A declassified U.S. military mission report, released to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office on March 16, 2026, documents three separate observations of unidentified aerial phenomena recorded by an Air Force reconnaissance asset operating over the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman during a single sortie in July 2020. The report, originating from the 482nd Attack Squadron under the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing, is among the first formally declassified operational records to log multiple UAP sightings within a single mission narrative.
Mission Profile and Observations
According to the document, designated USCENTCOM MDR 26-0028 and declassified by Major General Richard A. Harrison, USCENTCOM Chief of Staff, the asset departed OKAS at 0443Z and was handed over from the Launch and Recovery Element at 0504Z. The crew conducted approximately 20.3 mission hours and 18.3 imagery intelligence hours in support of a NAVCENT operation whose name remains redacted under exemption (b)(1), indicating classified operational details.
Three UAP observations are formally logged in the narrative section of the report. The first occurred at 1830Z, the second at 1920Z, and the third at 2345Z. Each is noted with a cross-reference — "SEE OBS LINE 1," "SEE OBS LINE 2," and "SEE OBS LINE 3" — indicating that fuller observational data was captured in supplementary lines of the original report. Those annexes do not appear in the released portion of the document, and their contents remain either redacted or withheld.
The aircraft returned to base at 0200Z following handoff back to the Launch and Recovery Element at 0124Z. Full-motion video collected during the mission was exploited by Defense Ground Station-1, or DGS-1, a remote intelligence processing node. The report notes two total taskings prosecuted during the sortie.
Operational Context and Document Provenance
The mission was conducted under the authority of Air Combat Command, coordinated through the 609th Air Operations Center, and falls within the USCENTCOM area of responsibility. The report type is classified as a MISREP — a mission report — and carries the designation AREC for the mission type, consistent with aerial reconnaissance tasking. The originating unit, the 482nd Attack Squadron, operates remotely piloted aircraft, a detail consistent with the extended sortie duration of more than 20 hours, which would be atypical for a crewed platform.
The document was declassified under a mandatory declassification review request, USCENTCOM MDR 26-0028, and is marked as approved for release to AARO with a "For Official Use Only" designation and Privacy Act applicability. Personal identifying information for the reporting officer, quality control contractor, and approving captain has been redacted under exemptions (b)(3), (b)(6), and section 130b of Title 10. The overall classification of the mission, its associated caveats, and its classification source are themselves redacted, as is the ATO mission number.
The document's original declassification date was set at March 1, 2045, suggesting the information was not expected to enter the public domain for nearly a quarter century under standard review timelines. Its earlier release appears to reflect AARO's ongoing effort to compile historical UAP encounter data from military operational records.
Limitations and Outstanding Questions
The released document is notably incomplete. The observational annexes — the sections that would describe what the crew or its sensors actually detected during the three logged UAP events — are absent from the released package. Without those lines, the report confirms that observations were made and formally recorded, but does not describe the objects' appearance, flight characteristics, altitude, speed, or sensor modalities used to detect them. It is not possible from this document alone to assess whether the phenomena represented foreign aircraft, atmospheric anomalies, sensor artifacts, or something else.
The aircraft callsign field in the equipment section is redacted under exemption (b)(1), consistent with the classification of the broader operation. Radar, radar warning receiver, missile warning system, and infrared countermeasures fields are listed but unpopulated, which may reflect either the platform type or redaction of the original entries.
The document's source domain carries a trust rating that warrants measured caution. While the formatting, classification markings, redaction exemptions, and unit designations are internally consistent with known Air Force reporting conventions, UFOPress has not independently confirmed the document's authenticity through a secondary official channel. Requests for comment to AARO and USCENTCOM Public Affairs regarding the release had not received a response at the time of publication.
What the record does establish, even in its heavily redacted form, is that trained military personnel operating under USCENTCOM authority logged three anomalous aerial observations over a strategically significant body of water during an active intelligence-gathering mission — and that those observations were considered significant enough to be formally documented in an official mission report, forwarded through the 609th Air Operations Center chain, and ultimately approved for release to the government's primary UAP resolution body more than five years later.