View original document (1.3 MB) PDF viewer unavailable in this browser. Download the PDF to view. A newly declassified U.S. Department of War document reveals that a U.S. military aircrew operating over the United Arab Emirates in October 2023 reported observing an unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) on two separate occasions during a single mission. The record, released under the government’s PURSUE archive, provides a rare, if heavily redacted, glimpse into a real-time encounter with an unknown object logged by the U.S. Air Force.
According to the Department of War document, titled “DOW-UAP-PR26, Unresolved UAP Report, United Arab Emirates, October 2023,” the incident was submitted to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) by the United States Central Command. The submission includes 43 seconds of infrared video footage from a U.S. military platform.
The official description of that footage is notably sparse, stating only that an “area of contrast” appears in the sensor’s field of view before the sensor loses track of it.
The description explicitly warns readers not to interpret the text as reflecting “any analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the described event’s validity, nature, or significance.” The core of the report, however, is a mission narrative extracted from a document identified as “DoW-UAP-D23.” The narrative, which is heavily redacted with portions blacked out or rendered as garbled text, provides a chronological log of a flight originating from Al Dhafra Air Base (designated OMAM) at 0015Z.
The aircrew’s activities included signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection, imagery intelligence (IMINT) in support of an operation called “OP SPARTAN SHIELD,” and a “professional guard call.” Crucially, the log contains two distinct entries regarding a UAP. At 0241Z, the entry reads: “OBSERVED IX UAP. SEE UAP LINE 1.” A second observation is logged at 0322Z: “OBSERVED IX UAP.
SEE UAP LINE 2.” The document does not include the content of the referenced “UAP LINE” entries, which were likely redacted or contained in separate pages not released in this excerpt. The mission report indicates the aircraft was assigned to the 50th Attack Squadron (50 ATKS), operating under the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing. The operation was conducted under the authority of the 609th Air Operations Center, part of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM).
The document was declassified on September 12, 2025, by Major General Richard A. Harrison, USCENTCOM Chief of Staff, and is marked “FOUO / Privacy Act applies,” indicating it contains sensitive but unclassified information subject to privacy protections.
Institutional Framework and Unanswered Questions
The report’s submission to AARO places it within the formal U.S. government process for investigating such phenomena. As noted by Wikipedia’s entry on the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, AARO is an office within the Office of the Secretary of Defense that investigates unidentified flying objects and other “unidentified anomalous phenomena” across air, sea, space, and land. The document’s release under the PURSUE archive, a Department of War initiative, signals an official effort to increase transparency regarding these encounters, even as the details remain heavily censored.
The record leaves several critical questions unanswered. The exact nature of the UAP observed by the aircrew is not specified.
The document does not describe its size, shape, speed, or behavior beyond the fact that it was observed visually or via sensor. The references to “UAP LINE 1” and “UAP LINE 2” suggest the crew filed specific reports on each sighting, but those details are not included in the released excerpt. Furthermore, the 43-second video, while described in the official summary, is not analyzed in the provided text, leaving its contents to the imagination of the public.
Future releases from the PURSUE archive may shed light on these missing details. Readers should watch for additional documents that might contain the full text of the mission report, including the specific “UAP LINE” entries, or a more detailed analytical assessment from AARO.
For now, the document stands as a factual record that a U.S. military aircrew, engaged in a routine mission over the United Arab Emirates, officially logged two encounters with an unidentified phenomenon, the full nature of which remains classified or unresolved.
