It appears for a second in a video nearly five minutes long. Then one question remains: What passed by?
A mark crosses a military sensor image in about a second. The record describes its movement but does not identify what caused it.
A mark that looks different from its surroundings and crosses the image from the left side to the upper-right corner.
No. The record describes its movement but does not identify what caused it.
A mark appears in footage from a military sensor. It moves from the left side of the frame to the upper-right corner, then disappears within a second.
The video runs for nearly five minutes, but the movement lasts only a moment. Its direction is clear enough to describe, but the record does not say what the mark is. The brief movement in an otherwise long video leaves the question open.
The movement occurs between the 28- and 29-second marks. The record describes a mark crossing from the left side to the upper-right corner, but gives no details about its size or shape.
The mark could be described as an area of the image that looks different from its surroundings. That is all the record says. It does not identify a specific object, or say what happened after the mark crossed the screen.
A user uploaded the video to a private computer network in October 2020. According to the U.S. Department of War, it was likely recorded by an infrared sensor aboard a military aircraft. Such a sensor detects heat rather than capturing a conventional image in light and color.
The aircraft was operating in an area under the responsibility of U.S. Africa Command. The title supplied by the uploader describes a pilot, whose call sign was redacted, seeing an unidentified object. The title reflects the uploader’s wording; it does not identify the mark.
The video was included in a collection of materials found after members of the House of Representatives requested access to records related to unidentified anomalous phenomena. It was released to the public in May 2026, bringing a video uploaded to a private network years earlier into a public archive.
It is not known what caused the mark or whether it is connected to an unusual event. The record offers no explanation, but simply describes the movement visible in the video.
A single mark crosses the screen diagonally. What passed by remains an open question.