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DOW-UAP-D19, Mission Report, Syria, February 21, 2023

Official Release 01 PDF copy.

Release 01#war-gov#pursue#release-01#official-source#evidence#pdf#mission-report#needs-human-review

DOW-UAP-D19, Mission Report, Syria, February 21, 2023

Evidence media

Derived page renders from the official PDF:

Derived page render from the official PDF: mission narrative page

Page 1 preserves the mission narrative timeline: the 0021Z-0024Z MFT radar-jamming line at FL270, the 0025Z “3X POSS UAP” line at FL240 with “WSV produced. NFTR,” and the 0135Z possible-balloon line at FL210. It is a text page with redactions, not object imagery.

Derived page render from the official PDF: EMI/radar-jamming form fields

Page 8 shows the EMI block: radar jamming from 210021:00ZFEB23 to 210024:00ZFEB23, FL270, partial system impact, APG-82 as the affected system, and 8.8-9.9 GHz as the affected frequency. It contains no radar plot, map, sensor frame, or object image.

Derived page render from the official PDF: UAP AIRSIGHT and EMI continuation

Page 9 is the highest-signal text page for the possible-UAP entry: it records “3x POSS UAP” at FL240, “WSV produced. NFTR,” cloudy weather, no radar returns from the UAP, no health effects reported by the aircrew, and “2 white objects IR significant.” The page is text-only; it does not include the WSV image or video.

Derived page render from the official PDF: possible-balloon AIRSIGHT continuation

Page 10 continues the later AIRSIGHT entry and records aircraft type “BALLOON,” FL210, “WSV produced. NFTR,” and cloudy weather. It is a source-document render, not a photograph of the reported object.

Investigation reading

This released file is a ten-page MISREP-style operational form, not an image or video exhibit. The full text pass and rendered page checks show one mission narrative, admin/equipment pages, air-refuel/timeline fields, one EMI/radar-jamming entry, and two AIRSIGHT entries near Shaddadi, Syria. The page should be read as a source-custody and source-reading draft only: it preserves what this PDF says and what still needs human review; it does not resolve the event.

The high-signal sequence in the released pages is narrow but important:

  • 0021Z-0024Z: the report says the aircrew received MFT radar jamming in the vicinity of Shaddadi at FL270. The EMI form records RADAR JAMMING, three minutes duration, partial impact, affected system APG-82, and frequency affected 8.8-9.9 GHz. Page 9 adds a working explanation in the report text: the event is described as standard on azimuth, with a working theory involving a Turkish X-band jammer on or across the Syria/Turkey border. That is source language to verify, not a site finding.
  • 0025Z: the AIRSIGHT section records 3x possible UAP near Shaddadi at FL240, with WSV produced and NFTR. A rendered-page check of page 9 shows an additional line that the stored OCR can under-emphasize: no radar returns were received from the UAP, no health effects were experienced by the aircrew, and the page states “2 white objects IR significant.” The count mismatch between “3x possible UAP” and “2 white objects” is a review lead.
  • 0135Z: a later AIRSIGHT section records 1x possible balloon near Shaddadi at FL210, also with WSV produced and NFTR. The weather field for this entry is cloudy.

The release manifest description foregrounds the possible-balloon line. The PDF itself also preserves the earlier possible-UAP line and the radar-jamming/EMI context. These are related timeline entries inside one mission report, but this draft does not infer whether they are causally connected.

What the file appears to contain

The released PDF is a scanned/form-generated mission report with redactions and declassification markings. Rendered checks of the high-signal pages show text/form content only: no embedded object photograph, no map, no radar plot, no sensor frame, and no WSV still image are visible in the PDF.

PageSource-reading inventory
1Mission narrative. Includes takeoff from Muwaffaq Salti Air Base for Operation Inherent Resolve / DCA near ESSA; the 0021Z-0024Z radar-jamming entry; the 0025Z possible-UAP entry; the 0135Z possible-balloon entry; air-refuel and return-to-base timeline lines. Rendered page review confirms the possible-UAP line reads 3X POSS UAP.
2Admin/classification and operation metadata: SECRET/NOFORN, Operation Inherent Resolve, Air domain, 609th Operations Center, AFCENT/USCENTCOM, MISREP, 389 EFS, DCA mission type, U.S. Air Force tasking.
3POC, QC, approver, and ingest fields. Names/contact data are redacted; no incident imagery or object data.
4ACEQUIP equipment fields. Includes aircraft radar/software, ALR-56C RWR, ALE-45 countermeasures, AIM-120D/AIM-9X weapons fields, M61A1, and SNIPER-SE target pod fields. These fields describe aircraft configuration; they are not themselves object evidence.
5Continuation of ACEQUIP and start of timeline/takeoff fields. Lists two aircraft and tail numbers as released, takeoff location OJMS, and mission amendment/takeoff narrative.
6Landing, on-station, off-station, and first air-refuel fields. Records on-station at 0003Z and off-station at 0340Z, with total on-station time recorded as 3 hours 37 minutes.
7Air-refuel continuation. Contains GENTEXT entries for 2345Z and 0134Z refueling on MOM/GANDER tracks.
8Air-refuel continuation plus EMI form. The EMI block records 210021:00ZFEB23 to 210024:00ZFEB23, radar jamming, FL270, partial system impact, APG-82 affected system, and 8.8-9.9 GHz frequency affected.
9EMI GENTEXT and first AIRSIGHT entry. Records radar jamming near Shaddadi and the report's working theory involving a Turkish X-band jammer. The AIRSIGHT entry records 3x possible UAP at FL240, WSV produced, NFTR, cloudy weather, no radar returns from the UAP, no health effects, and “2 white objects IR significant.”
10Continuation of second AIRSIGHT entry. Records aircraft type BALLOON, 1x possible balloon near Shaddadi at FL210, WSV produced, NFTR, and cloudy weather.

Source custody and provenance

  • Official/source URL: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/dow-uap-d19-mission-report-syria-february-21-2023.pdf
  • Open released file: war-gov-dow-uap-d19-mission-report-syria-february-21-2023-57e9cc7f
  • Release row: WAR.GOV/PURSUE Release 01 CSV row 40.
  • Agency: Department of War.
  • Container: PDF, 10 pages, 5,885,305 bytes.
  • SHA-256: 46701a48cefa62a834941f073aa47234bcd5358b1ecc53bfa58cfc7cb5aeec41.
  • OCR coverage: Frontier OCR is recorded complete for all 10 pages, with 10 pages containing text and 12,517 OCR characters. A second text-layer pass and rendered-page review were useful because page 9 contains high-signal lines that are easier to read from the rendered page than from the stored OCR.
  • Access note: the WAR.GOV media endpoint may reject direct byte-range requests, so this page also preserves the verified Open Sky release-file copy, its matching SHA-256 hash, the full OCR text, and rendered PDF pages.

Graph context

The graph has two exact records for this item: the Release 01 manifest record for row 40 and the linked PDF asset record. The semantic graph currently preserves 115 extracted claims, 110 entity mentions, and 14 sensor-event records for this file.

Those graph records are useful navigation cues, but they need source-aware reading. The sensor-event records include aircraft/equipment configuration, the MFT radar-jamming/EMI entry, APG-82/frequency fields, the AIRSIGHT entries, and text references to IR-significant objects. They do not provide a standalone radar plot, raw sensor file, WSV clip, image frame, or independent measurement outside this PDF.

The graph also has 10 candidate crosslinks from broad anchors such as “Syria.” These should remain leads only. Shared-location matches to unrelated archives or prosaic-correlation sources are not corroboration of this mission report.

One extraction-quality issue stands out: the release description emphasizes a possible balloon “at approximately 2,100 feet,” while the source form records FL210. This draft keeps the source notation and leaves unit/altitude reconciliation for human review.

Leads to check

  • Locate the WSV produced material for both AIRSIGHT entries, if it exists in the release set or an associated archive. The PDF says WSV was produced, but the PDF itself does not contain WSV imagery.
  • Reconcile the 3x possible UAP field with the rendered page text stating “2 white objects IR significant.” Treat the count difference as a transcription/source-structure issue until the underlying WSV or source packet is reviewed.
  • Verify the page 9 line “no radar returns received from UAP” against a second human transcription, because it is a high-signal limit on the AIRSIGHT entry.
  • Check whether FL210 and FL240 have been correctly represented in the manifest-derived description and graph extraction; do not collapse flight-level notation into a casual feet estimate without review.
  • Separate the radar-jamming/EMI entry from the AIRSIGHT entries unless additional source material shows a relationship. The report places them close in time and area, but that is not enough to infer causality.
  • Review weather, border-area electronic-warfare context, and the report's own Turkish X-band jammer working theory before any public analytic claim.

Lead check notes

  • Checked — WSV references: rendered pages 1, 9, and 10 confirm that both the 0025Z possible-UAP entry and the 0135Z possible-balloon entry say “WSV produced. NFTR.” The PDF itself does not include the WSV media, so the actual WSV frames or clip remain a missing source.
  • Checked — UAP count/descriptor tension: rendered page 9 confirms the structured and narrative AIRSIGHT text says “3x POSS UAP” at FL240, while the same page also says “2 white objects IR significant.” That mismatch is source-internal and still needs the underlying WSV/source packet before interpretation.
  • Checked — radar and health-effect limit: rendered page 9 confirms the line “No radar returns received from UAP” and the line “No health effects experienced by aircrew.” Those statements are limits inside the source, not an independent sensor adjudication.
  • Partial — flight-level notation: rendered pages confirm FL240 for the possible-UAP entry and FL210 for the possible-balloon entry. The release description's “approximately 2,100 feet” language still needs metadata review against the source form before any altitude summary is repeated.
  • Partial — radar-jamming relationship: rendered pages 8-9 confirm the EMI/radar-jamming block at FL270 and the report's Turkish X-band jammer working theory. The PDF places the EMI and AIRSIGHT entries close in time and area but does not prove a causal relationship between them.
  • Needs external source — weather and electronic-warfare context: the PDF gives “CLOUDY” for the AIRSIGHT entries and its own border-area jammer theory, but it does not provide raw weather, WSV media, unredacted coordinates, or independent electronic-warfare validation.

Limits

This page is an investigation draft, not a finding. The PDF is heavily redacted: coordinates, callsigns, and several operational details are withheld under released exemption markings. The document is text/form evidence only; it does not show the alleged objects, radar scope data, WSV frames, original sensor files, or photographs.

The OCR is generally complete by page count, but page 9 demonstrates why rendered-page checks matter: the stored OCR does not cleanly surface every high-signal AIRSIGHT line. Any future analytic page should cite the rendered source page or underlying media, not just the extracted graph claims.

Deep investigation — graph + web reconnaissance

Source reread and media boundary

The source check re-verified this as a ten-page official MISREP PDF, 5,885,305 bytes, with SHA-256 46701a48cefa62a834941f073aa47234bcd5358b1ecc53bfa58cfc7cb5aeec41. The document is a text/form packet with redactions and declassification markings; the checked page renders do not include a WSV frame, radar plot, map, sensor still, or original media attachment.

The highest-signal source pages remain pages 8–10. Page 8 records the EMI fields as 210021:00ZFEB23 to 210024:00ZFEB23, RADAR JAMMING, three minutes, FL270, partial system impact, affected system APG-82, and affected frequency 8.8-9.9GHZ. Page 9 records the report's own working theory for that EMI line: a Turkish X-band jammer on or across the Syria/Turkey border. The page-9 AIRSIGHT entry separately records 3x POSS UAP at FL240, WSV PRODUCED. NFTR., cloudy weather, no radar returns received from the UAP, no health effects experienced by aircrew, and 2 WHITE OBJECTS IR SIGNIFICANT. Page 10 then continues the later 1X POSS BALLOON entry at FL210, also with WSV PRODUCED. NFTR. and cloudy weather.

Read-only graph connections

The read-only graph check found the exact Release 01 PDF asset record by official URL and SHA-256, linked to the row-40 Release 01 manifest record. The asset node currently has 13 text chunks, 115 machine-extracted claims, and 14 machine-extracted sensor-event records. Those graph objects are navigation aids only: the useful verified content is the source text above, while the machine extractions remain unreviewed_machine_extract / machine_extracted_needs_human_review.

The graph also links this official asset to a secondary GitHub Markdown conversion of the same WAR.GOV PDF. That derived conversion can help compare OCR/transcription, but it is not the source of record. The row-40 manifest record has empty DVIDS/video-pairing fields and ten broad CANDIDATE_CROSSLINK edges, mostly to generic CIA/newspaper-clipping or fireball-browse resources. Those crosslinks stay as low-confidence leads; shared broad anchors such as “Syria” or “possible balloon” are not corroboration of this mission report.

External provenance and official-source context

The canonical source remains the WAR.GOV/PURSUE Release 01 PDF URL and the Release 01 CSV row 40. The graph source spine records the official WAR.GOV landing page, the Release 01 CSV, and the WAR.GOV press release titled “Department of War Releases Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Files in Historic Transparency Effort” as the public-release context. Direct official fetches during this check returned 403 Forbidden for the landing page, CSV, press release, and PDF, so the public archive should continue to rely on the verified Open Sky release-file copy and the preserved official URL/provenance fields rather than implying live official access was available.

No official DVIDS video ID, DVIDS URL, or paired video title is present in the row-40 graph/manifest metadata. The repeated WSV produced source language therefore points to missing underlying WSV material, not to media contained in this PDF.

Prosaic checks and follow-up leads

The prosaic lanes are unusually explicit in the document itself. The EMI/radar-jamming entry should be evaluated first against the report's stated Turkish X-band jammer working theory and kept separate from the AIRSIGHT entries unless additional source material connects them. The later possible-balloon entry is also a separate source line at 0135Z/FL210, not a resolution of the earlier 0025Z/FL240 possible-UAP line.

The public PDF withholds exact coordinates and does not provide the WSV file, raw radar data, targeting-pod footage, weather product, or unredacted sensor metadata. That prevents a responsible public astronomy, satellite, launch, or detailed weather correlation from this document alone. The next evidence step is to locate the WSV material or a fuller source packet, then reconcile three source tensions: 3x POSS UAP versus 2 WHITE OBJECTS IR SIGNIFICANT, FL210 versus the manifest-style “approximately 2,100 feet” wording, and the nearby-but-not-proven relationship between radar jamming and the AIRSIGHT entries.

Audit note

This deep pass used the source PDF/OCR, rendered page checks, read-only graph context, and official-source web reconnaissance. It did not write to Neo4j and does not create a Finding, Hypothesis, or ResolutionDecision.

Sources