Middle East, CENTCOM area (exact country undisclosed; platform and release are U.S.).Middle East · a sensor records an eight-pointed star shape

In 2013, on a date that has not been released, an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform recorded one minute and 46 seconds of video in the area of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which covers the Middle East and Central Asia. The Command sent the report to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Pentagon office that studies these phenomena, which cataloged it as DOW-UAP-PR38. Whoever recorded it left no oral or written description of what they saw, and AARO notes this in the video's record. Everything known about the event comes from the reading the office itself made of the recording while preparing it for release. AARO warns that this reading is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as an analytical judgment or a conclusion about the nature of what was recorded.

That timestamped reading describes the shape in detail: an area of contrast "resembling an eight-pointed star with arms of alternating length," with four longer points and four shorter ones, alternating, rather than a regular star. At second 10, the sensor narrows its field of view to zoom in. Between seconds 11 and 29, the pattern moves within the image and leaves a visible trail. At second 30 it exits through the bottom right corner. After what AARO describes as "an apparent cut" in the video, the pattern reappears; from second 35 to 1:44 it stays mostly within the image, until it exits through the top left quarter of the screen.

The video was released on May 8, 2026, in the first release of documents from the PURSUE system, more than a decade after it was recorded, with no coordinates, no platform identification and no exact date within 2013.

The official record contradicts itself. The data file accompanying the release on war.gov titles the video "Resolved as an Aircraft, Middle East 2013," while the DVIDS record and the video page call it "Unresolved UAP Report"; analyst Mick West pointed this out on the Metabunk forum on May 12, 2026. In the same thread, opened in January 2024 when an image of the same object circulated, West had described it as a sensor diffraction effect around a heat source ("a diffraction artifact - i.e. glare around a bright light"), and in May 2026 another participant proposed a parachute flare, an idea others disputed.

AARO describes a very specific shape, eight points of alternating length, and there is no witness to say what was seen. All that exists is the video and the reading the office made of it when releasing it. Without a witness, there is no way to know how far away the recorded object was, how large it was or whether anyone also saw it with the naked eye.

The cut that AARO itself acknowledges midway through the video indicates that what was released may not be one continuous take and may have gone through some editing or compiling before reaching the archive. Without knowing who made the cut or why, it cannot be ruled out that part of the pattern's behavior (moving, disappearing, reappearing) comes from the edit rather than from a single object in continuous flight.

If the star shape is diffraction, as West proposed, the points are drawn by the sensor's optics around an intense heat source and do not describe the shape of what was recorded. The trail it leaves as it moves fits either a moving sensor effect or a real object whose heat source leaves a trace behind it.

The official record keeps both labels, "resolved as an aircraft" in the data file and "unresolved" in the video's record. Without telemetry or a second sensor confirming the shape, none of these readings can be confirmed or ruled out with what is available.