USCENTCOM has released five classified mission reports documenting UAP encounters observed by Air Force ISR crews between August 2020 and July 2024, covering airspace above the Persian Gulf, Iraq, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Gulf of Aden. The documents, published through the Defense Department's war.gov/UFO portal, were declassified by USCENTCOM Chief of Staff MG Richard A. Harrison on October 8, 2025, and cleared for open publication on March 10, 2026 by the Office of Prepublication and Security Review. They were approved for release to AARO — the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office — under reference numbers MDR 25-0094 through MDR 25-0099 and the Joint Staff tracking number JS-250710-TM8S.
A separate cover document, DOW UAP PR20, shows that MG Brandon R. Tegtmeier, USCENTCOM Chief of Staff, formally recommended the release to AARO on June 2, 2025. That paperwork confirms USCENTCOM made a recommendation to AARO regarding these materials, though what specific action was recommended beyond declassification is redacted.
What the documents say
The five reports are standardized Air Force mission incident reports — MISREPs — generated by ISR aircraft crews after flight operations. Each follows an identical administrative structure: aircraft equipment, takeoff and landing data, on-station timelines, ISR task descriptions, and, where applicable, a dedicated UAP section. What makes them notable is not any single dramatic sighting but the bureaucratic normality with which UAP observations are embedded inside otherwise routine intelligence-collection missions.
Persian Gulf, August 8, 2020 (DOW UAP D60): A 482nd Attack Squadron aircraft took off from a base identified by ICAO code OKAS — withheld in the narrative but consistent with Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar — and flew a 21-hour mission over the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman in support of a classified NAVCENT operation. At 0726Z, the crew recorded: "OBSERVED 1X UAP IVO 39RWL08 ... NO IMPACT TO MISSION." The observation method is listed as FMV — full motion video. The report notes that dense cloud coverage intermittently affected FMV collection during the mission. Full motion video from the sortie was exploited by an intelligence unit identified as DGS1, though what that analysis produced is not disclosed. The mission logged 20.3 total hours, 17.7 IMINT hours, and 18.4 SIGINT hours. Later that same mission, at 1250Z, the aircraft was hailed on the guard frequency by Iranian Air Defense. The report states the crew gave a standard response and Iranian Air Defense gave a standard call — "NO IMPACT TO THE MISSION."
"OBSERVED 1X UAP IVO 39RWL08 ... NO IMPACT TO MISSION."
Iraq, May 2022 (DOW UAP D14): A 50th Attack Squadron aircraft, also originating from Sigonella Airbase (ICAO: LICZ), flew a 20-hour, 30-minute mission over the Eastern Mediterranean. The primary mission was target development in support of the 603rd Air Operations Center, including surveillance of Syrian naval operations areas and Latakia naval monitoring sites. At 0117Z on May 30, the crew observed what the report calls "ONE POSSIBLE SMALL UAP." A separate UAP line entry containing physical description and behavioral details is referenced but was either redacted or not reproduced in the released portion. Full motion video was exploited by DGS-IN and DGS4. The crew was also reacted to by one to three aircraft, including one assessed as a possible Russian Aerospace Forces SU-30 — a reminder of the broader threat environment in which these observations occur.
Iraq, December 1, 2022 (DOW UAP D18): A 482nd Attack Squadron aircraft departed OKAS and conducted a 19-hour, 17-minute ISR mission over Baghdad in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. The mission involved scanning for high-value individuals, pattern-of-life collection, and personnel tracking. At 1620Z, the report states the aircrew "OBSERVED lX POSSIBLE UAP/UAV FLYING WEST TO EAST IVO 38SMB4" near Baghdad. The crew did not follow the object and continued the mission as tasked; no further events were observed. The report notes the aircraft was at flight level 180 at the time. UAP signatures are listed as "No," UAP effects on persons as "NONE REPORTED," and number of UAP sighted as 1. Full motion video was exploited by DGS-AR — a different ground exploitation station than the one used in the August 2020 sortie — but what that analysis found is not in the released material.
Gulf of Aden, July 14, 2024 (DOW UAP D75): This is the most recent of the five reports, and the one that bears MG Tegtmeier's recommendation signature. A 124th Attack Squadron aircraft departed at 140222ZJUL24 and arrived on station at 140300ZJUL24. At 140517ZJUL24, the crew observed one UAP in the vicinity of grid 38P MT 53. The sighting is logged under a dedicated UAP entry referenced as UAP1. The aircraft then conducted target development for AFCENT operations from 141041Z to 142130Z before returning to base. The precoordination with NAVCENT was logged as 124 minutes and rated "EXCELLENT." Full motion video was again collected and exploited, but the exploiting unit's name is redacted. The specific UAP characteristics — size, shape, behavior, altitude — are not visible in the released pages.
A fifth report, DOW UAP D14, documents a separate mission in the Eastern Mediterranean, adding a small UAP observation to the Eastern Mediterranean ISR sortie noted above.
What remains hidden — and why it matters
The redaction pattern across all five documents is consistent and, to longtime observers of UAP disclosure, familiar. In every case, the portion of the report most relevant to the actual UAP — the physical description, the sensor analysis results, the UAP line narrative — is either redacted under 1.4(a) exemptions (classified in the interest of national security) or simply absent from the released pages. What survives are the administrative shells: who flew, when, where, for how long, under whose authority, and whether the object affected the mission (in every case, it did not).
That consistency is itself informative. Each report uses the same UAP reporting fields — initial contact DTG, number sighted, signatures, RF data, effects on persons — suggesting a standardized reporting protocol is already embedded in Air Force operational reporting, well before AARO's formal charter required it. The documents don't reveal that protocol as a new development; they show it was already routine practice at the squadron level as early as 2020.
The release also adds operational texture to what AARO has described as a backlog of legacy UAP data from military units. These reports were not generated in response to public pressure — they were standard post-mission filings that happened to include UAP observations. The fact that they're now approved for release to AARO under a formal mandatory declassification review suggests the office is actively cataloguing incidents from operational commands, not just relying on what crews voluntarily report through new channels.
What the documents don't answer: what the FMV analysis by DGS1, DGS-AR, and DGS-IN actually found; what physical characteristics or behaviors made these objects reportable rather than dismissable; whether AARO assessed any of the five incidents as genuinely anomalous or attributed them to known phenomena; and what USCENTCOM's specific recommendation to AARO entailed.
The incidents span four years, three geographic theaters, and at least two different attack squadrons. None produced an impact to mission. All were over active operational areas where adversary drones, surveillance platforms, and air defense systems are routine hazards — which means misidentification can't be ruled out, and the reports themselves don't attempt to rule it in. They simply log what the crews saw, hand the video to ground exploitation units, and move on.
For researchers tracking the government's UAP disclosure trajectory, these five reports are a data point, not a revelation. They confirm that UAP logging inside USCENTCOM ISR missions has been standard practice for at least four years. They don't confirm what the objects were. That question, in every case here, remains open.