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Former Pentagon UFO chief says FBI black triangle sighting lacks evidence
ReFormer Pentagon UFO chief says FBI black triangle sighting lacks evidence
Sean Kirkpatrick, former head of the Pentagon's UAP office, says a reported 2026 sighting by FBI personnel of a black triangular object lacks the data needed to explain it, and argues that 'unresolved' does not mean inexplicable.
The former head of the Pentagon's UFO investigation office is casting doubt on a reported sighting of a mysterious black triangular object by FBI personnel, telling Fox News Digital that the newly released account does not contain the evidence needed to determine what the witnesses actually saw. Sean Kirkpatrick, former director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), said strange sightings in recently declassified government records should be judged by evidence rather than treated as proof of something extraterrestrial.
The records describe a 2026 incident in which FBI personnel reported a dark, nonreflective triangular object with no visible engines, exhaust or conventional propulsion rise above a mountain ridge before rapidly disappearing into a canyon. A separate AARO report described a matte-black triangular object that climbed roughly 200 to 300 feet above a ridgeline, hovered for about 20 seconds and then appeared to accelerate almost instantly. Kirkpatrick, who spent nearly 30 years in the Department of Defense and intelligence community, said the witnesses' FBI backgrounds alone are not enough to validate their accounts.
« There's a lot of people that like to point to folks as being credible witnesses and therefore their testimony must be taken at face value, » Kirkpatrick said. « And that is a classic case of authority bias. » He said the absence of photographs or other supporting evidence makes it difficult to determine what, if anything, the witnesses encountered. « Some of this is just, hey, I saw something, I don't know what it is, » he said, adding that people often fill that gap with extreme beliefs that have repeatedly proven inaccurate.
Kirkpatrick pointed to advanced aerospace technology as one possible explanation for some triangular sightings, comparing them to reports involving the F-117 stealth aircraft before that technology became widely known. He said AARO approached unidentified aerial phenomena reports by weighing three broad possibilities: advanced technology used by a foreign adversary, ordinary objects or sensor effects that are misunderstood, or an extraterrestrial explanation. Each possibility has specific signatures that investigators can compare with actual data from a sighting. « None of the data that we saw and reviewed and analyzed matches an alien hypothesis theory, » he said.
Most cases his office examined involved ordinary objects or phenomena that sensors were not designed to recognize, Kirkpatrick said. A small number showed signs of possible foreign adversary involvement and were referred to national security officials for further investigation. He cautioned, however, that the label « unresolved » in government UAP records does not necessarily mean investigators encountered something inexplicable. « When we say a case is unresolved, it generally means there is no data or there is insufficient data to actually analyze it, » he said.
Kirkpatrick also said some cases released publicly as unresolved had previously been resolved by AARO, and that he had briefed several of them to Congress with answers. He said Pentagon leadership directed AARO to remove resolution language before the cases were released. « Pentagon leadership had told AARO to remove all of the resolution language and put these cases out as unresolved, » he said, criticizing the approach as feeding conspiracy theories. Kirkpatrick did not specify when the directive was issued or which Pentagon leaders were involved.
The War Department told Fox News Digital that it is not providing assessments of the newly released files so that the public can reach its own conclusions. A department official, speaking on background, said no comment or assessment was being offered on the files overall or on any specific file. The department also confirmed that images accompanying the FBI triangular-object report were illustrations rather than photographs of the object itself.
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