A partially declassified internal email exchange, released by the Department of War in August 2024 and bearing the document identifier DOW-UAP-D52, records that a U.S. aircraft crew observed a possible unidentified aerial phenomenon on October 31 for a duration exceeding two hours. The object was described in an unclassified tear-line summary as oval or orb-shaped and assessed as likely moving at low speed.
What the Record Shows
The unclassified portion of the email chain, formatted as a tear-line summary beneath a SECRET//NOFORN classification header, states: "31 OCT 24, U.S Aircraft observed a possible UAP. It appeared to be oval/orb shaped, likely moving at a low speed. The U.S Aircraft had eyes on the poss UAP for over 2 hours." No location, altitude, or operational context is provided in the released text. Portions of the document identifying the personnel involved have been redacted under exemption (b)(6), which covers personal privacy.
According to the document, the originating office is listed as 15 AF / DET 1 — a unit falling under Fifteenth Air Force, the numbered air force responsible for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations. A sender identified only as a "PAROC Intel Data Analysis Technician" transmitted the tear-line summary in response to a prior request for additional incident detail.
A Procedural Dispute Over the Year of Occurrence
The email chain reveals a secondary bureaucratic layer: an Information Disclosure Analyst wrote to request approval to include the year of the incident in the unclassified summary. The analyst noted that the month and day had already been approved for release, but that the year had not. The request reads, in part, "Could you please approve the use of the year this incident took place? Currently you have approved the month and the day, we request it includes the year."
The released document does not include a response to that request, leaving open the question of whether "31 OCT 24" as it appears in the tear line reflects a date in 2024 confirmed for release, or whether the year designation itself remains under review. This procedural ambiguity is not uncommon in incremental declassification workflows but does limit independent verification of the timeline.
The classification level of the full record — SECRET//NOFORN — indicates the underlying incident report contains information not releasable to foreign nationals and sensitive enough to warrant protection above the Confidential threshold. What specific operational details, sensor data, or analysis sit beneath the tear line is not known from the released material alone.
Reliability and Context
UFOPress assigns a moderate-to-low confidence rating to this source. The document's provenance — an internal government email rather than a formal incident report or congressional submission — limits the contextual data available. No corroborating sensor logs, radar tracks, or pilot statements appear in the released material. The two-hour observation window, if accurate, would be notable: sustained UAP observations of that duration by airborne platforms are infrequently documented in publicly available records.
The description of the object as "oval/orb shaped" and moving at "low speed" places it loosely within a category of UAP reports that have appeared in other declassified military encounters, including those catalogued by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. However, without sensor modality information — whether the observation was visual, infrared, radar, or some combination — the characterization of the object's shape and speed carries inherent uncertainty. "Likely" moving at low speed, as the tear line phrases it, suggests an estimate rather than a measured value.
The involvement of a 15th Air Force detachment and an Intel Data Analysis Technician in the processing chain suggests the incident entered at least a preliminary analytical workflow, rather than remaining solely a cockpit anecdote. Whether the incident was subsequently reported upward to AARO or flagged under the UAP reporting requirements enacted in the National Defense Authorization Acts of recent years is not addressed in the released document.
UFOPress submitted a records request to the Department of the Air Force seeking the underlying incident report and any AARO submission associated with the October 31 date. No response had been received at time of publication.