CENTCOM area of responsibility (exact location undisclosed).Middle East · four objects cross a sensor's view together

The clip, cataloged as DOW-UAP-PR050, carries on its DVIDS page the date taken of August 26, 2022 and the location code "IR." Its title, "4 UAP Formation Iran 26 Aug 2022 over water [CALLSIGN]," is, per AARO's own assessment, an "uploader-defined" title assigned by whoever uploaded the file to a classified network in June 2024, not a Department of War designation. AARO assesses as "likely," without confirming, that the footage derives from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform operating within Central Command's (CENTCOM) area of responsibility in 2022, a region that includes the Persian Gulf and waters near Iran, but its assessment does not confirm the exact location or the country the title claims.

The clip is part of the 50-video batch AARO located on a classified network while responding to the request eight members of the House of Representatives filed on March 6, 2026 for access to 51 potentially UAP-related records. A letter dated March 31, 2026 from the House Oversight Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth separately requested 46 videos, to be delivered no later than April 14. The first on the list was "4 UAP formation – Iran, 8/26/22," a label nearly identical to the title the uploader gave this video, although no source says the letter refers to it. Metabunk posted the letter on April 1, and its thread attributes it to Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.

The material was uploaded to DVIDS on May 22, 2026, within PURSUE's second drop. It was released with no coordinates, platform identification, or crew statement. AARO's record gives a 20-second duration; the DVIDS page, 9; and the French amateur blog OVNI 66 notes that only about 10 seconds were actually released.

AARO's visual description matches the title's central element: between seconds 1 and 4, four distinct areas of contrast cross the sensor's field of view, entering from the lower third of the left side of the screen and exiting near the center of the bottom of the frame, within about three seconds. Between seconds 5 and 6, a fifth area of contrast enters separately from the upper left corner, a detail the title does not mention.

That same blog reproduced AARO's description on June 1, 2026 and published its analysis of the clip on June 7. It explains that in these black-and-white infrared videos only areas of contrast, hot and cold, are visible, with no detail of what is filmed. It sees three ships with their wakes and then three or four grouped dark shapes crossing the screen diagonally, from the lower-left quarter to the center of the bottom, with no wake; it takes this for a formation flight.

Slowing the clip to 50, 25 and 12.5%, it believes the shapes undulate "as if their movement were caused by flapping wings." It concludes that with color film a group of birds could probably have been identified, and that, being closer to the sensor, the shapes seem to move faster than the ships far below. According to the same blog, in the original version another shape, a bird or an insect, crosses the screen even faster.

The title that circulates with the video says "Iran," but that word was written by whoever uploaded the file, and AARO does not confirm it: it only assesses as likely that the sensor was a U.S. military one, in the CENTCOM area, in 2022. There is no telemetry or confirmed coordinates, and AARO warns that many materials in the batch lack a substantiated chain of custody, without saying which. Its description, by its own warning, reflects no analytical judgment or factual determination.

The analysis on the amateur blog OVNI 66 is the only analysis of the clip in the linked sources and proposes birds; no official source supports it.