CIAE Informe de Resolución de Casos 2019

Brief

The CIAE, established April 4, 2019 as the Argentine Air Force's successor to CEFAe, analyzed 23 citizen sightings that met the dual threshold of testimony plus physical evidence. Using a classification scheme borrowed directly from France's GEIPAN group — Type A (irrefutably explained) and Type B (explained with strong supporting evidence) — the unit resolved all 23 cases as identified objects, primarily helium balloons with LED lights, lens flares, insects producing 'flying rod' traces, window dirt, a seagull, and at least one kite. The report closes with a contributed analysis of an older enigmatic case: a 2000 photograph of an object near Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano.

Metadata

Agency

Centro de Identificación Aeroespacial (CIAE) / Fuerza Aérea Argentina

Release

2020-01-01

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

62 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED

Programs

CIAE, CEFAe, GEIPAN, IPACO

Tags

Argentina, 2019, CIAE, CEFAe successor, OVI resolution, helium balloon, lens flare, flying rod, LED balloon, Bariloche, Buenos Aires province, Santa Cruz province, Córdoba, Mendoza, Popocatepetl 2000, GEIPAN methodology, IPACO software

Key points

• CIAE was formally created on April 4, 2019, tasked with organizing, coordinating, and executing the investigation and analysis of aerospace events; it retained citizen-sighting intake as a secondary function after succeeding CEFAe.p.2
• All 23 cases analyzed met the requirement of both witness testimony and physical evidence (photo or video), and all 23 were resolved as objects of known conventional origin.p.2
• The CIAE adopted GEIPAN France's two-tier classification: Type A (definitively explained, irrefutable evidence) and Type B (explained with foundation — not conjecture, but supported by real elements satisfying the Coincidence Principle).p.2
• The report documents that the overwhelming majority of cases are OVIs (Objetos Voladores Identificados) — honest but mistaken interpretations of ordinary objects perceived as extraordinary at the moment of observation.p.2
• The IPACO software tool 'Hilo vertical' (vertical thread) was applied to video frames in multiple cases to detect the presence of string beneath objects, confirming helium-balloon identifications.p.4
• Optical geometry (lens-flare verification) was applied by locating the camera's optical center via diagonal intersection, then confirming equidistance between a candidate anomalous object and its presumed light source to that center — a method applied to at least three separate cases.p.7
• In the José C. Paz New Year case, meteorological data from Ezeiza International Airport (1 January 2019, 00:00–00:25 hrs) confirmed a southeast wind of 8 km/h, consistent with the witness's report of objects tracking west-southwest — corroborating the LED helium balloon hypothesis.p.10
• The 'flying rod' phenomenon — a sinusoidal motion trace in slow-exposure photography long promoted by a 1994 'ufologist' as paranormal — is treated here as a scientifically closed question, with insects confirmed as the cause.p.18
• The enigmatic-cases section presents a contributed analysis of the December 19, 2000 Alfonso Reyes photograph taken at Tlamacas, Mexico, showing a presumed UFO in front of Popocatepetl volcano — listed in the index on page 52.p.3
• Director of the CIAE is identified as Com. Ruben Lianza, who signs the introduction and explicitly invites any party disputing conclusions to present rebuttal evidence directly to the office.p.2

Verbatim

• Organizar, coordinar y ejecutar la investigación y análisis de eventos, actividades o elementos presentes u originados en el aeroespacio de interés; identificar sus causas e informar las conclusiones a los Organismos pertinentes que las requieran

  p.2

• caso Tipo A (definitivamente explicado) cuando se encontraron evidencias absolutamente irrefutables y Tipo B (caso explicado con fundamento) cuando se identificaron elementos clave que, por su calidad y cantidad, apoyan fuertemente una hipótesis

  p.2

• confirmarse la existencia de un mayoritario porcentaje de OVIs (Objetos Voladores Identificados) producto de interpretaciones honestas pero erróneas de objetos ordinarios, considerados por los testigos como extraordinarios al momento de la observación

  p.2

• A efectos de mantener un máximo nivel de objetividad y transparencia, si eventualmente surgieran discrepancias con las conclusiones aquí expuestas, se invita a quien aduzca oposición a presentar en nuestra oficina los elementos de refutación.

  p.2

• Cualquier opinión discrepante vertida en redes sociales o foros no académicos, sin confrontar en primer lugar con nuestros elementos de análisis, no será considerada una oposición científicamente válida.

  p.2

• En igualdad de condiciones, la explicación más sencilla suele ser la más probable

  p.6

• los científicos lograron probar que la aparición de las "varas voladoras" captadas en esas fotos y videos no eran más que ilusiones ópticas (trazas de desplazamiento) producidas por polillas u otros insectos voladores

  p.18

Most interesting

• The CIAE is the direct institutional successor to CEFAe, Argentina's previous UAP investigation body, meaning Argentina has maintained a continuous, Air Force-housed UAP analysis function through at least two named organizations.
• CIAE explicitly benchmarks its classification methodology against GEIPAN, the French space agency's UAP group — a rare instance of one national defense UAP program formally adopting another's evidentiary standards.
• The 'flying rod' phenomenon, coined by a 1994 researcher as a possible paranormal entity, is treated in this report as a closed scientific question resolved by insect-motion physics — the CIAE cites prior work from its own 2017 report (the Raul Reynoso case) as precedent.
• A contributing analysis of a Mexican case (Popocatepetl, 2000) is included not because it was submitted through normal citizen channels but explicitly for training purposes and to sharpen the unit's own methods — an unusual window into how the CIAE uses hard cases internally.
• The unit's transparency protocol is notably formal: anyone disputing a conclusion must appear at the office with counter-evidence; dissent posted only on social media or non-academic forums is explicitly declared not scientifically valid opposition.
• LED helium balloons were flagged as a newly commercialized product that the Argentine public was not yet familiar with as of 2019, leading to multiple sightings during New Year celebrations — the report notes that witnesses could correctly identify a traditional Chinese lantern in the same footage while misidentifying the LED balloon beside it.
• The report covers sightings spanning six years (2014–2019), as some cases submitted earlier were only resolved in the 2019 reporting cycle, illustrating a multi-year intake backlog.
• Occam's Razor is cited with full historical attribution — Franciscan friar William of Ockham, 1280–1349 — and applied as a named, explicit methodological step at the start of each investigation, not merely as a rhetorical gesture.