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Middle East Object (Orb)

Sighting

MQ-9 sensor captured silver orb crossing frame, AARO retains case unresolved due to limited data

Evidence — Video

Status — Unresolved

Disclosure Rating — 5/10

  Representative unresolved case

An MQ-9 remotely-piloted aircraft recorded 24 seconds of footage showing a smooth, spherical object darting across its mid-wave infrared sensor field during operations somewhere in the Middle East. No concomitant telemetry, radar, or optical data were available, preventing size, range, or speed estimation.

AARO found no evidence of anomalous motion yet could not identify the source — the clip therefore remains catalogued as unresolved pending additional data.1

Watch the video on DVIDS

  Timeline

DateDetailSources
2022-07-12MQ-9 Reaper over Deir ez-Zor records 24-second MWIR clip of a metallic sphere during Eid al-Adha operations; no corroborating sensorsDoD video1
2023-04-19AARO director Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick screens clip at Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on UAP; DoD publishes footageSenate transcript2
2023-04-19Defense Media Activity posts "Middle East Object" footage on DVIDS, classifying case as unresolvedDVIDS release1
2023-05-31NASA independent UAP study public meeting references orb and reviews clipNASA advisory3
2023-10-24Bellingcat analysts geolocate video to 35.37° N 40.33° E, propose foil-balloon hypothesisBellingcat report4
2023-10-26Newsweek summarizes Bellingcat findings, expanding public awarenessNewsweek article5

    Notable contributors

Contributor(s)Role/Contribution
Dr. Sean M. KirkpatrickAARO director, publicly presented the footage and maintains the case file
Nathan Patin, Logan Williams, Timmi AllenBellingcat researchers, geolocated and analyzed the object
Dan Evans, Abbey A. DonaldsonNASA facilitators for the 2023 public UAP meeting
Unidentified MQ-9 aircrewOriginal witnesses whose report initiated the case

  References

  1. dvidshub.net ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. armed-services.senate.gov ↩

  3. nasa.gov ↩

  4. bellingcat.com ↩

  5. newsweek.com ↩

Occured on July 12, 2022

2 min read