Skinny cylindrical-shaped UFO flying near Baghdad is seen in six thermal images

Spy plane footage obtained by DailyMail.com shows a UFO flying near Baghdad last year.

The six images appear to show a skinny cylindrical object over northeastern Iraq, close to Baghdad, moving across the screen from left to right.

The footage comes from a video recorded in May 2022 with a thermal camera in a United States Air Force (USAF) Reaper drone dubbed the “Baghdad Phantom.”

A source with knowledge of the incident said the object was flagged last year in an Air Force warehouse as an “unidentified aerial phenomenon,” the government’s preferred term for UFOs, because of its strange characteristics.

Fast-moving craft are powered by propulsion systems such as rockets or engines that create heat, but the thermal camera that filmed the object showed it to be colder than its surroundings.

The object also had no visible wings or fins, likely ruling it out as a glider.

A USAF source said the UFO had no visible propulsion and appeared to be under “intelligent control.”

The footage was leaked to journalist and documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell and investigative journalist George Knapp, and released shortly after midnight on Armedtheir new podcast.

“What George and I discovered is footage from a Reaper drone over an active war zone,” Corbell told DailyMail.com.

“It shows an anomalous object that has been identified as a UAP by our own Air Force.

‘Just like our government, we as journalists are curious about what can be seen in these images. The object appears to have no control surfaces, no traditional reactionary propulsion, and is cooler than its surroundings.

“This isn’t your grandmother’s rocket we’re looking at.”

The six intriguing images show the elongated object at the bottom of the screen moving from left to right. It appeared darker than its background on the thermal camera, indicating it was colder than its surroundings.

The images appear to show some sort of trail or stream left in the wake of the “Baghdad Phantom,” though it could be an artifact from the video they were taken from.

Military coordinates on the bottom right of the images show the location of the Reaper Drone video as Northeast Iraq, near Baghdad.

DailyMail.com understands that the UFO was not targeted by the USAF because it had no payload – a potential bomb, for example – and did not go near ground forces.

The object was referred to as ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’, an official term that has since been replaced by ‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena’ (UAP).

It is still unclear whether the object was harmless, a foreign military craft or something extraterrestrial.

Corbell told DailyMail.com the footage was leaked by frustrated members of the USAF who claim significant numbers of UFO incidents are being “buried” by the Air Force.

DailyMail.com understands that many of these incidents, including the May 2022 UFO video, have not been shared with intelligence agencies or the government’s UFO agency, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).

Normally, data from an incident like this near Baghdad would be sent to the US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees operations against ISIS in Iraq. But it is unclear whether the command received the video or other information about the incident.

U.S. law requires AARO to collect information about UAP incidents from the Department of Defense and the intelligence community.

But Christopher Mellon, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, recently subpoenaed the Air Force for allegedly not embracing reporting of foreign objects.

“The Navy has been extremely helpful, while the Air Force has remained extremely unhelpful, if not hostile, to inquiries on this subject,” he wrote in a letter dated Feb. 14. blog post.

“The preliminary assessment provided to Congress (on UFOs in 2021) was almost entirely devoid of information from the US Air Force, despite the fact that the Air Force (as a department that also oversees the US Space Force) has many more aircraft and sensor systems then has the navy and the responsibility for supporting NORAD.’

Corbell warned that the alleged failure to share information puts military personnel at risk.

“This case represents other UAPs filmed by our Air Force that have been hidden from US taxpayers and our intelligence community,” he told DailyMail.com.

“The brave men and women who serve in our country’s air forces are in immediate danger if we cannot identify, process and share this kind of UAP imagery in an effective and useful way.

Air Force personnel have told me they are deeply concerned that this phenomenon perpetuates an unfortunate stigma that prevents proper reporting and response within the chain of command. The Air Force is an exemplary branch of our armed forces. We must encourage greater UAP transparency, for the good of the country and our participating services.

“As journalists, George and I feel a duty to inform the public in situations like this, where our representatives have failed to provide transparency and, in fact, have obstructed it.”

After the shooting down of a Chinese balloon and three unidentified objects over North American airspace last month, the topic of UFOs threatening US interests and air traffic has become a hot topic in Congress.

After the shoot downs, Vice Chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee Marco Rubio said: “The past 72 hours have revealed to the public what has been going on for years, unidentified aircraft routinely operating over restricted US airspace.”

An image obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com from Corbell and Knapp in January of what appears to be a metallic sphere flying above Mosul, Iraq, in April 2016 was included in a classified briefing video about UFOs shown to multiple US government agencies.

In January, AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick gave a presentation at an aviation safety conference warning of “threats to the immediate safety of U.S. citizens and government facilities” being made by UAP.

His presentation slides, reported in a DailyMail.com story last month, said the military is finding unidentified anomalous phenomena “usually near US military facilities and areas of operations” — including conflict zones such as Iraq.

The Air Force began a “six-month pilot program” to collect data on UFOs in November 2020, a Pentagon spokeswoman said, but ended it the following spring.

“Lessons learned from the pilot have been used to improve UAPTF support and will be used to contribute to AARO’s efforts. When appropriate, data collected during the pilot was provided to the UAPTF through command channels,” Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Gough said in a statement.

In August 2021, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told Politico, “I’ve been thinking a lot about defending US airspace, but not against UFOs. If we are asked to do that, we will. This is something that has been around for many, many years.’

The leaked May 2022 footage follows the release of the “Mosul Orb” image, also obtained by Corbell and Knapp, showing a spherical UFO filmed by a US spy plane over the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in 2016.

The Pentagon has yet to confirm the authenticity of the Mosul image.

Gough said, “I’m not going to comment on whether or not something is part of a secret briefing.”

Corbell called on the public to help analyze and identify the new images he and Knapp obtained.

“I hope that by obtaining and releasing this kind of footage, the public can help solve this collective mystery and inspire greater transparency in our Department of Defense,” he said. “This is a solvable problem, so let’s do it together.

The Pentagon’s overclassification is corrosive as an acid and weaponizes the right and need of the American public to know about UFOs.

“It’s time they regain people’s trust.”