Middle East Metallic Orb, MQ-9 Footage

Brief

On 2023-04-19, AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick testified before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. During the hearing, DoD declassified and publicly released footage of a spherical metallic orb recorded by an MQ-9 Reaper drone operating over the Middle East. The release marked the first new UAP video declassified since AARO's establishment, distinguishing it from the three legacy Navy clips released in 2020. The object's propulsion, origin, and nature were not publicly attributed in materials available from this release.

Metadata

Agency

All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), U.S. Department of Defense

Release

2023-04-19

Type

VIDEO • .mp4

Length

8.3 M

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED

Programs

AARO

Tags

metallic orb, spherical, MQ-9 Reaper, Middle East, 2023, AARO, drone footage, Senate testimony

Key points

• AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick testified before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee, the principal oversight body for DoD UAP activities.
• The video depicts a spherical metallic orb, a morphology consistent with reports logged across multiple theaters in AARO's case database.
• The recording platform was an MQ-9 Reaper drone, placing the observation in an active ISR context over the Middle East.
• This was the first newly declassified UAP video released under AARO, marking a shift from the pre-AARO-era Navy clips (FLIR1, Gimbal, GoFast).
• The release date of 2023-04-19 aligns with a congressional hearing cycle, indicating the declassification was coordinated with legislative oversight rather than unilateral executive action.

Most interesting

• The MQ-9 Reaper is a surveillance and strike-capable drone, its sensor suite typically includes multi-spectral targeting systems, meaning the orb was captured in a sensor environment designed to detect and track hard targets.
• Metallic orbs are the single most commonly reported UAP morphology in AARO's case inventory, per Kirkpatrick's own public statements during the same period.
• By releasing the video during live Senate testimony rather than via a quiet FOIA drop, DoD made it simultaneously the most witnessed and most politically contextualized UAP disclosure since the 2020 Navy clips.
• The file designation DOD_109584445 is a DoD media asset number, suggesting the footage passed through standard DoD public affairs release channels rather than an intelligence community declassification pipeline.
• Unlike the Nimitz-era footage, the Middle East orb video was recorded by an unmanned platform, removing the human perceptual reliability question from the observation chain entirely.