The Gulf of Oman Cold Orbs

The gunship had dropped a water-activated flare as a mock target. When its Combat Systems Officer swung the infrared sensor back to it, the report says, two cold orbs about four feet across had been holding still 0 to 20 feet above the water for about 15 seconds. Then the officer fired the 105mm cannon. In the slight delay between trigger pull and recoil the pair were seen to "rapidly fly away from the flare and out of the sensor feed without changing altitude."

The crew went on to count approximately 25 instances of UAPs. Two rose and fell together "like a wave", passing over and under each other in a way the report likens to dolphins in a pod. The source adds: "They knew they were flying together." Others flew as a three or moved erratically. The aircraft's targeting tool put their speeds between 250 and 1,300 mph. "No means of propulsion were observed."

What is on the record

The document is an Air Force Special Operations Command intelligence information report, DOW-UAP-D101. It was written on 27 April 2022 and published in the Department of War's fifth PURSUE release on 7 August 2026. It rests on one source, the aircrew, debriefed seven months after the flight, and is marked as not finally evaluated. The exact position is withheld and no crew member is named.

The crew tried to save its sensor footage, but the Digital Video Recorder "inexplicably failed" and the data was corrupted. The report still lists six videos as attachments. The release pairs them with six short clips, DOW-UAP-PR117 to PR122, which AARO describes as a phone recording of the AC-130J's infrared display rather than native sensor data. AARO's captions speak only of an "area of contrast" near the centre of the frame. Nothing released says which mark on that screen, if any, is a reported object.

No explanation is offered and the release files the case as unresolved. Mike Rose argues at UFO Soldier that a phone recording of a screen cannot be read as temperature data, and that without native video and telemetry an object's motion cannot be separated from the aircraft's own.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it. The observers, a gunship crew and its Combat Systems Officer, appear by role with their names withheld. No independent testimony sits beside the report in the archive, and the tier measures sourcing rather than truth. What hovered over the flare is not resolved here.