The United States Department of War (DOW) published its fourth official release of declassified UAP imagery and historical files on July 10, 2026, under the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The release, announced by Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell, includes several previously unseen U.S. military videos of unidentified aerial objects collected by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), as well as historical documents dating to as early as the 1940s, all hosted at WAR.GOV/UFO.
The fourth PURSUE tranche is notable for the range of incidents represented, spanning imagery from the 1996 NASA STS-80 Space Shuttle Columbia mission, a 2019 Eastern United States sighting described by an observer with 28 years of combined U.S. Air Force and Navy experience, and multiple unresolved reports from 2020 over the Western United States and the Atlantic Ocean. Reporting by The Debrief's Micah Hanks notes that none of the released videos provide clear evidence of objects attributable to unknown aircraft or advanced technology, and that several are assessed as consistent with balloons or sensor artifacts. The DOW stated that additional file releases are being prepared on a rolling basis.
The U.S. Department of War released its third batch of UAP files on June 13, 2026, under the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The release includes a previously undisclosed CIA document describing a disc-like object observed over Harare International Airport in Zimbabwe in 2008, reports of a translucent "potato"-shaped object seen near Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs in 2024, and footage of apparent luminous orbs assessed by analysts to likely be sky lanterns. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell stated that WAR.GOV/UFO had received over 1.7 billion hits worldwide since its May 8, 2026 launch and confirmed that the Department of War and agency partners are actively preparing the next release.
The article, written by Micah Hanks of The Debrief, also highlights a video from the second PURSUE batch — designated DOW-UAP-PR061, "Spherical UAP [CALLSIGN] 2021/04/12 vid 0" — which captured on April 12, 2021 from a U.S. military drone operating within USCENTCOM's area of responsibility appears to show a small, light-colored spherical object descending, changing direction, and moving into shadowed terrain. Hanks argues this video, while not extraordinary, is consistent with AARO's own "target package" for genuine UAP as characterized by former AARO director Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick in April 2023, and raises the broader question of whether higher-quality UAP data that informed AARO's technical signature data remains classified and unreleased.
The Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) convened a private workshop in August 2025 in the Washington, D.C., area to address the standardization of UAP data collection, management, and analysis. The event was coordinated by AARO and hosted by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), and brought together participants from government agencies, academic institutions, and civilian research organizations. A white paper detailing the workshop's proceedings and recommendations was published on AARO's official website in February 2026 and was subsequently reported by The Debrief on February 26, 2026.
The workshop represents a notable shift in AARO's posture under current director Dr. Jon T. Kosloski compared to the more security-focused, limited-engagement approach of AARO's inaugural director, Sean M. Kirkpatrick. Key recommendations produced by the workshop included the development of standardized metadata templates incorporating AI tools with human oversight, open-ended public narrative reporting mechanisms, and the release of de-identified public UAP data to reduce stigma and build trust. Department of War spokesperson Sue Gough confirmed to The Debrief that AARO intends to use public reports to enhance UAP trend analysis, though no timeline was given for a public reporting mechanism.