AARO Middle East MQ-9 Reaper Spherical Metallic Orb EO/IR Track
Persian Gulf / USCENTCOM Maritime Overwatch Corridor • NARA RG 615 / AARO USCENTCOM Declassified Case 2022-ME-01
Formally cataloged in PURSUE Release 02 by DoD AARO and USCENTCOM, an MQ-9 Reaper ISR platform tracked a 1.2 m (4 ft) specular metallic sphere across the Persian Gulf (26.2°N, 51.5°E) at 4,572 m (15,000 ft / 4.57 km / 2.84 mi) and 380 mph (0.17 km/s / Mach 0.50) using a gimbaled MX-20 EO/IR turret and WESCAM MX-15D Thermal sensor. Low-altitude daytime metallic spheres and anomalous UAV targets are best resolved with high-contrast 10x50 binoculars[↗], an ADS-B receiver[↗], and an RTK GPS module[↗] for azimuth-elevation logging.
Local Gemma (tier1-local-server-gemma) assigns a 1% CNEOS bolide probability and 2% TLE flare likelihood because the MQ-9 Reaper MX-20 EO/IR turret tracked the 1.2 m (4 ft) sphere in a nadir look-down orientation against the Earth’s surface at 4,572 m (15,000 ft / 4.57 km / 2.84 mi) and 380 mph (0.17 km/s), yielding an 84/100 kinematic anomaly score. Nearest cataloged NASA CNEOS bolide is cneos-fb-035 (1,118 km / 694.7 mi great-circle separation).