Documents / Analysis
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) of the U.S. Department of Defense issued this case resolution on 8 May 2023. It covers three infrared videos that theater UAV operators recorded over the Middle East and the Mediterranean Sea in 2022 and 2023, which appeared to show anomalous propulsion wakes. AARO concludes that each apparent wake was a sensor artifact. One object was matched to a military aircraft and another to an Airbus A380 airliner, while the rest were probably prosaic aircraft.
UNCLASSIFIED 2 UNCLASSIFIED (U) For the two UAP reported in Case Two, it is assessed that both objects are most likely aircraft, one military and the other a small but unidentified aircraft. Location data from aircraft in the vicinity were compared and it was determined that one of the UAP matched closely with a track of a military aircraft. (U) Although a similar match of the second object was not possible, it was assessed with medium confidence that it was a small aircraft. This assessment was based on line of sight analysis and comparing it to other known objects. (U) AARO’s intelligence partners have high confidence that they identified the UAP in Case Three as a specific Airbus A380 commercial aircraft based on commercial flight data. (U) Photogrammetry analysis of the object in Case Three was conducted, which resulted in a close size estimate to that of an Airbus A380. (U) Science & Technology Assessment (U) Two of AARO’s S&T Partners also assessed that the “wakes” observed in these three cases were sensor artifacts, but did not identify the objects captured on the sensors. (U) S&T Partner One assessed the trails were camera artifacts resulting from the object rapidly traversing the camera’s field of view. It was noted that other objects in the videos also leave a similar trail. (U) S&T Partner Two conducted a detailed analysis of the full-motion video and the IR sensor, reaching the same high confidence conclusion that the wakes were sensor artifacts. (U) Figure 1: “Atmospheric Wakes” Case Two
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Analysis, from the aaro collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 2 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.