U.S. Air Force Releases New UAP Video Depicting Metallic-Looking Sphere
The video, obtained through a lawsuit by The UAP Register, contributes to the recent as well as historical body of evidence of unidentified spheres reported by service members across the globe.
The UAP Register has obtained new video from the U.S. Air Force depicting a metallic-looking sphere moving over the skies of Iraq, with no apparent means of propulsion.
The video was released as part of a lawsuit filed by this publication against the U.S. Air Force (USAF) in March 2024. The litigation remains ongoing, and The UAP Register continues to push for additional video releases.
The lawsuit follows a Freedom of Information Act request filed in 2023 for records on unidentified objects that were reported to the USAF’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC). NASIC is located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
A still image of the object, dubbed the ‘Mosul Orb’, was derived from the video and was first published by investigative reporter George Knapp and documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell in 2023 on their Weaponized podcast. The unidentified object was recorded over Mosul, Iraq, in April 2016 by an MC-12 twin-engine reconnaissance aircraft, according to Knapp and Corbell.
A spokesperson for AARO was not immediately available to comment on the new video.
“This is truly fascinating footage,” said Marik von Rennenkampf, a former State Department official, Department of Defense appointee during the Obama administration, and UAP researcher. “This video is also another piece in an intriguing puzzle. Spherical UAP, often silver or ‘metallic’ in color like the ‘Mosul Orb,’ have long perplexed the U.S. military.”
The footage adds further mystery to these spherical objects, which, according to the Pentagon’s UAP investigation office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), are the most prevalent types of UAP reported by servicemembers.
“This [type of object] is a typical example of the thing we see most of,” then-AARO Director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick told a NASA panel on May 31, 2023. “We see these all over the world. And we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers.”
The object above was recorded by an MQ-9 surveillance drone maneuvering somewhere in the Middle East. The incident was highlighted in AARO’s presentation to NASA and remains unidentified, according to the office’s website.
Historical Precedence for Metallic Spheres
The high frequency of military sightings of this type of object dates back much farther than recent times, however. Notably, a September 23, 1947, Defense Department document known as “The Twining Memo” indicated that the U.S. military also spotted similarly-shaped unidentified objects during World War II.
The memo, authored by Lt. General Nathan Twining of Air Materiel Command at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, also noted that UAP are “real and neither visionary or [sic] fictitious.”
Other researchers, including von Rennenkampff, and veteran UAP researcher and author Graeme Rendall, have uncovered news reports from this period that detail numerous military encounters with similar spherical objects. Examples include:
A December 18, 1944 Associated Press piece:
An International News Service (now defunct) piece:
A December 14, 1944, New York Times story:
A December 25, 1945, Newsweek article:
Rendall also notes in his invaluable book UFOs Before Roswell: European Foo-Fighters 1940-1945:
A spokesperson for the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office was not immediately available to answer whether the office is considering historical accounts in its analysis of current-day sightings.
The UAP Register also has a pending FOIA lawsuit against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. If you would like to help The UAP Register cover costs for this and future litigation, you can do so here.