DOW-UAP-PR090, 24 August 2020, Centcom, released 22 May 2026

[Giddierone]

Quick stitch of some of the terrain seen in this Centcom area video released today.

DOW-UAP-PR090

https://www.war.gov/ufo/?releaseDat...090-24-AUG-2020-CALLSIGN-Mission-Observes-UAP

EDIT: looks like Egypt, irrigation canal and the light marks in the middle of the fields.

 

[John J.]

Indebted to @Giddierone who linked to this release in post #505, Geolocation Exercises thread.

From the current batch of releases via AARO, titled DOW-UAP-PR090, "24 AUG 2020 [CALLSIGN] (Mission) Observes UAP", https://www.war.gov/ufo/?releaseDat...090-24-AUG-2020-CALLSIGN-Mission-Observes-UAP

AARO assesses that this video, whose uploader-defined title is, "24 AUG 2020 [CALLSIGN] (Mission) Observes UAP," is likely derived from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform operating within the United States Central Command area of responsibility in 2020. A user uploaded this video to a classified network in August 2020.

Video Duration: 00:04:57

Video Description:

00:00-00:03: The sensor tracks an area of contrast as it moves down the left side of the screen.
00:03-00:21: The sensor pans to track the area of contrast within the center of its field-of-view.
00:22-01:04: The sensor zooms in on the area of contrast.
01:05-01:14: The area of contrast exits and re-enters the field of view several times.
01:15-04:57: No content.

The "area of contrast" appears to display slight fluctuations in brightness, perhaps shape as it moves. I can't think of any obvious reason why it couldn't be a bird.

Video uploaded to YouTube by user "DOW Unresolved UAP" c. 23 May 2026

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88pLnhXe3yg&t=19s

 

[Mick West]

Merged the Geolocation post here.

And this was a good candidate for Sitrec's Panorama extraction

 

[Giddierone]

Sitrec's Panorama extraction

Is that a new feature? Does it remove the black boxes?

The only interesting thing to come out of these video releases is the geolocation quizzes they present. This one had me marvelling at Egyptian landscaping and irrigation derived from canals (fairly certain it's Egypt) and wondering what the light patches in the fields are. Do they gather crops to one point, or is it livestock feed or fertilizer to be distributed, etc.

 

[Mick West]

Is that a new feature? Does it remove the black boxes?

Somewhat new, it's just a bit flaky. You have to mask out the boxes and the border, then it analyzes it and tries to make a panorama based on motion analysis.

e.g
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?custom=1/PR090 Pano/20260605_083827.js

 

[Giddierone]

I've been looking at the bow tie (cat's ears?) shape (red) and the main canal and smaller canal as landmarks. But in a slow manual way. I know there are tools out there to look for face shapes in google maps (https://www.creativeapplications.net/project/google-faces-searching-earth-using-facial-detection/) Is there a way to modify the search to look for a custom set of features/lines like those indicated here?

 

[flarkey]

@Giddierone I noted from the video that North is to the right so the panorama is looking West.

Also, a kml of waterways around this area is attached, obtained through https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/2rb4

 

[Giddierone]

@flarkey there's also https://waterwaymap.org which shows the canal system in OSM. Although, I haven't figured out how to highlight the junctions just yet.

 

[Mick West]

looks like Egypt

But also like Iraq in the Euphrates valley. Or even Iran. Pretty large search area.

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.293...try=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDYwMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw==

 

[Giddierone]

Things that say Egypt to me are:
- Canals, of three different sizes
- white patches in the fields (grain?)

.
- efficient looking rectangular grids like this with shrubbery...

Then odd triangles like this with parallelogram-shaped fields next to them and odd looking inefficient fields as a result of the triangle shape.

(none of these are it though...)

I thought overpass turbo might lead to this waterway junction, (yellow box) looks like a landmark of a sort.

 

[John J.]

I agree that the ground features in the DOW-UAP-PR090 footage looks like canal-irrigated areas of Egypt.

But what would a US drone be doing over Egypt, particularly the Nile delta?
Egypt has a competent air force and operates a number of different drone types, some locally produced, others from USA and China.

It has substantial numbers of reasonably modern aircraft and ground-based air defence systems, a hypothetical uninvited Predator-type drone might not last long over the Egyptian heartland.

Circumstantially, I feel Iraq, possibly Iran might be more likely locations.

 

[Giddierone]

I agree that the ground features in the DOW-UAP-PR090 footage looks like canal-irrigated areas of Egypt.

But what would a US drone be doing over Egypt, particularly the Nile delta?
Egypt has a competent air force and operates a number of different drone types, some locally produced, others from USA and China.

It has substantial numbers of reasonably modern aircraft and ground-based air defence systems, a hypothetical uninvited Predator-type drone might not last long over the Egyptian heartland.

Circumstantially, I feel Iraq, possibly Iran might be more likely locations.

Yeahp you might be right, because despite my hunches I cannot find a match!

 

[Easy Muffin]

Might even be Pakistan, there's lots of places that look kinda sorta like this along the Indus River and its tributaries. They built up a massive canal network in that region too with lots of rectangular fields laid out in a grid pattern, scattered compounds, tree-lined roads...

 

[JMartJr]

...is likely derived from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform operating within the United States Central Command area of responsibility

Should I read that as "...but possibly not from the USCENTCOM area of responsibility?"

It looks a bit like what you'd see flying into various airports in East Asia or Southeast Asia, as well as the various areas already discussed.

 

[Jack]

...is likely derived from an infrared sensor aboard a U.S. military platform operating within the United States Central Command area of responsibility

Should I read that as "...but possibly not from the USCENTCOM area of responsibility?"

As I understand it, AARO sourced these videos from a collection of user-uploaded materials held on a classified network, responding to a request by members of Congress. Each video carries a disclaimer that their chain-of-custody is, or may be, unsubstantiated. They are stating that, for videos lacking an auditable entry within an official system of record, the office cannot digitally or administratively prove whether it was edited, or exactly which specific flight log it matches, if any.

To me, this suggests that, while AARO assessed that it is likely that the platform was operating within the indicated area based upon contextual information, they cannot verify for certain that the subject matter of the footage occurred in the manner depicted, or if it occurred at all. Because the office cannot verify the exact mission, they must rely on the sensor's on-screen telemetry to infer the location. If that telemetry itself cannot be verified as unmanipulated or unaltered due to the missing chain-of-custody, AARO is professionally obligated to use probabilistic language, e.g., "likely derived from" rather than "was derived from." Also note that the "likely" applies to both the attribution to a U.S. military system and to the geographic area allegedly depicted.

 

[Gary C]

I agree that the ground features in the DOW-UAP-PR090 footage looks like canal-irrigated areas of Egypt.

But what would a US drone be doing over Egypt, particularly the Nile delta?
Egypt has a competent air force and operates a number of different drone types, some locally produced, others from USA and China.

It has substantial numbers of reasonably modern aircraft and ground-based air defence systems, a hypothetical uninvited Predator-type drone might not last long over the Egyptian heartland.

Circumstantially, I feel Iraq, possibly Iran might be more likely locations.

The US and Egypt have maintained a close but quiet military relationship for some time. US AFRICOM operates multiple aircraft types in the region and routinely transits Egyptian airspace in cooperation/coordination with the Egyptian government. An estimated $1.35 billion in annual military aid probably doesn't hurt the relationship.

P.L. 119-75, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, provides $1.5 billion in total aid for Egypt, of which $1.375 billion is for Foreign Military Financing grant aid, an amount $75 million above what Egypt had been receiving as an FMF baseline for decades. The act also would withhold $320 million in FMF from obligation unless the Secretary of State can make several human rights-related determinations, which are no longer delineated in the law's text, but are now found in the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying P.L. 119-75. The Secretary of State may waive the withholding provision if the Secretary determines that "such funds are necessary for counterterrorism, border security, or nonproliferation programs or that it is otherwise important to the national security interest of the United States to do so, including a detailed justification for the use of such waiver and the reasons why any of the requirements cannot be met." For FY2020-FY2023, the Biden Administration and Congress reprogrammed or withheld a total of $750 million in FMF originally designated for Egypt based on relevant provisions in appropriations law.

Source - https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL33003

tl;dr - AARO's attribution to CENTCOM may be incorrect and I would defer to a better resolution from Metabunk.

[edit: links added]