PURSUE Record — DOW-UAP-PR40, Unresolved UAP Report, Middle East, 2020: Arabian Gulf

DOW-UAP-PR40 is a Department of War military sensor video, one of 28 videos included in PURSUE Release 01 — the May 8, 2026 declassified UAP disclosure. The record is formally classified as unresolved: U.S. Central Command submitted infrared footage of an unidentified thermal signature observed over the Arabian Gulf in 2020 to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), and AARO has not produced an explanation. That is the full extent of what the official record establishes.

What this record contains

The record consists of a single file — one minute and three seconds of infrared sensor footage submitted by CENTCOM to AARO. The footage was captured by a sensor aboard a U.S. military platform operating in the Arabian Gulf in 2020; no specific platform type or exact incident date is listed in the public release metadata. Notably, the original reporter digitally altered the imagery before submission: at timestamp 00:10, playback was paused and a white circle was drawn around an area of interest, annotated with the phrase "U/I SMALL THERMAL SIGNATURE." AARO states it did not edit the originally reported material and presents the footage as received.

The official description outlines three phases: from 00:00 to 00:09, an area of contrast brightens within the sensor field-of-view, becoming increasingly distinct against the background. At 00:10, playback pauses for the hand-drawn annotation. From 00:15 to 01:03, playback resumes with the sensor panning to track the area of contrast, generally holding it within the top third of the display while cycling through several contrast and zoom settings — a standard operational procedure when crews attempt to characterize an unknown object of interest.

Sensor & operational context

Infrared sensors detect thermal emissions rather than reflected visible light, making them effective in low-visibility maritime and nighttime operations. Military IR platforms produce grayscale imagery in which warmer objects appear lighter or darker depending on polarity setting. The annotation phrase "U/I SMALL THERMAL SIGNATURE" indicates the crew could not identify the source of the infrared return and considered its thermal profile small relative to background clutter. The Arabian Gulf presents a demanding IR environment: warm surface water, high ambient temperatures, and sea-state variability can generate significant thermal noise that makes it genuinely difficult to distinguish low-signature objects from natural phenomena — surface temperature gradients, atmospheric lensing, or distant surface vessels among them. The 2020 timeframe also falls within the period of heightened formal UAP reporting within the military, following updated guidance that encouraged chain-of-custody submissions to AARO's predecessor offices.

What this does and does not prove

The documented facts are narrow: a thermal contrast was observed on a military infrared sensor, it was distinctive enough that the crew paused footage and annotated it, and AARO has not determined what it was. This is meaningfully different from evidence of anything anomalous. The public release does not include the sensor platform type, field-of-view specifications, corroborating radar or visual data, or the analyst's written report. Infrared anomalies in maritime environments have well-documented mundane causes — sensor artifacts, airborne debris, birds, or distant vessels — and without that ancillary data, confident characterization in either direction is not warranted. Unresolved means unexplained, not extraordinary.

How it fits PURSUE Release 01

DOW-UAP-PR40 is part of the Department of War's contemporary sensor record contribution to PURSUE Release 01, alongside 27 other military videos and a broader set of PDFs and imagery from AARO-coordinated files. It represents the core use case AARO was built for: a formally submitted, chain-of-custody-preserved military sensor report that remains open after analysis. As with other unresolved cases catalogued on the SkyLens UAP files page, its inclusion reflects investigative transparency rather than any claim of extraordinary origin. For context on the full range of Department of War submissions in this release, see SkyLens's ongoing PURSUE Release 01 coverage.

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.