UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 01 · MAY 8, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · DOCUMENT · DOW-UAP-D028Mission Report, Iraq, September 2024
This mission report (MISREP) comes from an armed-overwatch sortie flown out of OKAS, Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, on September 20, 2024, under Operation Inherent Resolve. The aircraft, whose type is redacted, fired 105 mm and 30 mm rounds and was working in the restricted operating zone “Raindrop” at Ayn al Asad Air Base to calibrate its weapons. (The official copy’s web address mentions the East China Sea, but the title and contents place it in Iraq.)
What happened during the shot
The crew had released 20 rounds of 105 mm, 101 rounds of 30 mm and one AGM-176 Griffin missile. After a call for fire at about 2025Z and the Griffin’s release, the weapons systems officer and combat systems officer saw an unidentified object “fly” through the aircraft’s sensors at high speed, between launch and impact. It produced an infrared lens flare on both the MX-20 and MX-25 sensors, which the crew read as a significant heat signature. They kept the laser on the target until the missile hit and did not see the object again.
What the form adds
The report says it is unknown whether something separated from the object just before it left the field of view, and that its path “appeared predetermined” rather than a reaction to being detected. No other aircraft were reported in the airspace, nothing affected the crew or equipment, and the observers rated it benign. The aircraft was flying straight and level at flight level 130 and 170 knots. The form notes that part of the UAP event serial number is unknown, and no explanation of the object is offered. On infrared sensors, see FLIR.
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. While conducting a weapons calibration test, U.S. military operators reported observing a lens flare via MX-20 and MX-25 IR sensors after firing an AGM-176 Griffin air-to-surface missile. The operators described the source of the flare as a UAP moving through the aircraft’s sensor’s field-of-view at a high rate of speed. The reporter assessed that the flare was associated with “a significant heat source.” 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.