Analysis: Colorado Springs UAP Incident, 2022

This document contains analysis by an All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) Intelligence Community (IC) partner to account for a 2022 incident involving an airborne object near Colorado Springs, Colorado. U.S. military service members reported the incident to AARO in 2023. AARO’s IC partner assessed, with low confidence, that the reported phenomenon, which observers characterized as resembling an “angular, non-symmetrical potato,” was attributable to sunlight backscattering, where sunlight reflecting from mountain snow cover illuminated the underside of low-altitude clouds. This low-confidence assessment contributes to AARO’s consideration of the incident, which remains unresolved as of June 2026.