PURSUE Changes Log
FIRST PUBLISHED 20 MAY 2026 ยท VERIFIED BY URL SET COMPARISON
What this page contains. The verified row-by-row diff between the May 8 PURSUE CSV (161 rows) and the current war.gov PURSUE CSV (158 rows), computed by direct URL-set and DVIDS-ID-set comparison. Each claim on this page is a direct count from the underlying CSV files. No interpretation of war.gov's intent. No characterizations of "renames," "consolidations," or "reclassifications" - those would be inferences and are kept off this page.
Headline finding: zero PDFs added, zero PDFs removed, zero videos added, zero videos removed. The 161 -> 158 row delta is fully explained by 9 PDFs that previously had one CSV row now having multiple, and 1 PDF having its storage slug changed.
TL;DR (plain English)
War.gov changed how they label their UFO file list on May 11, 2026, but the files themselves are exactly the same. 130 PDFs and 28 videos exist in both versions. The row count in their published spreadsheet dropped from 161 to 158 because 9 PDFs that used to appear as one row each now appear as multiple rows (the same file referenced under different incident titles), and one PDF had its storage filename renamed. That accounts for the entire change. The data tables below show every PDF affected, with links to the actual files.
The arithmetic
The row-count delta of -3 (161 May 8 rows -> 158 current rows) decomposes cleanly:
May 8 CSV: 161 rows
= 130 unique PDFs + 16 video rows + 15 PDF rows that were duplicates within the May 8 file
= 130 PDF URLs + 28 video DVIDS IDs in the unique set
May 11+ CSV: 158 rows
= 130 unique PDFs + 16 video rows + 12 additional cross-reference PDF rows
= 130 PDF URLs + 28 video DVIDS IDs in the unique set
(same unique set after accounting for 1 PDF slug change; see Table 2 below)
Net delta: -3 rows
= 15 historical PDF-row duplicates - 12 new cross-reference rows
= -3
The unique-file inventory between the two dates is identical. The CSV structure changed; the file set did not.
Table 1: 9 PDFs that gained extra CSV rows (12 extra rows total)
Each of these 9 PDFs had exactly 1 CSV row on May 8 and now has 2-4 CSV rows in the current CSV. The PDF file at the URL is unchanged (we have not yet re-hashed it; see "verification status" below). The new CSV rows describe what appear to be discrete incidents contained within the same PDF, but we do not assert this without diffing the PDF contents.
| PDF URL (war.gov) | Site detail page | Current CSV row titles (2026-05-11+) | Rows |
|---|---|---|---|
| dow-uap-d32-mission-report,-syria-october-2024.pdf | Syria, October 2024 | D32, PR31, PR32, PR33 | 4x |
| dow-uap-d23-mission-report-united-arab-emirates-october-2023.pdf | UAE, October 2023 | D23, PR26, PR27 | 3x |
| dow-uap-d10-mission-report-middle-east-may-2022.pdf | Middle East, May 2022 | D10, PR19 | 2x |
| dow-uap-d14-mission-report-iraq-may-2022.pdf | Iraq, May 2022 | D14, PR21 | 2x |
| dow-uap-d16-mission-report-syria-july-2022.pdf | Syria, July 2022 | D16, PR22 | 2x |
| dow-uap-d18-mission-report-iraq-december-2022.pdf | Iraq, December 2022 | D18, PR23 | 2x |
| dow-uap-d33-mission-report-greece-october-2023.pdf | Greece, October 2023 (1) | D33, PR34 | 2x |
| dow-uap-d35-mission-report-greece-october-2023.pdf | Greece, October 2023 (2) | D35, PR35 | 2x |
| dow-uap-d38-range-fouler-debrief-middle-east-may-2020.pdf | Middle East, May 2020 | D38, PR36 | 2x |
Table 2: PDF storage-slug changes (title unchanged)
One PDF on war.gov's storage backend had its file slug renamed between May 8 and May 11. The CSV Title and human-facing metadata are unchanged. We have NOT yet re-fetched the new URL to verify the file bytes are identical to the May 8 file at the old URL; SHA-256 verification on this is pending.
| Title (unchanged) | Old URL (May 8) | New URL (May 11+) | Verification |
|---|---|---|---|
| DOW-UAP-D20, Mission Report, Iraq, 2023 | .../dow-uap-d20-mission-report-southern-united-states-2023.pdf |
.../dow-uap-d20-mission-report-iraq-2023.pdf |
SHA pending |
Note: 2 additional URL-pair differences exist in the diff (involving FBI file series 59_64634 and 65_HS1-..._Section_6) but the data is currently ambiguous between "URL slug change" and "the old URL was withdrawn while a similarly-titled new URL was added." We are not asserting either reading until we have re-fetched both files and compared bytes. See the methodology note below.
Verification status by file class
| What's verified | How | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Unique PDF URL set (May 8 vs current) | Set diff on normalized URLs | Done |
| Unique video DVIDS ID set (May 8 vs current) | Set diff on DVIDS IDs | Done - identical |
| Multi-row PDF count and identities | Counter on URL field in current CSV | Done |
| PDF byte equivalence on slug-changed files | Re-fetch + SHA-256 compare | Pending |
| Multi-row PDFs - are extra rows describing the same content or distinct incidents within the PDF? | PDF text extraction + comparison | Pending |
| Resolution status changes (e.g., the "Middle East 2013" question) | PDF content read | Pending |
How to verify this page yourself
Anyone can re-run the diff. The inputs are public:
- Current war.gov CSV: war.gov/Portals/1/Interactive/2026/UFO/uap-csv.csv (warm a session at war.gov/UFO/ first or the CDN will 403)
- May 8 manifest snapshot: /generated/api/files.json (our parsed copy; the original war.gov May 8 CSV is no longer hosted but its SHA-256 is preserved in our poll-state history)
- The diff itself: extract the
PDF | Image Linkcolumn from the CSV, normalize to lowercase, set-difference against thesource_urlfield from our manifest. The result will match the tables on this page.
Why this page exists
An earlier version of /revisions characterized the May 11 change as including removals, additions, geographic consolidation, and reclassification. None of those characterizations are supported by the URL-set comparison. Rather than silently rewriting and pretending the mistake didn't happen, we kept the correction visible on /revisions and built this page to host the verified data tables. Per the site's editorial policy, transparency about our own errors is part of the credibility moat.