Large 'Cigar-Shaped' Object Observed by Military Eyewitnesses in Florida, Per Newly-Released Report
Witnesses excitedly described the incident, which remains under investigation, in a series of text messages included in the report.
By Dustin Slaughter (@DustinSlaughter)
A new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) report obtained by The UAP Register details a highly unusual sighting of an unidentified object by several military witnesses in 2023.
At approximately 7:30 a.m. ET on September 15, 2023, four servicemembers assigned to Avon Park Air Force Range (APAFR) in central Florida were transporting small unmanned aerial vehicles in two trucks through a restricted range, designated as R2901.
A range officer at the base received a text message at 9:38 a.m. ET from a subordinate, stating: “I saw a UAP on base this morning when we were going out in the field! Three witnesses in two different trucks! And it disappeared right in front of our eyes!!!!”
The officer notified the military desk at the FAA Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center (RTCC ZMA) of the sighting and then sought additional information from one of the witnesses, as follows:
According to one of the drivers, the incident started when “there was a bright reflection in the sky that caught my attention. My passenger saw it too!” The witnesses spotted what was described as a “metallic” object approximately 500 feet in the air, and “the sun was reflecting brightly on its left side.” The UAP was further described as a “cylinder in shape. Like a cigar!” The object was estimated to be approximately the length of “three traffic helicopters combined.”
This information was relayed to their superior, an Avon Range officer, in a series of text messages, who later sent the rest of the report to the Miami ARTCC. The Miami ARTCC then notified the FAA’s Joint Air Traffic Operations Command (JATOC).
The report also noted that “no traffic was scheduled to enter, had permission to enter, nor was tracked entering” the restricted range. It concluded that “small UAV/drones are scheduled to operate today; the members that saw the UAP were the drone operators with the drones secured within the vehicles.”
A spokesperson for the Pentagon’s UAP investigation office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), confirmed to the Register that this incident remains under investigation.
The report, released by the FAA through the Freedom of Information Act, highlights a persistent problem that the U.S. military has encountered for many years: Unauthorized incursions of restricted airspace by unidentified phenomena.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s “Preliminary Report: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” stated in 2021 that “UAP pose a threat to safety of flight” in restricted ranges. The report also states that the FBI has investigated an unspecified number of incursions.
Similarly-shaped unidentified objects have been reported by servicemembers for many decades, Marik von Rennenkampf, a former State Department official, Department of Defense appointee during the Obama administration, and UAP researcher, told the Register.
“Reports of cylindrical, ‘cigar-shaped’ objects, as the witness describes here, date back to at least 1948, when this morphology was explicitly described in one of the U.S. government’s earliest surviving assessments of UFOs.”
That assessment, Air Intelligence Report No. 100-203-79: “Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the U.S.”, was produced in December 1948.
The Air Intelligence report also noted that objects witnessed by servicemembers displayed performance characteristics allegedly beyond the capabilities of the U.S. military's arsenal and speculated that the technology might be operated by foreign adversaries.
Modern-day assessments from ODNI and AARO have not yet directly attributed any anomalous objects to foreign adversarial capabilities, however.
“I suspect that the individuals who observed this object disappear in front of their eyes would make for excellent witnesses at an upcoming congressional hearing on UAP,” von Rennenkampf added.
Representative Eric Burlison (R-MO) of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform recently claimed that a public hearing on UAP is scheduled for sometime in September, according to Capitol Hill reporter Matt Laslow.
Congressman Eric Burlison’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether his office would seek to have witnesses to the Avon Park Air Force Range incident testify before Congress.