A mission report filed by the 33rd Special Operations Squadron and declassified by U.S. Central Command in October 2025 documents the observation of an unidentified aerial phenomenon during an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance flight operating out of Elefsis Air Base (IATA: LGLR) in Greece, with the incident occurring in the early hours of an unspecified date in January 2024. The report, designated DOW-UAP-D25 and bearing classification SECRET//REL TO USA, FVEY prior to release, was approved for declassification by Major General Richard A. Harrison, USCENTCOM Chief of Staff, on 24 October 2025, and subsequently released to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
Mission Parameters and the UAP Observation
According to the declassified document, the aircraft conducted a short landing and reconnaissance takeoff from LGLR at 0109Z and proceeded to execute fragged tasking in support of operations whose specific nature remains redacted under FOIA Exemption (b)(1)1.4a, which covers national security information related to military plans, weapons systems, and operations. The UAP observation is noted to have occurred at 0509Z, approximately four hours into the mission, with the relevant crew or sensor notation redacted. The document references the observation parenthetically as "UAP 1," suggesting a formal designation was applied within the reporting chain.
The aircraft was subsequently re-tasked — described in military parlance as being "7-lined" — to provide support for a separate tasking at 0135Z, arriving on-station at 0635Z. The crew performed full-motion video (FMV) and signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection at grid reference 36R XV 19, with additional coordinate data redacted. The mission concluded with a return to base at 1504Z and landing at LGLR at 2149Z, logging a total of 20 hours and 40 minutes of mission time, including 8 hours and 29 minutes of FMV collection and 8 hours and 27 minutes of SIGINT collection. The report notes that full-motion video was exploited by a Ground Exploitation Team (GET).
Organizational and Administrative Context
The report identifies the originating unit as the 33rd Special Operations Squadron, operating under the 27th Special Operations Wing and the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), within USCENTCOM's area of responsibility. The operations center of record is listed as the 603rd Air Operations Center, with coordination through the 609th Air Operations Center Detachment 1 and the 609th Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC). The Air Tasking Order number is listed as 24-024, with ATO Mission Number 4055, providing a formal audit trail within joint air operations planning.
Personnel identified in the report — including the point of contact, quality control reviewer, and approver — are all withheld under FOIA Exemptions (b)(3), (b)(6), and 10 U.S.C. § 130b, which protects the identities of Special Operations personnel. The report lists the tasked country as the United States and the tasked service as the Air Force, consistent with standard MISREP formatting even when operations are conducted abroad.
Significance and Limitations of the Record
The document is notable primarily as an official, mission-level record that formally logs a UAP observation within a Special Operations ISR context — a category of reporting that has historically been difficult to surface through public records mechanisms. Its release to AARO, the office established under the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act to centralize UAP reporting and analysis, suggests the encounter was deemed sufficiently significant to warrant inclusion in that office's collection holdings.
Significant caution is warranted in interpreting the document's contents. The core details of the UAP observation itself — including any description of the object's appearance, behavior, altitude, speed, or sensor signatures — remain entirely redacted under the (b)(1)1.4a national security exemption. What the public record establishes is the structural fact of the encounter: that a UAP was observed, logged under a formal designation, and that the mission's FMV product was subsequently exploited by an analytic team. No characterization of the phenomenon, its origin, or any resolution of its identity is available in the released version of this document.
The declassification date printed on the document — 20490125, or January 25, 2049 — indicates that the original classification authority anticipated the record remaining restricted for roughly 25 years. Its early release, more than two decades ahead of that date, reflects an active declassification review rather than automatic expiration, a distinction that underscores the deliberate nature of the decision to make this record available to AARO and, subsequently, the public.