At a September 9, 2025 hearing of the House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) played a roughly 50-second infrared clip that he said came from a whistleblower.

The footage, dated October 30, 2024, shows an MQ-9 Reaper drone tracking a glowing, orb-shaped object moving over the water off the coast of Yemen. A second MQ-9 fires a Hellfire missile at it. The missile appears to strike the object. Instead of destroying it, the round seems to deflect, with fragments scattering while the orb keeps moving on its original path.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna asked each witness whether anything in the U.S. arsenal could do what the video shows. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexandro Wiggins and the other military witnesses said they knew of nothing that could survive a Hellfire hit. Asked whether the video frightened them, they said yes. Journalist George Knapp, also testifying, claimed there are servers holding many more videos like it that Congress has not been allowed to see.

The Pentagon did not comment on the clip, and no technical analysis was released with it. Some people with military backgrounds have argued it could show a missile passing a target rather than bouncing off it. The full hearing, including witness statements, is posted on the committee’s site.