The Eglin Aircrew's Infrared Contact (2023)

For 22 seconds the sensor keeps the thing in the middle of its picture. AARO's description says it "pans to keep an area of contrast in the center of its field-of-view, cycling contrast modes multiple times". Then "the area of contrast loses distinctiveness against the background." The released frame shows a small bright blob inside a tracking box on a grainy grey field. The date falls a day after the last of three shootdowns of unidentified objects over North America. Nothing in the record connects the clip to them.

What is on the record

The clip is DOW-UAP-PR070, published by the Department of War on 22 May 2026 in its second PURSUE release. It carries the title of the Intelligence Information Report itself: "IIR 1 655 S0301 23/Eglin AFB Aircrew Observed Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) on 13 Feb 23." The report's text has not been released. AARO says the video likely comes from an infrared sensor on a US military platform in Northern Command's area. It was uploaded to a classified network in March 2023, and the official index places it in the south-eastern United States.

The platform, the crew, the position and the time of day are all withheld. AARO found the clip while answering eight members of the House who had asked for 51 records. It warns that many of those materials lack a substantiated chain of custody, and it offers no resolution.

AARO has published a resolution of a different Eglin case. It judged that an Eglin pilot's sighting of 26 January 2023 was very likely a lighter-than-air object such as a commercial lighting balloon. That finding concerns another date and does not cover this clip.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it. The observers are identified only as an Eglin AFB aircrew. That identification comes from the report's own title, which is an official record, though its text is withheld. No independent testimony sits beside the clip in the archive, and the tier measures sourcing rather than truth. What the sensor held on 13 February is not resolved here.