The Mosul Orb: MC-12 Footage Over Iraq

April 2016. The Islamic State held Mosul. The main offensive to retake the city would not begin until October. Among the aircraft over the city was a USAF MC-12, a twin-engine turboprop that flies reconnaissance at medium to low altitude.

April 16, 2016. 12:47 local time. The MC-12's sensors were recording full-motion video that blended electro-optical and infrared imagery. Then a sphere entered the frame.

It was round. It shone like metal, with a bright highlight of sunlight on its surface. It had no wings and no visible propulsion. The briefing summary published by Weaponized says it was "moving with purpose in a lateral direction across the video (south to north)." It crossed the four-second clip in roughly one second. Jeremy Corbell later said it "moves alongside the plane without dropping an altitude at all."

No crew member has ever spoken publicly. According to Weaponized, the first analysis was done at Distributed Ground System 1, Langley AFB, Virginia.

The clip ended up in an Office of Naval Intelligence briefing dated May 1, 2020. On November 4, 2021, that briefing was distributed over classified networks. Weaponized names SIPRNet, JWICS and Intelink. Corbell called it part of a "larger, internal classified briefing from DoD to destigmatize military reporting of UFOs."

January 24, 2023. On the first episode of their Weaponized podcast, Corbell and George Knapp published a still, with its metadata overlay intact. The Pentagon said it would not comment on "remarks by unnamed sources alleging leaks from a classified report." DoD spokesperson Susan Gough added: "We will not be discussing intelligence-related matters." In June 2023 the Department refused a FOIA request from The Black Vault in full.

Journalist Dustin Slaughter of The UAP Register kept pushing. His request for UAP records reported to the National Air and Space Intelligence Center turned into a lawsuit against the US Air Force in March 2024. On July 1, 2025, the video arrived. It was delivered through a Justice Department lawyer.

When only the still was public, users on Metabunk asked whether it showed a puddle or some other ground reflection. The moving video settled that. The discussion moved on to balloons. Forum users suggested a mylar balloon with a metal coating, or a "space grey" latex party balloon. In their view, parallax from the moving aircraft made a slow object close to the camera look fast. One user built a 3D model of the scene and placed the object roughly 1.5 km away. Mick West matched the sun highlight to a simulated sphere and called the object "consistent with a large balloon."

The newspaper The National proposed a spherical US surveillance aerostat. It cited WikiLeaks cables recording US aerostats that broke loose and drifted toward Iran. Supporters of the case reply that the orb held its altitude and moved with purpose. Liberation Times reports that the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office has been unable to explain it.

The Mosul Orb has since fed podcasts, news reports and long forum threads, and it is often confused with other cases. At a Senate hearing in April 2023, Sean Kirkpatrick commented on a separate orb filmed over the Middle East in 2022. Those remarks are still sometimes attached to Mosul. Nobody disputes that the footage is real. The Air Force released it. What it shows is still an open question.