The Eglin AFB "Apollo capsule" UAP over the Gulf of Mexico (2023)

Eglin Air Force Base sits on the Florida Panhandle. Its training airspace stretches out over the Gulf of Mexico. In January 2023 a U.S. Air Force pilot was flying there, on what the Air Force called a test mission. The aircraft type has never been officially released.

January 26, 2023. The pilot's radar locked on four separate objects, later labelled UAP-1 to UAP-4. Three were reported at about 16,000, 17,000 and 18,000 feet. The fourth was lost from radar, with no altitude noted. They appeared to be flying in formation.

The pilot went to look at UAP-1. It was likened to an "Apollo spacecraft" in size and shape, about 12 feet in diameter. Its rounded bottom glowed "orange-reddish," while the top was "a three-dimensional cone shape" of "gunmetal gray segmented panels." Near its base was "blurry air," but "no smoke." It was either stationary or moving very slowly.

Then, within 4,000 feet of the object, the radar malfunctioned. It stayed disabled for the rest of the mission. A circuit breaker had tripped, and maintenance could not conclusively find the cause. The pilot captured an image through the aircraft's sensor, and later drew the object by hand.

July 26, 2023. The House Oversight hearing on UAP heard testimony from David Grusch, David Fravor and Ryan Graves. Rep. Matt Gaetz said he had first been refused access during a visit to Eglin with Reps. Tim Burchett and Anna Paulina Luna, but later saw the image and the radar sequence. Pilots, he said, "saw a sequence of four craft in a clear diamond formation," and one went to check before seeing "a large, floating, what I can only describe as an orb." Gaetz asked for the radar images and the photo, by subpoena if necessary.

March 2024. A FOIA request by Abbas Michael Dharamsey, published by The Black Vault, brought out about 23 pages. They included redacted intelligence reports from AFOSI Detachment 104 at Eglin, marked "NOT FINALLY EVALUATED INTELLIGENCE," along with the pilot's drawing and an unclassified summary. One video was withheld in full. That left a puzzle. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, later said the video recording equipment was inoperable before and during the flight.

April 2024. AARO published its "Case Resolution of Eglin UAP 2." The object was "very likely a lighter-than-air object, such as a large commercial lighting balloon." AARO held this with moderate confidence, citing limited data. It found no anomalous flight behaviour, and the movement matched the wind. Some lighting balloons have black and white hemispheres, which could explain the strong infrared contrast. AARO tested one and found it "could replicate some aspects of the pilot's account." The radar? That same circuit breaker had tripped three times in the prior months.

Not everyone was convinced. Mick West, of Metabunk, favoured a balloon in general. He pointed to the missing airspeeds and the "suspiciously even" altitude spacing. But he called the lighting balloon match "a bit of a stretch." To him it looked like "a white sphere wearing a hat." Marik von Rennenkampff said manufacturers told him "their balloons do not come untethered randomly." The Debrief compared the glowing-bottomed cone to drawings from the Cash-Landrum incident of 1980. One pilot. Four radar returns. A capsule over the Gulf.