A sceptic, and the founder of the Metabunk forum. In one case after another, Mick West offered the ordinary explanation. For the Chilean Navy infrared video, published in January 2017, he and forum members matched flight tracking data to the footage and named Iberia flight IB6830. For GIMBAL, he argued the object was infrared glare from a distant jet's engines, with the spin caused by the camera's gimbal mount. He explained GOFAST as parallax. He also judged the Nimitz Tic Tac video consistent with a distant plane, though his analysis dealt with the video, not with what the pilots saw.
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Sceptic who commented on the 2026 release
Metabunk, where the thread proposed film and camera defect explanations
Sceptic who argued for a thrown object on Metabunk
Metabunk founder who produced a stabilised version of the clip
Sceptical analyst (Metabunk) who proposed a distant plane explanation for the video
Metabunk sceptic, proposed ship mast navigation lights
Contrail Science author who proposed the sunlit contrail explanation
Metabunk founder and sceptical analyst
Skeptic on Metabunk who suggested pelicans
Sceptic who started the Metabunk thread proposing radar-reflector balloons
Metabunk founder who led the IB6830 identification
Skeptic investigator (Metabunk); argues GIMBAL is camera glare and GOFAST is parallax
Skeptical analyst who found the object consistent with a large balloon
Metabunk analyst; proposed a balloon explanation
Metabunk analyst who proposed bokeh for the pyramids and balloon, glare or plane for the sphere
Metabunk founder who reviewed footage of the lights
Led the Metabunk analysis proposing a nearby business jet
Sceptic who identified the phantoms as flies (Metabunk, Skeptical Inquirer)
Metabunk analyst who argued for a slow-moving soft target such as a balloon
Analyst who concluded most sightings were aircraft or drones
Analyst who argued some reports matched stars, aircraft or satellites