PR39 - Undisclosed Location 2020 [Farsi Island]

[flarkey]

This is not a great video...

https://www.dvidshub.net/video/1006089/dow-uap-pr39-unresolved-uap-report-middle-east-2020

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION 01.01.2020

The United States Central Command submitted a report of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) consisting of five seconds of video footage from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform in 2020. The reporter did not provide any oral or written description of the observation.

Video Description:
00:03-00:05: A faint area of contrast enters the sensor field-of-view from the bottom half of the right edge of the screen, proceeds from right to left across the corner of the frame, and exits the scene from near the center of the bottom edge of the screen.

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.

... however I think it is Farsi Island: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farsi_Island

Google Maps

27°59'35.0"N 50°10'21.0"E

 

[Mick West]

A rough fit for the object suggests it's a small windblown thing.

https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?custom=1/PR39 Farsi Island/20260512_101130.js

 

[flarkey]

Shadows suggest a late afternoon time for the video (assuming the date of 01 Jan 2020 is correct)

https://shademap.app/@27.99329,50.1...t,0b,0p,0m,qZmFyc2kgaXNsYW5k!51.0264!-0.95165

~1630UTC

 

[RobertBillyBob]

assuming the date of 01 Jan 2020 is correct

I don't think it is. Most videos from the release are dated 01 Jan. I think it's the default day used when they only want to disclose the year.

 

[John J.]

Could be lots of things, depending on speed. Farsi Island is an outpost of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and has played a role in conflict in the Persian Gulf, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farsi_Island.
Iran operates drones, including target drones. Its forces have lots of different types of rockets, from RPGs upwards; some of these are fired for training/ testing purposes once in a while, probably mainly at or near military sites.

I'm not suggesting that is a likely cause of this "UAP", and as Mick says it might be windblown debris. But if it isn't, it appears to be a modest-sized object moving through the air near a military base of a nation that has many modest-sized objects that fly, or can be launched, through the air.
The Iranian authorities are unlikely to aid the US in making an identification. Even if this were not a balloon or binbag, there's no reason to believe this is something extraordinary. No extraordinary speed or manoeuvring.

In a world where there are many different types of man-made flying things, and sometimes in specific areas/ regions where we might expect an increased use of drones/ flares/ missiles by various actors, it seems anything that can't be immediately positively identified is now "UAP", and to some, evidence of visiting aliens.

 

[Mick West]

Yeah, there's a wide range of possible solutioins, as there's several variable, like with all these cases: wind, and the drone's altitude, heading, speed, and FOV being the big ones. We can get approximations, but it's probably impossible to "solve", in the sense of getting the exact set of parameters that characterize the object.

 

[Kyle Ferriter]

I don't think it is. Most videos from the release are dated 01 Jan. I think it's the default day used when they only want to disclose the year.

Agree. e.g. PR048 is listed as 2013-01-01, and in the metadata in the video file from DVIDS it says there is a XMP-photoshop:DateCreated field and the time is 05:00, with no timezone specified, which to me suggests it was simply stamped as being 00:00 by a machine in EST (UTC-5) and then converted to UTC, but they forgot to / didn't include the timezone component of the datetime value when saving the file.

This is corroborated by another date in the metadata sometimes having a TZ specified and sometimes not, but when it is it's UTC.

$ exiftool -a -G0 -G1 -s DOD_111689051.mp4 | grep 'Create'
[QuickTime]     CreateDate                      : 2026:05:08 00:51:18
[Track1]        TrackCreateDate                 : 2026:05:08 00:51:18
[Track1]        MediaCreateDate                 : 2026:05:08 00:51:18
[Track2]        TrackCreateDate                 : 2026:05:08 00:51:18
[Track2]        MediaCreateDate                 : 2026:05:08 00:51:18
[XMP-xmp]       CreateDate                      : 2026:05:08 00:51:18Z
[XMP-photoshop] DateCreated                     : 2013:01:01 05:00

And it's the same situation for the file for this PR39 case:

$ exiftool -a -G0 -G1 -s DOD_111689057.mp4 | grep 'Create'
[QuickTime]     CreateDate                      : 2026:05:08 00:50:00
[Track1]        TrackCreateDate                 : 2026:05:08 00:50:00
[Track1]        MediaCreateDate                 : 2026:05:08 00:50:00
[Track2]        TrackCreateDate                 : 2026:05:08 00:50:00
[Track2]        MediaCreateDate                 : 2026:05:08 00:50:00
[XMP-xmp]       CreateDate                      : 2026:05:08 00:50Z
[XMP-photoshop] DateCreated                     : 2020:01:01 05:00

So they just stamped it with Jan 1 at 00:00 EST for whatever year.