A metallic sphere, dubbed as an 'UFO sighting', caught on camera in Iraq in 2016

The image was obtained by Jeremy Corbell and investigative journalist George Knapp. (Image: @jeremycorbell/Instagram)

A metallic sphere flying over Iraq’s Mosul is being investigated as an UFO sighting by the US military and intelligence community.

The four-second clip recorded in 2016 by a reconnaissance aircraft in northern Iraq, was shared by UFO researcher Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell and journalist George Knapp on the first episode of their new podcast “Weaponized”.

It has been dubbed “Mosul orb” by Corbell after the city it was spotted in.

The “orb” was seen moving alongside the aircraft and didn’t drop in altitude, Corbell said.

The US Department of Defense has not commented on the authenticity of the image yet.

The Pentagon’s newly formed All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, has investigated hundreds of reports of unidentified flying objects, though none suggest clear evidence of alien life.

The Pentagon has earlier acknowledged the existence of a program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which was established in 2007 to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

The program was reportedly disbanded in 2012, but the Pentagon has stated that it continues to investigate "unexplained aerial phenomena" through other means. In recent years, there have been several high-profile reports of Navy pilots encountering UFOs, and in April 2020, the Navy released new guidelines for pilots to report "unexplained aerial phenomena" encounters.

The US government has not released any definitive information on what these encounters may be, and the topic remains a source of speculation and debate.