A new scientific preprint proposes a conventional explanation for six bright objects in a recently released military infrared video: a small flock of birds. The study, submitted to arXiv on October 6, examines DOW-UAP-PR135 using changes in brightness rather than relying only on apparent movement.
Jacob Haqq-Misra and five coauthors report that the targets brighten and dim at roughly 7.1 to 7.9 cycles per second. Each has its own timing. Their control tests investigated compression and sensor artifacts, while comparison footage from the Galileo Project showed flying animals producing similar periodic signals.
The preprint, submitted to Scientific Reports, is not yet a peer-reviewed journal result. Its authors favor birds but acknowledge that the aircraft’s redacted altitude is important to testing that interpretation. The public imagery cannot independently exclude every faster, more distant alternative.
What the released record contains
The official AARO video entry describes about a minute of infrared footage submitted by U.S. Central Command. Posted on September 18, it concerns a 2025 observation in the Middle East. An accompanying mission report described six grouped objects and estimated their speed at 480 miles per hour.
AARO’s description says several areas of contrast cross the image before the sensor follows them. It explicitly warns that the description is informational and should not be treated as an investigative conclusion. The official listing continues to call the report unresolved.
Why distance matters
The researchers show how a slowly moving group nearer the aircraft could generate a much larger ground-projected speed through parallax. That would make the reported 480 mph an unreliable description of the objects’ actual motion.
The useful advance is a measurable hypothesis that other analysts can test. A bright point moving across a screen offers little context by itself; a repeating signal offers another property to examine. Further release of the original flight and sensor data would make the comparison substantially stronger. For now, the paper provides a specific proposed explanation, with an explicit route for checking it.
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