Unresolved UAP Report, Middle East, 2023 — Department of War Video (DOW-UAP-PR030)
The United States Central Command submitted a report of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) consisting of 10 seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 2023.
Incident Overview
In 2023, in the Middle East, the Department of War preserved a sensor video that was declassified and published on July 10, 2026 as part of the fourth tranche of the Department of War’s Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE).
What the government released
The United States Central Command submitted a report of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) consisting of 10 seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 2023.
Video Description: 00:01-00:05: No content. 00:06-00:07: Two areas of contrast transit the sensor field-of-view. The first enters the field-of-view from the bottom right and exits from the top edge of the frame. The second, relatively smaller area of contrast enters from the top and exits the bottom of the frame. 00:08-00:10: No content.
This video description is provided for informational purposes only. Readers 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.
Status of the case
Records released under the PURSUE program are designated unresolved by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which means the federal government has not concluded the events were anomalous, has not concluded they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Where AARO has offered a likely source for an item — an infrared sensor aboard a military aircraft, a commercial camera, or a known optical effect — that attribution is the agency’s working assessment rather than a final determination. Conventional candidates such as drones, balloons, flares, satellites, parallax and forced-perspective artifacts, and ordinary aircraft remain on the table for any unresolved case absent better data than a single sensor pass or a witness recollection.