Greece.The diamond with a probe that existed only in short-wave infrared

The aircraft took off from Larissa Air Base (ICAO code LGLR, in Thessaly) at 01:09Z on January 25, 2024, for an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission that would run twenty hours and forty minutes. Its primary sensor was full-motion video (FMV). At 05:09Z, still in transit to its station point, the crew logged the contact that turned a routine report into a UAP file.

The object crossed the field of view for approximately two minutes, ending at 05:11Z. On initial observation it was flying at roughly 434 knots —around 800 km/h, a thoroughly aeronautical regime— while the observing aircraft moved at 176 knots at flight level 250. The object was estimated at flight level 200, about 1,500 meters below the observer, heading west, between MGRS coordinates 35SQT44 and 35SPT63 with an uncertainty radius of twenty units at both ends.

The morphological description the operator recorded is unusually concrete for this kind of report: 'round diamond shape with a straight, non-maneuverable "tail"', and in the narrative text, 'the UAP appeared diamond in shape with a non-maneuvering probe at the bottom.' The form records physical state as solid, means of propulsion as unknown, and the question of intelligent control as unknown. Under 'anomalous characteristics or behaviors' the operator noted three things: it maintained a steady flight path, increased and decreased its altitude profile, and did not change trajectory. The maneuverability and response-to-observer-actions boxes were both marked 'none.'

The decisive element, however, is an absence. The report records that the object appeared only on the SWIR camera —short-wave infrared— and the signatures box records 'SWIR WHT', white in that band. There was no sensor interrogation, no third-party observers were reported, there were no effects on persons or equipment, and no material was recovered. The event was assigned serial number 250509ZJAN2024-CENTCOM 001. The person who signed the observation was a Senior Airman, grade E-4, and their assessment of the object was 'benign.' The aircraft continued its mission without further incident and landed back at Larissa at 21:49Z. The document was declassified on October 24, 2025 by the CENTCOM chief of staff under file MDR 25-0100 through 25-0103 and released to AARO.

This file's value lies not in the spectacular but in the specific. Most of the military UAP reports released by PURSUE record little more than 'a UAP was observed at such-and-such coordinate'; this one records shape, speed, altitude, heading, duration, detection band and an explicit operator assessment, all in a structured form the Department of War designed precisely to capture those fields. In procedural terms, it is what a reporting system working properly produces.

The SWIR-only detection is the datum deserving analytical attention, and it cuts both ways. An object visible solely in short-wave infrared and not in the other bands may indicate a peculiar thermal or reflectance signature; but it is also exactly what a sensor artifact, a solar reflection off a high-altitude surface, or a low-visual-contrast object that only SWIR separates from the background would produce. The operator himself did not treat it as an inexplicable anomaly: he marked 'benign' and continued the mission.

The described morphology —a diamond with a straight probe beneath— admits strong prosaic readings. At 434 knots on a sustained straight trajectory, the profile is compatible with a conventional aircraft seen from an unfavorable angle, a high-altitude drone, or a platform with a trailing antenna or sensor. The Aegean is moreover densely trafficked and militarily contested airspace, where Greek, Turkish and allied aviation activity is constant: that sustains both the classified-human-technology hypothesis and the adversary-platform one, and is why the posterior does not collapse entirely onto the prosaic despite that being the likeliest reading.

What the file cannot settle is whether the SWIR-only signature reflects a property of the object or a limitation of the sensor. Without the raw recording or a calibration analysis —neither of which is part of the release— that question stays open, and so a non-trivial share of the mass remains on 'indeterminate.' The case stands as an honest instrumental record of something the observer himself considered harmless and which the system nonetheless chose to catalog.