D23 USCENTCOM MISREP
The Department of War's May 8, 2026 PURSUE Release 01 catalog identifies DOW-UAP-D23, Mission Report, United Arab Emirates, October 2023 as a Department of War PDF with redactions, an incident location of Persian Gulf, and an incident date of October 31, 2023.1 The PDF itself is a USCENTCOM Military Mission Report, or MISREP, declassified by MG Richard A. Harrison, USCENTCOM Chief of Staff, on September 12, 2025.2
The internal report chronology uses October 24, 2023 Zulu timestamps rather than the October 31 date shown in the release metadata. It places the sortie under Operation Spartan Shield in the air domain, lists USCENTCOM as the combatant command, identifies the originator as 50 ATKS, and records Air Force tasking for a JSR mission from OMAM.2
October 24 Sortie Timeline
The mission timeline says the aircraft took off from OMAM at 0015Z, went on station at 0155Z, left station at 1912Z, and landed back at OMAM at 2058Z, for a total mission time of 20 hours and 43 minutes. A JSR entry says the aircraft conducted imagery intelligence support for NAVCENT in support of Operation Spartan Shield, and the weather field says weather was not a factor.2
The report also records a professional guard call at 0145Z from Iranian Air Defense. According to the GENTEXT entry, the call instructed the aircraft to maintain distance from the border, and the response identified the aircraft as a coalition aircraft conducting routine operations in international airspace.2
Two UAP entries follow. The first records initial contact at 0241Z with the friendly aircraft at flight level 243, heading 280 degrees, and moving at 162 KTAS. The report lists the observer assessment as benign, the physical state as solid, no maneuverability observations, no observer engagement, no effects on persons, and a thermal signature described as cold; estimated kinetic velocity is listed as 320 mph.2
The second UAP entry records initial contact at 0322Z with the same friendly altitude, trajectory, and speed fields. It again lists the observer assessment as benign, the physical state as solid, no maneuverability observations, no observer engagement, no effects on persons, and unknown signatures; estimated kinetic velocity is listed as 440 mph.2
PR-27 Infrared Footage
The assigned release row pairs this D23 mission report with PR-27 and DVIDS video ID 1006067.1 The paired DVIDS record is titled DOW-UAP-PR27, Unresolved UAP Report, United Arab Emirates, October 2023, published on May 7, 2026, and associated with Department of War motion imagery.3
The PR-27 release description identifies the public media as four minutes and 57 seconds of infrared sensor footage from a U.S. military platform in 2023. It describes an area of contrast becoming visible near the right side of the display, the sensor centering and zooming on it, and later sensor motion that repeatedly loses and reacquires the area of contrast.34
What D23 Preserves
DOW-UAP-D23 matters because it ties the PR-27 public video to a fuller operational record. The PDF does not identify the objects, and its fields repeatedly mark propulsion, payload, RF data, anomalous characteristics, and reaction to observation as unknown. What it does preserve is the mission context, reporting chain, timing, estimated velocities, sensor context, and redaction boundary around the observations.23
The record is also a useful reminder that public-release metadata, paired media descriptions, and the underlying military form are not identical kinds of evidence. The catalog describes the reporter's language as subjective and cautions against treating descriptive or estimative wording as a conclusive finding about object features or performance.1