Documents / Official release
This is a case resolution report from the Department of Defense's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), dated 20 March 2025. It covers infrared video taken on April 26, 2013 by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft over Rafael Hernandez Airport near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. AARO found with high confidence that the video shows two objects drifting at wind speed over land, not one object splitting or entering the ocean. It assessed with moderate confidence that they were 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. Page determined to be Unclassified Reviewed by Chief of Staff, AARO IAW FY24 NDAA, Section 1841(a)(1)(C) Date: 3/20/2025 010
Official release, from the nara 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.