Corbell's "U.S. Military Films Huge Disc Hiding In The Clouds" new video 06/17/25

- The lens usually have coat that protects from glare, using Thorium Fluoride or alternative : https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1920251/L3-Communications-Mx-15i.html?page=97#manual
The need for an anti-reflective coating confirms that lens flare is a known issue. Many optical lenses have anti-reflective coatings but still have lens flare.
Those platfrom are tested in anechoic chamber to counter any artifact and ensuring MIL-STD 810/461/704 qualification
Anechoic chambers are for testing sound or RF interference. It would have nothing to do with an internal reflection. None of the qualification you listed specify internal reflections.

- The systems have a real time algorithm to track those objects, ELAP image processing : i think flare would be so common that it would be dismissed while operating
Who says it's common? This seems like something quite rare, which is why it became a UFO.

Taking a look at the in depth camera spec and into account the context of the footage, a flare artifact seems a conveniant explanation but not really realistic ( https://www.l3harris.com/all-capabilities/wescam-mx-15ms-maritime-surveillance-and-reconnaissance )
Why not? An uncommon artifact is just the type of thing that people would not recognize.
 
- The systems have a real time algorithm to track those objects, ELAP image processing : i think flare would be so common that it would be dismissed while operating
Is there any reason to believe it was NOT dismissed while operating? It is, after all, barely noticeable until one, at some later date, uses sharpening and other computerized witchery to make it look more interesting and a LOT more noticeable.
 
Is there any reason to believe it was NOT dismissed while operating? It is, after all, barely noticeable until one, at some later date, uses sharpening and other computerized witchery to make it look more interesting and a LOT more noticeable.
This is random military surveillance footage. If it was dismissed at the time of being recorded it would've never reached us in the first place. It's not like Corbell gets to look through military archives looking for random lens flares.
 
Re: Why it's possible for any camera to produce ghost images.

I'm right on the edge of my competence to talk about such things. Also have to say that I've picked up knowledge over the years about visible light cameras, but little about IR cameras... but here it goes:

-Anti-glare coatings aren't perfect. You run into a fundamental problem with physics. What is an anti-glare coating? It's a thin coating of material with a specific thickness and a specific refractive index. Some light waves reflect off the top of the coating. Some go through and reflect off the interface between the coating and the glass beneath.

If everything goes right, these two reflections interfere destructively. But If the angle of incidence is too steep, the light path through the coating and then back out the coating is longer, than it should be, and that destructive interference doesn't happen. Light coming in at a shallow angle can cause internal reflections and ghost images.

-In the case of "sensor reflections": The cover glass and filter layers above the sensor do often have anti-reflective coatings to reduce internal reflections and flare. I tentatively think that angle is also important in "sensor reflections" and maybe that's why sensor reflections tend to only occur in a limited area of the frame.

-Anti-glare coatings cannot prevent internal reflections from the inner surfaces of lens elements. What do I mean by inner surface and internal reflection? It's much the same situation as in this illustration about rainbows.

download (3).jpg


At this point it's important to think about something we take for granted... what causes a specular reflection in the first place? What's the physics of the thing? It has to do with Fresnel reflection.

Here's where I'm really stretching my competence to the limit, but this is how I understand Fresnel reflection.

Light hits the boundary between the air and the glass of the lens. Some of the light reflects and some of it goes on through, and is refracted. The exact proportions of reflected vs transmitted light depend on the angle of the light and the type of glass.

When an electromagnetic wave hits a boundary where the speed of light changes (like from air to glass), part of the wave can't "match" cleanly across the boundary. The mismatch causes some of the energy to bounce back.

Different materials have different refractive indices, which affects how fast light travels in them. In air, light moves faster than it does in glass. That's what refractive index is all about.

Refractive index n = c / v, where c is the speed of light in vacuum and v is the speed in the material. It also affects the phase and wavelength, not just speed. (I got that part straight off the Internet.)

When the wave hits the boundary between glass and air, it changes speed (and direction), and it has to adjust its shape. The incoming wave's oscillation pattern (phase, amplitude, angle) can't completely continue into the new medium and still obey the physics of wave behavior.

(And that's where my understanding stops.) I remember analogies about Slinkys and ropes hitting a surface and waves partially bouncing back.

It's also true in a boundary between different lens elements if they have different refractive indexes.

So the reflection can happen where the light exits the glass and enters air. That's the non-intuitive part. The "inner surface" of the lens is really the boundary where light exits the glass and enters the air; another medium. There's no way to put an anti-glare coating on that. So you can get reflections off that boundary.

The angle at which the light wave hits is also important. I remember analogies about a car with a solid axles going off the edge of the pavement. The tire that hits the dirt slows down while the tire still on the road keeps the same speed. That makes the car slew toward the dirt. If the car goes straight into the dirt, like at the end of a dragstrip, it doesn't slew. If it just edges into the dirt and the angle is really shallow, the car slews a lot.

That's what makes light waves refract. It's also what makes them tend to reflect more. If the angle is really oblique there's more reflection.
 
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-Anti-glare coatings aren't perfect.
You have to consider more than just the outer glass coating.

The internal lenses are held on frames, and these lenses move to give the zoom and focus. In ideal conditions, light coming straight in will not reflect off any of the frames to add artifacts to the final image.
However, if the external light isnt coming straight in, but coming in at an angle, it can hit a frame and reflect off at random angles. There is lots to bounce off within the camera behind the outermost glass coating.
That said, this looks very precise and short lived to be the sun. If it was a one-off reflection of the sun off the airframe, and briefly entering the camera window at an odd angle, that would make more sense than its actually the sun coming into view.

I also wouldnt rule out it being debris inside the camera. A speck, of any shape, will get amplified to be round on the final focal plane. So that could be dust be stirred up by the internal fans and zipping across the field of view.

You cant see what the Spatial filter settings are on the video - for whatever reason, someone filmed a monitor screen, rather than got the footage raw as it was recorded. It looks like the overlay was selectively dithered - the north arrow is only half faded, but all the top 2 rows of text is all gone, except for the "IR". It is possible to make that happen during an original recording, but ist very unlikely it would be operated that way, and this looks to have been done on this copy. There is no logical reason to do that - the aircract and target locations were not dithered.
But, if Spatial filtering is on that can also add odd edges to small objects.

So, overall, there are explanations for this being an internal artifact, rather than it being a physical object observed in the clouds.
 
1. This is not a thermal infrared (IR) image. This type of camera does not detect the heat emitted by objects. It captures infrared light reflected off surfaces, much like the way a garden variety visible-light camera works.

If you are referring to the camera that took this footage, that is incorrect.
Its a MWIR (Medium Wave Infra Red). It can detect and show objects in a complete absense of external light - its detecting the heat radiating from them.
The SWIR cameras (Short wave Infrared) use "SW" on the overlay. They are 900nm to 1600nm (Approx) and have limited ability to work in complete darkness, requiring reflected light to give a decent image, like 'regular' cameras.
 
Sorry for not expressing myself clearly, let me clarifiy.

You're right Mike when stating those MIL-STD do not mention internal reflection. However, there is indeed a MIL-STD relative to optical spec :


Source: https://fr.scribd.com/document/49129865/MIL-F-18870E
see 3.4.8 about stray light

Then, taking a look at those two document : https://suppliers.bcs.l3harris.com/docs/general/general-terms-conditions/cc008 )
https://www.l3harris.com/sites/default/files/2022-12/G6013-00-29-rev-AU-2.pdf

L3 maintain quality control according to the AS9100 certification, MX-15 included, where product are tested and conform to dod requirements for aerospace under G6013-00-29 rules for delivery ( you can read about the quality control requirement and such here : https://as9100store.com/as9100d-requirements/operation/ )

Moreover, let's take a look at this jobs offer at L3 for Lead Quality Engineer - Optics

Screenshot 2025-07-02 at 16.41.04.png


More specifically at this essential function stated as part of the work which is literally the control of " optical contamination "

Screenshot 2025-07-02 at 16.39.01.png


You can also look at Andover, which has the same certification, it specifies that the optics are intensively tested, doing " absolute specular reflection measurements at multiple angles" using spectrography ( https://andovercorp.com/capabilities/metrology-service/ )

The anti-reflection coating, as you mentionned, show that lens flare is a known issue and is one way of correcting this problem, absorbing more then 90% of light artifact, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925346724015453 and https://www.materion.com/en/about-m...materials/ir-coating-designs-and-applications for precise data

About the ELAP processing, for which there seems to have a miscomprehension : it is the image processing software that exclude artifact, not a human. It is designed to analyse in real time what's getting recorded and bypassing hotspot and other artifact

Also, the reason the MX-15 combine multiple sensors and wavelength to get pseudo color is to have precise data through cross analyse, not having more opportunity of having lens flare

For those reason, i think we can assess that for such sensitive system and platform that use those camera to detect and track object for weapon use, flare would be easily excluded through all those cumuled ways :

- Anti reflection coating destroying 90% of flares
- Conformity on MX-15 following rigorous AS9100 certification
- Real time image processing suppressing residual hotspot or artifact
- Multispectral fusion to exclude artifact via cross analyzing

Mx-15 being a camera produced by L3 for DOD, the details of test and calibration fall under ITAR and DFARS data protection, but can be ask from buyer, those are archived for audit purpose

Now let's talk about something i have actually knowledge of : the data's difference between Video 1 and 2

As specified before, my compositing and analzye led me to think that video 2 have more data and haze penetration, giving me the impression of a different sensor with better tuned sensibility

Mike, you told me you see nothing preventing video 2 being the same video but zoomed in : according to recording spec mentionned in the thread, the recorded resolution of video 1 ( HD or less depending on sensor recorded ) displayed on the screen prevent it from being the exact same source, if you zoom in you won't have more data because it is a digital zoom, not a optical one

As we known, MX-15 use lot of different sensors

According to those sources, each video streams for those sensors can be send and recorded separately on the ground station, where i think those two video where recorded

https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104470/mq-9-reaper/
https://www.militarysystems-tech.co.../files/supplier_docs/PDS-MX-15-March-2018.pdf

Thus, i tend to believe that :
- Video 1 show the recording of the MWIR sensor
- Video 2 show the recording of an other sensor maybe SWIR or EO

It would mean the same event was recorded by at least 2 different sensor.

Now, if this is a lens flare artifact as proposed :
- How could it exist with all those precautions previously stated ?
- Why is it changing temperature when " entering " clouds ?
- Why the aspect of the flare stay consistent across the record ?

It would also be a considerable flaw that refute previously mentioned certification and pretty big reliability

Know that i'm stating all that in good faith to properly understand this case

Also, please do not accuse or implies anyone of wrong intent, no " computerized witchery " is at works here.

I am currently trying to get in touch with Lead Optics working with Mx-15 and similar systems to have their feedback
 
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I have no relevant knowledge (other than the information in this thread) about the possibility of lens flare or internal reflection in this context.
@DopVamp has looked into the specifications and mechanisms used to reduce lens flare in the MX-15.
It is clear that extensive measures are taken to minimize lens flare, as might be expected for a system whose returned imagery could influence decisions on which lives may depend.

Now, if this is a lens flare artifact as proposed :
- How could it exist with all those precautions previously stated ?
- Anti reflection coating destroying 90% of flares
- Conformity on MX-15 following rigorous AS9100 certification
- Real time image processing suppressing residual hotspot or artifact
- Multispectral fusion to exclude artifact via cross analyzing

The manufacturer claims 90% of flares are negated (I'd guess this means 90% of flares that would occur in the MX-15 if the optics were not appropriately treated; lens flares obviously are not "out there" phenomena external to the system).

This does leave 10%. We don't know how frequently there is potential for this to happen. The manufacturer does not explicitly state that software and/or use of different wavelength input eradicates this 10%.
Perhaps tellingly, the manufacturer does not make a straightforward claim that 100% (or 99%, or 95%...) of flare is negated.

At present, it is hard to rule out the possibility of lens flare in the MX-15, and if it happens, we do not know how frequently.
There are several threads here where reports of sightings of something unusual, or photos/ videos of something that the original witness thought was extraordinary, have been shown to have mundane explanations (albeit sometimes in the context of unusual viewing conditions, rare coincidental factors etc.).

Paradoxically, if "returned" (post-processing) lens flare is very rare from the MX-15, operators might be less familiar with identifying it, and more prone to misinterpreting resultant imagery.
 
S
The manufacturer claims 90% of flares are negated (I'd guess this means 90% of flares that would occur in the MX-15 if the optics were not appropriately treated; lens flares obviously are not "out there" phenomena external to the system).
So this all is entirely consistent with the flare hypothesis.

If flares were common, then they would probably have been recognized.

Unfamiliar things are more likely to create UFO reports than familiar things.

Paradoxically, if "returned" (post-processing) lens flare is very rare from the MX-15, operators might be less familiar with identifying it, and more prone to misinterpreting resultant imagery.
Exactly.
 
There is a miscomprehension about how anti-reflection coating work.

It's not " 90% of flare are destroyed, leaving 10% possible " it's rather " more than 90% of every artifact are dealt with by the coating for every surface hitted, absorbing it " using destructive interference

Some data i already provided in previous document :

"For the combination ZnS/Fluoride, the index ratio at 10 µm wavelength is ~1.6… broadband anti-reflection coatings covering the visible range… with maximal reflectivities of less than 0.5 % are commonly achievable. Reflection in narrower wavelength bands can be as low as 0.1 %."

Using Fresnel Equation to simulate how flare would be deal with, we know mathematically that such intense flare is not probable ( even more with ghost artifact, multiple bounce induce more absorbtion, thus less signal to the sensor )

Moreover, rarity doesn't equal to ignorance or unfamiliarity of such artefact.

As mentioned in the MX-15 operator training, operators are trained to " understand advanced optics and
effects that may impact their missions and operations "
https://www.l3harris.com/sites/defa...arris_WESCAM-Training-Brochure-April-2020.pdf

Also, following AS9100 certification, L3 has an obligation to follow CAPA procedures : "nonconformities… be analyzed to determine root cause(s) and corrective actions… and the effectiveness of those actions be reviewed " https://as9100store.com/as9100d-requirements/improvement/nonconformity-and-corrective-action/

It means that if despite all those prevention some flare would be noticed, it's mandatory that it would be corrected to maintain certification and published through internal bulletin that are classified because of previously mentioned legislation.

Some similar public stuff is available here : https://techpubs.cas.l3harris.com/Product/PubIndex/2 https://techpubs.cas.l3harris.com/Product/PubIndex/1

We can pretty much assess that flares would be noticed quickly and fixed, since it's been years of being in operation before this footage and not the first generation of those camera.

The flare hypothesis stand on two ground :
- Unexperience of operator to such "uncommon" phenomenon
- Technical possiblilty of flare and light artifact

Don't you think we can agree that this postulate is not confirm nor backed up by data and public source i provided, reducing the realistic statistics of this event being a flare ?

Moreover, you're not adressing my previous question pointing current inconsistencies from the footage if it is indeed a flare.

Thus, it's why i'm not convinced and find this explanation " convenient but not realistic "
 
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I think we can agree that this postulate is not confirm nor backed up by data and public source i provided, reducing the realistic statistics of this event being a flare.
Please don't phrase things as if you've reached a consensus when it's just your own thoughts.

Again, nobody is saying this is common. Common things are less likely to be unsolved UFO cases. The question here is if it's possible.
 
Noted, it's rephrased.

As in statistics, things are usually never zero % chances, it is possible, but it's requiring a lot of parameter for this event to be a flare.

I think that as this lens flare seems reproducible, since user in this threads and in your twitter's disscusion as been able to replicate a form of lens flare even in IR, it wouldn't fall in the " uncommon " artifact categories for equipped and trained operators and army corprs.

Using Occam's razor principle, i tend to think that's not a flare, what's speculative about that ? I've sourced my post so please point out what's out of touch here, even in private messages if needed.
 
Also, following AS9100 certification, L3 has an obligation to follow CAPA procedures : "nonconformities… be analyzed to determine root cause(s) and corrective actions… and the effectiveness of those actions be reviewed " https://as9100store.com/as9100d-requirements/improvement/nonconformity-and-corrective-action/

It means that if despite all those prevention some flare would be noticed, it's mandatory that it would be corrected to maintain certification and published through internal bulletin that are classified because of previously mentioned legislation.
You are misunderstanding what a standard such as AS9100 is and to what it applies (it's not a product standard, it's a quality management system standard). Also it seems you don't know what it means for a product to be non-compliant.

I'm sorry for using an argument from authority (I've practiced as a certified ISO9001 auditor), but I cannot write an introductory course to standards and quality management here on the spot. But believe me, your argument above is not even wrong.
 
it wouldn't fall in the " uncommon " artifact categories for equipped and trained operators and army corprs.
unfortunately, we see "common" things reported as UAP on s regular basis.

I suspect the background is that the report goes up the chain and someone recognizes it, but then that doesn't filter down to the operator, who thinks there's a coverup and leaks it.
 
You are misunderstanding what a standard such as AS9100 is and to what it applies (it's not a product standard, it's a quality management system standard). Also it seems you don't know what it means for a product to be non-compliant.

I'm sorry for using an argument from authority (I've practiced as a certified ISO9001 auditor), but I cannot write an introductory course to standards and quality management here on the spot. But believe me, your argument above is not even wrong.
I don't mind being wrong nor having experienced's point of view leading to a better understanding

Without writing a course, could'nt you explain what i'm not understanding on those certification ?

I'd tend to think that IR turret having " optical contamination " would be a problem for maintaining such requirement, am i wrong ?
 
unfortunately, we see "common" things reported as UAP on s regular basis.

I suspect the background is that the report goes up the chain and someone recognizes it, but then that doesn't filter down to the operator, who thinks there's a coverup and leaks it.
I'm aware of that and agree with you

However, the scenario your explaining seems speculative to me ( not an ad hominem attack ), do you have some exemple of such case ?
 
Without writing a course, could'nt you explain what i'm not understanding on those certification ?
AS9100 describes processes meant to ensure that a certain standard of quality can be guaranteed. However, that standard can be a shitty standard. If a company produces cans of tomatoes that explode when you leave them on the shelf for 12 months, ISO9001 compliance would suggest that they won't suddenly produce cans that explode after 6 months.

If an ISO9001 company produces optical equipment that exhibits flares under certain circumstances, quality management does not aim to improve that. It aims for the level of flare suppression to not get worse.
 
This is random military surveillance footage. If it was dismissed at the time of being recorded it would've never reached us in the first place. It's not like Corbell gets to look through military archives looking for random lens flares.
Sorry not to have responded earlier, I missed your reply.

I disagree that something dismissed (or just missed) at the time could not ever reach us (or the world at large) as a UAP/UFO report: the history of UFO reports is brimming with "I didn't see anything at the time but when I got my film developed there was this UFO!" And while I do not know to what extent Mr. Corbell has access to old military footage to look for UFOs, it would seem very likely that SOMEBODY has access to such footage (otherwise why preserve it?) and the possibility of one such person either looking for UAP while doing so, or looking at footage for other reasons but being a UAP-interested, noticing the difficult-to-notice smudge in this footage, whatever its cause was, and passing it along to others. The chances of that happening to any particular piece of saved video may be fairly remote-- but there are a lot of pieces of video available, the chances of it happening to one or two fo them from time to time seem at least non-zero!

What I was trying to understand in my post #122 was whether we have any actual evidence it was seen at the time of being recorded -- with Go Fast, for example, we have what certainly seems to be the excited chatter of the aircraft crew as they watched the target seemingly zip along. Unless I missed it, we do not have such supporting evidence or a report indicating it was indeed seen at the time. That of course does not mean it absolutely was NOT seen or noticed "live" while video recording was in process, however I'd suggest it is not safe to assume that it WAS seen live, given how unimpressive and subtle it is before being enhanced to make it look better, and if it was seen it is probably not safe to assume that it was definitely believed to be something extraordinary and not recognized as something prosaic at the time.

I'd add: even if seen at the time and believed to be something extraordinary at the time, it still might be something normal, even common. Mundane phenomena generate extraordinary reports pretty routinely, even from intelligent people who can be styled "trained observers." But that goes beyond the question under discussion in #122.
 
I don't mind being wrong nor having experienced's point of view leading to a better understanding

Without writing a course, could'nt you explain what i'm not understanding on those certification ?
Eh, it's not easy because it's a long chain of topics. Just very briefly.
  • AS9100 is not applicable to products at all. It applies to the organization (the 'factory' which builds the product) and is a set of general requirements such as (simplifying to the extreme): authority must be well defined, contracts must be signed only when you're reasonably sure you can fulfill them, purchase orders must specify exactly what you want to buy, measuring instruments must be kept calibrated etc. Among them, and very important: non-conformities must be analyzed to identify the root causes and remove them. A non-conformity is not specifically a problem with a product (that's more properly a non-compliance) and is not any random negative event. Ie. if a product does not pass a test that's a non compliance, and it will be solved by repairing the product. This happens all the times: no production process can be 100% perfect. But if it happens that a significant number of products start to fail the same test, then this point to a systematic problem, and this is a non-conformity which will be recorded and analyzed. The same goes, for instance, for purchases: the materials we need arrived late because it happened the truck broke, or they tend to arrive late because trucks always break? And even so, don't think every non-conformity actually leads to a decisive corrective action. Often times the root causes just cannot be estabilished (the world is a horribly complicated thing). Other times the root causes are estabilished, but removing them costs so much that living with the problem is preferable. During an audit, the auditors will check the documentation and give their judgement, and many times agree with the decision of the organization. It's not their job at all to make a technical analysis of what happened to the products (or to the trucks), and they are most often not even really qualified to do that.
  • The compliance of a product is determined by its specifications, which are contractually defined. These specifications may (and usually do) refer to applicable product standards (*) and may (and usually do) prescribe acceptability tests. Here is where the responsibility of the manufacturer ends: if the product complies to the specifications and passes the tests then it's contractually okay. In the case of flares I have no idea of the relevant product standards, nor of the contractual specifications. But surely they do not say "the equipment will exhibit no flares under any condition" because that's physically impossible to achieve. I'd bet the specification rather says something like "all the optical elements will be coated with an anti-reflective coating made of XXXX and a thickness between YY an ZZ micrometers etc. etc.", possibly with a test procedure such as "the equipment will exhibit no flares when imaging a GG degrees light source of wavelength WWW intensity IIII and up to OOOO degrees off-axis..". Once the product does this, eveything is okay (and of course if it's broken, or dirty, it will be repaired or cleaned). If the equipment flares under a light source of intensity 1.1 * IIII, or OOOO+5 degrees off-axis, it worries no one (neither the manufacturer, nor the client).

(*) And the organization itself may be required to comply to a quality system management standard (and other generic standards, ie. environmental), but this has nothing to do with the product istelf.


I'd tend to think that IR turret having " optical contamination " would be a problem for maintaining such requirement, am i wrong ?
See above: it might, but not necessarily, and more often it will not. Is the optical contamination (I take it to mean 'dirt') compliant with the specifications? If yes, then no problem (there cannot be 'zero' contamination in the real world). Was it due to a faulty seal at 50% of the expected life of the seal? Well let's check all the seals we have in store just for safety, but no worries, lets' clean the unit, change the seal and ship it back. Did it happen in 5% of the products when the expected seal life was yet at 50%? Well, this would be worrisome, better open a corrective action and investigate on this. Was the seal faulty because the unit was improperly handled? Worrisome, but it has nothing to do with the manufacturer. And so on and so... the world is terribly complicated, expecially when engineering is involved.

And then, to reiterate, the requirement you speak of does not apply to the product, but to the organization. Did they decide after a serious analysis that it's better to rework and clean one camera every 1000 at the cost of 10000$/year rather than building a new clean assembly line at the cost of 50M$? They have wholly respected the AS9000 requirement.
 
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Thank's a lot for your detailled reponse

That's why i mentioned MIL-STD 810/461/704 and MIL-F-18870E : it seems to be the standards spec for DOD produced product, which is then assured by the quality control you've described, it specifies high level of specs, including stray light

Those specs are described in contract and protected by NDA and other classification mentionned in my previous post so no public sources unfortunately

So, if stray light and artifact are contractually dealt with and the chain of quality control is enough to maintain such requirement, that we can trace what is established to counter those artifact ( as in anti reflection coating and processing algorithm ), that operators are trained specifically for interpreting light artifact and optical phenomenon, why would i be wrong in tending to believe there's more chances of this not being a flare ?

Note that this is sourced by previous document and not speculation

Why can't this be a prosaic object, drone or baloon ?
 
Why can't this be a prosaic object, drone or baloon ?
See the attached video here:
View attachment 81730

This has the cloud layer stabilized, so it's just rotation. I then added the Video2 layer back in (with a dot tracking the object).

Look at the red track in the lower right. That's the track of a cloud. It matched the motion of the object. I think this is a strong clue that what we are seeing is an artifact that depends on the position and orientation of the camera.

(Note the track isn't perfect, but it works during the "video2" portion.
The rotation of the background (and hence the camera, in this configuration with no derotation) traces out a back-and-forth path that seems to perfectly mirror the on-screen motion of the object. I can't see how that would happen if it's not an in-camera artifact
 
Thank's a lot for your detailled reponse

That's why i mentioned MIL-STD 810/461/704

MIL-STD 810 is a standard for simulating environmental conditions during tests, MIL-STD 461 is for electromagnetic interference/compatibility (another standard made mostly of test specifications), MIL-STD 704 defines the parameters which a power supply for aircraft must have. None of them is specific for optical system, and they are very basic and generic standards, with no details about any specific product.


and MIL-F-18870E : it seems to be the standards spec for DOD produced product, which is then assured by the quality control you've described, it specifies high level of specs, including stray light
When examining a standard the very first thing to check is its 'scope'. One really has to buy the standard and read it before being sure, but I found this description:
MIL-F-18870E, MILITARY SPECIFICATION: FIRE CONTROL EQUIPMENT, NAVAL SHIP AND SHORE, GENERAL SPECIFICATION (25 APR 1975)., This specification covers the Common requirements for the procurement of fire control equipment to be used in Naval shipboard weapon systems. Such equipment may be a complete system or a part of such a system.
http://everyspec.com/MIL-SPECS/MIL-SPECS-MIL-F/MIL-F-18870E_9177/

From which I understand it's another fairly generic standard which applies to any kind of fire control equipment and its subsystems (from radars to laser telemeters to cameras to wind sensors to the computers which make the calculations), and so it doesn't go into the details of any of them. I'd even say it does not apply to the MX-15 camera: is it part of a fire control system or it's just a surveillance camera? Also, the system must be on a naval ship or on shore for the standard to apply, so I'd bet 9:1 it does not apply to an airborne camera.

This does not mean there are no standards specific to airborne IR cameras, there might well be, I don't know. But the caveat always apply: until you have read and understood the standard in every detail (that is to say: you're an expert) it's better not make judgements because it's very easy to go completely off-mark. And getting the wrong standard is one of the worst errors to make. And believe me, standards are a mess: there are tons of them and just understanding which standard applies to a specific product is a job for a senior engineer.


Those specs are described in contract and protected by NDA and other classification mentionned in my previous post so no public sources unfortunately

So, if stray light and artifact are contractually dealt with and the chain of quality control is enough to maintain such requirement, that we can trace what is established to counter those artifact ( as in anti reflection coating and processing algorithm ), that operators are trained specifically for interpreting light artifact and optical phenomenon, why would i be wrong in tending to believe there's more chances of this not being a flare ?
Well, you can surely say that. But it's just one piece of evidence, and it's weak because no amount of precautions and quality control and training will succeed in eliminating flares (especially if the Sun is involved) and misinterpretations of flares.


Note that this is sourced by previous document and not speculation

Why can't this be a prosaic object, drone or baloon ?
I guess it could be, I'm not in the position to confirm or deny those possibilities (nor the flare): I don't know enough about IR cameras (and about how flares, drones, and baloons, and drops, and dirt, and... appear in IR cameras in different conditions) to be able to discriminate among them. Other people here has better knowledge, so I regard their opinions. But I'm rather sure I would not base my theory on the existence of standards and quality management systems: they are both great things and they do, when properly used, an excellent job, but they are not a magic wand.
 
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As in statistics, things are usually never zero % chances, it is possible, but it's requiring a lot of parameter for this event to be a flare.

...

Using Occam's razor principle, i tend to think that's not a flare
That's not how Occam's razor works, even if "a lot of parameters" have to line up. A flare requires just the lens (which we know exists) and the Sun (which we know exists). Positing an unknown external object such as a balloon/drone/whatever adds a third entity to this situation. If the observation can be explained without adding such an entity, Occam's razor actually prefers the flare explanation.
 
The anti-reflection coating, as you mentionned, show that lens flare is a known issue and is one way of correcting this problem, absorbing more then 90% of light artifact, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925346724015453 and https://www.materion.com/en/about-m...materials/ir-coating-designs-and-applications for precise data

Um, having (belatedly) read the two links above, they don't say that the optics of the MX-15 absorb "more than 90% of light artefact", or that MX-15 components have
- Anti reflection coating destroying 90% of flares

(1) The Materion (technology manufacturing company) webpage IR Coating Designs and Applications compares a number of different materials used to coat IR optics.
There is one use of "90%",
Capture.JPG

-I won't pretend to understand the article at any technical level, but I don't think this table demonstrates that these materials reduce flair by 90% (either by reducing intensity by 90% in all instances or by preventing 90% of flares that would otherwise be visible). There are similar figures, and a more comprehensive table of refractive indices at the Newport Corporation webpage Technical Note: Optical Materials https://www.newport.com/n/optical-materials

(2) The linked-to paper "Design and fabrication of highly efficient antireflective coating in MWIR on germanium using ion-assisted e-beam deposition", Yusuf Dogan, Ilhan Erdogan Ali Altuntepe, 2024, Optical Materials 157 (2), is a research paper from the Sivas University of Science and Technology, Turkey, published November 2024.

External Quote:
To the best of our knowledge, the newly designed Ge/SiO2​ multilayer structure and the results achieved have not been previously documented in the literature, and offer substantial improvements in transmission efficiency and reflectance reduction for Ge-based optical systems.
Its findings cannot be applied to the optics in use on the MX-15, which predate this paper. We do not know if the technique described by the authors can or will be used for any specific application in the near future. The Science Direct link is not the full text of the paper, and I haven't accessed the full text from Elsevier, but again there doesn't appear to be a direct claim of 90% flare reduction.
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unfortunately, we see "common" things reported as UAP on s regular basis.

I suspect the background is that the report goes up the chain and someone recognizes it, but then that doesn't filter down to the operator, who thinks there's a coverup
However, the scenario your explaining seems speculative to me ( not an ad hominem attack ), do you have some exemple of such case ?

There is a roughly analogous scenario to that suggested by Mendel in one of the founding legends of UFOlogy- the Roswell, NM [well, Corona, NM] find of debris by the rancher W.W. Brazel in late June 1947 (Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_incident).

On 4th June, a number of Project Mogul balloons had been launched from Alamogordo Army Air Field; contact with at least one balloon was lost when it was approx. 17 miles from Brazel's ranch.
On June 24 1947, Kenneth Arnold made his famous sighting while flying over Washington state, an event that received wide publicity.
Late that month, Brazel found debris on his ranch.
July 5, Brazel's uncle suggested the wreckage might be from a "flying disc", presumably of the type being discussed by the press.
July 6, Brazel informs a Sherriff in Roswell about his find; the Sherriff contacts Roswell Army Air Field.
Intelligence officer Major Jesse Marcel went with another officer and Brazel back to the ranch to collect the debris. Photo from Wikipedia:
Capture.JPG

The debris must have fitted in whatever vehicle the USAAF officers drove. It was later flown to Fort Worth; an AAF flight engineer who helped load it said it was lightweight and would have fitted in the trunk of a car.
In an edition of The Roswell Daily Record published 9 July, Brazel said
External Quote:
the debris consisted of rubber strips, "...tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks."
(Wikipedia), and this seems consistent with what Jesse Marcel is photographed with.

However, on 8th July Roswell AAF public relations officer Walter Haut had released the statement
External Quote:
The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chavez County.
This, in the context of the reports of sightings in June and early July 1947 understandably caught the media's (and the public's) attention.

Media attention rapidly waned when senior officers, and a meteorological officer, told the press that the debris was from a weather balloon. Jesse Marcel was present.
The debris was from a balloon, but not a weather balloon; it was from a highly classified Project Mogul balloon (almost certainly one of those released 4th June from Alamogordo AAF). Jesse Marcel was never to learn this.

UFOlogist Stanton Friedman interviewed Marcel in 1978;
External Quote:
In the 1978 interview, Marcel stated that the "weather balloon" explanation from the press conference was a cover story, and that he now believed the debris was extraterrestrial.
(Wikipedia).

As described by @Mendel, the reports (and evidence) had
External Quote:
[gone] up the chain and someone recognizes it, but then that doesn't filter down to the operator, who thinks there's a coverup...


The GO FAST "UAP" was filmed by F/A-18 crew using an ATFLIR pod; it was almost certainly a small balloon.
(See this thread, "GO FAST" Footage...)
Even the most highly-trained personnel can experience perceptual error or make misjudgements (and USN aviators are very highly trained).
I think that as this lens flare seems reproducible... it wouldn't fall in the " uncommon " artifact categories for equipped and trained operators...
Party balloons are common, even (it turns out) in Iraq, Syria and maybe Afghanistan. We've all seen party balloons. It seems larger balloons might be used for military purposes (they certainly have been in the past, and there is some evidence that 'militant' groups have tried to use party balloons for various purposes). Military pilots are aware of parallax and other effects that might be misleading. But F/A-18 pilots saw a balloon blown by the wind as something extraordinary.

The Chilean Navy's IR footage of a huge cigar-shaped UFO is covered here, with a self-explanatory title
Explained: Chilean Navy "UFO" video - Aerodynamic Contrails, Flight IB6830

Although not yet a definite solution, it seems likely the USN GIMBAL video results from IR glare from another aircraft; the "object's" apparently rapid part-rotation is certainly due to the ATFLIR tracking head rotating on at least one axis.
Gimbal UFO - A New Analysis, Mick West:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs

-Further discussion here: Explained: The Navy UFO Videos;
The Shape and Size of Glare Around Bright Lights or IR Heat Sources;
Mick vs Marik (rotation glare gimbal);
ATFLIR Technician Jeremy Snow discusses Gimbal, FLIR1, and GoFast.
In that last thread, Jeremy Snow briefly raises the possibility that the pilot might have deployed ATFLIR before calibrating the sensor to the ATFLIR's on-board black body.

How Can Highly Trained Military Pilots Possibly Misinterpret Things They See? might also be of interest.
It has an example of CAS (close air support) pilots tentatively identifying vehicles as a specific type of truck (ZIL-157s) carrying orange rockets, and then attacking friendly tracked armor carrying orange air identification panels, carried precisely to mark them as friendly to CAS.

Even using the most powerful image processing and identification package known- the Mk.1 eyeball and human brain- we make mistakes. The sensors we build are not perfect, and almost by definition high-end military systems are at the edge of attainable performance and are used in challenging environments.
I'm not particularly surprised that we sometimes see apparently anomalous results from military systems, or that highly-trained users might misinterpret them (and as @JMartJr points out, in this case we don't know if the operator saw the "disc", and if so whether they considered it anything unusual).
 
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I'd add: even if seen at the time and believed to be something extraordinary at the time, it still might be something normal, even common. Mundane phenomena generate extraordinary reports pretty routinely, even from intelligent people who can be styled "trained observers." But that goes beyond the question under discussion in #122.
Of course it can be something completely normal. But there must be millions of hours of military footage recorded each year. Which for obvious reasons no one outside military should have access to. Whoever leaked this should therefore likely be military themselves and I have to say I find it rather farfetched that just anyone inside gets to spend their time going through footage looking for lens flares that they can later pass on to Corbell. I rather find it much more likely that this actually generated real discussion before being leaked and reaching him.

But tbf we are both simply guessing at this point what sounds more believable so I'll leave it at that.
 
Re: This chart.

Bottom line: This is not a spec-sheet for the camera in question... or for any camera. The 90% figure has no direct relationship to ghost images produced by the camera in question.
Capture.JPG


This is my interpretation of this text:
IR substrate materials and their properties. Transmission limits are for internal transmittance > 90%.

I think this explains that the spectral range values listed in the "Spectral Range" column are not the absolute maximums for each material. They're the wavelength ranges over which each material transmits at least 90% internally.

The ">90%" part means that only wavelengths where the material lets through at least 90% of the light are included in the listed spectral range. And that only includes "within body" losses. Internal transmittance does not include losses due to surface reflection. The thickness of all material samples is 10 mm.

The "Uncoated Transmittance" column includes losses due to surface reflections on both the front and back surfaces of the material. That's why the numbers in this column can be below 90.

So what does this all mean? In general, the topic seems to be comparing different materials in terms of refractive index, single surface reflectance and internal transmittance of specific wavelengths. There's no analysis of how to use these "substrates." It's just presenting info that can be used to do that analysis.

The substrate material wouldn't be of any use at all if it didn't have a suitable internal transmittance of certain wavelengths. And the 90% figure is germane only to that. There's no direct relationship to how well the anti-glare coating works to reduce ghost images (lens flares) in any camera.
 
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Also note the relationship between refractive index and single surface reflectance. Higher refractive index means higher reflectance at the surface. I don't understand the physics of that in detail. But it must go back to those analogies about Fresnel reflectance.

The refractive index would have a bearing on coating thickness, I'd think. What the thickness should be to promote the destructive interference. The light path would be shorter or longer with a different refractive index.

I don't know if a higher higher reflectance at the surface would be a good thing or not for an anti-glare coating.
 
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Also note the relationship between refractive index and single surface reflectance. Higher refractive index means higher reflectance at the surface. I don't understand the physics of that in detail. But it must go back to those analogies about Fresnel reflectance.

The refractive index would have a bearing on coating thickness, I'd think. What the thickness should be to promote the destructive interference. The light path would be shorter or longer with a different refractive index.

I don't know if a higher higher reflectance at the surface would be a good thing or not for an anti-glare coating.
The coating materials used in the thermal IR are of course different from the ones used in VIS or UV. But as there are many materials that can be used for this purpose, it is not that hard to create a thermal IR coating with a fairly broad range. I am not saying it is cheap though.
Most problems in thermal IR cams/systems are caused by the temperature of certain elements or mechanical parts. All this heat will end up as "stray light" on the sensor. Thus, cooling and other fancy techniques are used to prevent that.
 
For an outlet like CNN, it's a bit embarrassing. I guess it reflects the crisis all news outlets are facing.
Possibly, but complaints of news outlets treating UFO stories as human interest pieces rather than news stories deserving of serious reporting and an effort to get to the bottom of what really happened go back to at LEAST 1980.
External Quote:
Allan Hendry* suggests that the reason normally responsible news organizations report UFO incidents in such an irresponsible manner is because "the press regards UFO sightings nor as news items but as 'human interest' items." I suspect that he is right.
Source: Robert Sheaffer, "The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence" Prometheus Books, 1980. Chapter 14, "UFOs and the Media," p. 145

*Allan Hendry, American astronomer and UFO investigator for CUFOS in the 1970s. Author of "The UFO Handbook," a guide for investigating UFO cases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Hendry
 
but complaints of news outlets treating UFO stories as human interest pieces rather than news stories deserving of serious reporting and an effort to get to the bottom of what really happened go back to at LEAST 1980.
When I was a kid a-many years ago, "the news" on TV was fifteen minutes of Lowell Thomas (on one of the two stations we got) and fifteen minutes of local news, with weather. Period. Now we have station after station who have to fill 24 hours, which means lots of repetition, lots of opinion pieces, and lots of fluff. It's not at all surprising that they all start to sound like sportscasters talking their way through three innings of rain.
 
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