THE SOURCE
DOW-UAP-PR026, PR027 and PR029, three infrared video clips from the U.S. Department of War’s PURSUE Release 01, published at war.gov/ufo on 8 May 2026. PR026 (43 seconds) and PR027 (4 minutes 57 seconds) were submitted by U.S. Central Command, recorded in the United Arab Emirates in October 2023, and paired with mission reports DOW-UAP-D23 and D27 respectively. PR029 (21 seconds) was recorded over the Gulf of Oman in June 2024, paired with DOW-UAP-D8, and was submitted by U.S. Northern Command rather than CENTCOM.
What this briefing is
Across Release 01 the United Arab Emirates is one of the more frequently named places in the video file. This briefing reads the three substantive UAE-area clips that have not yet had their own treatment: PR026 and PR027 from October 2023, and PR029 from June 2024. Together they cover a small geographic cluster over eight months. They also carry one of the most specific aircrew shape descriptions in either tranche, and one small command-routing oddity worth flagging. The general grounding for infrared footage is in Release 01 Briefing 3.
TL;DR
PR026 is 43 seconds, October 2023, over the United Arab Emirates, submitted by CENTCOM, accompanied by mission report D23. The accompanying report mentions only that a UAP was observed during the mission. PR027 is much longer, 4 minutes 57 seconds, also October 2023, also UAE, also CENTCOM, paired with mission report D27. The pair sits in the same theatre and month.
PR029 is shorter again, 21 seconds, recorded in June 2024 over the Gulf of Oman. Two things separate it from the other two. The submitting command is U.S. Northern Command, not Central Command, which is unusual for that body of water. And the paired mission report, D8, contains a specific aircrew description: the UAP consisted of an object with a vertical pole or bar attached to the bottom of it.
A geographically tight set of unidentified-object encounters around the UAE and adjacent waters across 2023 to 2024. Labelled source tier 2. PR029’s aircrew description is the most concrete shape detail in the cluster, because, like the short-clip descriptions in Release 01 Briefing 22, it is the trained observer’s own words in the moment.
PR026 and PR027, two clips one month apart
The pair sit in the same theatre and the same month, October 2023, and were both routed through U.S. Central Command. PR026 is a short capture; PR027 is one of the longer single-encounter clips in the release. Each has its own mission report attached, D23 and D27.
What the pair establishes is the same kind of small recurrence Release 02 Briefing 11 read in the April 2021 cluster: two separate encounters, in the same place, weeks at most apart, picked up and reported through the system. It does not establish that the two encounters share an object, or even necessarily share a type. They share a setting, the UAE airspace in October 2023, and that is the lesson worth taking from them. As primary footage with paired written reports, both clips are tier 2 and treat the encounters with the institutional seriousness the chain expects.
PR029 and the aircrew shape
PR029 is the interesting clip of the three, and the interest is in the paired mission report rather than the footage itself. The aircrew, writing up the encounter in D8, described the object as “an object with a vertical pole or bar attached to the bottom of it”. That is a concrete shape claim, and one this series has explicitly not seen elsewhere in the video set. Release 01 Briefing 22 covered the short-clip aircrew descriptions, things like “possible missile” and “probable SU-27/35”, which are conventional candidates. PR029’s “object with a vertical pole or bar” is not a conventional candidate, it is a shape sketch.
It is also not a finding. The aircrew described what they saw; the clip is too brief and lacks the telemetry to confirm or refute the description. Several ordinary things could fit the shape claim. A small drone with a sensor mast or antenna. A balloon with a payload trailing beneath it on a tether, exactly the kind of object the Lake Huron shootdown debris later resolved to in Release 02 Briefing 1. A weather instrument package. None of these resolves PR029; they are the candidates that sit next to the aircrew’s words.
The aircrew description, like the short-clip notes in Release 01 Briefing 22, is the trained observer’s account in their own terms, recorded before any analyst or public discussion reshaped it. The “vertical pole or bar” detail is a specific, falsifiable observation that can be tested against any future external data about the encounter.
The NORTHCOM submission for a Gulf of Oman clip
The smaller oddity is the routing. The Gulf of Oman sits squarely inside the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. A clip from that area would normally be submitted by CENTCOM, as PR026 and PR027 were. PR029 was instead submitted by U.S. Northern Command.
There are routine explanations for a NORTHCOM submission of a Gulf of Oman clip: a NORTHCOM-assigned aircraft transiting the theatre, an asset operating in a non-standard arrangement, an administrative path that ran through a unit in NORTHCOM’s chain rather than CENTCOM’s. None of those is exotic. They are worth noting because PURSUE’s metadata fields, as Release 02 Briefing 15 set out for the PR057 dual-title and Release 02 Briefing 18 for PR099’s date, are not always internally consistent, and a careful reader records these small mismatches when they appear rather than smoothing them over.
What the file says
They establish that across October 2023 and June 2024, U.S. military infrared sensors recorded three separate encounters with unidentified objects over the UAE and the adjacent Gulf of Oman, with two of the three submitted by CENTCOM in the expected way and one routed via NORTHCOM. They establish that the encounters were paired with mission reports filed through the proper chain. And they establish, in PR029’s mission report, a specific aircrew shape description that is unusual in the video set and worth carrying forward.
What the file does not say
It does not establish what any of the objects were. None of the clips carries visible telemetry, the two longer ones lack reporter-supplied descriptions in their blurbs, and PR029’s shape description is a sketch, not a finding.
It does not establish that the three encounters are connected beyond their geography. The UAE airspace in late 2023 and early-to-mid 2024 contained one set of encounters; whether they share an object type is not in the released material.
It does not turn PR029’s “vertical pole or bar” into evidence for any specific exotic explanation. The shape is consistent with several mundane candidates, including the suspended-payload pattern the Lake Huron object later resolved to.
And it does not rise above tier 2. The UAE cluster is real, modest in size, and most useful for what the aircrew’s own words in PR029’s paired report record.
What to watch
The aircrew described an object with a vertical pole or bar attached to the bottom of it; if a later tranche adds material on the June 2024 Gulf of Oman encounter, that detail is the first thing to test it against. The candidate list runs to a sensor mast, a tethered payload of the kind the Lake Huron debris resolved to, or an instrument package. PR029 was submitted via NORTHCOM rather than CENTCOM, a routing mismatch recorded rather than smoothed over.
Read the file. Decide for yourself.
References and further reading
- DOW-UAP-PR026, PR027 and PR029, PURSUE Release 01, U.S. Department of War, hosted at war.gov/ufo
- Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, U.S. Department of War, war.gov/ufo
- AARO UAP Records, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, aaro.mil/UAP-Records
- Signals from the Periphery, Release 01 Briefing 22, on aircrew descriptions in the short clips; Release 02 Briefing 1, on the Lake Huron object and the suspended-payload pattern; Release 02 Briefing 15 and Release 02 Briefing 18, on metadata mismatches inside PURSUE