UAP Incursion at Pantex Nuclear Facility Revealed in Newly Released Document
The incursion raises serious questions about the security of some of America's most sensitive sites. It's also not the first time that anomalous objects have been seen at the nuclear weapons facility.
By Dustin Slaughter (@DustinSlaughter)
A Bizarre Incursion
A recently released U.S. Department of Energy report indicates that security personnel at the Pantex nuclear weapons facility near Panhandle, Texas, witnessed an unidentified object on September 2, 2015.
The report, obtained by the UAP Register through the Freedom of Information Act, raises serious questions about the security of some of America's most sensitive energy and weapons facilities. The document also draws the Department of Energy further into the ongoing debate over what the federal government knows about the existence of unidentified anomalous phenomena.
The Pantex facility, originally constructed as a conventional bomb plant in 1942, now plays a significant role in the production and disassembly of U.S. nuclear weapons and is considered a highly sensitive national security site by the federal government.
According to the report, Pantex security personnel were alerted to an object described as a “diamond type-shape with it being more round at the top.” Personnel were then dispatched to “follow it and obtain as much information about it as possible.”
Following the incursion, the object continued traveling north of the Pantex plant. Security followed the unidentified object for several miles before “it was no longer visible.” The incident is notable not only for the highly sensitive nature of where it occurred but also because there is other documented evidence besides the trained observers present during the incident.
According to the report, the object was also tracked by ground radar and photographed by personnel at a nearby radar tower likely located at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport.
Images of the object were subsequently analyzed by the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories. Whatever conclusions were drawn from this data about the object and incursion are not known. The images in the report were redacted, alleging the need to protect “unclassified controlled nuclear information”.
The UAP Register has appealed for the release of these redacted images, is filing another request for additional analysis from Sandia, and is considering litigation to make more data public.
The Department of Energy did not respond to repeated requests for comment, including whether the investigation into the Pantex incursion remains open and if then-Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz was made aware of the incident.
A History of ‘Diamond’ Shaped Objects at Pantex
Remarkably, the 2015 incursion may not have been the first time that ‘diamond’ shaped objects were witnessed near the Pantex facility.
According to reports submitted to the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) by former employees at the facility, these incidents were equally dramatic.
“The sightings were over a span of years. I do not know if it was the same craft or a number of them,” wrote one witness. “They were over Pantex Ordinance plant. At the time we still had an active air base and fighters were scrambled a number of times. We lived three miles from the plant so we had a ring side seat. The craft were diamond shaped [emphasis added] and changed color, when the fighters got near it would go straight up at high speed, we knew when the planes landed because the craft reappeared. They would sometimes play tag for hours.”
Another witness wrote:
“From the late 1950's to the mid 1960's UFO's were seen over Pantex Ordnance Plant near Amarillo TX. I lived three miles away to the east at the time. During this period there were about 100 sightings, but those of us that remember [sic] don't talk about it much.
”The Airbase was still open and they would scramble Fighters to intercept. But it was always the same. When the jets closed to 2 miles the object would go up at high speed. The jets would circle a while [sic] then land. Then sometimes it would come back down to its spot.
”This was repeated on many nights. Always the same type of object [emphasis added], that changed colors.”
A November 8, 1957 newspaper account from the Amarillo-Globe Times contains more details about one incident.
“Bright, flashing objects hovered for half an hour over the Pantex Atomic Energy Commission ordnance plant, 15 miles east of Amarillo, Thursday night, according to plant guards.
“The brilliant objects were reported to the State Highway Patrol office by plant guards at 7:46 p.m. A patrolman dispatched to the plant arrived at 8:15 p.m. and reported that he, too saw ‘a strange light.’"
“The patrolman said guards were ‘all shook up.’ Guards said three objects had been floating over the plant 50 feet above the ground ‘for some time.’"
"‘When I got there.’ the patrolman said, ‘the guards said one of the objects had landed on Farin Road 2373, three miles north of Highway 60. We drove to the area but nothing was there. But I'm convinced that the guards saw something land.’
“‘The patrolman said guards told him they had tried to slip up on the objects by turning off their lights ‘but the things would just slip away from them when they got near.’"
You can read the full newspaper report here which includes an alternative and prosaic explanation for some sightings.
Alleged Ongoing Sightings at Other Energy Department Sites
On May 23, 2024, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was grilled by a member of the House UAP Caucus with a series of questions during a House Government Oversight Committee hearing.
“There have been documented sightings of metallic spheres over DoE facilities — if you want to call them drones in this instance — such as one report on April 30, 2019, over LLNL [Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory],” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) told Granholm. “What investigations have been conducted into these sightings, and what conclusions do you have about the nature and origin of these objects?”
“I’m happy to follow up with you on that,” replied Granholm.
Sec. Granholm testified that the agency “has a whole counter-drone effort to make sure that all of our national security sites and our labs are protected from incursions from drones, I’ll just say, that are not authorized. So there’s a whole series of protocols probably not ripe for discussion in this public setting.”
In the below report about “metallic spheres”, security personnel at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported a “round silver drone” seen “periodically stopping and hovering” over the facility. The “drone-like object” was spotted very high up “like it was just under the clouds.” The report also indicates that there were no scheduled drone flights that day.
A spokesperson for Rep. Luna confirmed to the UAPR that this report is what she was referencing at the hearing.
Notably, the then-head of the Pentagon's UAP office, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, has indicated that a significant amount of UAP spotted by U.S. military witnesses and sensor platforms are spherical in shape, and many of these spherical objects appeared metallic or translucent in color. His remarks, plus a video showing a separate metallic sphere-shaped UAP, were shared during the United States Senate Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities hearing regarding the UAP office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, April 2023.
What Next?
The Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act was a proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024. It was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and co-sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Mike Rounds (R-SD) in July 2023. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), and other Senators supported the bill too. The legislation was modeled heavily after the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.
According to a statement announcing the bill, the impetus for this legislation stems in part from “a vast web of individuals and groups” that have come forward to share information with Congress about UAP-related programs in which they are allegedly involved or of which they are aware. The statement also alleges that some members of Congress, based on information provided by government eyewitnesses purportedly vetted by Congressional attorneys and the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, believe that the Executive Branch has been “concealing important information regarding UAPs over broad periods of time.”
According to last year’s amendment, the DoE and its predecessor agencies have been interpreting the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 in an overly broad manner to maintain secrecy over the UAP issue. You can learn more about this here.
The final version of last year’s UAP Disclosure Act was significantly weakened, however. To learn more about this, visit independent researcher D. Dean Johnson’s piece.
Following an extraordinary colloquy on the floor of the Senate (below), there are other indications that Sens. Schumer and Rounds are planning to re-introduce their amendment in the forthcoming fiscal year 2025 NDAA, according to reporter Matt Laslo of Ask A Pol.
A bipartisan push for greater transparency around the UAP issue is also underway in the U.S. House. Representatives Robert Garcia (D-CA) and Glenn Grothman (R-WI) recently proposed an amendment that would ensure some of the provisions stripped from the 2023 Schumer-Rounds amendment would be restored. Rep. Garcia also introduced other UAP-related amendments below.
