Aliens · Chapter 4
What was recorded
What if the shapes in the stories are not one craft — and a nickname borrowed by a teaching is not a caption on the tape?
Three Navy infrared videos were confirmed as Navy recordings in 2020. Five further names are categories of reports, not a single vehicle. Read each file the same way: what was registered, what else independently shows it, and what ordinary explanations still fit. An unresolved case is not a visitor. No picture on this page is a sensor frame.
A field guide to these recordings
Separate what a witness or an instrument registered from the size, speed, material, or origin someone infers afterward. A second interview of the same person is not a second witness. Aircraft, balloons, drones, weather, camera geometry, and sensor artefacts come before a stranger. These eight files are not merged because a silhouette looks familiar.
The Department of Defense, on 27 April 2020, said three circulated Navy videos were genuine Navy recordings. It did not say what the objects were. AARO, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, has since published resolutions for some later clips. Where that office has a conclusion, it is named as theirs.
Nimitz Tic Tac, off Southern California
On 14 November 2004, during a training exercise of the USS Nimitz strike group, David Fravor and Alex Dietrich were in separate aircraft. They described a small white, smooth, oblong object over the sea, without obvious wings or exhaust, and an area of disturbed water below it. Other people in the strike group have been associated with the event. They did not all necessarily see the same object at the same moment.
The well-known infrared video, often called FLIR1, belongs to the wider Nimitz episode. It was not recorded by Fravor during that close visual pass. No clear close-range photograph has been publicly authenticated. Estimates of extraordinary speed come chiefly from witness description, not from a public calibrated track. Do not use the or frame as a picture of this object. later uses the same nickname for hybrid capsules said to travel in space, air, and water. The nickname is shared. The speaker is not.
GIMBAL, a rotating infrared image
The clip called is from 2015, in a Navy training area off the Atlantic coast. It shows a bright target whose image appears to rotate. Aircrew audio expresses surprise and refers to other radar contacts. Rotation of the image does not mean the physical object rotated. The public clip does not establish the target’s size, distance, construction, or origin.
Ryan Graves has discussed other encounters in that training area. He was not the operator who recorded this clip. A conventional airborne target, plus an effect of the infrared optics, remains possible. The Department of Defense confirmed the recording. It did not identify a disc.
GoFast, east of Florida
The clip called is from January 2015, east of Florida. An infrared sensor tracks a small dark object against the sea. It seems to sweep quickly across the picture. Motion across an image is not speed over the ground. The aircrew on the recording are not publicly named. The public clip is about 34 seconds and carries useful on-screen geometry. It is not a frame of the .
AARO says it could not obtain the original recording or crew testimony. It concluded with high confidence that the object did not show anomalous speed. The office’s wind-adjusted estimate was about 5 to 92 miles per hour, near 13,000 feet. This is the clearest public example of how parallax changes the story. Tim Gallaudet has testified that a Navy message about the clip known as go fast disappeared from his inbox. That is testimony about a message, not a second measurement of the object.
Transmedium, the Aguadilla clip
A claim says one object passed between air and water. On 26 April 2013, a Customs and Border Protection infrared video over Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, was read by some viewers as an object entering the sea, coming back out, and splitting in two. The aircrew’s names are not public. An interpretation of a video is not the same thing as a witnessed splash.
AARO and partners reconstructed the camera geometry. They concluded with high confidence that the footage shows two airborne objects, not one object splitting, and that neither entered the water. Apparent speed was affected by parallax. Aguadilla is useful because the dramatic reading does not survive the reconstruction. It should not be told as verified travel from air into the sea.
Underwater reports, not one vehicle
These accounts describe unidentified sonar contacts, unusual activity near the surface, or objects said to operate below it. The details do not match one another. No public record supplies a hull, a scale, or a light that could be drawn without inventing them. Tim Gallaudet has argued that maritime reports deserve examination. Advocacy is not a non-human submarine.
Known underwater vehicles, marine animals, acoustic artefacts, and incomplete logs come first. A claim of high speed under water needs released, calibrated data this page does not have, and will not invent. ’s ocean-floor bases are a teaching about where hybrid craft are said to wait. They are not this file.
Cylinders, and cigar-shaped reports
Witnesses sometimes describe a long form without wings, called a or a cigar. The descriptions vary. Perspective and a poor image can make unrelated objects look alike. Civilian witnesses and unnamed military operators are not one crew, and they are not claimed here as having seen the same thing.
AARO lists a 2022 clip under a title that says cigar-shaped or fast and spherical. The office notes that the clip was digitally altered before it was uploaded, and that it lacks a substantiated chain of custody. The title is not an identification. Balloons, aircraft seen at an angle, and sensor artefacts remain possible. No public case shows that every cylinder report shares an origin.
Triangular lights, not one solid body
Some witnesses describe three lights in a . Others infer a solid dark body between the lights. Three points of light are the observation. A rigid craft is a further inference, unless something else documents the body. Reports differ in size, sound, and motion. Names are often not released. Decades of sightings are not one event.
AARO has investigated triangular formations, including footage first flagged as anomalous. Some configurations have ordinary explanations: separate aircraft, or separate lights. The illustrated black triangle of popular art is not a verified photograph of a named night. ’s grown triangles are a teaching about a ship steered by thought. They are not this category of lights.
Spheres, and round-looking targets
A in these reports is a small round target, sometimes called metallic or dark, sometimes luminous. A circle in a frame can be a sphere, a balloon, a distant aircraft seen end-on, or an optical artefact. Different reports are not automatically one technology. Silent hovering and a sudden move have to be judged one case at a time.
Some sphere-like objects appear in official imagery, each with its own limits. AARO assessed a 2024 red spheroid in the Middle East as almost certainly a reflective foil balloon. Other reports remain unresolved because the information is too thin. Ryan Graves has discussed recurring round objects reported by pilots. That is a pattern of reports, not a single craft.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Defense. “Statement on the release of historical Navy videos.” defense.gov, 27 April 2020. Document.
- U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. “Hearing: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency.” House Oversight, 26 July 2023. Document.
- U.S. Department of Defense, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. “AARO, the office for unidentified anomalous phenomena.” www.aaro.mil. Accessed 28 October 2026.
- AARO. “Official UAP imagery.” www.aaro.mil. Accessed 28 October 2026.
- AARO. “GoFast case resolution card and methodology.” www.aaro.mil. Accessed 28 October 2026.
- AARO. “Puerto Rico UAP case resolution, Aguadilla.” www.aaro.mil. Accessed 28 October 2026.
- AARO. “UAP case files.” www.aaro.mil. Accessed 28 October 2026.
- NASA Science. “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), independent study.” science.nasa.gov. Accessed 28 October 2026.
- Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.” ODNI, 25 June 2021. Document.