May 22, 2026🇺🇸Document Release
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U.S. Department of War releases second PURSUE tranche of UAP files and videos

The U.S. Department of War released a second tranche of declassified and historical UAP records under the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, including numerous videos from military sources.

Date
May 22, 2026
Location / Country
Type
Document Release

Background

The second PURSUE release was described as a continuation of the UAP disclosure site launched on May 8, 2026. It reportedly includes about 50 video recordings, with many metadata fields still redacted.

Significance

The event is relevant to the timeline because it represents another official U.S. government release of UAP material under a named transparency program and follows prior political demands for publication of military UAP videos.

What is in this tranche?

The second PURSUE tranche, published on May 22, 2026, contains 64 entries: 51 videos, 7 audio recordings and 6 PDF documents. According to AARO’s assessment, the videos come mostly from infrared sensors aboard U.S. military platforms, 32 of them from the U.S. Central Command area. According to the official description, the UAP office AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) found them on a classified network after eight members of the House of Representatives requested access to 51 potentially UAP-related records on March 6, 2026; many of them lack a substantiated chain of custody. The audio recordings relate to NASA’s Mercury and Apollo missions, and the documents include a 116-page file on green fireballs over New Mexico in 1948–1950, a CIA report on an observation from 1973 and an intelligence official’s account of a helicopter mission in late 2025.

Military videos: Middle East, South Asia and Africa

According to the official descriptions, 32 videos come from the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility (Middle East, Central and South Asia) and two from that of U.S. Africa Command; most were recorded by an infrared sensor. Titles and descriptions give years from 2017 to 2022; 24 videos were uploaded to the network by 2022, ten only in May and June 2024. The titles were set by the uploaders, while the descriptions consistently speak of “areas of contrast” in the sensor image; three videos were digitally altered before upload. Another 29 videos from this region are in the library.

  • DOW-UAP-PR051, "Syrian UAP instant acceleration" – Syria according to the title, 2021 according to the description, infrared, 5:02 minutes. The sensor keeps an area of contrast centered for about 20 seconds; because it then stops tracking, the area rapidly exits the frame. This is followed by replays altered before upload, some of them slowed down.
  • DOW-UAP-PR096, "HH11 03 July 2018 UAPs" – July 3, 2018, according to the title, infrared, 1:19 minutes. At higher magnification, one area of contrast appears as three areas in a line; the distance between the rightmost and the other two appears to increase, while those two keep a roughly fixed distance.
  • DOW-UAP-PR098, "UFOs in formation over Persian Gulf?" – Over the Persian Gulf according to the title, no year given, uploaded in October 2019; at 17:36 minutes the longest video in the tranche. At high magnification the tracked area of contrast appears as multiple distinct areas; between 6:30 and 13:17 it is at times indistinguishable from the grain of the video.
  • DOW-UAP-PR095, "May 05 2020 Gulf of Arabia [CALLSIGN] (Platform) Dual UAP" – May 5, 2020, over the Gulf of Arabia according to the title, infrared, 4:49 minutes. At higher magnification the area of contrast appears as multiple distinct areas, which leave the frame after just under two minutes. The shorter PR093 has the same title and, according to AARO, is not a duplicate.
  • DOW-UAP-PR088, "31 AUG [CALLSIGN] [CALLSIGN] Observes UAP" – First of two parts from August 31, 2020 (part 2: PR089), infrared, 4:58 minutes. The sensor switches from a first to a second area of contrast; afterwards several areas enter and exit the frame. The official list pairs both parts with PR039 and D042 from the first tranche.

Military videos: North America

Eight videos come from North America: six from the U.S. Northern Command area, two from a Coast Guard platform over the southeastern United States. The descriptions date them to 2019 through 2024; all were recorded by an infrared sensor. Four more are in the library, including one titled “F/A-18 FLIR UAP” and one from the East Coast in December 2019 according to its title.

Military videos: Pacific, Europe, Kazakhstan and no location

Four videos, one of them a duplicate according to AARO, come from the Pacific (Yellow Sea, East China Sea, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area), one from the U.S. European Command area, plus a cell phone video from Kazakhstan whose description names no command; for three, the description names no region. According to the descriptions, five of these nine videos were digitally altered before upload and are presented as AARO received them. Another five videos of this group are in the library.

NASA audio: Mercury and Apollo

Seven audio recordings come from missions of NASA’s Mercury (1961–1963) and Apollo (1969 and 1972) programs. Astronauts describe light flashes and small particles around their spacecraft; for two cases, the official description gives NASA’s later explanation. Three more recordings are in the library, including Mercury-Redstone 4 from 1961, in which the recovery team discusses a dye pack in the water that did not activate.

  • NASA-UAP-D008, Apollo 12 Medical Debriefing - Tape 12, 1969 – Medical debriefing of the Apollo 12 crew Conrad, Gordon and Bean, 1969: light flashes in the dark while trying to sleep. According to the official description, NASA later determined that they were internal to the astronauts’ vision rather than external light sources.
  • NASA-UAP-D009, Apollo 17 Audio Excerpt, December 7, 1972 – Apollo 17, December 7, 1972, in transit to the moon: Cernan, Schmitt and Evans see bright, angular “particles” near the spacecraft and the separated S-IVB stage of the Saturn rocket. The crew themselves suspect paint chips or ice chips.
  • NASA-UAP-D010, Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963 – Mercury-Atlas 9 (Faith 7), May 15, 1963: about one hour and 41 minutes into the flight, Gordon Cooper sees “John’s fireflies,” after John Glenn’s term from Mercury-Atlas 6. According to the official description, NASA later attributed them to frozen condensation separating from the spacecraft.
  • NASA-UAP-D012, Mercury Atlas 8 Audio Excerpt, October 3, 1962 – Mercury-Atlas 8 (Sigma 7), October 3, 1962: Wally Schirra describes little white objects drifting off from the capsule and a burst of light in the window whose source he cannot identify. He speculates that it coincides with the moment of sunset.

Green fireballs over New Mexico 1948–1950

The largest file in the tranche comes from the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP), according to the official description the direct successor to the Manhattan Project, and from the U.S. Air Force. From December 1948, the 17th District of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations collected reports of aerial phenomena in New Mexico, mostly green fireballs but also discs; its 1950 summary states that they occurred near sensitive military and government installations.

  • DOW-UAP-D017, UAP Reported at Sandia Base, 1948-1950 – 116 pages, including a list of 209 sightings up to May 1950, reports by meteorite researcher Lincoln LaPaz, air samples with copper-bearing particles after a fireball near Socorro in July 1949, and a participant’s report on a conference at Los Alamos on February 16, 1949. There, Edward Teller tentatively concluded that the fireballs were not material objects, because no sound had been observed.
    “continued occurrence of unexplained phenomena of this nature in the vicinity of sensitive installations is cause for concern.” (p. 21)

Two eyewitness accounts from intelligence files

A CIA report on an observation in 1973 and the account of a senior U.S. intelligence official of a mission in late 2025 describe first-hand observations. Both record what the observers saw and offer no explanation.

  • CIA-UAP-D001, Intelligence Information Report, USSR, 1973 – Information report on the Soviet Sary Shagan weapons testing range with information from 1972–1973, explicitly not finally evaluated intelligence. In section 14, the source describes a bright green circular object or mass in the sky in late summer 1973 around which concentric circles formed.
    “There was no sound, such as an explosion, associated with the phenomenon.” (p. 3)
  • ODNI-UAP-D001, USPER Narrative, Senior USIC Official – First-person account of a senior U.S. intelligence official, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), on a helicopter mission in late 2025 over a test range in the western United States: orange orbs, two of them close beside the helicopter. Infrared imagery taken from the ground by other federal officials during the same exercise was released on May 8, 2026.
    “What followed was a series of close UAP encounters lasting over an hour.” (p. 1)

Department of Energy files

Three short files come from the U.S. Department of Energy: images from an incident report of the Pantex Plant, the primary facility for the assembly and disassembly of U.S. nuclear weapons near Amarillo, Texas, and two items from the circle of Los Alamos National Laboratory from the 1970s and 1980s.

  • DOE-UAP-D001, Enhanced PANTEX Imagery – Pages 5 and 6 of a six-page incident report on an unidentified object: an image from a ground surveillance radar tower and images of the object enhanced by Sandia National Labs. The two pages give no date; the full report was published in the fourth tranche as DOE-UAP-D005.
    “Sandia National Labs Enhanced Images of the Object” (p. 2)
  • DOE-UAP-D002, James Tuck Correspondence, 1970s – Letters to and from Los Alamos physicist James Tuck from the 1970s. In one, he asks the U.S. Army Engineering School at Fort Belvoir for the recipe used for the simulated atomic bomb demonstrations, saying “we” are interested in the large atmospheric vortices they produce, as reported in Edward U. Condon’s book “Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects”; another letter to him refers to ball lightning and a UFO book from 1976.
  • DOE-UAP-D003, Pajarito Astronomers Invitation, 1986 – Invitation from the Pajarito Astronomers club dated May 20, 1986, to a meeting on May 29 at Fuller Lodge with a talk on UFOs by a physicist from the laboratory. According to the official description, the laboratory did not host the event and has no record of what was discussed.
    “Why Should a Scientist be Concerned about UFO's?” (p. 1)

This overview presents 23 of the 64 entries in this tranche. Details on videos and audio recordings follow the official descriptions; quotes are reproduced verbatim with page numbers, and the original is always authoritative. All entries can be found in the document library.

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References

🔗war.gov🔗grewi.de