Most UAP reports are a one-off — a single night, a single witness, a single grainy clip. This is the opposite. It's the same general patch of the northeastern United States, the same kind of glowing orbs, over and over, for five years and counting.
What pushes it out of the ordinary is the evidence stacked around it: video the U.S. government authenticated, reported radiation spikes, a neighbour who saw the same lights, and — most remarkably — two FBI agents who went to take a look and ended up watching an orb vanish and reappear in front of them. The files came out in the Department of War's third UAP release on 12 June 2026. Here's the whole picture.
What is the Northeastern Orb Cluster?
The first sighting the files record was in November 2021, at around five in the morning. A single intense light near the horizon resolved into two or three lights that formed a triangle and held it for about ten minutes — then vanished the instant a camera flash went off. After that, the resident says, it kept happening. Not once or twice, but hundreds of times: plasma-like orbs hovering or moving low to the ground, in the trees, near and over the water.
The witness didn't just watch. They filmed the orbs on a phone, cross-referenced flight-tracking (ADS-B) data to rule out aircraft, reported gamma-radiation spikes that lined up with the activity and knock-on effects on electronics and GPS, and set up trail cameras to try to catch the things on a fixed mount. A neighbour, independently, confirmed seeing strange lights in the treeline. This is a witness who was building a case, not just telling a story.
| FIRST SIGHTING | November 2021, ~05:00 local |
| FREQUENCY | Reported hundreds of times since |
| LOCATION | Northeastern U.S. — one general area (protected) |
| OBJECTS | Red & white 'plasma' orbs; triangles; tethered pairs |
| REPORTED EFFECTS | Gamma spikes, GPS/electronics anomalies |
| KEY WITNESSES | Resident + neighbour + 2 FBI special agents |
| VIDEO | 4 eyewitness clips authenticated by the U.S. government |
| DRONE RULED OUT | FBI judged night drone flight unrealistic in the tree cover |
| STATUS | Ongoing / unresolved as of June 2026 |
The night two FBI agents saw it themselves
The centrepiece of this case isn't the witness's footage. It's what happened when the FBI showed up. In November 2024, two special agents went out to the site during the evening hours — the witness had welcomed them setting up and attending — and they didn't come away empty-handed. They came away as witnesses.
At around 4:45pm, one agent watched a white pulsation move erratically over the water for less than ten seconds. The detail that matters: it didn't reflect off the surface, which a real light source over water should. Then, at about 5:30pm, both agents saw it together — a bright white light sitting above a red light at tree-top height. It moved left, vanished, reappeared instantly at the exact spot it had started from, moved left again, and vanished. Their photos came out mostly blurred, because long exposures without a tripod rarely don't, and they planned to come back with better equipment.
"Both agents observed a bright white light above a red light at tree-top height. It moved left, vanished, then reappeared instantly at the original location."— FBI direct-observation report (FBI-UAP-D007), November 2024
Two trained federal agents, watching an object blink out and reappear at its starting point — that's not a misread weather balloon or a distant plane. It's one of the very few documents in the whole UAP record where the investigators become the eyewitnesses.
What did the Northeastern orbs look like?
The shapes and behaviours shift across the years, but a few types recur. The government released four authenticated eyewitness clips alongside the written reports, and together they map the range of what's been seen.
Triangle Orbs — Nov 2021
The original. A single bright light near the horizon resolved into multiple lights showing erratic rotational motion relative to each other, drifting slowly left to right. Filmed on an iPhone (PR001).
Red Orb Rotation — Mar 2022
Two bright red lights hovering near the horizon, roughly stationary, with the lower one slowly rotating around the upper from a 6 o'clock to a 9 o'clock position. Silent throughout (PR002).
Orbs Over the Pond — Oct 2024
A "plasma-like sphere" over a pond that changed shape and brightness, sometimes separating into smaller points, with a light hovering just above the water that wasn't a reflection. Visible for about 45 minutes (PR003).
Backyard Orbs — Jul 2025
The most vivid. A brilliant red sphere about a metre across with a white plasma "sun" the size of a basketball at its core, hovering 25 ft up below the treeline — joined by a second identical orb above it. They drifted west "as if tethered" and seemed to merge as they left (PR004).
Two later FD-302 reports from 2026 capture a couple's account of the backyard event, and they don't perfectly agree — one remembered the first light as red, the other as yellow; one mentioned a larger "beach-ball-sized" orb nearby. Small discrepancies like that are actually a good sign. Two people who'd rehearsed a hoax would line up their stories; two people who genuinely saw something confusing at dusk remember it slightly differently.
What are the orbs — and what they probably aren't
The obvious first guess for repeated lights near one home is something mundane and local: planets and bright stars near the horizon, aircraft and helicopter lights, drones, or even insects and dust lit up close to the camera lens. Venus and Jupiter low in the sky fool people constantly. Long-exposure phone video turns any point of light into a wobbling, shape-shifting blob. And a witness who expects to see orbs will find them.
The FBI worked through several of these. Drones were the big one, and in a December 2024 daytime survey the agents walked the roughly two-mile loop around the water and concluded the tree cover was too heavy to fly a drone there at night without crashing it. The witness had already used ADS-B data to rule out aircraft. Stars and planets don't blink out and reappear at the same spot, don't hover over water without reflecting, and don't come with reported gamma spikes.
Where I'd stay cautious: the radiation and GPS effects are the witness's own measurements, and the released files don't independently verify them. The colour disagreement between the two backyard witnesses shows perception is doing some work. But the core of the case — authenticated video, a corroborating neighbour, and two FBI agents watching an orb vanish and return — is not something the easy explanations cover. That's why it's still open.
Timeline of the cluster
Current Assessment
The Northeastern Orb Cluster is one of the most evidentially layered contemporary UAP cases on the public record: five years of repeated sightings in one area, multiple authenticated eyewitness videos, a corroborating neighbour, reported radiation and GPS anomalies, and direct observation by two FBI special agents who watched an orb vanish and reappear.
Plenty of individual sightings could be mundane — planets, aircraft, camera artefacts — and the witness's instrument readings aren't independently verified in the files. But the strongest pieces, especially the agents' own observation and the drone ruling, resist easy dismissal. The case is open, ongoing, and worth watching.
Primary source documents
All of it comes from files the U.S. Department of War released on 12 June 2026 through the PURSUE programme — FBI reports and authenticated eyewitness videos.
FBI Direct-Observation Report
FBI-UAP-D007 · Nov 2024
The report in which two FBI agents document seeing the phenomena themselves. Part of the D004–D010 series of FD-1057 and FD-302 records.
View on war.govBackyard Orb Report
FBI-UAP-D009 / D010 · 2026
The two FD-302 interviews behind the July 2025 backyard footage (video PR004) — the red sphere with the white plasma core and its tethered twin.
View on war.govFrequently asked questions
What is the Northeastern Orb Cluster?
A five-year run of UAP sightings (Nov 2021–2026) in one area of the northeastern U.S. — plasma-like red and white orbs reported hundreds of times, with video, reported radiation spikes, a corroborating neighbour and direct FBI observation.
Did FBI agents really see it?
Yes. In November 2024 two agents watched a white pulsation over water that didn't reflect, then a white-over-red light that vanished and reappeared instantly at its starting point.
Could it be drones?
The FBI judged the tree cover too dense to fly a drone there at night without crashing, and the behaviour — vanishing, reappearing, merging, silent — doesn't fit conventional drones.
Are the files genuine?
Yes — FBI FD-1057 and FD-302 reports (D004–D010) and four authenticated eyewitness videos (PR001–PR004), released by the Department of War on 12 June 2026.