PURSUE Record — DOW-UAP-PR29, Unresolved UAP Report, United Arab Emirates, June 2024: Gulf of Oman

DOW-UAP-PR29 is a single-part military sensor video released by the United States Department of War on May 8, 2026, as part of PURSUE Release 01. Formally titled Unresolved UAP Report, United Arab Emirates, June 2024, it was submitted to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) by United States Northern Command and consists of 21 seconds of infrared footage captured from a U.S. military platform operating in the Gulf of Oman in 2024. No specific incident date beyond the month and year is included in the public release metadata.

What this record contains

The record is classified as a VID — a military sensor video — and comprises a single file. According to the official description, the footage shows "an area of contrast visually resembling an inverted teardrop with a vertically linear trailing mass suspended below," which remains generally centered within the sensor's field of view for the full 21-second duration. The accompanying mission report, DoW-UAP-D8, describes the phenomenon as an object with a vertical pole or bar attached to its underside. Critically, the observer themselves flagged an alternative reading: the phenomenon may be a reflection from an object in the water rather than a discrete airborne or surface contact.

The releasing agency is the Department of War, which coordinated submission through AARO. The incident location is the Gulf of Oman — a strategically active waterway bordered by the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Iran. Beyond the infrared designation, the public metadata does not specify the platform type, operating altitude, sensor configuration, or engagement context.

Sensor & operational context

Infrared sensors detect thermal contrast — differences in heat emission or reflectivity — rather than visible light. In a maritime environment like the Gulf of Oman, this creates well-documented interpretive complications. Calm water surfaces produce complex thermal signatures: solar reflection at low grazing angles, wake patterns from surface vessels, and thermal gradients at the air-sea interface can all generate structured visual artifacts in IR imagery. An inverted teardrop shape with a trailing vertical element is precisely the kind of signature that competent IR analysts would cross-reference against known artifact profiles — surface glint, lens flare, and sensor parallax effects at oblique approach angles among them — before characterizing the contact as an object at all.

The Gulf of Oman sits within an area of sustained U.S. naval and air surveillance activity, and NORTHCOM's role in submitting this report places the platform within a command structure that routinely tracks both airspace and maritime anomalies across a wide operational theater. The region has also seen documented drone activity from multiple state and non-state actors, adding analytical complexity to any unidentified contact in that corridor.

What this does and does not prove

What the record establishes is narrow: a 21-second infrared video showing a structured visual signature — officially described as resembling an inverted teardrop with a vertical trailing element — was captured by a U.S. military platform in the Gulf of Oman in 2024, submitted to AARO, and as of May 2026 has not been resolved to a known cause. The record does not establish the phenomenon's nature, origin, altitude, size, or velocity. The observer's own notation that the signature might be a water reflection is material: the primary witness did not assert an airborne object. "Unresolved" in AARO's framework means no explanatory conclusion has been reached — it does not mean the phenomenon is extraordinary or inexplicable in principle. An open case is not a confirmed anomaly.

How it fits PURSUE Release 01

DOW-UAP-PR29 belongs to the contemporary Department of War mission report tier of PURSUE Release 01 — the component comprising sensor recordings submitted through the post-2022 AARO reporting pipeline rather than the release's FBI archival cases, which document institutional responses to UAP reports stretching back to 1947. Alongside other unresolved Department of War cases in the release, it illustrates both the volume of sensor-derived contacts now reaching AARO under the current framework and the recurring analytical problem at the heart of maritime infrared surveillance: high-quality footage does not automatically resolve into a high-confidence identification.

Editorial note: This analysis is independent commentary on a publicly released document. The original record, source links, and full release metadata are catalogued on the SkyLens UAP files page alongside every other case in the PURSUE Release 01 set.