Unresolved UAP Report, Arabian Gulf, 2020
The United States Central Command submitted a report of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) consisting of five minutes and 11 seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 2020. The reporter did not provide any oral or written description of the observation. Video Description: This video features incidentally recorded audio, which does not relate to the visual content described below. 00:00-00:30: No content. 00:31-03:24: The sensor pans down and to the right to focus on an area of contrast. The sensor tracks the area of contrast against the background for approximately three minutes, panning to maintain its position generally within the center of the frame. The sensor cycles contrast and zoom levels several times throughout, appearing as brief, bright white flashes across the frame. 03:25-04:23: The sensor cycles through reticles of various sizes while continuing to track the area of contrast. Between 04:20 and 04:23, the area of contrast briefly leaves the center of the sensor field-of-view. 04:24-04:50: The sensor field-of-view widens to zoom out from the scene, continuing to track the area of contrast. 04:50-04:54: The sensor stops tracking the area of contrast, at which point it exits the frame from the top left quadrant of the screen. 04:55-05:11: 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.
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 143 files in the Trump PURSUE disclosure. Within the DoD agency block it ranks #58 of 143 by Anomalousness Index. Across the entire 294-file archive it ranks #69 of 294.
That places it tied with 26 other files at 66 - the densest single-score cluster in the archive, anchored by AARO-submitted military infrared captures.
For the broader cluster context, this file is part of AARO Unresolved UAP - the 27-file AARO unresolved cluster tied at 66. The cluster page walks through all 27 member files with regional grouping, sensor breakdown, and standout analysis.
Anomalousness Index: 66/100
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. 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. Every file in the PURSUE archive scores at this corroboration tier 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.
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.
Catalogued as unresolved with no formal review process having concluded. This is the AARO baseline disposition for the 27-file score-66 cluster - the reports are logged into the system as unresolved, but no formal review has finalized. The rubric distinguishes this from 'open after review' because the absence of review is itself a status signal.
Bottom line on the score: the Anomalousness Index of 66/100 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…
Unresolved UAP Report, Middle East, May 2022
Unresolved UAP Report, Iraq, May 2022
Unresolved UAP Report, Syria, July 2022
Unresolved UAP Report, Iraq, December 2022
Unresolved UAP Report, United Arab Emirates, October 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/1006104/dow-uap-pr44-unresolved-uap-report-middle-east-2020
Direct video file: https://d34w7g4gy10iej.cloudfront.net/video/2605/DOD_111689115/DOD_111689115.mp4