π Overview
Korean media have claimed that "the U.S. Department of Defense officially recognized Korea as one of the world's three UFO hotspots." The AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) report cited for this contains no such designation or ranking. What the report says is that UAP reports cluster around U.S. military assets β and AARO attributes this not to more phenomena, but to geographic collection bias: reports pile up where U.S. sensors are.
This page brings together what the report actually says, the PURSUE videos U.S. forces recorded in the seas around the Korean Peninsula, and this site's 6 Korean UAP cases.
π What the AARO Report Actually Says
From the AARO FY2024 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP (released November 2024; reporting period May 1, 2023 β June 1, 2024):
- AARO received 757 UAP reports during the period.
- The report notes "a continued geographic collection bias based on locations near U.S. military assets and sensors operating globally."
- U.S. military assets operating over the East Asian Seas provided 100 reports; AARO resolved 40 of them as balloons or UAS. The rest went to the Active Archive for lack of information.
- U.S. military assets deployed to the Middle East provided 57 reports; 13 were resolved as balloons, UAS, or satellites.
- The report's distribution map (Figure 5) shows clusters over the western and eastern United States, the Middle East, and East Asia around Korea and Japan. The report text does not name Korea.
The following year's FY2025 annual report (published July 2026, 319 reports) again notes "a collection bias favoring the continental United States, its littoral waters, and global U.S. military operational areas."
πΊοΈ Where Did "World's 3 UFO Hotspots" Come From?
- Korean outlets such as MediaGB (2025-09-08) reported, citing AARO material, that the Korean Peninsula had been named one of the world's three UFO hotspots alongside the U.S. and the Middle East.
- But the data shows where reports came from, not where phenomena occur. The more fighters, ships, and radars operate in an area, the more chances there are to record and report something odd.
- The waters around Korea host constant activity by U.S. Forces Korea, U.S. Forces Japan, and the U.S. Navy β exactly where this collection bias shows up.
π₯ PURSUE Videos Recorded by U.S. Forces Near the Korean Peninsula
Of the 450 PURSUE files released through Phase 6 (MayβSeptember 2026), these 16 videos were recorded by U.S. military platforms over the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and Japan. All were reported by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) and released as unresolved, with no official conclusion. None of the file descriptions mention Korea directly.
- Yellow Sea
- PR057a β January 2023, spherical object in clouds Β· another copy of the same footage: PR057b
- PR100 β 2023, 4 min 57 s of EO/IR tracking
- PR104 β 2025, object resembling a six-pointed star
- 2023, five clips from the sixth release (September 2026): PR143 Β· PR144 Β· PR150 Β· PR151 Β· PR152
- East China Sea
- Japan
π‘ The Baengnyeonsan Lights (July 2025)
In July 2025, social media posts described fast-moving lights over Baengnyeonsan in Hongeun-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul. In August, the private Korea UFO Research and Analysis Center said they were "a drone fitted with a searchlight" (reported by MediaGB). The episode has nothing to do with U.S. DoD records.
