard back as of October 21. We found no public reply from Stratton by October 26.
On October 23, after Release 07 came out, Loeb told NewsNation the Pentagon should put better unclassified sensors where triangles keep being reported, because the files don't hold enough data to say what the objects are. That's a proposal, not a plan anyone has adopted.
Is there a UAP hearing in Congress?
Not yet. No UAP hearing was held this week, and none is on the House calendar as of October 26.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer told Ask a Pol on September 16 that a planned September hearing fell through when session days were cut. "We'll try to pick it back up in November," he said. He also said, "I don't know that we ever agreed on a topic," and pointed questions to Reps. Tim Burchett, Anna Paulina Luna and Eric Burlison, "Burlison more than anybody."
Separately, Burlison told the New York Post on October 10 that he'd look into whether intelligence personnel who witnessed a reported late-2025 helicopter encounter with orange orbs could testify publicly, according to Sentinel News. That's a possible witness lead, not an announced hearing.
Burlison's UAP Disclosure Act is also in play. The New Paradigm Institute, an advocacy group pushing for the bill, says the House adopted it into its version of the 2027 defense bill on July 22 and that House and Senate negotiators could strip it out. Our explainer on U.S. government UAP spending covers what Congress has funded so far.
What did the UK Airprox Board find?
Documented: The UK Airprox Board, which reviews near-misses in British airspace, published report 2026127. It covers a Boeing 777 climbing out of London Heathrow on June 24, 2026, near Guildford, Surrey.
Passing 5,800 feet, the pilot reported a shiny, silver object that went the other way "very fast," close to the right wing and no more than 50 feet above the jet's altitude. Asked its size, the pilot compared it to four toasters. NATS radar showed no matching contact.
What it doesn't say: The board couldn't tell what the object was. The crew first thought it was a drone. The board rated the collision risk Category A, its highest, but made no finding beyond "unknown object."
What's still pending?
- Release 07 in our own count. We'll add it to the release tracker once we've checked the department's file list ourselves.
- AARO's withheld case files. According to Dead of Night Dispatch, AARO's response to FOIA request 26-F-1892, dated September 30, said it found records on five cases Rep. Luna's task force had named and withheld all of them. We haven't seen the letter ourselves.
- AARO's Historical Record Report, Volume II. It still hasn't been published.
- Release 08. The department says it's working on it. It hasn't given a date. Releases have come 14 to 42 days apart.
Are UAP sightings increasing?
Reports to the government have gone up, but more reports aren't the same as more objects. AARO's fiscal 2025 annual report, covering June 2024 to May 2025, logged 319 new reports and resolved 370 cases in all, new and old. A new modeling tool let it close 238 as "satellite flaring," which is why we wrote how to spot a Starlink satellite train. We walk through the numbers in are UAP sightings declining?, and if you've seen something yourself, here's how to report a UAP sighting.
What we're watching next week
- Whether AARO says anything more about the June triangle case.
- Any date or witness list for a November Oversight hearing.
- Whether the UAP Disclosure Act survives the defense bill negotiations.
- Any response from Stratton, his publisher or the Pentagon to requests for evidence behind the memoir's claims.
A note on words: UAP is the government's current term for what most people still call UFOs. Here's why UFO became UAP.
Sources
- U.S. Department of War: Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE), war.gov/ufo
- U.S. Department of War: "Department of War Publishes Seventh Release of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Files," Oct. 23, 2026
- CBS News: Stefan Becket, "New UFO files include details of strange triangular craft: 'Absolute acoustic silence,'" Oct. 23, 2026
- UAP Browser: "UFO Files Release 7: 28 declassified files"
- WARUFO: Archive, all 478 documents, Releases 01 to 07
- New York Post: "Mysterious black triangles spotted over secret US military bases, latest UFO file dump reveals," Oct. 23, 2026
- HarperCollins: Out of the Shadows, Jay Stratton (on sale Oct. 13, 2026)
- Popular Mechanics: "He Used a Nuclear Submarine to Lure an Alien Spacecraft—and Found Something That Defied Physics," Elizabeth Rayne, Oct. 20, 2026
- Avi Loeb: "Digital Data or Material Evidence Please; The Time is Ripe to Go Beyond Verbal Testimonies on UAP!"
- Paranormal Daily: "Former Pentagon UAP Chief Says He Has Seen 'Non-Human Beings'; Harvard Scientist Asks for Data," Oct. 22, 2026
- NewsNation: "Scientist's solution to solve UFO mystery: New sensors"
- IBTimes UK: Bgie Areña, "'Put Better Sensors At The Locations': Avi Loeb Addresses Gathering Better Data On UFO Sightings," Oct. 25, 2026
- Sentinel News: "Congress Eyes a New UAP Hearing," Baptiste Friscourt, Oct. 12, 2026
- Ask a Pol: "Oversight Chair plans UAP hearing for lame duck session"
- New Paradigm Institute (advocacy group): "Tell Congress: Keep the UAP Disclosure Act in the FY2027 NDAA"
- UK Airprox Board: Individual Airprox reports in 2026 (report 2026127)
- Aviation A2Z: "British Airways 777 Pilots Reports Mystery Object to London Heathrow ATC," Oct. 26, 2026
- Dead of Night Dispatch: "AARO Found the UAP Records Congress Asked About. Then It Withheld Every Page"
- DoD News: C. Todd Lopez, "DOD Report Discounts Sightings of Extraterrestrial Technology," March 8, 2024
- All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO): "Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), Volume I," March 2024
- All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO): Fiscal Year 2025 Consolidated Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena
Questions people ask
Is there any new UAP news?
Yes. On October 23, 2026, the Department of War posted its seventh release of UAP files at war.gov/ufo, 28 PDF records by CBS News' count. The lead item is a June 2026 report of a silent black triangle seen by federal agents near a national security site in the western U.S.
What was in the seventh Pentagon UFO file release?
Two records describe the June 2026 triangle sighting: an AARO memo and the agents' signed FBI statement. The rest, per independent indexes of the file list, are 2008 to 2010 AAWSAP contractor files including a Skinwalker Ranch report, 1950s Air Force reports, four Catalina Island cases and three administrative files.
What does Jay Stratton claim in Out of the Shadows?
In the memoir, published October 13, 2026, Stratton describes a submarine operation meant to draw a UAP close enough to track, and he writes that the 1947 Roswell recovery included non-human bodies, citing an unnamed source. He also says he's seen non-human beings and craft. No public document or sensor record backs those claims so far.
Is there a UAP hearing in Congress?
Not yet. House Oversight Chairman James Comer said on September 16, 2026, that he'd try to revive a hearing in November, but no date, topic or witnesses had been announced as of October 26.
Are UAP sightings increasing?
Reports to the government have risen, but more reports doesn't mean more unexplained objects. AARO's fiscal 2025 report logged 319 new reports and resolved 370 cases, closing 238 as satellite flaring.
What are unidentified aerial phenomena?
UAP is the U.S. government's term for anything seen in the air, in space or underwater that observers can't immediately identify. Many of the cases AARO has resolved turned out to be ordinary objects such as satellites, balloons or drones. "Unidentified" means not yet explained, not alien.
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