UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 07 · OCTOBER 23, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · DOCUMENT · DOW-UAP-D155Air Intelligence Information Report, Saudi Arabia, 1957
This short Air Intelligence Information Report (report IR-1-57) came from the 22d Bombardment Wing at March Air Force Base, California. It is dated 19 January 1957, gives 18 January 1957 as the date of information, and carries an evaluation of B-2. Capt. Alva Smith is named as the preparing officer and Maj. Robert Sullivan, assistant chief of the intelligence division, signed it. The source box simply says “Crew, B-52 Aircraft Number 394.”
What the crew reported
The bomber, from Castle Air Force Base and the 93d Bombardment Wing, was flying a Strategic Air Command mission the report calls “Operation Powerflight.” At night, at 39,000 feet and 642 knots, roughly at 27° north, 47° east, and shortly before meeting a tanker, the tail gunner’s A-3A gunnery scope picked up a return the report treats as an unidentified aircraft. It sat at the 6,000-yard mark for about five to seven minutes. When the B-52 banked left, the blip slid off the scope to the left; the report allows that the turn may explain this, but notes the return seemed to head toward the Baghdad Flight Identification Region. It was smaller than the blip of a second B-52 in the cell, riding at the 3,000-yard mark.
The one-line significance statement is simply that the return showed up where no aircraft were expected.
The sketch and the copies
Page 2 is a hand-labeled drawing of the gunnery scope, plotting the unknown blip, the companion bomber’s blip and the direction it vanished. The remaining pages are a fainter second copy of both sheets and a reversed bleed-through image. The report records radar only: nobody describes seeing anything, and no identification or follow-up is included. For a much longer airborne encounter from the same era, see the Guam report, DOW-UAP-D156.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released October 23, 2026, quoted in full
This document is an Air Intelligence Information Report (AIIR), a standardized U.S. Air Force reporting form used to record raw information of potential intelligence value for later analysis. The form served as a primary vehicle for U.S. Air Force field intelligence collection throughout the early Cold War, until defense-wide reporting standards were established in the early 1960s.
This AIIR records a January 18, 1957, incident over Saudi Arabia in which the crew of a U.S. Air Force B-52 aircraft reported detecting an unidentified return on the aircraft’s gunnery scope for approximately five to seven minutes. The report characterizes the unidentified return as smaller than one produced by another B-52 operating in the area.
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.