The Pentagon made public a declassified mission report on Wednesday detailing an observation of an “unidentified anomalous phenomenon” by a U.S. military aircraft over Syria in October 2024. The document, released under the PURSUE transparency initiative and dated May 8, 2026, includes five seconds of video footage captured by a full-motion video camera on an aircraft assigned to the 12th Special Operations Squadron. The report’s official summary describes the object as a “misshapen and uneven ball of white light,” noting a “light/glare halo effect” at the top of the camera feed.
The narrative section, originally classified SECRET and declassified on October 24, 2025, provides additional detail. At 1559Z, the platform “OBSERVED AN UNIDENTIFIED ARRIEAL PHENOMENON (SEE UAP 1),” with the typographical error preserved in the original text.
The observation occurred during an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission as part of Operation INHERENT RESOLVE, the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The aircraft operated out of a base designated OJMS, collecting both full-motion video and signals intelligence. Designated DOW-UAP-PR33, the report is classified as an “unresolved” case, meaning the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office could not identify the object.
The United States Central Command submitted the report to AARO. The video description notes that between 00:01 and 00:03, “two semi-t” appears, with the sentence cutting off and the remainder unreadable in the PDF viewer.
The document is available at war.gov and runs 0.6 MB. The platform itself is not named in the report, though the unit—12 SOS, Air Force Special Operations Command—typically operates MC-130 aircraft for infiltration, exfiltration, and resupply. The report specifies only that the platform carried an FMV camera and a SIGINT package. The UAP was observed at 1559Z, corresponding to 6:59 p.m. local time in Syria in October, near dusk.
The report does not describe the object moving erratically, hovering, or performing impossible maneuvers. It states only that it was observed and that the observation remains unresolved.
This is not the first UAP report from Syria but is one of the first released under PURSUE, a Pentagon initiative to declassify and publish anomalous encounter records. The Pentagon has released hundreds of UAP reports in recent years, with most attributed to drones, balloons, birds, or sensor artifacts. A small fraction remain unexplained, and this report falls into that category.
The declassification date of October 24, 2025, suggests the report sat for approximately a year before release. The PURSUE initiative aims to reduce that lag, though its success depends on the Pentagon’s willingness to declassify more operational reports from active theaters.
Operation INHERENT RESOLVE was ongoing in Syria in October 2024, with U.S. forces facing periodic rocket attacks and drone incursions. The report does not rule out a lens flare or other explanations for the halo effect. It labels the case unresolved and moves on.
The PURSUE archive now contains at least one UAP report from the Syrian theater, with more potentially forthcoming. The Pentagon has not disclosed how many additional reports may be released.
The document remains available for download on war.gov, offering five seconds of footage and a description of a misshapen ball of white light, with no definitive answers.
