A recently declassified U.S. Department of War document describes an observation of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) by a military aircraft crew over the Middle East in May 2022, with the official report listing the object as a “possible missile.” The record was released on May 8, 2026, as part of the PURSUE archive, a Department of War initiative to declassify UAP-related materials. The document, designated “DOW-UAP-PR19, Unresolved UAP Report, Middle East, May 2022,” includes a five-second infrared video clip captured by a sensor on a U.S. military platform.
The report was submitted to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Pentagon office responsible for investigating unexplained phenomena across air, sea, space, and land domains. Accompanying the footage is a mission report labeled DoW-UAP-D10.
According to the mission report, the observed object was categorized as a “possible missile” as it moved across the sensor’s field-of-view.
The record also notes four additional objects not visible in the video, which were described as “possible birds.” A video description provided for informational purposes states that at the two-second mark, the footage shows “an area of contrast moving from left to right across the bottom third of the sensor field-of-view.” The Department of War explicitly cautions that this description “should not interpret any part of this description as reflecting an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the described event’s validity, nature, or significance.” The underlying mission report, classified as SECRET and releasable to the United States and Five Eyes (FVEY) intelligence partners, was declassified on October 7, 2025, by Major General Richard A.
Harrison, USCENTCOM Chief of Staff. The mission operated under Operation INHERENT RESOLVE and involved a single aircraft with the callsign 1.4a, listed as asset type 1.4g. The aircraft took off at 0246Z on May 6, 2022, and began signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection at 0958Z.
The crew conducted target development until 2036Z. At 1514Z, the crew observed one UAP, referenced as “OBSERVATION 1” in the report.
The aircraft returned to base at 2036Z, with full motion video exploited by Distributed Ground Station 1 (DGS1). The report lists one imagery intelligence (IMINT) tasking and one SIGINT tasking prosecuted, totaling two taskings, with one observation recorded. The mission type was REC/XCAS (reconnaissance and close air support), and the operations center was the 609th.
The document was approved for release to AARO. AARO, as detailed in a Wikipedia summary, is an office within the United States Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Its first director was physicist Sean Kirkpatrick, who reported to then Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks. The current director is Jon T. Kosloski. The Department of War report is one of many submissions to AARO for analysis.
The report’s classification as “Unresolved” indicates that AARO has not reached a definitive conclusion about the nature of the observed phenomenon. The official description’s use of “possible missile” leaves room for alternative explanations, and the Department of War’s caveat warns against drawing definitive conclusions from the video description alone.
Future PURSUE releases may provide additional context, further analysis from AARO, or declassified reports from other missions that could shed light on similar observations in the Middle East theater.
