CENTCOM area of responsibility (exact location undisclosed).Middle East · four videos of an object seen only at times

These four files, cataloged as DOW-UAP-PR060 through PR063, are part of the 50-video batch AARO located on a classified network when, on March 6, 2026, eight members of the House of Representatives requested access to 51 potentially UAP-related records (see ↗). AARO warns that "many of these materials lack a substantiated chain-of-custody."

The titles "obj 2," "vid 0," "vid 1" and "vid 2," all dated April 12, 2021, are "user-defined" titles assigned by whoever uploaded the files to the classified network, not a Department of War designation: "vid 1" and "vid 2" were uploaded in May 2024, and "obj 2" and "vid 0" in June 2024. AARO assesses as "likely," without confirming, that the footage derives from a video camera and an infrared sensor (for "vid 1," a color and infrared sensor) aboard a U.S. military platform operating within the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility in 2021. The four durations are 4:50, 4:46, 4:49 and 4:49. The DVIDS VIRIN identifiers of all four carry the date April 13, 2021 (210413), a day after the one in the titles.

AARO published a timestamped visual description with each video. According to it, only "vid 1" has uninterrupted tracking of an area of contrast for the full 4:49. In "obj 2," an area of contrast crosses the frame and the sensor tracks it until 2:04; from 2:05 "the sensor refocuses on the original subject matter of the video." In "vid 0," the description starts at 3:02, when an area of contrast enters from the upper right corner and the sensor centers it, and at 4:01 the sensor changes modes as the area becomes indistinct. In "vid 2," the sensor tracks an area of contrast for the first 49 seconds and then pans away from it, with no description for the remaining four minutes. AARO warns that its description should not be read as an analytical judgment.

No coordinates, platform, unit, or crew statement are identified in the public record. The material was uploaded to DVIDS on May 22, 2026, within PURSUE's second drop, under public domain license, with no intelligence report or narrative document accompanying it.

These videos show a military sensor following something the official description calls an "area of contrast," and almost nothing else can be verified. The files' runtime, about 19 minutes, is not the length of the observation: by this case's own calculation, the stretches with an area of contrast described add up to between 8 minutes 40 seconds and 9 minutes 25 seconds, depending on whether the last stretch of "vid 0," where the area becomes indistinct, is counted. The title of each file is the label of whoever uploaded it in 2024, not an institutional designation.

It is not known what platform recorded it, at what altitude, with what exact sensor, or what the crew, if any, reported. AARO proposes no identification, and the batch's chain of custody is, in its words, unsubstantiated.

On the Metabunk forum (a thread opened on May 24, 2026, whose first post says all four videos show the same location), those who examined "obj 2" and "vid 0" saw a whitish object moving low over the terrain and casting a shadow, and reached no agreement. Some read it as a wind-blown plastic bag (one post, crediting an X user, calculates that the object covered 484 meters in 57 seconds, about 19 miles per hour); others as a large bird, because of the size of the shadow on the ground; and one took a dark object at the start of "obj 2" for a balloon.

Another participant noted that in "vid 0," around 3:57, the object slows and turns sharply to the right into a cove, something he could not explain with a balloon. Replies were that it may be the filming aircraft that turns, not the object; that coves can funnel the wind; and that a bird returning to its nest would do just that.