Pentagon’s former UFO chief questions FBI agents' account of mysterious black triangle sighting

WASHINGTON,DC: The former head of the Pentagon’s UFO office says a widely shared account of a black triangle seen by FBI personnel does not prove anything unusual.

Sean Kirkpatrick told Fox News Digital on Sunday, November 1 that the story rests on witness testimony and no hard data and he urged caution before jumping to otherworldly explanations.

His comments come days after the Pentagon released a fresh batch of declassified files that includes the sighting.

Ex-Pentagon UFO Chief doubts FBI account

Kirkpatrick said an FBI badge should not be mistaken for proof that a sighting has been accurately identified.

The former AARO director argued that a witness’s professional standing cannot establish the nature of an unexplained encounter.

He described that assumption as “authority bias.”

In this case, he pointed to the absence of photographs and other material that could help investigators verify the agents’ account.

Without such evidence, he said, people can turn an unidentified sighting into something extraordinary, even when that interpretation may be wrong.

He also raised the possibility that some triangular objects reported in the sky could be examples of advanced aerospace technology.

As a precedent, he referred to the F-117 stealth fighter, which attracted reports and speculation before its existence became publicly known.

Kirkpatrick said AARO examined reports by testing them against three possible explanations: technology developed by foreign adversaries, familiar objects or sensor-related effects that had been misinterpreted, and an extraterrestrial origin.

The process depended on comparing information gathered during an actual observation with the characteristics expected under each explanation.

He said none of the evidence examined by his office supported an alien explanation.

Most cases were eventually linked to ordinary objects or phenomena that existing sensors were not designed to identify.

A smaller group raised the possibility of foreign involvement and was passed on to national security officials for further attention.

He also explained that a case remaining “unresolved” in official UAP records does not necessarily mean investigators encountered something beyond explanation.

Often, it simply means the available information was insufficient to reach a conclusion.

Triangular sighting in UFO files

The Pentagon included the encounter in its seventh PURSUE records release, published on October 23 with 28 files.

The incident reportedly took place in June 2026, close to a sensitive national security installation in the western United States.

Two FBI special agents filed an account of a dark, non-reflective triangular object moving over a mountain ridge and disappearing into a nearby canyon.

They reported no visible engine, exhaust or other conventional propulsion system.

But the released paperwork leaves gaps in the sequence of events.

In the agents’ account, the object was visible for only about three seconds.

An AARO memorandum, however, describes a longer sequence involving a climb above the ridge, a brief hover and a turn away from the area.

The documents also differ on when authorities first received the report, placing the initial call an hour apart.

A search of the canyon the following morning did not produce physical evidence of an aircraft or object coming down there.

Investigators recorded no debris and found no damage or ground marks.

Nor does the released file contain instrument data showing the object's speed.

As a result, the account's description of its rapid movement is not accompanied by a recorded measurement.