Joseph Trevithick

Tue, September 9, 2025 A member of Congress has shared a video claiming to show an attempt by U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drones to intercept an unidentified object in the air off the coast of Yemen last year. The footage and the circumstances behind it are otherwise unconfirmed, but this appears to be the first known instance of a Reaper engaging an aerial target of any kind in an operational setting.

Rep. Eric Burlison, a Missouri Republican, first showed the video, seen in the social media post below, during a House Oversight Committee hearing today. The stated focus of the hearing was on U.S. government transparency regarding so-called unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), previously more commonly referred to as unidentified flying objects (UFO), and protections for whistleblowers.

Below is the video I revealed in our @GOPoversight UAP hearing today, made available to the public for the first time.

October 30th, 2024: MQ-9 Reaper allegedly tracking orb off coast of Yemen.

Greenlight given to engage, missile appears to be ineffective against the target.… pic.twitter.com/jxJwl0e00S

— Rep. Eric Burlison (@RepEricBurlison) September 9, 2025

The video “was taken [on] October 30 of 2024. This video is of an MQ-9 drone tracking an orb or this object off the coast of Yemen,” Burlison said during the hearing before playing the clip, which is approximately 50 seconds long. “You’ll see that another MQ-9 launched a[n AGM-114] Hellfire missile that – you cannot see that [other] drone.”

The footage shows the purported AGM-114 striking the object and causing some debris to go flying, and then deflecting away without detonating. The object, which had been shown traveling along a steady path before the attempted intercept, is seen continuing on despite being struck until the clip ends. The video feed also prominently includes the text “LRD LASE DES,” which would point to one MQ-9 laser designating the target for the other Reaper to engage with a laser-guided Hellfire variant. This is also known as buddy lasing.

“It looks like the debris was taken with it,” Burlison said at the hearing after showing the video. “I’m not going to speculate what it is.”

In the social media post included earlier in this story, Burlison further stressed that the “footage [is] presented as received from a whistleblower” and that an “independent review is ongoing.”

What the object might be is unclear from the footage, but at times it looks, at least how the sensor interprets it, more cylindrical than orb-shaped, as seen below. This could also be a product of the video quality. It looks to go tumbling in the air after being struck, as well, and how long it actually remained airborne afterward is unknown.

WZ has reached out to the House Oversight Committee for more information about the video. We have also reached out to the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) for comment.

“We do not have anything to provide on this,” a U.S. defense official has told TWZ.

What is known is that the Houthis in Yemen have been engaged in on-again-off-again attacks on ships in and around the Red Sea, as well as targets in Israel using ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as long-range kamikaze drones, since October 2023. Prior to the announcement of a ceasefire between the Houthis and the U.S. government in May, American air and naval forces were very actively engaged in responding to those threats, as well as targeting the Iranian-backed militants in Yemen. MQ-9s were a fixture in those operations, with the Houthis claiming to have shot down dozens of them. American Reapers have been operating over and around Yemen, in general, for years now.

| The Houthis show footage from the shootdown of another U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper UCAV.

If I'm not mistaken, that would be the 20th MQ-9 downed by the Houthis from Yemen. pic.twitter.com/SCwRVLSs7s

— Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (@Archer83Able) April 18, 2025

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis release footage showing American MQ-9 Reaper UAV being shot down over Yemeni territorial waters. pic.twitter.com/sU0eI5d7vi

— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 8, 2023

The idea of employing MQ-9s in the air-to-air role, at least for self-defense, is not new. In a test in 2017, a Reaper successfully downed a target drone using an AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile.

There was a precedent already at that time for arming drones in this way, with at least some Predators having been modified to allow them to fire heat-seeking Stingers in the lead-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. In at least one instance in 2002, a Predator fired a Stinger at an Iraqi MiG-25 Foxbat fighter that was trying to shoot it down, as is seen in the video below. The Foxbat was successful and survived the encounter, but Iraqi forces reportedly made no further attempts to shoot down American drones.

Using Hellfires, originally designed as air-to-ground munitions, as anti-air weapons is also not a new concept, though radar-guided AGM-114L Longbow variants are more typically discussed in this role. TWZ was also first to report earlier this year that the MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone, a cousin of the MQ-9, had demonstrated an air-to-air capability against drones using AGM-114Ls. A number of U.S. Navy Freedom class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) have now received upgrades to employ AGM-114Ls in the surface-to-air mode against drones, as well.

. @USArmy Soldiers engage an unmanned aerial system (UAS) from an AH-64 with upgraded Hellfire missile during Red Sands training exercise in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. @usarmycentral pic.twitter.com/HG9ChuWxt6

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) September 30, 2024

It remains unknown whether the MQ-9s were actively tasked with an air-to-air mission. The apparent use of a laser-guided Hellfire in the anti-air role might indicate a more impromptu engagement against a target of opportunity. A grazing blow without a detonation would also point to a lack of any modifications to the missile’s fuze that would help improve its effectiveness against an aerial threat via proximity detonation.

It is worth noting here that the U.S. military has now openly touted the use of laser-guided 70mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rockets launched from crewed fighters to shoot down Houthi drones in the course of operations since some time last year. Back in 2019, the U.S. Air Force had first disclosed it was eyeing APKWS II as a lower-cost anti-air munition following a test in which an F-16 used one of the rockets to destroy a target drone standing in for a subsonic cruise missile in a test. TWZ was first to report on both of these developments.

U.S. Fighter aircraft shoot down Iran-backed Houthi one-way-attack drones with AGR-20 FALCO Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) Laser Guided 2.75" Rockets.#HouthisAreTerrorists pic.twitter.com/bDoVnKwotc

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 19, 2025

The object seen in the video disclosed to the public today would have had to have been moving relatively slowly and in a steady, non-reactionary manner to have been tracked by Reapers and hit by any Hellfire variant. The parallax effect could otherwise explain why the object looks to be traveling at a high speed. Also known as parallax view, this refers to an optical effect that can distort an object’s actual position and, by extension, its perceived speed, when it is viewed from different angles, including from another moving platform, against a background. Parallax is often raised as a factor in assessing reported UAP sightings.

While we still cannot say for certain what is seen in the footage, all of this would be consistent in very broad strokes with an attempted shootdown of a subsonic cruise missile or kamikaze drone. The way the target changes aspects as it moves through the air and reacts to the missile grazing is also very balloon-like, although this is not definitive and is based on limited information. As TWZ routinely highlights, there has been and continues to be substantial overlap in reported sightings of what are now often called UAPs and drones, as well as balloons.

10 min read

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5771481&forum_id=2),#49248738)