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

Spy plane images obtained by DailyMail.com show a UFO flying near Baghdad last year.

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

The images were taken from a video filmed by a thermal camera in a United States Air Force (USAF) Reaper drone in May 2022 – and have been dubbed the ‘Baghdad Phantom’.

A source with knowledge of the incident said the object was flagged in an Air Force repository as an ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’, the government’s preferred term for UFOs, last year, because of its strange characteristics.

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

The object also didn’t have any 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 images were leaked to journalist and documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell and investigative journalist George Knapp, and released shortly after midnight on Weaponized, their new podcast.

‘What George and I have uncovered is Reaper drone footage over an active war zone,’ Corbell told DailyMail.com. 

‘It shows an anomalous object which has been designated as UAP by our own air force.

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

‘This isn’t your grandma’s rocket that 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 kind of trail or stream left in the ‘Baghdad Phantom’s wake, though it could be an artifact from the video from which they were taken.

Military coordinates on the bottom right of the images give the location of the Reaper Drone video as North Eastern Iraq, near Baghdad.

DailyMail.com understands the UFO was not shot at by the USAF, because it had no payload – for example a potential bomb – and did not get close to ground troops.

The object was designated as ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’, an official term which has since been replaced with ‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena’ (UAP).

It is still unclear whether the object was innocuous, a foreign military’s craft, or something other-worldly.

Corbell told DailyMail.com that the images were leaked by frustrated USAF members who claim that 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, were not shared with intelligence agencies or the government’s UFO Office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).

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

US legislation requires that AARO collects information on UAP incidents from the Department of Defense and the intelligence community.

But Christopher Mellon, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, recently called out the Air Force for allegedly failing to embrace reporting of strange objects.

‘The Navy was notably helpful while the Air Force remained notably unhelpful, if not hostile, to inquiries on the subject,’ he wrote in a February 14 blog post.

‘The preliminary assessment provided to Congress [about UFOs in 2021] was almost completely devoid of information from the U.S. Air Force despite the fact that the Air Force (as a department which also oversees U.S. Space Force) has far more aircraft and sensor systems than the Navy as well as the responsibility for supporting NORAD.’

Corbell warned the alleged failure to share information is putting servicemen and women at risk.

‘This case represents other UAPs filmed by our Air Force, which have been kept hidden from American taxpayers and our intelligence community,’ he told DailyMail.com.

‘The brave men and women who serve in our nation’s Air Force are directly at risk if we cannot identify, process and share this type of UAP imagery in an effective and actionable way.

‘Air Force personnel have told me that they are highly concerned that this phenomenon maintains a regretful stigma that inhibits proper reporting and response within the chain of command. The air force is an exemplary branch of our armed services. We should 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 have in fact obstructed it.’

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

After the ‘shoot downs’, vice chair of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Marco Rubio, said: ‘The last 72 hours revealed to the public what was happening 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-looking orb flying over Mosul, Iraq in April 2016, was included in a classified briefing video on 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 US citizens and Government facilities’ posed by UAP.

His presentation slides, reported in a DailyMail.com story last month, said that the military is finding unidentified anomalous phenomena ‘most often in the vicinity of US military facilities and operating areas’ – which would include conflict zones like Iraq.

The Air Force began a ‘six-month pilot program’ in November 2020 to collect data on UFOs, according to a Pentagon spokeswoman, but ended it the following Spring.

‘Lessons learned from the pilot were used to improve support provided to the UAPTF and will be used to contribute to the efforts of AARO. If applicable, data gathered in the pilot was provided through command channels to the UAPTF,’ Pentagon spokeswoman Susan Gough said in a statement.

In August 2021, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told Politico: ‘I’ve given a great deal of thought to defending American airspace but not against UFOs. If asked to do that then we will do it. This is a thing that’s been around for a great many years.’

The leaked May 2022 images follow the release of the ‘Mosul Orb’ image, also obtained by Corbell and Knapp, showing a sphere-shaped 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 something is or is not part of a classified briefing.’

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

‘It is my hope that by obtaining and releasing imagery like this, the public can help solve this collective mystery and inspire greater transparency by our Department of Defense,’ he said. ‘This is a solvable problem- so let’s do it together.

‘The Pentagon’s over-classification is corrosive like an acid and has been weaponized against the American public’s right and need to know about UFOs. 

‘It’s time that they earn the people’s trust back.’