UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 01 · MAY 8, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · DOCUMENT · DOW-UAP-D020Mission Report, Iraq, 2023
This MISREP comes from a pair of F-16CM fighters of the 77th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron that took off from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on 31 March 2023 for a defensive counter-air patrol under Operation Inherent Resolve. The release files it under Iraq, but the narrative logs the flight entering Syrian airspace for its patrol.
The sighting
At 2302Z, flying at about 26,500 feet, the flight observed “several bright objects maneuvering quickly” from west to east. The release’s summary reads the direction as west to east-northeast; in the report, “NE of RLZ” appears to give the location, as in its operational-range field. The UAP section counts possibly 10 to 20 objects and gives their altitude as above 60,000 feet, with no signatures and no effects on the crew. A pilot held one possible UAP in the targeting pod’s TV mode for about 20 seconds before it dimmed and disappeared from the pod.
Two remarks stand out. The crew noted that none of the objects were seen in formations “as previously seen in prior sorties,” which suggests objects had been seen in formation on earlier sorties. And an analyst comment says the flight compared the pod image of the possible UAP with that of a star, and “results were different.”
Context
The star comparison suggests the crew checked against a common nighttime confusion; the report does not say what else was considered. Bright objects that fade from view could have many explanations, and the release stresses that descriptions are the crew’s impressions. A comparable fighter report from February is DOW-UAP-D019.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released May 8, 2026, quoted in full
This document is a Mission Report (MISREP), a standardized reporting form the U.S. Military uses to record the circumstances surrounding its operations. U.S. military services often use MISREPs to report Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) to AARO. The GENTEXT, or “general text” section of these reports often contains important qualitative, contextual information, distinguishing it from the more quantitative, or numerical, data found elsewhere in the report. A U.S. military operator reported observing “several bright objects maneuvering quickly” west to east northeast. The operator reported achieving a track on the UAP via an onboard targeting pod for approximately 20 seconds. The report describes that UAP then dimmed and disappeared from the targeting pod. 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.