AARO Website Launch: Go Fast Resolution

Brief

In January 2015, a U.S. Navy F/A-18F pilot recorded an unidentified object over the Atlantic Ocean off Florida using a Forward Looking Infrared sensor. AARO's analysis places the object at approximately 13,000 feet, not near the ocean surface as initially perceived, moving between 5 and 92 mph after wind compensation, consistent with atmospheric drift. The apparent high speed was caused by motion parallax induced by the aircraft's own velocity of roughly 190 m/s. The original sensor file and metadata no longer exist; all analysis was performed on a publicly available compressed .wmv file, and the aircrew could not be reached for accounts.

Metadata

Agency

All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), U.S. Department of Defense

Release

2023-08-31

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

26 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED

Tags

Go Fast, spherical, oblate ellipsoid, FLIR, Florida, Atlantic Ocean, 2015, motion parallax, F/A-18F

Key points

• The object's altitude was assessed at approximately 13,000 feet, not near the ocean's surface as initially reported.p.1
• After compensating for wind at 13,000 feet (30.9 m/s from the west), the object's intrinsic speed ranged from 2 m/s (5 mph) to 41.3 m/s (92 mph), consistent with atmospheric conditions.p.1
• The object did not move against the wind in any simulation across all modeled aircraft headings.p.1
• The object's apparent high speed is explained by motion parallax, an optical effect amplified by the F/A-18F traveling at roughly 190 m/s while the object moved at most 41 m/s.p.3
• The maximum deviation of the object's heading from wind direction was 32.1 degrees across all modeled scenarios.p.3
• The original FLIR video file and its accompanying metadata are no longer available; AARO relied entirely on a publicly available compressed .wmv file.p.4
• Pixel analysis by an Intelligence Community partner estimated the object at one meter or less in size, comparable to a small drone or bird.p.4
• AARO sought but was unable to obtain witness accounts from the F/A-18F aircrew.p.4
• Frame-by-frame path reconstruction placed the object on a nearly level trajectory, rising approximately 10 meters (30 feet) with a slow curving descent near the end of the analyzed interval.p.15

Verbatim

• AARO cannot definitively identify the object, but it displayed no anomalous performance characteristics.

  p.1

• AARO assesses with high confidence that the object did not move at anomalous speeds.

  p.1

• The object did not move against the wind in any simulation.

  p.1

• AARO analyzed the publicly available 34-second FLIR video, because the original file and its accompanying metadata are no longer available.

  p.4

• pixel analysis (a method of measuring an object's size based on pixels relative to an object known dimensions) by AARO's Intelligence Community (IC) partner suggested the object was one meter or less in size - comparable to a small drone or bird.

  p.4

• AARO sought but was unable to obtain witness accounts from the F/A-18F aircrew.

  p.4

• video footage from these platforms often contains compression artifacts or lacks the necessary metadata to conduct an exhaustive analysis.

  p.5

Most interesting

• By the time AARO investigated, the original sensor file no longer existed, all conclusions rest on a compressed public .wmv copy of a 34-second clip, the kind of file that discards metadata and introduces compression artifacts.
• The F/A-18F was traveling at roughly 190 m/s at 25,000 feet while the object below moved at most 92 mph; that velocity differential is precisely what made motion parallax so dramatic in the footage.
• In the headwind scenario, the object's intrinsic speed was just 2 m/s, barely faster than a brisk jog, making atmospheric drift the most parsimonious explanation.
• Because the sensor display only logged integer values, AARO fit second-order polynomial curves to 'change frame' data points to reconstruct smoother sensor readings across every frame of the 13-second analysis window.
• The object's heading of -11.14 degrees relative to the aircraft coordinate frame closely matched the aircraft's own yaw of -9.6 degrees, reinforcing the wind-drift interpretation.
• AARO used coordinate conventions and rotation matrices drawn directly from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's Motion Imagery Standards Board standard MISB ST 0601.19, the same framework used for tracking ground vehicles and ships from airborne platforms.
• The IC partner size estimate of one meter or less places the object in the size range of a commercial hobby drone or a large bird, categories that leave the identity unresolved even after the speed mystery is closed.