Incident · 2013 – 2025 · Persian Gulf, Iraq, Syria, Gulf of Aden and Afghanistan — USCENTCOM

U.S. military UAP reports across CENTCOM (2013–2025)

Also known as CENTCOM UAP, Middle East UAP reports, Persian Gulf UAP, Syria UAP, Iraq UAP

One of the largest regional groups of records in the PURSUE releases comes from the U.S. Central Command area: mission reports, range-fouler forms and sensor videos from U.S. aircraft and drones over the Arabian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, Iraq, Syria, the Gulf of Aden and Afghanistan, from a 2013 infrared clip to reports filed in 2025. The densest stretch is August to November 2020, with reports and videos from the Gulf every few days.

Most describe brief encounters — small spheres or points of contrast crossing an infrared sensor, or objects the operator judged fast — and few contain more than an operator's estimate of speed or shape. Two sources are mixed here: reports formally submitted to AARO by CENTCOM, often with a mission report paired to the video, and clips AARO found on a classified network, many without a chain of custody. The best-documented single case, the AC-130 gunship sortie over the Gulf of Oman in September 2021, has its own entry.

The records are unresolved cases, not evidence of a single phenomenon; "unresolved" means the government lacked data to identify the object. Note that several "Arabian Gulf, 2020" mission reports (D003–D007) are not included: their grid references place them in the Mediterranean, Ionian and Black Seas.

Sources: PURSUE records listed below (war.gov/UFO)

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Official records (PURSUE)

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