Republican Congressman Eric Burlison is considering public testimony from US intelligence officials who reported seeing orange orbs near a military base, with an encounter described as multiple orange lights flying alongside a helicopter while smaller objects moved erratically nearby. The account appears in an FBI interview report made public in May 2026 as part of the Trump administration's release of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) records. Avi Loeb argued that protections linked to President Donald Trump's UAP disclosure initiative could cover information about alleged non-human technology.
Republican Congressman Eric Burlison is considering public testimony from US intelligence officials who reported seeing orange orbs near a military base, with the encounter described as multiple orange lights flying alongside a helicopter while smaller objects moved erratically nearby. The unusual sight was witnessed near a secret West Coast military base during a mission in late 2025. The account appears in an FBI interview report made public in May 2026 as part of the Trump administration's release of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) records. As of October 11, 2026, no hearing has been formally announced, but Burlison's public interest signals potential legislative momentum behind the incident.
Burlison said some witnesses had already met members of Congress behind closed doors but had not shared all the video footage reportedly collected during the mission. Burlison told the New York Post that bringing intelligence personnel into public view could expose sensitive information, stating that 'there's some people that are working for the agency that having them come forward publicly may expose other things.' The sensitivity around witness identity underscores the intelligence community's protective posture toward active personnel, even when offering their firsthand accounts of anomalous aerial phenomena.
One of the witnesses was a longtime official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, described as a career bureaucrat unfamiliar to the public. The file is a two-page narrative by a senior U.S. intelligence officer describing a late-2025 helicopter mission on a test range that includes loud thuds in mountains, reported UAP sightings over previous nights, ground-team FLIR observations, radar direction from a Joint Operations Center, helicopter crew observations through NVG and unaided sight, and orange orbs near both the helicopter and fighter jets. This multi-sensor confirmation distinguishes the case from typical anecdotal sightings reported to authorities.
A senior United States intelligence officer onboard a military helicopter in the western US in late 2025 watched, in his own words, "countless orange orbs" rise from a mountainside, fly within ten feet of his aircraft, hover stationary above his rotor blades, and then outrun the fighter jets called in to intercept them. Similar orange orbs appeared above the fighters, flared one at a time in a horizontal formation, matched the jets' speed and flight path, then dimmed and disappeared, with the account saying this repeated several times as the jets transited the airspace and eventually landed, followed by more orange orbs flaring around the helicopter and briefly forming a triangle before vanishing.
Avi Loeb argued that protections linked to President Donald Trump's UAP disclosure initiative could cover information about alleged non-human technology, while a Department of War waiver announced in October 2026 established a protected channel for certain personnel to provide UAP-related national defence information to designated representatives. This legal mechanism, implemented in the same month as Burlison's congressional consideration, may facilitate witness testimony without requiring full public disclosure of all classified details. The alignment of protective measures with emerging testimony opportunities suggests deliberate policy coordination.
The administration's UAP disclosure initiative provides for the review and release of records, while a Department of War waiver announced in October 2026 established a protected channel for certain personnel to provide UAP-related national defence information to designated representatives, though that does not, by itself, establish that all classified information can be disclosed publicly or during a congressional hearing. Legal boundaries remain contested, particularly regarding what constitutes permissible public disclosure versus classified briefings held in secure congressional facilities (SCIFs).
Congress is pushing for classified briefings behind closed doors rather than public settings, with the House UAP Caucus pursuing people who have information but won't share it in an open setting, making clear that the SCIF is where the real conversations need to happen. This institutional preference reflects tension between transparency advocates demanding public testimony and security officials insisting on classification controls. Burlison's cautious framing—exploring "whether" witnesses can speak publicly—acknowledges this structural constraint.
The orange orbs case arrives at a critical juncture in congressional UAP oversight. Grusch specifically accused the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon's primary military intelligence agency, of obstructing congressional oversight efforts, arguing that records requested by lawmakers have not been fully provided despite what he described as lawful requests from Congress, and urged the agency to release additional documents for review and declassification. If Burlison successfully brings intelligence witnesses before Congress—whether in public or closed session—it would represent the highest-level official testimony on active-duty UAP encounters since the 2023 Grusch hearings, potentially breaking precedent for government acknowledgment of structured, multi-sensor corroboration.
