DOW-UAP-PR024, Unresolved UAP Report, Middle East, 2023
The United States Central Command submitted a report of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) consisting of 18 seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 2023. Video Description: 00:01: The sensor focuses on a dark area of contrast, narrowing the field of view to zoom in. 00:02: Two bright areas of contrast transit the frame from left to right. 00:03: The sensor zooms out, keeping the bright areas of contrast within the frame. 00:05: The bright areas of contrast exit the right side of the frame. 00:07: The sensor refocuses on the dark area of contrast, keeping it generally within the center of the frame. 00:10: A reticle surrounds the dark area of contrast, which continues to remain generally within the center of the frame. 00:17: The sensor changes contrast and zoom settings, causing the frame to flash white. 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.
The summary above is sourced from the released file metadata as published to war.gov. The analysis sections below are original to this tracker.
Where this file fits in the PURSUE archive
This file is one of DoD's 171 files in the Trump PURSUE disclosure. Within the DoD agency block it ranks #1 of 171 by Anomalousness Index. Across the entire 334-file archive it ranks #15 of 334.
That places it just above the archive's densest scoring band - the 78 files tied at 66 - among the small group of top-scoring files.
For the broader cluster context, this file is part of Release 02 Pentagon UAP Videos - the 51-file DOW-UAP-PR050-PR099 series released in PURSUE Release 02 on May 22, 2026. The cluster page walks through all 51 member files with regional grouping, sensor breakdown, and standout analysis.
Anomalousness Index: 68/100
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.
Captured by a single U.S. military sensor platform (typically infrared, occasionally short-wave infrared or dual EO+IR), aboard a mission aircraft or operational platform under the Department of War. Instrumented, time-stamped, and recoverable. Lower than a multi-sensor capture only because cross-modality confirmation is the rubric's higher bar.
Trained U.S. military personnel reporting from an operational mission context. The second-highest credibility tier in the rubric. This is the witness profile shared by the entire AARO-submitted infrared-capture cluster that anchors the 66-point score band.
Single-witness or single-instrument capture. This is the corroboration tier for the overwhelming majority of the PURSUE archive on the released metadata - the rubric records the honest limit of the underlying record rather than inferring multi-witness corroboration that the released summaries do not establish. A small number of files with an independent second witness or instrument score on the multi-witness/multi-instrument tier above this one.
No kinematic measurements - speed, acceleration, vector - are published in the released file with sufficient precision to score on the kinematic axis. The rubric does not infer kinematic anomaly from narrative observer estimates. Every file in the archive carries this value, which is itself an observation about the disclosure: kinematic-grade telemetry was not part of what was released.
A conventional candidate explanation has been considered but is not dispositive. Every file in the archive scores this way - reflecting that the underlying release metadata systematically caveats strong determinations in either direction. The released summaries warn against reading them as conclusive analytical judgments, and the rubric respects that.
Released as open after formal review by the originating agency. The file passed through a review process and was published in that posture - a stronger disposition signal than 'unresolved with no review,' because review has occurred and the open status is the agency's published conclusion.
Bottom line on the score: the Anomalousness Index of 68/100 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-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
DOW-UAP-PR030, Unresolved UAP Report, Middle East, 2023
Verification
SHA-256:
This hash is the SHA-256 of the file body war.gov served on the verification date above. War.gov has re-processed some file bodies since first release (re-compression + OCR, no content removed - see /changes); we re-verify and record the change rather than silently serve a stale hash. How to check this yourself →
Source (DVIDS): https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1014100/dow-uap-pr024-unresolved-uap-report-middle-east-2023
Direct video file: https://d34w7g4gy10iej.cloudfront.net/video/2607/DOD_111830020/DOD_111830020-1920x1080-9000k.mp4