WASHINGTON — A series of UFO sightings by federal officials in the western US is detailed in striking illustrations made public by the War Department Friday.

The artist renderings of the encounters “near a sensitive national security site” over a two-day period in October 2023 were released as part of the third drop of UFO files by the Trump administration.

A June 5 summary report by the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) describes what the agents saw as “orbs launching other orbs,” including “a luminous orange ‘mother orb’ appear[ing] to produce smaller red ‘orbs,’ one after another, multiple times over a period of several hours.

“Reporters described the orange ‘mother orbs’ as appearing for one or two seconds, releasing a cluster of two to four red ‘orbs,’ and subsequently disappearing,” the summary added. “The reporters characterized the behavior of the red ‘orbs’ as anomalous, describing varied kinematic profiles including seemingly coordinated horizontal motion and apparent changes in altitude.”

The orbs remained entirely “silent” — and one hovered over a ridgeline for hours before disappearing.

The summary assessed that what the agents saw was “sufficiently anomalous to warrant continued investigation” — but noted that they”did not collect video footage, photographic imagery, or other technical data during the incident.”

Subsequent FBI interviews noted the incident took place over Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, Colo.

One “brilliant and beautiful” red sphere appeared to be one meter (just over three feet) in diameter, according to two observers who spoke with a bureau agent about the encounter.

Neither witness said they had “seen anything that color of red before” and added that its center glowed like a “‘white plasma sun’ about the size of a basketball,” the forensic sketch noted.

AARO listed plausible explanations for the phenomena, including that it may have been a military aircraft dispensing flares, and added the witnesses’ accounts “align with those of certain US military technologies.”

Theories deemed less likely included whether the objects were the result of military aircraft exhaust (which was ruled out); an unmanned aerial vehicle (discounted due to the “loitering” nature of the orbs); or some kind of foreign intelligence activity (considered highly unlikely given the known capacities of US adversaries), per AARO’s report.

Meteorological, atmospheric, and space-based anomalies were also considered but determined to be unlikely.

In February, President Trump announced that he would order Secretary of War Pete Hegseth as well as other department heads, to identify and release government files related to UFOs and aliens, calling the disclosures “highly complex, but extremely interesting and important.”

The Pentagon began releasing the first tranche of files on May 8, with a second document drop taking place on May 22.