AARO GoFast Case Resolution and Methodology

UNCLASSIFIED
5
UNCLASSIFIED
Appendix A: Estimating UAP Location, Speed, and Heading from
“Go Fast” FLIR Video Data
February 2025
Introduction
In 2024, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) estimated possible altitude, speed,
and heading solutions for an unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP), commonly known as
“Go Fast.” The executive summary, general overview, and conclusions are provided in the
AARO “Go Fast” Case resolution [ref 1]. This paper presents a more in-depth data analysis for
those interested in the mathematics and calculations applied to the forward-looking infrared
(FLIR) video footage captured by an AN/ASQ sensor pod onboard the F/A-18 Super Hornet
observing the event in January 2015. AARO manually extracted data from a publicly available
video of the “Go Fast” event as the source material to conduct its analysis.
Video footage collected via military sensors, like the AN/ASQ, are not required to collect Full-
Motion Video (FMV) or other Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) products.
Therefore, it is not intended to support intelligence or other rigorous analysis. Thus, video
footage from these platforms often contains compression artifacts or lacks the necessary
metadata to conduct an exhaustive analysis.
For proper FMV products, standard analysis is done using software packages such as SOCET
GXP [ref 2]. SOCET GXP is a suite of geospatial analytic software tools that utilize satellite and
airborne imagery to measure and detect objects and phenomena. Generally, FMV is used to
track objects on the surface of the earth such as road vehicles, ships, and tanks. In these cases,
an object’s location can be determined since an FMV sensor knows where it is and where it is
pointed and can then calculate the distance to the ground point. In the case of the “Go-Fast”
video, the object is not on the ground and the sensor/aircraft location is not provided in the
metadata.
Despite these limitations, the basic techniques used in FMV analysis can be applied with some
alteration for analyzing UAP cases. AARO reconstructed the F/A-18’s flight path and position
and assessed possible trajectories of the “Go Fast” UAP using the mathematics, standard
methods, and conventions defined in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s (NGA)
Motion Imagery Standards Board’s UAS Datalink Local Set Standards (MISB ST 0601.19 dated
March 02, 2023) [ref 3]. Step-by-step calculations are provided in this paper to estimate the
motion characteristics of the UAP in the “Go Fast” event from the same video accessible by the
public.