CASE FILE D-44
The Gulf of Aden Incident — A Declassified UAP Report (October 2020)
2026-08-15 · Declassified UAP records
In October 2020, a U.S. military aircraft operating over Gulf of Aden recorded an unidentified object its crew could not explain.
The encounter is documented in an official 1172 ATKS mission report, declassified and released through AARO — the Pentagon's UAP office.
The report confirms the crew a round, cold object in ir was tracked over the gulf of aden, traveling at 3,19 degrees at 20 mph, making abrupt directional changes during a 1 minute contact.. But the specifics — position, sensors, identities — are withheld under national-security and privacy exemptions.
Below is the document itself, reconstructed with the redactions preserved, followed by the full narration transcript and the approximate location of the encounter.
The Document
SECRET 15 Oct 2020
USCENTCOM Range Fouler Reporting Form (15 Oct 2020)
Range Fouler Reporting Form
- Date: 15 OCT 2020 · Time of detection: 14:18:39Z · Day
- Squadron: 172 ATKS · Rank: O-2 · Mission: ISR
- Contact altitude: ~19,073 ft HAT · Contact moving: Yes · Direction/Speed: 261/30
- Number of contacts in group: 1 · Shape: Round
Contact Description (aircrew's own words)
Contact at 14:18:39Z to 14:19:52Z on 15OCT2020. MGRS location 40Q BD 63 ████████1.4a 19 ████████1.4a (estimated lat/long ████████1.4a). While at 19,073 HAT over the Gulf of Aden we tracked a round, cold object in IR traveling 319 degrees at 20 mph. It made a few abrupt directional changes during the 1 minute contact. Our sensor was aimed -50 degrees below our altitude with a slant range of 4.06NM and ground range of 4.78KM. The IR sensor was set to black hot and the object in question was a bright white.
Declassified by MG Richard A. Harrison — Approved for Release to AARO (USCENTCOM MDR 26-0038 to 26-0046). · U.S. Department of War — PURSUE UAP release (DOW-UAP-D44)
Where It Happened
Full Transcript
A round, cold object appeared in the infrared, moving at just 20 miles per hour — then it broke every rule of flight.
In October 2020, over the Gulf of Aden, a crew aboard an 1172 ATKS mission tracked it for barely a minute. It made abrupt directional changes that no aircraft should be able to make.
The declassified report is here — but most of it is hidden. Dozens of details are blacked out under national security and privacy exemptions, leaving only fragments of the story.
What was it? Why was the operation redacted? And what did the crew see that the censors didn't want us to know?
This is one of many cases the Pentagon has quietly released. Search case D-44 at ufodata.org to read the full file. What do you think they saw? Tell me in the comments. Subscribe to UFO Data.
Sources
All documents and footage are authentic, public-domain U.S. government releases. Narration is AI-generated text-to-speech.