Documents / Analysis
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) of the U.S. Department of Defense issued this case resolution on 14 October 2023 for the "Eglin UAP". On 26 January 2023, a military pilot on the Eglin Air Force Base training range off Florida reported four objects on radar and photographed one object at 16,000 feet. AARO concludes with moderate confidence that the object was very likely a lighter-than-air object such as a commercial lighting balloon. It judges that the radar malfunction was coincidental.
UNCLASSIFIED 3 UNCLASSIFIED • (U) The “blurry air” observation could have been a visual misperception due to environmental conditions and potentially resulted from a tether hanging below the LTA object or motion-induced image blurring. (U) Although the pilot described the object as uniformly gray in the visible spectrum (it appears uniformly black from the viewing angle in the EO image), the magnified infrared image shows the object had a strong contrasting signature in the infrared spectrum. This contrast suggests either a temperature/emissivity difference or a reflectivity difference between its two hemispheres. AARO identified a commercial lighting balloon (see Figure 1C), which is a close visual match to the object in the zoomed-in infrared image (see Figure 1A). Commercial helium balloons such as these are often large and available in many shapes — including ellipses, spheres, and cylinders — and are used for outdoor lighting at special events, construction sites, and movie sets. Although these balloons are available in solid colors, some models have distinct black and white hemispheres. The upper black hemisphere is lined with reflective material to direct the light downward through the white hemisphere. AARO conducted extensive testing using one of these balloons and found it could replicate some aspects of the pilot’s account. • (U) The balloon’s hemispheres have seams resembling the ribbed fabric panels of an umbrella, which an observer could perceive as “paneling.” • (U) These balloons are publicly available to rent or buy. Although the balloons are powered by corded alternating current (AC), during its testing, AARO determined that they can be converted to direct current or AC battery power. (U) Beyond these commercial lighting balloons, the object’s description correlates with any large-form balloon that might be made of two different materials, or the same material of different colors, with distinct infrared reflective or emissive properties. It is also plausible that the sun angle at the time of day of the event, when plotted with the EO/IR sensor’s viewing angle, illuminated the bottom half of the balloon — from the pilot’s perspective — while the top would appear dark, shaded, and cold (See Figure 3). • (U) Due to the angle of the sun and the altitude of the object, a meteorological or Mylar balloon likely would also present in a similar fashion on an EO/IR image. The highly reflective surface of a Mylar balloon in infrared would exaggerate the perceived illumination effect. (U) AARO submitted the case for review to an Intelligence Community (IC) component and a science and technology (S&T) partner; these two partners independently reached high confidence assessments that the object did not exhibit anomalous characteristics or behaviors and, therefore, was an ordinary object. Both partners independently determined that the object very likely was some form of balloon.
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Analysis, from the aaro collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 7 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.