Serial 3 In PURSUE Release 01
Department of War PURSUE Release 01 lists this item as an FBI PDF titled "FBI September 2023 Sighting - Serial 3," with an incident date of September 1, 2023 and location listed as United States.1 The release metadata describes the file as an FBI FD-302 interview with a US citizen about a first-hand UAP encounter at a US test site, including the witness description of an object "metallic bronze in color."12
The release mapping is not internally tidy. The row title says Serial 3, while the linked PDF filename contains serial 5 redacted_redacted.pdf.2 This page follows the release row title, but the reference label keeps the filename mismatch visible for readers.
September 2023 FD-302 Account
The serial is a redacted two-page FD-302 interview record. It documents an in-person FBI interview conducted in September 2023 and entered in October 2023. Names, site identifiers, file numbers, and some operational details are redacted, but the readable account places the sighting during a morning test-site movement involving contractors, vehicles, restricted airspace, and a gate that reportedly failed to open fully until a fourth attempt.2
According to the interview record, the witness looked up while passing through the gate and saw a cigar-shaped object southwest of the vehicles, above the nearest tree line. The witness described the object as nearly hovering, moving slowly east to west, silent, bronze metallic, and carrying an extremely bright white light on its eastern end. The witness estimated the object as roughly two or three Blackhawk helicopters in length, with width difficult to judge because the light may have obscured part of the body.2
The file says the witness and another person watched the object for about five to ten seconds before it disappeared. The sky was described as clear, with no clouds or contrails, and the witness reported no vehicle-engine interference. The witness also stated that no photographs or video were taken, and that she would not have reported the object if another person had not also seen it.2
What The File Cannot Resolve
This serial preserves a witness account, not a technical identification. The record does not provide unredacted site data, imagery, radar, telemetry, environmental measurements, or the FBI's independent resolution of the sighting. Its standard FD-302 notice also says the document contains "neither recommendations nor conclusions" from the FBI.2
Those limits matter. The serial can support careful comparison of reported details across the September 2023 FBI materials, but it should not be read as proving what the object was. Its evidentiary value is narrower: it documents that the FBI recorded a redacted witness's account, the context of a controlled test-site morning, the reported object characteristics, and the absence of captured imagery in this file.12
Modern FBI Test-Site Witness Origin
The record is significant because it is a modern FBI interview file, released through PURSUE, for a recent UAP sighting described in operational rather than folklore terms. It preserves the origin of this specific account: a test-site witness statement taken by FBI agents soon after the September 2023 event, with the narrative anchored to a vehicle movement, restricted airspace, a brief sighting window, and a second reported observer.2