Documents / Analysis
This All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) case resolution, dated 20 March 2025, looks at infrared video recorded on April 26, 2013 by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft over Rafael Hernandez Airport near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Using reconstruction and pixel analysis, AARO found with high confidence that the two objects drifted over land at wind speed and never entered the ocean. It concludes with moderate confidence that they were a pair of sky lanterns.
UNCLASSIFIED 2 UNCLASSIFIED video’s diminishing quality over time. Figure 1 reconstructs the aircraft's flight path, sensor line- of-sight to the ground, and position relative to the objects. Figure 1: A reconstruction of the CBP aircraft's flight path is shown in green. Grey lines indicate the sensor's line-of-sight to the ground from the aircraft. The yellow arrow shows the objects’ assessed flight path. Key Findings AARO assesses with high confidence that: • The objects did not exhibit anomalous speeds or other behavior exceeding known state- of-the-art performance characteristics. • The video depicts two objects traveling near each other rather than a single object splitting into two.
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.