On Halloween 2023, a U.S. military operator flying out of Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates spotted something in the sky over the Persian Gulf. Twice. The sightings, recorded at 0241Z and again at 0322Z, were logged as “IX UAP” on a standard Mission Report form. That document, DOW-UAP-D23, sat classified for nearly two years. It was declassified on September 12, 2025, and hit the public archive on May 8, 2026, under the PURSUE release.
The operator was collecting signals intelligence and imagery intelligence. The mission was part of OP SPARTAN SHIELD, run by the 609th Air Operations Center under U.S. Central Command. The 50th Attack Squadron, part of the 432nd Wing, filed the report. The aircraft type is listed as “SRO TRACK IRISH SICKLE,” a codename that likely refers to a specific drone or surveillance platform. Full-motion video from the sortie was sent to DGS-2 for exploitation.
What the document says — and doesn’t
The narrative section is partially redacted. That is standard. But the bare facts tell a story of their own. A trained military operator, on a combat intelligence-gathering mission, reported a UAP not once but twice over a 41-minute window. The operator took off at 0015Z and landed back at Al Dhafra at 2058Z — a long sortie. The sightings came in the middle of it.
The Department of War’s release notes that U.S. military services routinely use MISREPs to report UAP to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. This is not a fringe report filed by a confused pilot. It is a formal, structured document from an active-duty squadron operating under CENTCOM. The 50th Attack Squadron flies MQ-9 Reapers. The “SRO TRACK IRISH SICKLE” designation tracks with that. An MQ-9 operator, sitting in a ground control station at Al Dhafra or possibly stateside, saw something on their sensors that did not match known aircraft or weather phenomena.
The forces behind the release
The PURSUE archive is a Department of War initiative to systematically declassify UAP-related records. This document is one piece of a much larger push. The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, established in 2022, is the central clearinghouse for these reports. The fact that a 2023 mission report from a routine surveillance operation was declassified and released in 2025-2026 suggests the government is shifting toward greater transparency — or at least toward controlled disclosure.
Why now? Pressure from Congress, from advocacy groups, from the public. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act mandated the creation of a secure system for reporting UAP. The AARO has been under constant scrutiny to produce results. Releasing a document like this serves multiple purposes: it shows the system is working, it provides raw data for researchers, and it normalizes the conversation around UAP.
Where this leads
This report will likely be cited in the next round of congressional hearings. Expect analysts to cross-reference the coordinates, the time stamps, and the sensor data with other reports from the same region. The Persian Gulf is one of the most heavily monitored airspaces in the world. If UAP are operating there regularly, the military has more than just this one report.
The document’s release also puts pressure on the 432nd Wing and the 609th Air Operations Center to provide context. Were there other sightings on that same sortie? Was the “IX UAP” designation a one-off or part of a pattern? The redactions suggest some details remain sensitive, possibly related to intelligence sources or methods.
For now, the public has a single mission report from Halloween 2023. A trained operator, a drone, two sightings, and a declassified PDF. That is more than existed a year ago. It is not an answer. It is a starting point.
