Department of War PURSUE File
DOW-UAP-D62, Mission Report, Strait of Hormuz, September 2020
Strait of Hormuz·9/16/20
Editorial summary
On September 16, 2020, a U.S. Air Force aircraft conducting an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission in the Strait of Hormuz observed an unidentified anomalous phenomenon at approximately 5:32 p.m. local time. The observation was made via full-motion video while the aircraft was operating at Flight Level 180 (approximately 18,000 feet) and flying at 90 knots indicated airspeed. The UAP was located in a specific geographic area within the mission's tasking zone. No further descriptive details about the object itself appear in this declassified version of the report.
The mission, flown by the 482nd Attack Squadron, lasted over 20 hours and was tasked to support Naval Forces Central Command in characterizing Iranian naval vessels, unmanned aircraft system activity, and patterns of life in the Arabian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz region. During the flight, the crew experienced two separate electromagnetic interference incidents that each lasted approximately 11 to 27 minutes and resulted in complete loss of datalink to an unspecified system. Both incidents are noted as having medium impact on the mission. The aircraft also received three radio guard calls from Iranian Air Defense at various points during the sortie, which did not impact operations. Weather was reported as not a factor in the mission.
The mission report indicates that full-motion video collected during the flight was exploited by the Defense General Staff Intelligence office. The specific location coordinates associated with the UAP observation and other operational details remain partially redacted in this release. The document provides temporal and technical parameters recorded by the aircrew at the time of the observation, though the gentext, or qualitative narrative section, which typically contains descriptive information about anomalous phenomena, has been redacted from the public version. This declassified record is among materials released under the U.S. Department of War PURSUE Release 01.
Editorial summary written by govweird from the declassified document text. The official government description follows below.
Government description
This document is a Mission Report (MISREP), a standardized reporting form the U.S. Military uses to record the circumstances surrounding its operations. U.S. military services often use MISREPs to report Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) to AARO. The GENTEXT, or “general text” section of these reports often contains important qualitative, contextual information, distinguishing it from the more quantitative, or numerical, data found elsewhere in the report. A U.S. military operator reported observing one UAP at an estimated altitude of 1,800 feet. All descriptive and estimative language contained in this report reflects the reporter’s subjective interpretation at the time of the event. Such characterizations should not be interpreted as a conclusive indication of the presence or absence of any intrinsic object features or performance characteristics.
Caption issued by the U.S. Department of War on war.gov/ufo. Verbatim, unedited.
Originating agency
Department of War
Record type
Incident date
9/16/20
Incident location
Strait of Hormuz
Release tranche
Release 01 (May 8, 2026)
Distribution
Cleared for public release