A SECRET-classified mission report filed by the 12th Special Operations Squadron and subsequently declassified by U.S. Central Command has confirmed that an unidentified aerial phenomenon was observed during an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance flight over Syria on or about October 2024. The document, designated DOW-UAP-D32 and approved for release to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office on October 28, 2025, represents one of the few formal operational records to explicitly log a UAP encounter within an active theater of war.
The Mission and the Observation
According to the declassified report, the aircraft — operating under Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led counter-ISIS campaign — departed Operational Joint Military Station (OJMS) at 0823Z and conducted multiple full-motion video and signals intelligence collection taskings over the course of a 20-hour, 24-minute mission. Three FMV taskings and three SIGINT taskings were prosecuted during the flight, accumulating 14 hours and 22 minutes of FMV hours and 13 hours and 2 minutes of SIGINT hours.
The UAP observation is logged at 1559Z, between the second and third ISR taskings of the day. The report states, in its own language, that personnel "observed an Unidentified Arrieal [sic] Phenomenon" — the misspelling of "aerial" preserved verbatim in the original document. Specific details of the observation, including the nature, duration, altitude, and behavior of the phenomenon, are redacted under FOIA Exemption (b)(1)1.4a, which covers information classified in the interest of national defense or foreign policy. No further unredacted characterization of the UAP appears in the released portion of the document.
Full motion video collected during the mission was subsequently exploited by a Ground Exploitation Team (GET), according to the report. Whether that exploitation encompassed the UAP observation specifically is not addressed in the unredacted text.
Chain of Authority and Document Provenance
The document was declassified on October 24, 2025, by Major General Richard A. Harrison, USCENTCOM Chief of Staff, under USCENTCOM Mandatory Declassification Review case numbers 25-0100 through 25-0103. Its original classification was SECRET//REL TO USA, FVEY — meaning it was releasable to Five Eyes partner nations — with a scheduled declassification date of October 20, 2049. The accelerated release, more than two decades ahead of schedule, came through the MDR process and was specifically approved for transmission to AARO.
The originating unit is listed as the 12th Special Operations Squadron, assigned to the 27th Special Operations Wing under Air Force Special Operations Command. The 609th Combined Air Operations Center served as the operations center of record. Personnel names, phone numbers, and email addresses for the point of contact, quality control officer, and approving staff sergeant are withheld under FOIA Exemptions (b)(3) and (b)(6), consistent with standard operational security practice for special operations personnel.
The report is classified as a Mission Report (MISREP) under the AIR domain. The tasking order type is listed as IP, and the mission type is ISR. The ATO mission number and several grid coordinates referenced in the narrative remain redacted.
Significance and Limitations of the Record
The document's significance lies less in what it reveals about the UAP itself — which is almost nothing, given the redactions — and more in what it represents procedurally. The formal inclusion of a UAP observation within a standard MISREP, filed through the 609th CAOC and routed to AARO, suggests that reporting protocols established in recent years have reached operational units conducting combat-zone ISR. Prior to the creation of AARO and the UAP reporting mandates embedded in successive National Defense Authorization Acts, such observations would likely not have appeared in a mission report at all, or would have been informally noted and not forwarded through any formal chain.
Substantial caveats apply to any interpretation of this record. The critical details — what was seen, for how long, at what altitude, and what sensor data was captured — are entirely withheld. The document cannot, as released, support any conclusion about the nature or origin of the observed phenomenon. The redacting exemption, (b)(1)1.4a, covers national security classification rather than privacy or law enforcement concerns, which suggests the withheld content is operationally or intelligence-sensitive rather than merely administrative.
AARO has not issued a public statement regarding this specific document. USCENTCOM did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication. The 27th Special Operations Wing declined to confirm or deny additional details beyond those contained in the declassified record.