USCENTCOM Mission Record
The Department of War's May 8, 2026 PURSUE Release 01 identifies DOW-UAP-D32 as a Department of War mission report for an October 20, 2024 incident in Syria.1 The ten-page PDF is a Military Mission Report, or MISREP, marked SECRET//REL TO USA, FVEY, declassified by USCENTCOM Chief of Staff MG Richard A. Harrison on October 24, 2025, and approved for release to AARO.2
The report places the sortie under Operation Inherent Resolve in the air domain, with USCENTCOM as the combatant command, AFSOC as the major command, the 609th listed in operations-center fields, and the 12 SOS named as the originating unit. Aircraft identity, tasking details, names, and some grid coordinates are redacted under national-security and privacy exemptions.2
October 20 ISR Observation
The mission narrative says the aircraft took off from OJMS at 0823Z on October 20, 2024, performed FMV and SIGINT collection during three taskings, returned to base at 0124Z on October 21, and landed at OJMS at 0447Z. The report lists 20 hours and 24 minutes of total mission time, 14 hours and 22 minutes of FMV time, and 13 hours and 2 minutes of SIGINT time.2
The UAP entry records initial contact at 1559Z on October 20 during a dynamic target-development tasking. It describes a light or glare of unknown origin crossing the FMV camera feed, lists the observer assessment as benign, says there was no reaction to observation or engagement, and records no effects on persons, no material recovered, and no reported advanced capabilities or intelligent control.2
In the event description, the reporting crew described multiple glares or lights from unknown origin between 1559Z and 1644Z, appearing from different angles and directions. The report says one light or glare crossed directly on the FMV camera at 1559Z, 1602Z, and 1644Z, while a light or glare halo effect appeared at the top of the FMV feed at 1609Z and 1620Z. The UAP description field calls it a "misshapen and uneven ball of white light," and the crew assessed it was not a lasing event.2
Six-Second PR-32 Clip
The PURSUE metadata pairs this D32 mission report entry with PR-32, DVIDS video ID 1006078.13 The paired public media is a Department of War unresolved UAP report from Syria in October 2024, published as six seconds of full-motion video from a U.S. military platform and tied back to the D32 mission report.34
The PR-32 description says the visible event occurs from 00:02 to 00:04, when an irregular bright area with white and red highlights appears near the center of the top edge of the sensor display. It describes the shape as a horizontally oriented half-oval occupying roughly one-third of the frame width and about one-sixth of the viewing area's height, while also cautioning that the description is informational and should not be treated as an analytical conclusion about the event's validity, nature, or significance.3
From Crew Report to PURSUE
DOW-UAP-D32 matters because it connects a very short public clip to the underlying operational report that generated it. The report gives timing, mission role, sensor context, and the aircrew's own assessment, while also showing the limits imposed by redactions and by the release's caution that descriptive terms reflect the reporter's subjective interpretation at the time.12
The record is also useful for understanding how PURSUE Release 01 packages source material. The PDF preserves a redacted mission record from USCENTCOM channels, while the paired PR-32 media gives the public-facing excerpt and description. Read together, they document the origin and evolution of the story from an operational observation during an ISR mission, through reporting to AARO, to public release with explicit limits on interpretation.13