PURSUE Record · Release 02
DOW-UAP-PR050
Agency: Department of War · Type: Video · Date: Aug 26, 2022 · Location: Iran (CENTCOM) · Status: Unresolved
Official description
Four UAP transit the sensor field-of-view in stable formation over water, recorded by CENTCOM assets on August 26, 2022. AARO assesses the video is likely derived from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform. The objects exhibit no thermal signature or visible exhaust, with flight characteristics inconsistent with known regional drone platforms.
Curator's note
Four objects change the analysis. Lone-object clips invite lone-object explanations — bird, balloon, artifact — but a stable formation requires either coordination or a common cause, and each is checkable in principle. The genuinely odd element here is thermal: the release describes objects returning solid infrared shape with no heat signature and no visible exhaust, over water, in one of the most sensor-saturated theaters on Earth, where analysts identified routine drone traffic daily. Watch the spacing stay constant through the 20-second window. Altitude and speed figures circulating with this file are not ones we can match to the published record. CENTCOM's own analysts could not close this case with the mundane candidates they knew best — that, not any single frame, is why it is here.
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