EDITORIAL GUIDE
~5 min read
New UFO Files: What's in the Pentagon's Sixth Release (PURSUE Release 06, Sept. 18, 2026)
On September 18, 2026, the Department of War published the sixth tranche of records under PURSUE — the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. According to the official PURSUE database on war.gov, Release 06 contains 75 files: 59 PDFs, 15 videos and one audio recording. This guide walks through what is in it, using the file titles and descriptions the Department published alongside each record.
By
Himanshu Singh · Source-checked 2026-10-21
The numbers
The official PURSUE database lists 75 files with a release date of September 18, 2026. Sixty-seven are attributed to the Department of War and eight to local law enforcement. By type, there are 59 PDF documents, 15 videos and one audio file.
With this tranche, the database holds 450 files across six releases: May 8 (158 files), May 22 (64), June 12 (72), July 10 (40), August 7 (41) and September 18 (75).
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The biggest block: 44 AAWSAP records
Forty-four of the 75 files relate to the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP), which the release describes as a Defense Intelligence Agency–administered program active from 2008 to 2012. They include the July 2008 Statement of Objectives (DOW-UAP-D110), the September 2008 solicitation and original order (D111), five contract modifications from 2009–2010, and 37 Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs).
According to the Department's description of D110, the Statement of Objectives framed AAWSAP as a contractor-supported effort to assess far-term foreign aerospace threats "out to the year 2050" across 12 technical areas, including lift, propulsion, control, power generation, materials, signature reduction, human interface and human effects.
The DIRD titles range from conventional engineering — "Metallic Glasses for Aerospace Applications," "Biomaterials," "Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion" — to speculative physics such as "Advanced Space Propulsion Based on Vacuum (Spacetime Metric) Engineering," "Antigravity for Aerospace Applications" and "Invisibility Cloaking Theory and Experiments." Many DIRDs had circulated publicly for years through earlier FOIA releases; reporting on this tranche notes that the new versions restore some previously withheld details. For the program's history, see our AAWSAP guide.
Project Blue Book: the 1952 Tremonton film
Release 06 includes the Project Blue Book file on the Tremonton, Utah film of July 2, 1952 (DOW-UAP-D102), a related photo file (D103), the film itself (PR159) and the final personnel record of the photographer, U.S. Navy Warrant Officer Delbert C. Newhouse (D104).
The Department's description says the Air Force assessed Newhouse as "honest and reliable" with more than 1,000 hours of aerial-photography experience, and that he reported 12 to 14 reflective objects. It also says the Air Force's view evolved: early documents considered birds, balloons or a mirage, while later assessments "became more confident that the objects were seabirds reflecting sunlight." We cover the case in detail in our Tremonton case file.
Captain Edward Ruppelt's 1952 presentation
The release pairs an audio recording (PR160) with a transcript (D154) of a March 26, 1952 presentation in Boston by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who went on to lead Project Blue Book. According to the Department's description, Ruppelt said about 20% of roughly 800 historical cases reviewed by the Air Force remained unexplained after analysis, and he highlighted report concentrations around sensitive sites including Los Alamos, Albuquerque and Oak Ridge.
New military and police videos
The 15 videos include:
• Military infrared footage reported to AARO from the Middle East (2022 and 2025), the Yellow Sea (2023) and the East China Sea (2023). One 2025 mission report (DOW-UAP-D108, paired with video PR135) records an operator describing "six small spherical objects" that seemed agile and frequently changed direction, with an estimated speed of 480 miles per hour.
• Four videos submitted by local law enforcement in Colorado (October 2023 and January 2024). In one, an officer described a "silent" phenomenon with "red, blue, and green flashing lights" filmed on a phone. AARO's note on that file warns that phone autofocus and image processing "may distort the apparent morphological and kinematic characteristics of distant subjects."
The Department attaches a standard caveat to these descriptions: they are informational and should not be read as an analytical judgment about the event's nature or significance.
How to read PURSUE files
The PURSUE site describes everything in the archive as "unresolved cases, meaning the government is unable to make a definitive determination on the nature of the observed phenomena," often because of insufficient data. Unresolved does not mean extraordinary. The Department says it reports resolved cases separately and will keep releasing tranches "every few weeks."
To read a file yourself, open the PURSUE database on war.gov, filter by Release 06, and download the PDF or video.