Unresolved UAP Report, South China Sea, 2024 — Department of War Video
The United States Indo-Pacific Command submitted a report of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) consisting of 1 minute and 46 seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 2024.
Incident Overview
In 2024, in the South China Sea, the Department of War preserved a sensor video that was declassified and published on July 10, 2026 as part of the fourth tranche of the Department of War’s Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE).
What the government released
The United States Indo-Pacific Command submitted a report of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) consisting of 1 minute and 46 seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 2024.
Video Description: 00:01-00:12: The sensor tracks an area of contrast, keeping it generally within the center of the frame. 00:13-00:28: The sensor zooms in and tracks an elongated area of contrast, keeping it generally to the left of the center of the frame. 00:29-00:33: The sensor zooms in again. The area of contrast appears as a “line” of several areas of contrast moving across the sensor field-of-view from the bottom right to the top left. 00:34-01:44: The sensor pans to track the areas of contrast for approximately 1 minute. They become less distinct over time as their distance from the sensor increases.
This video description is provided for informational purposes only. Readers should not interpret any part of this description as reflecting an analytical judgment, investigative conclusion, or factual determination regarding the described event’s validity, nature, or significance.
Status of the case
Records released under the PURSUE program are designated unresolved by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which means the federal government has not concluded the events were anomalous, has not concluded they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Where AARO has offered a likely source for an item — an infrared sensor aboard a military aircraft, a commercial camera, or a known optical effect — that attribution is the agency’s working assessment rather than a final determination. Conventional candidates such as drones, balloons, flares, satellites, parallax and forced-perspective artifacts, and ordinary aircraft remain on the table for any unresolved case absent better data than a single sensor pass or a witness recollection.