The recording lasts ten seconds. Two areas of contrast, seen through an infrared sensor on a U.S. military platform, drift together near the middle of the frame and stay there until it ends. The accompanying mission report calls the object a “probable SU-27/35”.
That is the substance of a file the Pentagon put out on 8 May 2026 in the first release of its PURSUE archive, catalogued as DOW-UAP-PR21, “Unresolved UAP Report, Iraq, May 2022”. U.S. Central Command had sent the material to AARO, the Pentagon’s anomaly office, as a case of unidentified anomalous phenomena. The Department of War’s own caption warns that its description of the footage is “for informational purposes only” and is not an analytical judgment.
What the mission report says
According to Declassified Today, the record describes a flight by a U.S. Air Force intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. It departed Sigonella in Italy and covered stretches of the eastern Mediterranean and Iraq. At 0011Z the crew logged “one possible small UAP”. Just over an hour later, at 0117Z, they noted “one probable SU-27/35 landing IYO Al Assad AFLD”, IYO being shorthand for “in the vicinity of”.
AARO’s own comment points out that SU-27 and SU-35 are military aircraft types operated by Russia. The report, labelled DoW-UAP-D14, also mentions a reaction to “1-3 ACFT, including lX POSS RFAF SU-30”. Distribution was restricted to the U.S. and its Five Eyes intelligence partners. Marked SECRET, the document was cleared for release on October 8, 2025, by Maj. Gen. Richard A. Harrison, chief of staff at U.S. Central Command. Its stated declassification date is May 29, 2047. Names, tail numbers and callsigns are blacked out, with Freedom of Information Act exemptions cited.
Questions the file leaves open
The word “probable” carries weight here. Nothing in the released pages says whether radar, communications intercepts or anything else confirmed the identification, and the caption on the video does not say if the pair of contrast areas is one object or two. The earlier “possible small UAP” is mentioned once and never explained. Neither the file nor the reports say what became of the aircraft after the reported landing.
Even the location is contested. The disclosure.zone registry, which indexes the PURSUE releases, notes that the published title says Iraq but that its own reading of the document’s grid reference points to a spot on the Syrian coast, close to Hmeimim air base and south-east of Latakia. The registry marks the record as not yet assessed. That caveat is the registry’s reading, not a finding by the Pentagon.
The PURSUE archive on war.gov has put out a number of such reports, many heavily redacted. Declassified Today suggests later releases may add sensor data or AARO analysis that could settle whether the aircraft was a Russian SU-27 or SU-35. For now the file records a sighting that its own authors labelled unresolved.
Sources
- DOW-UAP-PR021: Unresolved UAP Report, Iraq, May 2022 (DECUR)
- Declassified Report Reveals Mysterious UAP Sighting Over Iraq Airbase (Declassified Today)
- DOW-UAP-PR21 – Unresolved UAP Report, Iraq, May 2022 (disclosure.zone)
