CIAE Informe de Casos 2020

Brief

The Centro de Identificación Aeroespacial, established April 4, 2019 under the Fuerza Aérea Argentina, processed 76 cases submitted by citizens during 2020, each requiring both witness testimony and physical evidence to qualify for analysis. Every case was classified as either Type A (definitively explained) or Type B (explained with substantiated rationale), adopting the same dual-tier framework used by France's GEIPAN group. All 76 resolutions attributed the reported phenomena to ordinary objects misperceived by sincere but mistaken witnesses. The two fully detailed cases in the accessible pages involve insects captured on a radio-controlled aircraft video and the landing lights of an Airbus A-320 approaching El Palomar Airport, the latter cross-verified through Flightradar24 historical tracking, Stellarium astronomical simulation, Google Earth 3D geometry, and IPACO photometric software to a 0.36% margin of error.

Metadata

Agency

Centro de Identificación Aeroespacial (CIAE) / Fuerza Aérea Argentina

Release

2021-01-01

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

175 pages

Programs

CIAE, GEIPAN

Tags

Argentina, civilian-reports, 2020-annual-report, photographic, video, all-resolved, South-America, CIAE, GEIPAN-methodology

Key points

• CIAE was formally created on April 4, 2019, with a mandate to organize, coordinate, and execute investigation and analysis of aerospace events of interest, identify causes, and report conclusions to relevant agencies.p.2
• 76 cases were processed in the 2020 report, all meeting the dual admission threshold of witness testimony plus physical evidence; zero cases remained unexplained.p.2
• All 76 resolved cases were attributed to honest but erroneous interpretations of ordinary objects — the report describes this outcome as an 'interesting fact' verifiable across the full dataset.p.2
• CIAE adopts the GEIPAN (France) two-tier classification: Type A for irrefutably explained cases and Type B for cases explained with substantiated foundation; Type B cases require real supporting elements and satisfaction of the Coincidence Principle — not mere conjecture.p.2
• Occam's Razor ('Navaja de Occam') is formally stated as the methodological axiom governing initial hypothesis selection, attributed to Franciscan friar William of Ockham (1280–1349).p.15
• Case 2 (Villa Club, Hurlingham, January 5, 2020) resolved Type A: IPACO photometric analysis computed a 618.2 m object-to-camera distance for a 4.5 m object at 0.417° angular size; independent geometric calculation using Flightradar24 and Stellarium yielded 616 m — a 0.36% divergence confirming the object as the landing lights of Airbus A-320 flight JES-3427 (JetSmart, Mendoza–El Palomar).p.15
• Social media or non-academic disagreement with CIAE conclusions, without first confronting the agency's analytical evidence, is explicitly declared not scientifically valid opposition.p.2
• Case 1 (José M. Fernández, Punta Alta, August 5, 2016) resolved Type B: two elongated solid objects captured in a hobbyist video of a radio-controlled aircraft were identified as insects flying across the frame, masked by dark terrain during descent.p.5

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

• la totalidad de los informes analizados haber sido originados por interpretaciones honestas pero erróneas de objetos ordinarios, percibidos (por los testigos) como extraordinarios al momento de la observación

  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

• 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

• La trayectoria de los objetos sumada al hecho de descender hasta cortar la línea de horizonte muy cerca de la cámara, revelan que se trató de un par de insectos que ingresaron al campo de visión desde la izquierda volando en alejamiento hacia el centro del cuadro, quedando durante su descenso, enmascarados por el color oscuro del terreno.

  p.5

• Habiéndose obtenido por dos métodos completamente diferentes, sendos valores de distancia "objeto/cámara" (hipotenusa) con apenas 2,2 m de divergencia entre sí, dicho margen de error (0,36%) se considera lo suficientemente aceptable (especialmente para un objeto volador que se está moviendo a 140 nudos = 72 metros por segundo), como para concluir que el objeto luminoso de las Fotos 1 y 2 es consistente con los faros de aterrizaje de una aeronave Airbus A-320 en aproximación final para cabecera 16 de El Palomar.

  p.15

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

  p.15

Most interesting

• CIAE cross-referenced four independent technical systems — Flightradar24, Stellarium, Google Earth 3D, and IPACO photometric software — to resolve a single civilian photograph, achieving sub-1% precision on the object-to-camera distance.
• The Airbus A-320 case identified the specific flight: JES-3427, operated by JetSmart, en route from Mendoza, on runway-16 final approach to El Palomar Airport at 21:08 local time on January 5, 2020.
• Despite the A-320 passing nearly overhead, the witness reported no engine noise and made no mention of seeing an aircraft — a perceptual gap the report notes as 'somewhat surprising.'
• The report covers cases ranging from as far back as 2008 through December 2020, meaning CIAE retroactively processed decade-old sightings alongside current submissions.
• Director Comodoro Rubén Lianza explicitly invites formal evidence-based rebuttals to any contested conclusion, committing to full case revision if counter-evidence proves more relevant than the agency's own findings.
• The agency was less than nine months old when the first 2020 cases began arriving, yet it simultaneously handled retroactive submissions from as far back as 2008.
• The analytical framework deliberately mirrors France's GEIPAN, suggesting intentional methodological alignment with established European UAP-investigation standards.
• The 76 cases span at least twelve Argentine provinces, from Jujuy and Salta in the northwest to Santa Cruz in Patagonia, reflecting national geographic coverage.