Chilean Navy Helicopter Wescam MX-15 FLIR Footage — November 11, 2014

Brief

On November 11, 2014, two Chilean Navy officers aboard an Airbus AS-532 Cougar helicopter on coastal patrol between San Antonio and Quintero filmed an unidentified object for approximately nine minutes using the aircraft's Wescam MX-15 high-definition FLIR camera. The object was described in the captain's report as a flat, elongated structure emitting two thermal discharges and visible chemical plumes, tracked at roughly 4,500 feet. CEFAA — Chile's official UAP investigation body, attached to the Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil — convened nuclear chemists, astrophysicists, and image analysts to study the footage for two years. The agency released the recording on January 5, 2017, concluding 'we do not know what it was, but we do know what it was not.'

Metadata

Agency

CEFAA / DGAC (Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil) / Chilean Navy

Release

2017-01-05

Type

VIDEO • .mp4

Length

19.5 M

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED

Programs

CEFAA, DGAC

Tags

flat elongated structure, dual thermal discharge, chemical plume, FLIR infrared, Chile, 2014, CEFAA, coastal patrol, 4500 ft altitude

Key points

• The recording lasted approximately nine minutes and was made with a Wescam MX-15 high-definition FLIR camera — a military-grade sensor platform, not consumer or news hardware.
• The object was tracked at approximately 4,500 feet during a routine coastal patrol between San Antonio and Quintero, Chile.
• The captain's official report characterized the object as a 'flat, elongated structure' with two distinct thermal discharges and visible chemical plume ejections — a sensor signature inconsistent with known civilian or military aircraft.
• CEFAA's investigation panel included nuclear chemists, astrophysicists, and image analysts, representing a cross-disciplinary vetting approach uncommon in government UAP inquiries.
• The two-year investigation concluded with a formal non-identification: the phenomenon was neither explained nor matched to any known aircraft, drone, or natural phenomenon.
• CEFAA is formally attached to the DGAC (Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil), giving this case an institutional chain of custody grounded in civil aviation authority rather than a stand-alone advisory body.
• The public release date of January 5, 2017 followed more than two years of internal analysis, suggesting the footage was not dismissed early and required sustained scientific effort before any conclusion was reached.

Most interesting

• The Wescam MX-15 is the same FLIR sensor family used on U.S. military surveillance platforms; its data is considered evidentiary-grade in defense and law enforcement contexts.
• The chemical plume ejections visible in the infrared footage were described as distinct from the aircraft's own exhaust signature, which the FLIR operator had been monitoring continuously.
• Chile's CEFAA predates most comparable Western UAP offices — it has operated continuously since 1997 under formal civil aeronautics authority, giving it more institutional depth than the U.S. AATIP program, which was not acknowledged publicly until 2017.
• The nine-minute tracking duration is notably long compared to most reported UAP events; most militarily-documented encounters last seconds to a few minutes.
• Two naval officers — the pilot and a technician operating the FLIR — independently confirmed the sighting, satisfying basic multi-witness corroboration criteria.
• The Chilean government's willingness to release the footage and formal non-identification conclusion represented one of the most transparent official UAP disclosures by any government up to that point.