SCIENCE FOLLOW-UP · OCTOBER 9, 2026
The public discussion of DOW-UAP-PR135 now has a quantitative bird hypothesis to examine. A preprint by Jacob Haqq-Misra and five colleagues, submitted October 6 and revised October 7, measures brightness fluctuations in the six targets. This advances earlier footage coverage; it is not a newly recorded encounter.
A measurement beyond apparent speed
The authors report independent brightness cycles of roughly 7.1–7.9 per second. Their inserted constant-brightness controls did not reproduce the effect, while comparison infrared observations of flying animals showed compatible periodicity. They favor a small flock of birds and explain how parallax could produce the reported 480-mph ground-projected estimate without that being the objects' physical speed.
The difficult test remains altitude
The paper explicitly identifies the crew's reported object altitude as its greatest challenge. The observing aircraft's altitude is redacted; releasing it would help test whether the proposed geometry is plausible. The imagery alone cannot exclude a fast, distant alternative, and brightness frequency does not identify a species. The manuscript is submitted to Scientific Reports, not presented here as peer-reviewed confirmation.
What the government release establishes
AARO's official catalog links the infrared recording to mission report D108 and attributes the 480-mph figure to the reporter's estimate. It also warns that the catalog description is not an investigative conclusion. The scientific interpretation and the release description therefore serve different purposes.
For readers, the useful distinction is between a testable proposed explanation and a completed identification. The next valuable release would supply the geometry needed to challenge the model. Independent reanalysis should also reproduce the brightness measurements from the available files. UFOsoldier reviewed the manuscript and release description but did not rerun the authors' tracking pipeline.
Hero image: original AI-generated editorial illustration; conceptual imagery, not evidence of an event.