Middle East, CENTCOM area of responsibility (exact location undisclosed).Middle East · a sensor tracks an object that seems to grow

In 2020, an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform recorded 58 seconds of video over the Middle East. The U.S. Department of the Air Force sent it to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the Pentagon office that studies these phenomena, which cataloged it as DOW-UAP-PR45. Whoever submitted the video left no oral or written description of the sighting: there is no witness account and no crew report. The official record says only "Middle East" and does not disclose the location; placing it in Central Command's (CENTCOM) area is a geographic inference, not something the report says, and the report came from the Air Force, not CENTCOM. No coordinates, platform identification or exact date within 2020 were released.

The official timestamped description of the video lays out a simple sequence. From second 0 to 3, the camera locks its crosshairs on an area of contrast, a patch that stands out from the background, and follows it. From second 4 to 30, the patch stands out more and more from the background. At second 31, the sensor narrows its field of view to zoom in. From second 32 to 56, the patch "increases in apparent size and distinctiveness." At seconds 57 and 58 it leaves the center of the frame and passes out of view through the bottom right corner. The record states that this description is for information only and is not an analytical judgment.

A frame-by-frame review of the video made for this entry also shows that the background is layers of cloud and that the sensor is looking roughly horizontally; a tracking box labeled "1" stays on the patch. Up to second 30 it is a barely visible point. From second 35, now zoomed in, it becomes an irregular hot blob that around seconds 40 to 45 at times looks like two bright lobes side by side, and at the end like an elongated shape. In the last seconds the tracking box moves down and to the right. The resolution does not show wings, rotors or any other recognizable structure.

The record also carries a paragraph headed "AARO Comment": "the area of contrast's apparent increase in size is likely to be at least partially attributable to the U.S. platform closing the distance between itself and the source of the detection." AARO thus offers a conventional cause for the clip's most striking feature, an object that seems to grow on the screen: the camera was moving toward it. The comment is cautious: it says "likely" and "at least partially," it does not explain why the patch also grows sharper, and it does not say what it was. The report was released labeled as unresolved. The video was posted on DVIDS, the Pentagon's media portal, on May 8, 2026, in the first release of PURSUE, the U.S. government's publication of files on these phenomena.

In the video, the object stands out more and more for nearly a minute and, in the second half, seems to grow, which is what would suggest it was approaching or expanding. AARO itself noted in the same record that at least part of that growth is likely due to the camera being on a platform moving toward it: any stationary or slow object fills more and more of the screen if the observer moves toward it, without the object changing at all.

The comment does not close the case. It leaves unexplained why the patch grows sharper and does not say what the sensor was tracking, and there are no further data to check it against: no witnesses, no crew report, no coordinates, no platform identification. What remains is a single-sensor video and a partial explanation of its most striking effect, one that says nothing about the nature of the object, which remains unidentified.