What happened
An infrared video in PURSUE Release 06, published on 18 September 2026 as DOW-UAP-PR135, shows six small spherical objects flying close together over what looks like desert. The accompanying Central Command mission report, DOW-UAP-D108, describes six small spheres grouped together that seemed agile and changed direction often. The reporting operator estimated their speed at about 480 mph, a figure the release does not independently confirm. The clip runs about a minute, and the objects remain bunched together as they cross the frame, according to the report's description of a grouped formation. CENTCOM passed the case to AARO, and the Pentagon published it as unresolved, with no assessment of what the objects might be. It became one of the most widely shared clips of a tranche otherwise dominated by decades-old Air Force records and the AAWSAP research papers.
The official explanation
No official explanation has been released. Clusters of small round objects on infrared can be birds, balloons or drones, and a single sensor without range information cannot fix true size or speed, so the 480 mph figure is an operator's estimate rather than a measurement. A group of drones flown together would also appear coordinated. The Pentagon says unresolved cases generally reflect insufficient data.
The anomalous case
Six objects moving as a unit, changing direction frequently and estimated by a trained operator at around 480 mph, fit neither balloons, which drift, nor birds, which cannot fly that fast. A tight, agile cluster at that speed would require a sophisticated drone swarm, and if that is what it was, it was operating unidentified in US-monitored airspace. The case echoes earlier CENTCOM records in the files, notably the September 2021 Gulf of Oman encounter in which, per Scientific American, an AC-130J crew reported objects maneuvering erratically and in formation at estimated speeds of 250 to 1,300 mph with no detected propulsion. Military operators have reported small, fast, coordinated spheres in this region for years, and the Pentagon still cannot say what they are.
The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.
Documents
- PURSUE Release 06 (18 September 2026), WAR.GOV/UFO official, war.gov
- DOW-UAP-PR135: infrared video of six spherical UAP, CENTCOM, 2025 (PURSUE Release 06) video, war.gov
- DOW-UAP-D108: CENTCOM mission report accompanying PR135, 2025 (PURSUE Release 06) official, war.gov
Sources
- 6th batch of Pentagon UAP files EarthSky
- New Pentagon UAP files release details 'evidence of unintended injury to human observers' International Business Times UK
- Pentagon's latest UFO files reveal details on secretive military research programme Geo News
- Watch: Pentagon's latest UFO dump shows mysterious objects changing direction at high speeds The Daily Wire
- Latest Pentagon UFO files release includes video of mysterious 'cold orbs' Scientific American
Witness reports elsewhere
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