PURSUE Release 01: DOW-UAP-D56, Range Fouler Debrief, Arabian Sea, August 2020

DOW-UAP-D56 is a Department of War PDF released in PURSUE Release 01 on May 8, 2026.¹ The release metadata identifies it as a redacted Range Fouler Debrief for an August 24, 2020 incident in the Arabian Sea, and it does not populate a public PR video or image pairing for this item.¹

  Navy Range Fouler Form

The catalog describes Range Fouler Debrief Forms as U.S. Navy records for unauthorized intrusions into controlled airspace during military operations or training.¹ It also cautions that descriptive and estimative language in the report reflects the reporter's interpretation at the time, not a final analytical judgment about object identity or performance.¹

  Three Contacts After Midnight

The one-page form records a night detection at 00:04:30Z on August 24, 2020 by an O-3 pilot associated with HSM-73 during routine operations in the North Arabian Sea.² The form lists three contacts in the group, says the contact was moving, marks wings or airframe as an observed shape feature, and notes no stable radar track.²

In the narrative field, the operator reported observing three possible unidentified small air contacts.² The report says there was negative electronic-support, radar, and IFF tracking; the distance, speed, and precise course were unknown; and the contacts appeared to be on a westerly heading.² The observer first tracked one unknown contact, lost sight of it behind a cloud, then regained contact and saw two additional contacts due east of the initial contact.² The narrative states that all three appeared to maintain relative course, speed, and altitude, with no interaction reported between the platform and the unknown contacts.²

  Value Without Published Imagery

DOW-UAP-D56 matters because it preserves a compact, contemporaneous aircrew account rather than a later analytical summary.² Its value is in the operational details: a specific detection time, a stated location context, a three-contact group, negative returns from several expected tracking channels, and a short narrative explaining how the observation evolved from one contact to three.² The absence of a paired PR media record means the public release should be read as a document-only case file, not as a report with matching published imagery.¹²

  References

  References

1. war.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. war.gov ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹