Documents / Official release
This All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) case resolution from the U.S. Department of Defense is dated February 2025. It covers the "Go Fast" FLIR video, which a U.S. Navy F/A-18F recorded off Florida in January 2015. AARO found the object was at about 13,000 feet and moving between 5 and 92 mph once wind is accounted for. It assesses with high confidence that the object showed no anomalous performance and attributes the apparent high speed to motion parallax. A technical appendix explains the calculations.
UNCLASSIFIED 25 UNCLASSIFIED The UAP altitude was found to be ≈3,962 m (13,000 ft) above sea level. There is high confidence in this result as it required only the sensor pointing angles and range to target. This calculation does not depend on the absolute position of the F/A-18 or wind speed. The speed and heading of the UAP varied based upon assumptions of the path of the F/A-18 relative to the winds at its operating altitude. In the case of the aircraft flying into a nominal headwind, the UAP was determined to be heading within 5° of the wind direction at its altitude and <2 m/s (4.5 mph, 3.9 kts) faster than the wind. At other angles of wind impacting flight of the F/A-18, the UAP was as far as 27.0° from the wind direction and as much as 40 m/s (89 mph, 78 kts) faster (see Table III). With the uncertainty in the wind directions and speed and those mentioned above, these quantitative results should not be used literally, but only to qualitatively evaluate the UAP properties. Considerations of Parallax Effect When the F/A-18 is flying into a headwind as shown in Figure 16, it and the UAP would be moving in opposite directions. In the case with no wind, the UAP is moving in the same direction as the F/A-18 albeit much slower. This situation is illustrated in Figure 20. On the left of Figure 20 shows a side view of the event with no wind and on the right the event considering a headwind. For each, the dashed arrows show the UAP starting and stopping points projected to the surface. The distance between these two points (red arrows) is the perceived distance the UAP traveled due to parallax. The longer the projected distance (red arrow) compared to the actual distance traveled (black arrow) at 3,962 m causes the perceived high speed of the UAP in the video. With a headwind and the UAP going in the opposite direction of the F/A-18, this affect is amplified and the UAP speed appears much faster leading to higher likelihood of misinterpretation.08Page determined to be Unclassified Reviewed by Chief of Staff, AARO IAW FY24 NDAA, Section 1841(a)(1)(C) Date: 2/14/2025
Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 26 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.