An Illustration of Four Incidents, From Above

Imagine an illustration of the western United States as seen from above, with four incidents reported by federal agents in October 2023.

The illustration appeared in a U.S. Department of War document. What makes it intriguing is the gap between what it shows and what it tells us: there are four incidents, but no account of what happened in any of them. To understand what the illustration does tell us, we need to separate the reports from the depiction.

Four Reports Over Several Days

According to the document, federal law enforcement agents reported several incidents over a few days in October 2023. There were four in all, in the western United States. The document gives no specific date or location for any of them.

That is all it says about the incidents themselves. It does not describe what the agents saw or explain how the incidents might be connected. So the document does not tell us whether they were similar or what happened in each one.

What the Illustration Shows

The illustration presents the four incidents together, from above. In other words, it offers a broad view of events in the western United States, not a record of a particular moment. Here, “illustration” means a drawing intended to convey an idea, not an image that proves what happened.

The document describes the image as an illustration of four reported incidents. It does not present it as a photograph or as visual evidence of what took place. Nor does showing the incidents in one image mean they happened in the same place or at the same time.

The document was made public in 2026, nearly three years after the incidents were reported. But its release adds no details about what the agents saw. The illustration gives viewers the broad outline: four incidents, a wide region, a view from above.

What Remains Unknown

The document does not detail what happened in each incident or what was seen. It says the illustration is only a depiction and offers no conventional explanation for the events.

The four incidents are marked together. Exactly what happened in each remains outside the frame.