A Colorado police officer recorded a video in October 2023. The record released to the public includes no video, only a transcript: a written account of the recording. Even that is incomplete. Some passages were redacted, and the original audio was removed.
The gap between the existence of a police record and what it can tell us is the story here. The record is part of a collection of reports about unidentified phenomena, but it doesn’t explain what happened in the video. It does explain why the audio and parts of the text were withheld, and warns against treating the remaining descriptions as proof of what appeared on screen.
What the Record Contains
The transcript covers a video lasting one minute and 19 seconds. It is part of a collection maintained by AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office), a U.S. agency. The released material makes clear that a police officer recorded the video, but offers no full account of the event or what appeared in the footage.
The audio was removed from the original recording, and parts of the transcript were redacted. So it’s impossible to hear what was said or read the full text. The record doesn’t say what the officer captured.
Why Details Were Withheld
According to the official explanation, the audio was removed to protect privacy and information protected on behalf of an individual or business. Parts of the transcript were withheld to protect the reporter’s identity and sensitive police information.
The explanation adds that the descriptions and assessments in the transcript reflect the reporter’s interpretation at the time of the event. In other words, they show how that person understood what happened; they don’t prove what characteristics the described object had. That distinction matters when reading a partial transcript: the remaining words record one person’s perception, not independent confirmation of what took place.
What Remains Unknown
It’s unknown what appeared in the video or what happened during the event. The explanation details why information was withheld but doesn’t describe the recording’s contents.
A little over a minute of video lies behind a partial transcript. The footage itself remains outside the released record.
