DISCLOSURE / FILEYellow Sea Spherical Infrared Clip January 2023
DOW-UAP-PR057a, "Spherical UAP in clouds"
AARO assessment of a 70-second infrared video, uploaded to a classified network in June 2024, purportedly showing a spherical UAP above the Yellow Sea in January 2023 — released in response to a March 2026 House congressional request.
Brief
On March 6, 2026, eight House members requested access to 51 potentially UAP-related records held by the Department of War and the Intelligence Community; this video is one of the responsive materials AARO located on a classified network. AARO assesses the footage is likely from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform above the Yellow Sea in January 2023, though it explicitly withholds any analytical or investigative judgment. The file is identified as a duplicate of DOW-UAP-PR57b — titled '[Platform] observes UAP in East China Sea 05 JAN 2023 INDOPACOM' — the title discrepancy arising from two separate users naming the same underlying footage differently on the classified network. AARO notes that many materials in this collection lack a substantiated chain-of-custody.
Metadata
- Agency
- Department of War
- Release
- 5/22/26
- Incident
- 2023
- Location
- Yellow Sea
- Type
- VIDEO • .mp4
- Length
- 1:11
- Programs
- AARO, INDOPACOM
- Tags
- spherical, infrared, Yellow Sea, East China Sea, 2023, INDOPACOM, classified-network-upload, duplicate
Key points
- Eight House members requested access to 51 potentially UAP-related DoW and Intelligence Community records on March 6, 2026, prompting AARO to identify this video among responsive materials on a classified network.
- AARO assesses the footage is 'likely derived from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform operating above the Yellow Sea in January 2023' — hedged as probability, not confirmed finding.
- The video was uploaded to a classified network by an unnamed user in June 2024, approximately 17 months after the assessed incident date.
- AARO flags that many materials in this collection lack a substantiated chain-of-custody, undermining provenance confidence across the broader batch.
- This file is a confirmed duplicate of DOW-UAP-PR57b; the title discrepancy — 'Yellow Sea' vs. 'East China Sea' — results from two different users independently naming the same footage on the classified network.
- The alternate title pins the incident to January 5, 2023, and specifies INDOPACOM as the operational context.
- AARO's frame-by-frame description refers throughout to 'an area of contrast' — not an object or craft — entering, exiting, and being tracked across the sensor field-of-view during a 70-second clip with multiple pans and zoom cycles.
Most interesting
- The 'spherical' characterization in the file's title is uploader-defined; AARO does not endorse that descriptor anywhere in its own assessment, referring only to 'an area of contrast' throughout.
- The alternate title (DOW-UAP-PR57b) references the East China Sea while this file's incident location is listed as the Yellow Sea — two distinct, adjacent bodies of water — an unresolved geographic discrepancy that AARO does not address.
- The June 2024 upload date means the footage sat on a classified network for roughly 17 months before congressional interest surfaced it publicly in 2026.
- The congressional request that triggered this release covered 51 records, suggesting this file is one entry in a substantially larger potential disclosure batch that has not yet been fully released.
- AARO appends a formal epistemic disclaimer stating readers should not interpret the video description as 'reflecting an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the described event's validity, nature, or significance.'
- The zero-content bookends — 6 seconds of nothing at the open and 14 seconds at the close — suggest the footage was clipped from a longer sensor recording, raising questions about what was excluded.