DISCLOSURE / FILE
AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick's April 19, 2023 briefing slides to the Senate Armed Services Committee, releasing reporting trends and two declassified MQ-9 Reaper case studies including a Middle East metallic orb.
AARO Senate Armed Services Committee Briefing, Middle East Metallic Orb Video Declassified, AARO_Brief_to_SASC-DoD_UAP_Mission-April_19_2023_508.pdf
AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick's April 19, 2023 briefing slides to the Senate Armed Services Committee, releasing reporting trends and two declassified MQ-9 Reaper case studies including a Middle East metallic orb.
On April 19, 2023, AARO Director Seán Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. presented unclassified slides to the Senate Armed Services Committee summarizing UAP reporting trends from 1996 through 2023 and walking through two case studies recorded by MQ-9 Reaper drones. The trend slide reports that 52% of logged UAP morphologies are described as orb, round, or sphere, with typical sizes of 1 to 4 meters, altitudes between 10,000 and 30,000 feet, and velocities from stationary to Mach 2. The first case study, a 2022 Middle East electro-optical observation of a spherical object, is logged as unresolved and held in active archive, with characteristics consistent with other metallic orb sightings in the region. The second, a 2023 South Asia case showing an object trailed by an apparent wake, is pending peer review but tentatively resolved as a commercial airliner paired with a video-compression artifact.
Middle East, 2022: MQ-9 observed apparent spherical UAP via electro-optical sensorsp.3
UAP characteristics and behavior consistent with other "metallic orb" observations in the regionp.3
No demonstration of enigmatic technical capabilities and no apparent threat to airborne- asset safetyp.3
Case in " active archive ," pending discovery of additional datap.3
South Asia, 2023: MQ-9 observed UAP object apparently tailed by potentially-anomalous atmospheric wakep.4
The "trail" appears to be cavitation, similar to those caused during propulsionp.4
Visible trail is a camera-software artifactp.4
Analyses of the morphology and traffic-control data suggest the object is commercial aircraft transiting known flight pathsp.4
Extracted text · Page 1
Page 1 · born-digital extraction
A L L - D O M A I N A N O M A L Y R E S O L U TI O N O F F I C E UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of Defense UNCLASSIFIED The US Department of Defense & the UAP Mission Seán Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. Director
Page 2 · born-digital extraction
A L L - D O M A I N A N O M A LY R E S O L U T I O N O F F I C E UNCLASSIFIED CLEARED FOR OPEN PUBLICATION APR 17, 2023 Department of Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review UAP Reporting Trends 1996-2023 REPORTED-UAP ALTITUDES TYPICALLY-REPORTED UAP CHARACTERISTICS Appearance Morphology Round, Atypical Orientation Size 1-4 Meters Color White, Silver, Translucent Performance Altitude 10k – 30k feet Velocity Stationary to Mach 2 Signatures Propulsion No thermal exhaust detected Radar Intermittent, X-Band (8-12 GHz) Radio 1-3 GHz, 8-12 GHz Thermal Intermittent, Shortwave Infrared, Medium-Wave Infrared REPORTED UAP-MORPHOLOGY Orb, Round, Sphere, 52% Ambiguous Sensor Contact, 0% Other, 1% Lights, 1% Oval, 1% Cylinder, 1% Disk, 2% Triangle, 2% Rectangle, 2% Square, 3% Polygon, 5% TicTac, 6% Vector, 23% REPORTED-UAP HOTSPOTS
Page 5 · born-digital extraction
U.S. Department of Defense UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED Seán Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. Director
Concatenated page-by-page transcript. Born-digital pages came through pdf.js; scanned pages were transcribed by Claude vision OCR. Pages marked unreadable failed multiple OCR retries (heavy redaction, microfilm artifacts, or blank separators) and are kept in place for audit.
A L L - D O M A I N A N O M A L Y R E S O L U TI O N O F F I C E UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of Defense UNCLASSIFIED The US Department of Defense & the UAP Mission Seán Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. Director
A L L - D O M A I N A N O M A LY R E S O L U T I O N O F F I C E UNCLASSIFIED CLEARED FOR OPEN PUBLICATION APR 17, 2023 Department of Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review UAP Reporting Trends 1996-2023 REPORTED-UAP ALTITUDES TYPICALLY-REPORTED UAP CHARACTERISTICS Appearance Morphology Round, Atypical Orientation Size 1-4 Meters Color White, Silver, Translucent Performance Altitude 10k – 30k feet Velocity Stationary to Mach 2 Signatures Propulsion No thermal exhaust detected Radar Intermittent, X-Band (8-12 GHz) Radio 1-3 GHz, 8-12 GHz Thermal Intermittent, Shortwave Infrared, Medium-Wave Infrared REPORTED UAP-MORPHOLOGY Orb, Round, Sphere, 52% Ambiguous Sensor Contact, 0% Other, 1% Lights, 1% Oval, 1% Cylinder, 1% Disk, 2% Triangle, 2% Rectangle, 2% Square, 3% Polygon, 5% TicTac, 6% Vector, 23% REPORTED-UAP HOTSPOTS
3 UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED Middle East, 2022: MQ-9 observed apparent spherical UAP via electro-optical sensors CHARACTERISTICS PERFORMANCE SIGNATURES BEHAVIOR EFFECTS UAP characteristics and behavior consistent with other “metallic orb” observations in the region No demonstration of enigmatic technical capabilities and no apparent threat to airborne- asset safety Case in “ active archive ,” pending discovery of additional data AARO uses active-archive cases for trend and statistical analyses UNRESOLVED, IN ACTIVE-ARCHIVE Middle East UAP , unresolved (U)
4 UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED South Asia, 2023: MQ-9 observed UAP object apparently tailed by potentially-anomalous atmospheric wake CHARACTERISTICS PERFORMANCE SIGNATURES BEHAVIOR EFFECTS Phenomenon observed in other forward-looking infrared, full-motion video by same platform The “trail” appears to be cavitation, similar to those caused during propulsion Visible trail is a camera-software artifact Video-compression algorithms overlay captured image on previous frame and resolve differences in the gray, infrared gradient Analyses of the morphology and traffic-control data suggest the object is commercial aircraft transiting known flight paths Analyses pending peer-review of mission-partners’ analytic findings PENDING PEER-REVIEW South Asia UAP observed with apparent wake, likely resolved as commercial airliner and video-compression artifact, respectively (U)
U.S. Department of Defense UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED Seán Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. Director