Short Note / Jul 10, 2026
Pantex officers followed a “diamond” object for miles in 2015
A newly released Pantex report says radar, protective-force officers, and a Bearcat camera crew tracked an unidentified object near the nuclear-weapons plant in 2015. It also contains a date discrepancy: the file is titled September 2, while its narrative begins with a September 1 detection.
In May, PURSUE released two pages from a Pantex unidentified-object file: one surveillance-tower image and one page of Sandia National Laboratories enhancements. The new Release 04 document shows what those pages belonged to.
DOE-UAP-D005 is the six-page Pantex Unidentified Object Incident Report from September 2015. It records a radar detection, a protective-force response, ground observations, a camera track, a county-sheriff notification, and a handoff of evidence to an FBI agent. It does not identify the object.
The file also has a date problem worth preserving rather than smoothing over. Its September 10 transmittal letter and report title call it a September 2 incident. But the chronological narrative begins: “On September 1, 2015 at approximately 0710 hours.” This note uses September 2 for the dated file and September 1 for the detection described in its body.
Radar picked it up west of the plant
In the report’s September 1 narrative, the Pantex Ground Surveillance Radar system detected an unknown object at about 7:10 a.m. It was west of the Pantex facilities, moving north at roughly 10 to 15 mph. The report says radar initially placed it about 1.75 miles southwest of a named plant point, then received additional hits as it moved north-northwest.
The initial assessment was that the object was non-threatening. The response was still immediate: pedestrian and vehicle gates leading into and out of security areas were secured, and patrols repositioned to protect assets. Pantex is the primary U.S. facility for assembly, disassembly, maintenance, and life-extension work on nuclear weapons.
Officers tried to catch it
A Protective Force lieutenant and a Security Police Officer saw the object and followed it by vehicle. They tried to intercept it over Pantex Drive so they could view it from below, but the report says they could not catch up.
After stopping and getting out, the two officers watched it for one to two minutes. They reported no sound and said binoculars did not reveal a propulsion system. They continued north after it for several miles until road access ran out. The report says the object appeared to increase speed and change direction while it was being followed; its last reported direction was east-northeast.
The Carson County Sheriff’s Office was notified after the object moved offsite. A deputy met the officers where it was last seen but did not observe it.
A “diamond” type shape — and conflicting colours
One passage gives a more specific word than the familiar image captions: from the lieutenant and officer’s perspective, the object had a “diamond” type shape, “more round at the top.” That is a witness description in the report, not an official identification or a measured geometry.
Security Police Officers using a Bearcat vehicle’s remotely operated camera system said they tracked it for three to five minutes. Their position was estimated at 75 to 100 metres from the object; the report puts it 100 to 200 feet above ground.
Other observers described it as about four feet tall and two feet wide at the bottom, thinner at the top. Colour reports did not agree: some personnel called it black, others silver, red, or blue. That disagreement is not a small detail. It is a reminder that the public record contains several observations, not one clean visual identification.
What the released imagery can — and cannot — do
Pantex obtained video from the Ground Surveillance Radar tower closest to the object and sent it to Sandia for further study. The report is candid about the limitation: the tower video did not provide much detail because of the distance to the object.
The report also says the object was never judged threatening and did not come close to sensitive assets. It remained over open, unpopulated areas of the plant before leaving the site. Statements, video, and other evidence were turned over to an FBI agent whose name is redacted.
That is the real Release 04 update. The older image fragment was a lead. D005 supplies a dated file, a separately dated detection narrative, a radar track, a security response, multiple witnesses, and a stated limit on the imagery. It makes the Pantex file much more concrete. It does not settle what the officers and cameras saw.
Sources
- Department of Energy: DOE-UAP-D005, Pantex Unidentified Object Incident Report, September 2015.
- Department of War: D005 detail page in PURSUE Release 04.
- The Black Vault: earlier FOIA release of the Pantex incident-report material.
- UAP Logbook: DOE-UAP-D001, the two-page Pantex image fragment released May 22, 2026.
