On 8 September 2021, a U.S. special-operations AC-130 gunship was conducting live-fire training over the Gulf of Oman when its infrared sensor displayed a series of small, apparently cold contacts. The crew reported roughly twenty-five instances during the sortie, including pairs and a group of three. They interpreted some of the movements as coordinated and one departure as a reaction to the gun being fired.
The surviving seven-page intelligence report preserves both that interpretation and important limits. The object sizes, heights and speeds are reported estimates; the complete video record was said to have been corrupted. The report is a record of the crew’s account, not a final technical finding that unusual craft were present.
The first contacts above a training flare
The report places the initial observation during darkness on 8 September. The gunship dropped a water-activated flare to provide a mock target, then orbited it. While scanning the surrounding area with the aircraft’s electro-optical and infrared system, the combat systems officer returned the infrared view to the flare and noticed two contacts.
They were described as cold orbs, about four feet across, apparently stationary from zero to twenty feet above the water and over the flare. The officer reported watching them for approximately fifteen seconds. These dimensions and positions are descriptions in the account; the released pages do not supply the underlying range calculation or calibration needed to verify them independently.
The officer then pulled the trigger for the aircraft’s 105 mm cannon. According to the report, the pair moved rapidly out of the sensor view during the short interval before the gun’s recoil, without a visible change in height. That timing led the crew to interpret the departure as a response. The document does not establish the cause of the motion or show that a target recognised the gun being fired.
What the crew reported during the sortie
The report describes about twenty-five instances of contacts appearing cold in both white-hot and black-hot infrared display modes. That is an observation count, not a verified count of twenty-five separate objects. Two contacts were described as moving around, over and under one another while their apparent height rose and fell. Another observation involved three contacts in a formation.
The account compares the paired motion to the way dolphins move together and records the source’s belief that the contacts were aware of each other. That is the source’s interpretation of a display. It is not evidence for occupants, a communication system or a demonstrated decision-making ability.
The word cold refers here to the reported appearance in infrared imagery. It does not, without sensor and environmental analysis, establish the contact’s actual surface temperature or material. Similarly, the orb description does not establish an independently measured solid sphere.
The speed estimates and the recording problem
The combat systems officer reportedly used the aircraft’s TACTOOL system to calculate approximate speeds between 250 and 1,300 miles per hour. The report says no means of propulsion was observed. It does not provide a full calculation, a range history or an independent reconstruction showing how the estimates accounted for viewing geometry and the moving aircraft.
Those omissions do not by themselves identify the contacts. They do limit what can be concluded about their physical performance. A reported speed estimate belongs in the account, but it should not become a confirmed measurement of extraordinary acceleration or propulsion.
The crew said they tried to save the entire infrared record, but the digital video recorder failed and the video data became corrupted. Elsewhere, the report lists a PowerPoint attachment containing six embedded videos. These statements should be retained together: the reported loss of the full recording does not mean that no shorter material survived. The seven-page PDF does not itself contain those playable clips, and this entry’s source review does not claim an independent frame-by-frame analysis of them.
The recorder problem is also not proof that the contacts interfered with the aircraft. The report does not establish a cause for the failure. Treating an unexplained fault as deliberate jamming would add a claim the document does not demonstrate.
From the 2021 observation to the released report
The intelligence record was created on 27 April 2022 and includes a source-acquisition date of 7 April 2022 at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. Those are reporting and debriefing details, not the time or place of the encounter. The observation remained an 8 September 2021 event over the Gulf of Oman.
The released copy records coordination with the U.S. defence office in Muscat and another intelligence element without comment. It also invites further evaluations and questions for the source. Neither distribution nor an absence of comment amounts to independent confirmation of the crew’s interpretation. The document identifies itself as information that has not been finally evaluated.
Assessment and location
UKPX classifies the reviewed account as Insufficient Evidence. The military source and detailed narrative establish that a report was made, but the public PDF does not establish the contacts’ identities, their true size or their reported high speeds. It supplies no final identification, and this review does not invent one from the location or the use of a flare.
The Sphere/Orb feature records the crew’s explicit description of the infrared contacts. It is not a claim that a solid spherical vehicle was demonstrated. There is no landing, occupant or submerged-object claim in this record.
The source identifies the reporting country as Oman and places the event over the Gulf of Oman. Some of its military-grid coordinates remain redacted. The pin at approximately 24.86°N, 57.49°E is the centre of the disclosed 100 km MGRS square 40REN, converted on WGS84 and rounded. The conversion was independently checked against a UTM-to-latitude/longitude calculation. No redacted digits were reconstructed. The pin is a broad reference for the disclosed area, not a recovered object, exact flight track or visitor destination; it does not establish which territorial waters the observations occupied.
The primary source is DOW-UAP-D101, Intelligence Information Report: Gulf of Oman, 2021. All seven released pages were read and visually checked, including the repeated narrative, attachment reference, distribution pages and largely empty final coordinate fields. The report’s 2022 creation, 2026 declassification and subsequent release dates are separate from the 2021 incident. The reproduced government page is a document image, not a photograph of the contacts. Sources checked 13 November 2026.