DOW-UAP-D155, Air Intelligence Information Report, Saudi Arabia, 1957
This document is an Air Intelligence Information Report (AIIR), a standardized U.S. Air Force reporting form used to record raw information of potential intelligence value for later analysis. The form served as a primary vehicle for U.S. Air Force field intelligence collection throughout the early Cold War, until defense-wide reporting standards were established in the early 1960s. This AIIR records a January 18, 1957, incident over Saudi Arabia in which the crew of a U.S. Air Force B-52 aircraft reported detecting an unidentified return on the aircraft’s gunnery scope for approximately five to seven minutes. The report characterizes the unidentified return as smaller than one produced by another B-52 operating in the area. All descriptive and estimative language contained in this report reflects the reporter’s subjective interpretation at the time of the event. Such characterizations should not be interpreted as a conclusive indication of the presence or absence of any intrinsic object features or performance characteristics.
The summary above is sourced from the released file metadata as published to war.gov. The analysis sections below are original to this tracker.
Text of the document
Machine-extracted from the PDF war.gov published (its text layer or OCR), so expect errors, especially in names, numbers and handwriting; the PDF is the authoritative copy. Lines that did not extract as readable text are left out. Showing about 612 words from pages 1, 2, 3, 4 of 5.
PAGE 1
COUNTRY REPORT NO. (Ll!.:AVE BLANK) AIR INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION REPORT -port or Unidontitied Airoraf't Sightin:_. AREA REPORTED ON IF ROM (Agtncv) DATE OF R PREPARED BY ( Officer) SOURCE REFERENCES }Omtrol number, directive, pru ious report, etc., a, applicable) SUMMARY: (Enter concise aummarv of report. Give significance infinal one-sentena paragraph. Lm lnclosure, at lower left. Begin text of report on AF Form I It-Part II.) radar contact it."1 an unidentified aircrD.ft bile part1cipatin,z :Lu Strategic knots per hour. Altitudo; 39.000 feat. Visibility; night. Duration or contact; 394 picked up an unidentified eircra.f't on tlle A•3A gunnery scope • Tho return or the unidentified aircraft remi~d o.t t..'\ia 6000 yard tm"ker (center) of the scope for approxinntoly five (5) to seven (7) minutes after hich. the Il•52 bank to nnd the ott made a the left, lmidentified o.ircraft return disappeared the soop0 to the left. 'fhe disappear-an.co may htl:\l'e been oauaed by the chance in direction of the B-52; !hCJ.'lever the unidentified aircraft ee.e->--ed t;o disappear in the direction or tho Baghdad Flicb,t Identification Region. Tho ttnidonti:fied return produced by a second D• 52 ctiroraf't riditig at the 5000 yard 100.rker 0£ the SignificanceI The unidentified aircraft apponrod on the scope ore no aircraft ore expect.ad. Asst Chief Intclli&once vision O!STRIBUTK)N BY ORIGINATOR NOTE: THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS INFORMATION AFFECTI NG THE NATIONAL DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES WITHIN THE MEANING OFTHE ESPIONAGE ACT. 50 U. S. C.- 31 AND 32. AS AMENDED. ITS TRANSMISSION OR THE REVELATION OF ITS CONTENTS IN ANY MANNER TO AN UNAUTHORIZED PERSON IS PROHIBITED BY LAW. IT MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN WHOLE OR IN PART, BY OTHER THAN UNITED STATES AIR FORCE AGENCIES. EXCEPT BY PERMISSION OF THE DIRECTOR OF INTELLIGENCE, USAF.
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AF FORM 112-PART II AIR INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION REPORT FROM (Ao~) REPORT NO. 2at PAGE OF PAGES A-3A GUNNERY SCOPE PRESENTATION NOTE: THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS INFORMATION AFFECTING THE NATIONAL DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES WITHIN THE MEANING OF THE ESPIONAGE ACT, 50 U.S. C.- 31 AND 32. AS AMENDED. ITS TRANSMISSION OR THE REVELATION OF ITS CONTENTS IN ANY MANNER TO AN UNAUTHORIZED PERSON IS PROHIBITED BY LAW. IT MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN WHOLE OR IN PART, BY OTHER THAN UNITED STATES AIR FORCE AGENCIES, EXCEPT BY PERMISSION OF THE DIRECTOR OF INTELLIGENCE, USAF.
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COUNTRY • • REPORT NO. (LEAVE BLANK) AIR INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION REPORT AREA REPORTED ON FROM (AQfflCI/) PREPARED BY ( OQicer) SUM MARY: (Enter condse summar11 ofreport. Oive tignificattce in frnal onNentence paragraph. List inclon.re, at lower left. Begin text of report on AF Form //!-Part I J.) NOTE: THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS INFORMATION AFFECT I NG THE NATIONAL DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES WITH IN THE MEAN I NG OF THE ESPIONAGE ACT, SO U. S. C.- 31 AND 32, AS AMENDED. ITS TRANSMISSION OR THE REVELATION OF ITS CONTENTS IN ANY MANNER TO AN UNAUTHORIZED PERSON IS PROHIBITED BY LAW. IT MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN WHOLE OR IN PART. BY OTHER THAN UNITED STATES AIR FORCE AGENCIES. EXCEPT BY PERMISSION OF THE DIRECTOR OF INTELLIGENCE, USAF.
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AIR INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION REPORT REPORT NO. Z?d PAGE OF PAGES A-3A GUNNERY SCOPE PRESENTATION ------~---- ort scop in diroc (Cln3llcr return than tha flieht t rodueed by 52) liic t1on NOTE: THIS DOCUMENf CONTAINS INFORMATION AFFECTING THE NATIONAL DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES WITHIN THE MEANING OF THE ESPIONAGE ACT, 50 U. S. C.- 31 AND 32. AS AMENDED. ITS TRANSMISSION OR THE REVELATION OF ITS CONTENTS IN ANY MANNER TO AN UNAUTHORIZED PERSON IS PROHIBITED BY LAW. IT MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN WHOLE OR IN PART, BY OTHER THAN UNITED STATES AIR FORtE AGENCIES. EXCEPT BY PERMISSION OF THE DIRECTOR OF INTELLIGENCE. USAF.
Where this file fits in the PURSUE archive
This file is one of DoD's 282 files in the Trump PURSUE disclosure. Within the DoD agency block it ranks #161 of 282 by Anomalousness Index. Across the entire 478-file archive it ranks #285 of 478.
That places it in the lower-scoring band of the archive (285 of 478 by score), typical of investigative-record style files where the report is paper-based rather than instrumented.
Anomalousness Index: 56/100
Evidentiary weight that this encounter remains unexplained after conventional analysis. Not a probability of extraterrestrial origin - that number is not honestly computable from the released files and this tracker refuses to publish it.
🤖 AI-ASSISTED SCORING · methodology
The six rubric components break down for this file as follows. Each component has a weighted contribution to the final score; the per-component explanation below describes what this file's particular value on that component means in the rubric's framework.
No sensor, camera, or instrument backs this observation - it is testimony, relayed through the Department of War, and scored on the rubric's lowest sensor-quality tier for that reason. That doesn't bear on the witness's credibility (a separate axis); it reflects only that nothing beyond human perception recorded the event.
Reported by trained U.S. military personnel during an operational mission (1/18/1957) - a high witness-credibility tier, ranked in the rubric below astronaut, trained-aviator, and federal-agent testimony. This profile is shared across the AARO-submitted infrared-capture cluster that anchors the archive's densest scoring band, at 66.
On corroboration, this file from the Department of War - like every single-tier file in the PURSUE archive - is a single-witness or single-instrument capture per the released metadata. The rubric doesn't infer multi-witness confirmation the summaries don't actually establish; this score reflects the honest limit of what was released, not a judgment about the underlying event.
The released file contains no speed, acceleration, or vector data precise enough to score on the kinematic axis - and that's true archive-wide, not specific to this file. The rubric declines to infer kinematic anomaly from a witness's narrative estimate of how fast something moved; that itself says something about what PURSUE actually released: descriptive accounts, not flight-path telemetry.
Every file in the archive, including this one, scores this tier: a conventional explanation was considered in the released record but isn't treated as dispositive. That's a pattern in how war.gov's own summaries are written - they consistently hedge against strong conclusions either way - and the rubric takes that hedging at face value rather than resolving it for them.
This file was released as open by the Department of War after a formal review process concluded - not simply logged and left pending. That's a stronger disposition signal than 'unresolved, no review': a review actually happened, and remaining open is the Department of War's own published conclusion from it, not an absence of one.
Bottom line on the score: the Anomalousness Index of 56/100 reflects evidentiary weight that this specific file's encounter remains structurally unexplained by the rubric's six axes - it is not a claim that the underlying event involved anything non-conventional, and it is not comparable across rubrics that use different weights. For the full per-axis weights and the rubric JSON, see /methodology.
Related files in DoD
Other PURSUE files in the same category, ranked by Anomalousness Index.
DOW-UAP-PR024, Unresolved UAP Report, Middle East, 2023
DOW-UAP-PR072, "ADMINISTRATIVE REVISION: IIR 1777 J0032 22 Kazakhstan - UAP in the vicinit…
DOW-UAP-PR106, Unresolved UAP Report, Eastern United States, 2020
DOW-UAP-PR108, Unresolved UAP Report, Western United States, 2020
DOW-UAP-PR109, Unresolved UAP Report, Eastern United States, 2015
DOW-UAP-PR110, Unresolved UAP Report, Eastern United States, 2020
Verification
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