IncidentYemen MQ-9 Reaper Orb Encounter (October 2024)

In October 2024 — date narrowed in subsequent reporting to a window between 14 and 23 October — a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle conducting operations over Yemen recorded an encounter with an unidentified aerial object described as spherical, approximately one meter in diameter, and metallic-appearing in the Reaper’s electro-optical and infrared sensor feeds. The Reaper was operating in support of the U.S. Central Command’s counter-Houthi operations following the late-2023 disruption of Red Sea shipping by Houthi missile and drone attacks.

According to the public statements by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO), a member of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation and a vocal UAP advocate, the orb approached the Reaper, paced it for a brief interval, and then departed at high speed inconsistent with conventional aerospace platforms. The Reaper’s sensor operators, based at a continental U.S. ground control station, captured the full event on the aircraft’s recorded sensor feed. Burlison stated that he had been briefed on the specifics by Air Force and intelligence community personnel.

Burlison made the case public at the 9 September 2025 House Oversight Subcommittee hearing on UAP, where he provided a verbal description of the encounter on the record. The classified video itself was not released. The Department of Defense did not confirm or deny the specifics; AARO’s response to subsequent inquiries was that the office was aware of the report and was evaluating it as part of its standing collection.

The case is significant because it represents one of the first publicly described U.S. military UAP encounters in an active combat theater (Yemen, October 2024) with an unmanned platform, and because the specifics were made public not by a journalist or whistleblower but by a sitting member of Congress with apparent access to the classified material.