CIAE Informe de Casos 2023

Brief

CIAE, established April 4, 2019, accepted 82 cases meeting its dual testimony-plus-evidence threshold in 2023; 16 additional cases were rejected for insufficient documentation despite repeated outreach. Every resolved case was attributed to a known cause — commercial drones, stellar misidentification, camera lens flares, insects, or water on optical surfaces — with conclusions labeled Type A (irrefutably explained) or Type B (strongly supported hypothesis), mirroring France's GEIPAN methodology. The 2023 cycle also yielded the center's first encounter with a manually doctored photograph that nonetheless retained its original metadata. Director Cmdr. Rubén Lianza explicitly states that challenges filed via social media or non-academic forums, absent a formal in-person submission of competing evidence, carry no scientific standing.

Metadata

Agency

Centro de Identificación Aeroespacial (CIAE) / Fuerza Aérea Argentina

Release

2024-01-01

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

184 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED

Programs

CIAE, GEIPAN

Tags

Argentina, citizen reports, drone misidentification, stellar misidentification, lens flare, insect in frame, raindrop on windshield, 2023 annual report, CIAE, GEIPAN methodology, Type A/B classification

Key points

• CIAE processed 82 cases in 2023, all resolved with conventional explanations; not a single case remained unexplained.p.2
• 16 additional cases were rejected because witnesses failed to supply both required elements — testimony and physical evidence — despite repeated contact attempts.p.2
• CIAE was founded April 4, 2019; its primary mission is operational aerospace intelligence for the Argentine Air Force, with citizen sighting analysis designated a secondary function.p.2
• The center adopts GEIPAN France's classification scheme verbatim: Type A = definitively explained with irrefutable evidence; Type B = explained with substantive supporting elements but short of absolute proof.p.2
• 2023 marked the first receipt of a manually doctored photograph that still retained its original metadata — a forensic first for CIAE's evidentiary record.p.2
• Occam's Razor is the stated core methodological principle; cases begin with comparison to known visual stimuli before any integral compositional or technical analysis is applied.p.2
• Caso Los Reartes (Córdoba, Nov. 27, 2022): Stellarium astrometric simulation confirmed the reported stationary UFO was the star Sirius, with companion stars Murzim, Wezen, and Adhara matching photo positions exactly. Classified Type A.p.9
• Casos José Paizal and Virginia Liajoff were both resolved as camera lens flares, verified using an optical geometry method tracing each anomalous light to its source through the camera's optical center at equal distances on both sides.p.10
• Caso Armando Vías (Mar Argentino, Jan. 22, 2023): an ovoid object with horizontal white-lower/gray-upper banding was resolved as a raindrop on the ship's bridge window, confirmed by parallax behavior — the object appeared to rise each time the camera tilted downward. Classified Type B.p.13
• Director Lianza states that social media or non-academic opposition, without proposing new hypotheses and presenting them in person at the CIAE office, will not be considered a scientifically valid refutation.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

• Si bien la totalidad de los casos analizados fueron generados por causas de origen conocido, constituyen, sin embargo, testimonios muy valiosos desde el punto de vista investigativo, no solo por habernos obligado a refinar los procedimientos para resolver aquellos que resultaron más difíciles, sino también por su inherente contribución al conocimiento, al verificarse que han sido originados por interpretaciones honestas, pero erróneas, de objetos ordinarios, percibidos (por los testigos) como extraordinarios, al momento de la observación.

  p.2

• Cualquier oposición expresada en redes sociales o foros no académicos sin haber propuesto nuevas hipótesis ni haber cumplimentado el procedimiento mas arriba indicado, no será considerada una refutación científicamente válida.

  p.2

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

  p.7

• Este tipo de drones pequeños, especialmente cuando son observados en vuelo nocturno, sigue causando impresión en la ciudadanía porque todavía la gente no está muy familiarizada con su presencia.

  p.7

Most interesting

• Every single one of CIAE's 82 resolved cases in 2023 had a conventional explanation — the center has never publicly reported a genuinely unexplained case in any annual cycle.
• The index lists sighting dates as old as January 2010 alongside 2023 cases, confirming that CIAE maintains an open backlog: evidence arriving years after the original sighting is accepted and processed as a new receipt.
• CIAE cross-references reports against Stellarium planetarium software for astronomical cases, against catalogued drone LED blink-code libraries for aerial-light cases, and against optical geometry calculations for lens-flare cases — a multi-domain toolkit for a civilian-report bureau.
• An 8-rotor agricultural fumigation drone capable of carrying 10 liters of liquid pesticide is cited in the Caso Juan Artigau analysis as a real-world example of the large, multi-light aerial platforms now routinely alarming civilians.
• France's GEIPAN is explicitly named as the methodological model, suggesting informal convergence among national military UAP offices on a shared classification logic independent of any formal international treaty or agreement.
• The doctored photograph that retained its metadata is framed as a double evidentiary anomaly: fabricated content that could nonetheless be traced forensically — an edge case CIAE had not previously encountered.
• Director Lianza's closing letter invites challengers to submit competing evidence in person at CIAE's office — an unusual procedural transparency provision for a government UAP body — while categorically dismissing social media rebuttals as scientifically inert.