The Pentagon has released its fifth batch of declassified files on unidentified anomalous phenomena, and among the newly public records is footage of small objects that military sensors registered as unusually cold and that moved at speeds reaching 1,300 miles per hour. The release, made public on August 7, 2026, comprises 41 records in all, and the office that handles such cases has stated it could not resolve what the footage shows.
The documents describe an encounter recorded during a military training exercise, captured on the infrared display of a U.S. aircraft as the objects moved and shifted formation nearby. As with earlier releases in the same series, the Pentagon is publishing the material without claiming to know what the objects were, and the details it does provide come from the sensor data and crew observations recorded at the time rather than from any later explanation.
What the fifth batch contains
According to the Pentagon’s tally, the 41 newly released records break down into 16 videos, 22 documents, and three images. The batch is the latest in an ongoing declassification effort by the department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, the body created to collect, investigate, and where possible explain reports of unidentified objects observed by military personnel and sensors. Reporting on the release by CBS News noted that the tranche again includes both raw sensor footage and the written case files that accompany it.
The releases are notable less for offering answers than for putting the government’s own unresolved cases on the public record. Each batch tends to include a mix of incidents, some quickly identified as ordinary objects and some, like the cold-orb footage, left officially unexplained.
The cold-orb encounter
The most striking item in the batch is infrared footage recorded in September 2021 from a U.S. Special Operations Forces AC-130J gunship flying over the Gulf of Oman during a training exercise. The video was captured on a cellular device pointed at the aircraft’s infrared display. On that display, crew members observed what the files describe as cold orbs, objects that read as colder than their surroundings on the infrared sensor, moving at lower altitudes and traveling at speeds between roughly 250 and 1,300 miles per hour while shifting between different formations.
An account of the footage published by Scientific American describes crew members watching two objects, each estimated at about four feet in diameter, hovering some 20 feet above a flare the aircraft had deployed. The report notes that the objects appeared to react when the gunship fired its main cannon: one of the orbs rapidly moved out of the sensor’s field of view without appearing to change altitude. The files record the objects as maneuvering aggressively during the exercise.
Why “cold” and “1,300 mph” matter to investigators
The specific descriptors in the files are meaningful because they are the kind of measurable detail that investigators use to narrow down what an object might be. Infrared sensors register heat, so most aircraft, drones, and flares show up as warm against the background. Objects that read as colder than their surroundings are less typical, which is part of why the footage drew attention. The recorded speed range, topping out near 1,300 miles per hour, is fast but not beyond the reach of conventional aircraft or missiles, so on its own it does not establish anything exotic.
What the files do not do is assign a cause. The encounter was submitted to AARO, and the office reported that it could not resolve the case with the available data. That designation, unresolved, is a specific outcome in the office’s process: it means the evidence was insufficient to identify the objects, not that the objects were determined to be anything in particular. The Pentagon has consistently cautioned that an unexplained case is a data problem, an object that could not be identified from limited sensor footage, rather than evidence of an extraordinary origin.
Where this fits in the disclosure effort
The fifth batch continues a pattern the Pentagon established with earlier releases: publishing case files and footage that military personnel and sensors generated, along with the office’s assessment of whether each case could be explained. The value of the exercise lies in transparency. By putting even its unresolved cases into public view, the department allows outside researchers and the public to examine the same material its own analysts reviewed.
For the cold-orb footage specifically, the record now available consists of what the infrared sensor captured, what the aircrew reported seeing, and the office’s conclusion that it could not determine what the objects were. Those are the facts the government has released. The files stop short of speculation, and so does any responsible reading of them: measured observations of small, cold, fast-moving objects over the Gulf of Oman in 2021, documented, investigated, and left officially unexplained.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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