A UAP on the Hormuz Patrol

Twice that day the aircraft lost its link. At 1248Z the connection dropped for eleven minutes and at 1414Z for twenty-seven. Each time the report logs the interference type as "UNKNOWN", its impact on the system as "Complete" and a deviation from the flight path. The suspected cause follows the words "LOST LINK TO POSSIBLE" and is redacted. Iranian air defence had already hailed the aircraft three times on the guard frequency, twice in a "DIRECTIVE" tone. Then at 1732Z, flying at 18,000 feet and 90 knots, the crew "OBSERVED A UAP". The method of observation was full-motion video. The report says nothing more about it.

What is on the record

The source is MISREP 4782130, a US Central Command mission report from the 482nd Attack Squadron, declassified on 22 January 2026 and released as DOW-UAP-D62 on 8 May 2026 in the Department of War's first PURSUE batch. The aircraft had been tasked to watch Iranian naval vessels, drone activity and ports. That morning it logged an "IR-SA-5 LAUNCHER" on Abu Musa Island. The aircraft type, callsign and crew names are withheld.

The release titles the report "Strait of Hormuz", but the mission ranged over the Gulf, the strait and the Gulf of Oman. The partly redacted grid for the sighting falls in the northern Gulf west of the Iranian port of Bushehr, several hundred kilometres from the strait. The official index says the UAP was at about 1,800 feet. The report gives no height for the object at all. Flight level 180 is the aircraft's own altitude.

The lost links came more than three hours before the sighting, and nothing in the report ties them to it. A clip in the release whose uploader dated it 16 September 2020 (DOW-UAP-PR085) is not linked to this report by AARO or by anything in either, so this page does not treat it as this sighting. No explanation is given.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it. The observers are an attack squadron's crew, identified by unit with every name withheld. No independent testimony sits beside the report in the archive, and the tier measures sourcing rather than truth. What the video caught is not resolved here.