Orbs Over the Pond

Orbs Over the Pond is the title the government gave to FBI-UAP-PR003, a four-and-a-half-minute iPhone video released on June 12, 2026, in PURSUE UFO Files Release 03. According to its catalogue description, at about 6:51 p.m. local time one evening in October 2024, an eyewitness in the northeastern United States saw a light source below the horizon, hovering over a pond an estimated 2,700 feet away. The light resembled a "plasma-like sphere" that changed shape and brightness and at times seemed to separate into smaller points. Another point of light hovered just above the water and, the description says, "did not appear consistent with a surface reflection." The object stayed generally stationary for about 45 minutes before disappearing, and the witness heard no sound. The government did not disclose the location.

A private citizen recorded the clip. The catalogue says the U.S. government analyzed and authenticated it and cropped it only to protect the person's privacy, with no other edits, and that the FBI assessed the person who reported it as "highly credible." The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office posted the video to the Pentagon's DVIDS media service, and the White House shared it on social media on release day. The catalogue ties it to two earlier FBI clips from the same general area: "Triangle Orbs," filmed in November 2021, in which a bright light near the horizon resolved into several lights rotating erratically, and "Red Orb Rotation," filmed in March 2022, showing two red lights hovering near the horizon. Both were shot on an iPhone 12 Pro at a sparsely populated location well known to the witness.

The same catalogue links the three videos to five redacted FBI FD-1057 forms, which record investigative activity. They cover an October 2024 contact in which agents collected video, an October 2024 interview with a U.S. person about several possible UAP incidents over the previous three years, and a November 2024 site survey of a place where that person reported repeated sightings. Two more record first-hand observations by two FBI special agents in November 2024 and a December 2024 survey of the spot where the agents had seen something. According to reporting on the files by The National News Desk, the resident said the sightings began in 2021, sometimes within about 200 yards of the home, in the sky, near the ground, in trees and on or near the water. The resident set up trail cameras and other sensors, and one file says the resident recorded gamma radiation spikes matching times the objects were seen, along with effects on electronics and GPS data.

The two agents' November 2024 visit produced their own reports, the outlet said: a white light that "danced around" for under ten seconds, pulsing white-blue lights at the top of the tree line, and a bright white light above a red one at the far end of the pond that vanished and reappeared in the same spot. They took five blurry photographs and listed drones or other aircraft among possible explanations. A separate FBI report on a July 2025 backyard sighting, released as the Northeastern Orb Sighting, said it occurred within 25 miles of the "Triangle Orbs," "Red Orb Rotation" and "Orbs Over the Pond" sightings, Reuters reported.

No explanation for the pond video has been published, and like the rest of the archive it was released as an unresolved case. The public record is thin: the location, the witness and most of the investigative narrative are redacted, the footage comes from a single phone at long range, and the only analysis described is the government's statement that the clip is authentic and unaltered. Its significance lies in the case around it, a series of northeastern reports in which FBI agents sent to assess a civilian's sightings recorded lights of their own that they could not identify.