CIAE Informe de Casos 2025

Brief

The Centro de Investigación Aeroespacial (CIAE), the Argentine Air Force's official aerospace-phenomenon investigation body, processed 28 qualifying citizen cases in 2025 and resolved every one as a known-cause phenomenon. The agency applies GEIPAN's two-tier classification (Type A: definitively explained; Type B: substantively explained) alongside Occam's Razor as its methodological backbone. Beyond citizen reports, CIAE conducted two field investigations of space debris falls and formally recategorized three historically significant pilot-witness sightings from 1972, 1995, and 2013. The report's closing argument is that professional pilot testimony carries no inherent evidentiary advantage over civilian testimony when investigating the phenomenon.

Metadata

Agency

Centro de Investigación Aeroespacial (CIAE, ex–Centro de Identificación Aeroespacial) / Fuerza Aérea Argentina

Release

2026-01-01

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

167 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED

Programs

CIAE, CEFAe, GEIPAN, Starlink, Stellarium, Orbitron, Flightradar24, NORAD / space-track.org

Tags

Starlink reflection, Starlink reentry, commercial drone, insect/bird photographic artifact, contrail, space debris field investigation, Argentina, 2025, GEIPAN methodology, pilot witness recategorization, Campo de Mayo 1972, Aguadilla 2013, Bariloche 1995

Key points

• All 28 qualifying citizen cases received in 2025 were resolved as originating from known, conventional causes — a 100% resolution rate.p.2
• Eleven additional cases were rejected outright because witnesses failed to provide both required elements: testimony and physical evidence, despite repeated contact attempts.p.2
• CIAE adopted the GEIPAN (France) two-tier classification: Type A (absolutely proven evidence) and Type B (strongly supported by key qualitative and technical elements, not mere conjecture).p.2
• Starlink satellite solar reflections — simulated via Stellarium — explained the Cusi Cusi, Jujuy sightings reported nightly January 12-19, 2025; satellites 1265 and 32688 were identified as the specific objects via astrometric background cross-reference.p.9
• A Starlink satellite reentry (Starlink 2008, NORAD #47603, launched Feb. 4, 2021) was confirmed via space-track.org as the cause of the Chubut 'swarm of luminous objects' video filmed March 1, 2025.p.18
• A commercial drone with multi-color LED status lighting explained the Pilar, Buenos Aires nocturnal sighting of January 9, 2025 — classified Type B because the drone body was never resolved in frame.p.5
• Camera focal-field physics (objects inside the 'BLURFO ZONE' appearing blurred and elongated by motion) accounts for multiple bird and insect photo cases in Villa Gesell, Pigüé, and San Rafael.p.13
• CIAE conducted two on-site field investigations of space debris falls inside Argentina during 2025: Armstrong, Santa Fe (May 10) and Puerto Tirol, Chaco (September 27).p.3
• Three historical pilot-witness cases — Campo de Mayo (Nov. 2, 1972), Aguadilla, Puerto Rico (April 24-25, 2013), and Bariloche (July 31, 1995) — were expanded and formally recategorized as Type A or Type B under GEIPAN methodology.p.3
• CIAE explicitly states that pilot-witness interpretation 'is not inherently more probative of extraordinary cause than that of any other non-pilot witness,' a finding positioned as a key institutional lesson.p.2

Verbatim

• hemos clasificado sus conclusiones adoptando el mismo método que utiliza el Grupo GEIPAN de Francia, dividiéndolos en dos categorías: caso Tipo A (definitivamente explicado) cuando se encontraron evidencias absolutamente probatorias y Tipo B (caso fundamentadamente explicado) cuando se encontraron elementos clave que, por su calidad y cantidad, apoyan fuertemente una hipótesis.

  p.2

• también hemos incluido un apartado con las versiones ampliadas y mejoradas de tres casos emblemáticos de avistamientos protagonizados por pilotos, tanto civiles como militares, a efectos de categorizar sus Conclusiones como: Tipo "A" o Tipo "B" (de acuerdo a la metodología empleada por el GEIPAN), luego de considerar su relevancia, su impacto mediático y el hecho de que, aun siendo los testigos en su mayoría tripulantes profesionales con muchas horas de vuelo, nos dejan la valiosa enseñanza de que algunos avistamientos de pilotos, al ser investigados, resultan ser originados por causas convencionales y que su interpretación no es inherentemente más probatoria de causa extraordinaria, que la de cualquier otro testigo no piloto.

  p.2

• Todos los días entre el 12 y el 19 de enero junto a la comunidad de Cusi Cusi hemos podido ver estos objetos, desde Cusi Cusi a los 195° aprox. En dirección del "Cerro Granada", salen varias luces, algunas desde la tierra detrás desde las montañas, otras aparecen, otras vienen desde el Oeste, algunas suben, otras cambian de intensidad, algunas se juntan, etc…

  p.6

• Las trazas de movimiento capturadas en las fotografías enviadas para análisis, tomadas en la localidad de Cusi Cusi, Provincia de Jujuy, son compatibles con reflejos solares en los satélites Starlink, pasando por una posición donde el Sol estaba ubicado directamente debajo de ellos. Confirma esta hipótesis la simulación Stellarium para la localidad, fecha y hora de los avistamientos y por comparación con otros videos de casos similares, donde se han dado exactamente las mismas condiciones de observación.

  p.9

• El enjambre de objetos luminosos registrado en el video enviado para análisis corresponde al reingreso del satélite Starlink 2008 (número de código # 47603 según NORAD), lanzado el 4/Feb/2021 por la Empresa Space X.

  p.18

• De la minuciosa inspección del video, se distingue claramente un objeto luminoso en vuelo nocturno con trayectoria rectilínea, alternando sus luces entre los colores: blanco, naranja, verde y rojo. El patrón de cambio de colores y la ubicación de los mismos no se corresponde con las luces de posición de aeronaves convencionales.

  p.4

Most interesting

• CIAE was created April 4, 2019, renaming and succeeding CEFAe (1996-2019); the abbreviation was preserved despite the name change from 'Identificación' to 'Investigación.'
• SpaceX Starlink satellites appear in multiple separate 2025 cases as the identified stimulus — both as solar-reflection flares at orbital altitude and as fragmented reentry debris.
• The 'BLURFO ZONE' (objects between camera and minimum focal distance) is presented as a systematic explanatory framework for an entire category of photographic UAP cases, with CIAE having built a comparative mosaic of prior insect/bird examples.
• Witness Jaime Jimenez in Cusi Cusi described nightly multi-object sightings over eight consecutive days (Jan. 12-19) with his entire local community observing; CIAE identified the cause as two crossing Starlink satellites (IDs 1265 and 32688) using Stellarium astrometry.
• A large agricultural drone used for pesticide spraying in Jujuy — capable of carrying a 10-liter liquid tank with eight propellers — is cited as an example of how unfamiliar drone technology generates public alarm even without any UAP characteristics.
• CIAE cross-referenced the Chubut (Gobernador Costa) reentry video against NORAD's space-track.org database, which confirmed Starlink 2008 reentry at 00:00 UTC March 2, 2025 — corresponding to 21:00 Argentine local time on March 1, perfectly matching the witness report.
• The Flightradar24 platform was used historically to identify a specific commercial flight (SKU 645, Montevideo to Santiago de Chile, at 38,000 feet) as the source of a condensation trail photographed over La Plata on March 10, 2025.
• The three recategorized pilot-witness cases span three countries (Argentina twice, Puerto Rico once) and 43 years (1972-2015), suggesting CIAE views retrospective reclassification of legacy cases as an ongoing institutional responsibility.
• CIAE explicitly states that Type B conclusions are 'not mere conjectures' — they require real elements verifying the Coincidence Principle with the presumed cause, distinguishing the classification from speculative explanations.
• The 2025 report is publicly posted as part of CIAE's citizen-response service, described explicitly as a 'secondary task' relative to its primary intelligence mission for Argentine government agencies.