A mission report filed under Operation Inherent Resolve and approved for release to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) documents an unidentified aerial phenomenon observed during an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance flight over Syria in November 2023. The record, classified SECRET//NOFORN at the time of its creation and bearing a declassification date of November 9, 2048, was released through a mandatory declassification review process under USCENTCOM MDR 25-0072, with the release recommended by Major General Brandon R. Tegtmeier, USCENTCOM Chief of Staff, on June 2, 2025.
What the Record Shows
According to the document released by war.gov, the mission involved multiple ISR collection sorties, with aircraft conducting full motion video (FMV) and signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection at grid coordinates within Syria. The report is categorized as a MISREP — a mission report — and falls under the Air domain, with the 609th Operations Center listed as the controlling headquarters under USCENTCOM.
The UAP observation itself is logged at a specific Military Grid Reference System coordinate — 37D ST 69 — and occurred at 2153Z. The remainder of the UAP entry, including the identity of the observing platform, the nature of the phenomenon, and any subsequent analysis, is redacted under FOIA exemption 1.4(a), which covers properly classified national security information. Full motion video collected during the mission was noted as having been exploited, though the exploiting unit is also redacted.
The timeline reconstructed from the unredacted portions of the report shows a mission that began at 0217Z with takeoff and handover from one controlling unit to another, followed by a series of 7-line requests — the standardized call format used to task close air support or ISR assets — directing the aircraft to multiple on-station positions throughout the day. The aircraft returned to base at 1933Z before the UAP observation entry at 2153Z, a sequencing anomaly in the document that may reflect either a data entry inconsistency or the involvement of a second asset not fully described in the unredacted text.
Context Within the AARO Disclosure Framework
The document's release to AARO is consistent with the office's mandate, established under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 and expanded in subsequent legislation, to serve as the centralized repository and analytical body for UAP-related military records. The notation "Approved for Release to AARO" appears on the document's header, suggesting this record was processed as part of a broader mandatory review pipeline rather than in response to an individual public records request.
The classification caveat NOFORN — meaning not releasable to foreign nationals — was applied at the time of original classification, though the REL TO USA, FVEY version of the mission narrative, which permits sharing with Five Eyes partners, is also present in the document. This dual-version structure is standard for operational reports generated in a theater where coalition partners are involved, such as Syria under Operation Inherent Resolve.
The declassification date of 2048 — twenty-five years from the document's creation — places this record within the standard maximum classification timeline for operational military documents, though AARO's receipt of the file indicates the office exercised authority to obtain it in advance of that date under its congressionally granted access provisions.
Limitations of the Available Record
Significant portions of the report remain redacted, including the identity of every platform, unit, and controlling authority involved. The nature of the observed phenomenon — its size, behavior, speed, altitude, or any preliminary assessment — is entirely absent from the released text. No named analyst, crew member, or sensor operator is identified in the unredacted material, and no follow-up investigation or classification determination regarding the UAP itself is described.
The document's provenance — listed under a domain designated war.gov, a non-standard government domain — warrants caution. UFOPress was unable to independently verify this record against USCENTCOM's public affairs office or the AARO public portal prior to publication. The trust rating assigned to the source is 40 percent, reflecting uncertainty about the document's chain of custody and authenticity, even as its internal formatting, classification markings, and administrative metadata are consistent with genuine USCENTCOM operational reporting. Readers should treat this record as potentially authentic pending independent confirmation, rather than as a fully verified official disclosure.
What can be stated with confidence is that, if authentic, this document represents a formally logged UAP observation embedded within an active ISR mission report generated by a combatant command during wartime operations — a category of record that AARO has publicly stated it is actively seeking to collect and analyze.