What happened
On 11 November 2014, a Chilean Navy Airbus Cougar AS532 helicopter was on a daytime coastal patrol west of Santiago when its camera technician spotted an object flying over the ocean to the left. Both crewmen said they saw it with the naked eye and estimated it was 35 to 40 miles away, moving west-north-west at about their own speed and altitude. The technician filmed it for nearly ten minutes on the helicopter's Wescam MX-15 infrared camera. On screen it looked like two joined hot spots, and twice it seemed to release a long trail that hung in the air. Santiago's civil aviation authority, the DGAC, said no traffic was authorised there and nothing appeared on its radar, and radio calls went unanswered. The Navy passed the footage to CEFAA, Chile's government committee for anomalous aerial phenomena, which studied it for two years. In January 2017 author Leslie Kean published the video and CEFAA's verdict that it was unexplained.
The official explanation
Within days of the release, volunteers on Mick West's Metabunk forum used the camera's on-screen time, position and pointing data to show that Iberia flight IB6830, an Airbus A340 climbing out of Santiago, sat exactly where the 'UAP' appeared throughout the video. They argue the twin hot spots are the A340's paired engines seen from behind and the trails are ordinary contrails switching on and off in patchy air. Skeptoid's Brian Dunning also says the crew underestimated the distance and so the ground radar search looked in the wrong place.
The anomalous case
This was an official investigation by a government body attached to Chile's civil aviation authority. CEFAA reports that the object was seen with the naked eye by two trained crew, was not detected by ground radar, did not respond to radio calls, and was in airspace where the DGAC said no traffic was authorised. According to CEFAA's statement quoted by Kean, the great majority of committee members agreed to classify it as a UAP, and the committee ruled out a military or civilian aircraft and the dumping of waste water. CEFAA also reported that meteorologists judged the altitude and air temperature did not allow condensation trails of that kind, and the technician said the plume looked very hot on infrared. Proponents argue that a two-year official study by people with access to all the flight data should not be overturned by a forum thread.
The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.
Sources
- Chilean Government Releases Declassified UFO Video Universe Today
- The Chilean Navy UFO Skeptoid, Brian Dunning
Witness reports elsewhere
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