DISCLOSURE / FILEUploader Titled Cigar Shaped CENTCOM Clip October 2022
DOW-UAP-PR053, "Cigar Shaped or Fast Sherical UAP clip 15 OCT 22"
A 21-second declassified infrared video, uploaded to a classified network in June 2024, showing an uncharacterized contrast object transiting a sensor field-of-view over the CENTCOM area of responsibility in October 2022.
Brief
AARO assessed this video as likely derived from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform operating in the CENTCOM area of responsibility in October 2022. The footage was digitally altered before it was uploaded to a classified network by an unknown user in June 2024, and AARO acknowledges that many of the 51 materials in this congressional-request collection lack a substantiated chain-of-custody. The release was triggered by a March 6, 2026 request from eight House members seeking access to potentially UAP-related records held by the Department of War and the Intelligence Community. AARO presents the video as received and explicitly disclaims any analytical judgment about the object's nature or the event's significance.
Metadata
- Agency
- Department of War
- Release
- 5/22/26
- Incident
- 2022
- Location
- CENTCOM
- Type
- VIDEO • .mp4
- Length
- 0:22
- Classification
- UNCLASSIFIED
- Programs
- AARO
- Tags
- cigar-shaped, spherical, infrared, CENTCOM, 2022, AARO, classified-network-upload, digitally-altered
Key points
- Eight House members formally requested access to 51 potentially UAP-related records on March 6, 2026, directly triggering this disclosure batch.
- AARO assessed the video as 'likely derived from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform' operating in the CENTCOM AOR in October 2022.
- The video was digitally altered prior to its upload to a classified network; AARO presents it as received, without correction or restoration.
- An unknown user uploaded the footage to a classified network in June 2024, roughly 20 months after the October 2022 incident date.
- Many of the 51 materials in this collection 'lack a substantiated chain-of-custody,' per AARO's own assessment.
- The 21-second clip replays three times at successively slower speeds, suggesting the uploader or an intermediate party applied temporal analysis prior to upload.
- The uploader-defined title hedges between two mutually exclusive morphologies — 'Cigar Shaped or Fast Spherical' — and AARO uses that title without endorsing either characterization.
- AARO's description explicitly states it 'should not be interpreted as reflecting an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination' about the event.
Most interesting
- The video reached a classified network through an uploader of unknown identity in June 2024 — not through any formal military reporting chain — raising the chain-of-custody issue AARO flags explicitly.
- AARO's phrasing 'likely derived from an infrared sensor' stops short of confirming the platform, sensor model, or unit, leaving the provenance partially open.
- The pre-upload digital alteration is presented as a fact, not a suspicion; AARO makes no attempt to characterize what the alteration involved or whether it was degrading or enhancing.
- Congressional pressure from eight House members — not an executive-branch initiative — was the direct mechanism that surfaced these 51 records, a rare documented instance of legislative action driving UAP declassification.
- The title's 'or' construction ('Cigar Shaped or Fast Spherical') is itself data: the uploader apparently could not resolve shape from the sensor imagery, or the object's apparent morphology changed during the clip.