UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 01 · MAY 8, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · DOCUMENT · DOW-UAP-D044Range Fouler Reporting Form, Gulf of Aden, October 2020
This Range Fouler Reporting Form records a daytime contact on October 15, 2020, from 14:18:39Z to 14:19:52Z. The release titles it “Gulf of Aden” and the form itself says the crew was over the Gulf of Aden, although the catalogue lists the place as the Arabian Sea. It was filed by an O-2 from the 172nd Attack Squadron (“172 ATKS”) on an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) mission.
What the crew measured
Flying at 19,073 feet above the terrain, the crew tracked a round object that appeared cold in infrared. The sensor was set to “black hot,” in which warmer things look darker, and the object showed bright white. They estimated it was heading 319 degrees, roughly northwest, at about 20 mph, and it made a few abrupt changes of direction during the contact, which the form calls a one-minute event. The sensor was pointed 50 degrees below the aircraft’s altitude, with a slant range of 4.06 nautical miles and a ground range of 4.78 kilometers.
A near-twin
Six weeks earlier a crew from the same squadron filed an almost identically worded report from the same waters, DOW-UAP-D057, which describes an eight-minute contact at 277 mph. The two forms share their phrasing, so the differences in time, speed and geometry are the useful part. Neither form offers an explanation, and both give the location only as an estimated, partly redacted grid. On infrared imaging, see FLIR.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released May 8, 2026, quoted in full
This document is a Range Fouler Reporting Form, a standardized reporting form the U.S. Navy uses to record the circumstances surrounding an unauthorized intrusion into controlled airspace during active military operations or training. These reports contain a narrative description of the observer’s experiences. A U.S. military operator reported observing a “round, cold object” via infrared sensor, traveling at 319 degrees (northwest) at approximately 20 mph. The report describes the UAP making “abrupt directional changes” during the event. 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.