UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 05 · AUGUST 7, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · DOCUMENT · DOW-UAP-D101Intelligence Information Report, Unresolved UAP Report, Gulf of Oman, 2021
This Intelligence Information Report (IIR) was published on April 27, 2022, by Air Force Special Operations Command intelligence at Hurlburt Field, more than seven months after the event it describes: a US special operations AC-130 gunship’s live-fire training sortie over the Gulf of Oman on the night of September 8, 2021. An IIR passes on raw, unevaluated information from a source, here one with direct access to the information through official duties, and this one went to a long list of agencies, from the DNI and CIA to the FBI and State Department. Its footage is in the release as DOW-UAP-PR117 through PR122.
What the crew reported
The crew first noticed the phenomena after dropping a water-activated flare as a mock target. Scanning back to it in infrared, the combat systems officer saw two cold orbs, about four feet across, hovering 0–20 feet above the water over the flare for roughly 15 seconds. When the officer fired the 105 mm cannon, the pair darted away out of the sensor feed in the brief delay before the recoil, without changing altitude.
Over the sortie the crew counted about 25 such instances, in both white-hot and black-hot modes. Two orbs flew in a loose formation, rising and falling like a wave and weaving around each other; the report compares them to dolphins playing in a pod, and the source commented that they “knew they were flying together.” Others flew in threes or maneuvered erratically. The officer used an onboard tool the report calls TACTOOL to estimate speeds from 250 to 1,300 mph, and no propulsion was seen.
The recording problem
The report says the aircraft’s digital video recorder failed and the data was corrupted, yet it also describes attached videos showing orbs darting around the sensor feed; it does not explain how much was saved. Like any IIR, it is not a finished assessment. On the sensors, see FLIR.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released August 7, 2026, quoted in full
This document is an Intelligence Information Report (IIR), the primary standardized format utilized by the Department of War, military services, and the broader Intelligence Community to disseminate unevaluated intelligence information derived from human sources (HUMINT), open sources, and field collection activities. IIRs are not finished intelligence products; they serve as inputs for subsequent all-source intelligence assessments. This report accompanies the footage contained within DOW-UAP-PR117 through DOW-UAP-PR122.
This report documents an observation by the aircrew of a U.S. Special Operations Forces (USSOF) AC-130 Gunship on September 8, 2021, during a nighttime live-fire training exercise over the Gulf of Oman. The aircrew reported first observing two unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) after dropping a water-activated flare. The report describes the UAP as stationary, approximately four feet in diameter, 0-20 feet above the water’s surface.
Throughout the training sortie, the aircrew reported observing approximately 25 instances involving similar phenomena via infrared sensor, describing them as “cold orbs.” Aircrew visual estimates of the UAP’s apparent speed range from 250 to 1,300 miles per hour. The report characterizes the UAP’s behavior as “maneuvering aggressively,” “flying in various formations,” and appearing to react to deployments of the aircraft’s onboard weapons systems. The aircrew stated that they were unable to capture video footage of the phenomena because the aircraft’s digital video recorder was not functioning during the incident.
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.