During a night live-fire exercise, a special operations AC-130J gunship crew dropped a water-activated flare and saw two objects about four feet across, hovering just above the sea. Over the sortie they counted about 25 similar 'cold orbs' on infrared. The crew described them flying in formations, 'maneuvering aggressively' at estimated speeds of 250 to 1,300 mph, and appearing to react whenever the gunship's weapons were used. The aircraft's recorder had failed, so a crew member filmed the sensor screen with a phone.
Evidence, in date order (1)
8 Sept 2021AC-130J infrared displaysensor data
six phone recordings of the gunship's sensor screen, released on DVIDS war.gov video (on DVIDS): cold orbs, clip 1
How plausible · High
An intelligence report and released sensor footage record a gunship crew's encounter with about 25 cold orbs.
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Access AC-130 crew.
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No gain sought Official.
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Checkable details check out Released.
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Physical traces or official reaction Sensor footage.
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Character record Crew withheld.
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Independent convergence Many orbs, whole crew.
Plausibility weighs how well an account fits where secrecy hides the documents by design, so missing records never count against it. Strength measures what is documented. Assessed 2026-10-23.
On the record
An Intelligence Information Report on the encounter.
Six phone recordings of the gunship's infrared display (on DVIDS).
Claims
The orbs were responding to the weapons, which would mean intelligent control.speculationSourced, unconfirmedbelievers
Where
Gulf of Oman
24.5°N 58.5°E · region only
war.gov files on this case (7)
PDFs (1)
PDFIntelligence Information Report, Unresolved UAP Report, Gulf of Oman, 2021DOW · Release 05 · 2021-09-08
The pictureIt lives in the oceans too. The Tic Tac, the Gulf of Oman, the USO reports and the Ocean thread suggest bases under the sea, which would fit something that has been here a long time.
They use the waterThe Tic Tac hovered over churning water before it shot away. A Navy chief told Congress he saw glowing objects rise out of the ocean near the USS Jackson, and the ship's thermal sensor then caught four tic-tac shapes that left together 'two steps behind instantaneous'. Four years earlier the USS Omaha tracked a spher…
