Explained: Chilean Navy "UFO" video - Aerodynamic Contrails, Flight IB6830

I have seen claims elsewhere that this was restricted airspace but that appears to be a complete fabrication, they certainly offered nothing to back it up.

Skyvector shows no restricted airspace. Indeed the area where the plane was filmed is close to the intersection of several airways (green ellipse shows approximate area where flight was filmed, red is the area where helicopter was flying).

upload_2017-1-12_18-45-20.png
 
Overlaid with the plane tracks
20170112-110707-t2ysm.jpg

You can see from the that the departure is based on the Santo Domingo VOR (DGO/SNO). After takeoff they get on a specific radial towards DGO/SNO, fly that way for a while, and then make a right turn on a departure radial. The first radial is pretty fixed, but the departure radial will vary based on the planned transatlantic route.

Here I've added the radials from DGO/SNO for clarity.
20170112-111245-u3yd2.jpg
 
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Skyvector shows no restricted airspace. Indeed the area where the plane was filmed is close to the intersection of several airways (green ellipse shows approximate area where flight was filmed, red is the area where helicopter was flying).

upload_2017-1-12_18-45-20.png

Ah. Good work.

Were there any TFRs or NOTAMs that day (or the Chilean equivalent) near SCL since the military was out flying a helicopter (or maybe more?)

Also, I am not familiar with the airspace markings on the skyvector map within the areas marked "SCR" and "SCD." On U.S. charts, the blue boxes with the hashmarks inside them are actually restricted, but that doesn't mean you can't fly through them, you just have to check with ATC in flight or flight planning beforehand to make sure they are not active when you will be transitioning through them. They are generally not in the arrival or departure paths of major airports, although they can exist along airways.
 
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Leslie Kean admits it was IB6830, but not without some commentary, seemingly critical of Metabunk (which she does not mention).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...deo-is-it-a-plane_us_587e7277e4b06a0baf6490ef
Since this widely distributed story broke, people using social media and blogs have taken it upon themselves to solve this case in a matter of days, and with minimal information. These platforms have presented arguments without properly developing them, and in some cases people with prior agendas have made derogatory, sometimes inaccurate statements that do not facilitate cooperative relationships between CEFAA and those seriously interested in the case.
...
So from here on out, I hope that those who wish to contribute to the further understanding of this case will present their findings in papers that can be studied properly, rather than in quick, superficial examinations on blogs or by issuing uninformed and disrespectful opinions on social media. We all have to step back for a while, because proper investigations take a long time.
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We solved the case in a matter of days and with minimal information, and she thinks that is a bad thing?
 
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Video describing what's going in with reference to the GPS tracks.
Actually, I expected a video explaining why the elevation and heading of IB6830, as seen from the moving helicopter, did not change significantly through the entire video. The camera was shown to be offset, but otherwise it probably was stabilised and a very narrow range of variations for both elevation and heading of the tracked "object" was real.
 
Actually, I expected a video explaining why the elevation and heading of IB6830, as seen from the moving helicopter, did not change significantly through the entire video. The camera was shown to be offset, but otherwise it probably was stabilised and a very narrow range of variations for both elevation and heading of the tracked "object" was real.
20170118-095257-9v1dn.jpg

The thin white lines here connect the chopper and the plane at equal times, as you can see the heading angle between them does not change much.

The altitude of the plane varies from ~5000m to 9000m, while the distance varies from 70km to 170km, the chopper is about 1400m, we can draw a diagram to see the angles
20170118-100702-xe8ur.jpg

As you can see there is very little change from the start (2.93°) to the end (1.94). Basically it should vary from about 3° to about 2° (appearing to be descending faster at the start)
 
20170118-095257-9v1dn.jpg

The thin white lines here connect the chopper and the plane at equal times, as you can see the heading angle between them does not change much.

The altitude of the plane varies from ~5000m to 9000m, while the distance varies from 70km to 170km, the chopper is about 1400m, we can draw a diagram to see the angles
20170118-100702-xe8ur.jpg

As you can see there is very little change from the start (2.93°) to the end (1.94). Basically it should vary from about 3° to about 2° (appearing to be descending faster at the start)
I can see this and, actually, have done this kind of analysis myself using your KMZ tracks. I was thinking about a video, in which a camera view in motion is recreated on Google Earth. Something like the 3D button in FR24.
 
I can see this and, actually, have done this kind of analysis myself using your KMZ tracks. I was thinking about a video, in which a camera view in motion is recreated on Google Earth. Something like the 3D button in FR24.

Yeah, I kind of ran out steam yesterday. However this is something I'd like to experiment with in GE. It's unfortunate they removed the scripting ability a few years ago.
 
People on this site are making out the Chile Military and the very experienced pilots of the helicopter are complete imbeciles. These people have probably seen literally hundreds and thousands of planes landing, flying, whatever in all weather and most definitely can tell the difference between a plane and a UFO. They are by no means the only pilots or military that have seen UFOs!

http://www.collective-evolution.com...pens-when-a-ufo-is-tracked-on-military-radar/
 
People on this site are making out the Chile Military and the very experienced pilots of the helicopter are complete imbeciles. These people have probably seen literally hundreds and thousands of planes landing, flying, whatever in all weather and most definitely can tell the difference between a plane and a UFO. They are by no means the only pilots or military that have seen UFOs!

http://www.collective-evolution.com...pens-when-a-ufo-is-tracked-on-military-radar/
How experienced are they? What are their names? What is their record? We don't know. I have yet to find any article written about this that does not link back to the Huffington post article. The quote from General Ricardo Bermudez says the Captain had many years flying experience but doesn;t say that about the technician who is "testing the camera". This suggests the camera operator at least is less experienced, at least with the camera. Earlier in this thread it is pointed out by someone familiar with the system that the camera is still aligning while they are taking the video, someone more experienced with the camera would have aligned it much earlier in the flight.

The CEFAA does NOT list sightings they had explanations for, only those they haven't solved.
It is interesting to me that if you go to the CEFAA website now you will notice that , although this 2014 case was on their front page a week or 2 ago, it now no longer appears on their website at all.

This MIGHT mean they accept the explanation offered here and consider this case solved.
 
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People on this site are making out the Chile Military and the very experienced pilots of the helicopter are complete imbeciles. These people have probably seen literally hundreds and thousands of planes landing, flying, whatever in all weather and most definitely can tell the difference between a plane and a UFO. They are by no means the only pilots or military that have seen UFOs!

http://www.collective-evolution.com...pens-when-a-ufo-is-tracked-on-military-radar/
They had only taken delivery of those camera systems on those helicopters earlier that year. And this was quite possibly one of their first flights. The use of a zoomable IR camera is not at all related to years of flight experience. Its a totally different skill set, and this was probably the first time they were looking at distance objects with an IR imager, and didnt have the experience to know if that was normal or not.
I also dont blame the pilots for this media spectacle that has arisen. They passed it up the chain, who passed it on to some 'experts' to analyse the footage. They obviously did a woeful job of it, given the results that amateurs have accomplished here. They couldnt even get the make of camera correct for the analysis(FLIR vs Wescam) and so all of their FOV calculations were wrong, and they probably didnt take into account the type of spatial processing done to the raw IR image that changes the fundamental shape of what you're looking at.

There is no mystery here. Its solved.
 
There's some coverage of this case in the "SUNlite" magazine. Gets a bit into the politics and personalities involved, which I'm not particularly interested in stoking, but it's a fairly good overview from the perspective of an UFOology watcher.
http://www.astronomyufo.com/UFO/SUNlite9_2.pdf
Mick West is the moderator for the Metabunk forum and his group had an interest in this video . They apparently felt the same way I did and thought it looked like an aircraft with a contrail. Like the Roswell slides, their discussion of the case was an excellent example of collaboration between various individuals, who worked together to achieve the common goal of finding the source of the object.
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An article I wrote about this for Skeptical Briefs wherein I tell the story of this thread, with some general thoughts about this type of thing.
http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/curated_crowdsourcing_in_ufo_investigations

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By January 11, after some detailed frame-by frame analysis of the movement of the object, we were able to conclude with a very high degree of confidence that the object was flight IB6830, departing from Santiago airport and leaving two segments of aerodynamic contrails as it climbed. So the event was solved in five days.

It was challenging to communicate this to the UFO community; they had been told that countless experts in every field had verified that they could not figure out what this was after two years of study. So how could a few people on the Internet possibly figure it out in five days?

The answer, I feel, lies with a fundamental problem with panels of experts, namely that you can’t be an expert in the unknown. The list of scientists and experts from the CEFAA website is indeed impressive. There are all kinds of different disciplines there, and they would certainly be able to identify the majority of things we can see in the sky. But in this one case, the needed expertise was simply too specialized to be included in a general panel.
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Hi there

I had previously seen no explanation for the footage and was impressed by the presumed credibility of the personel recording the footage and by the failure of the gov agency to explain it, I considered it highly anomalous, but the thread debunked it for me.

But in retrospect there is one part of the debunk I missed or didn't understand: If either of the planes is a reasonable fit for much of the footage, isn't it reasonable to expect both to be on the footage for at least a few frames, and oughtn't they resemble eachother if so? I don't recall seeing anything remotely resembling the 'ufo' at any point in the footage.

I admit I didn't read every word in the thread and I am sorry if this is addressed elsewhere.

Was just hoping someone more involved in the thread could (order+ = effort+) 1) give me something to CTRL+F for in each page 2) link directly to the post that addresses the question 3) explain how only one might appear while both might fit.

Thanks
 
But in retrospect there is one part of the debunk I missed or didn't understand: If either of the planes is a reasonable fit for much of the footage, isn't it reasonable to expect both to be on the footage for at least a few frames, and oughtn't they resemble eachother if so? I don't recall seeing anything remotely resembling the 'ufo' at any point in the footage.

The field of view of the camera is too narrow to ever see them both at the same time. That's essentially how we eliminated the other plane - with increased accuracy from new information it because apparent that the other plane was not in the shot.
 
Hi everyone,

We are pretty lucky that the target was not a military aircraft since they don't show up on planefinder.

Here is what Mark Daniels (CEO of Pinkfroot, the UK company behind the app) said about military traffic:

Capture d’écran 2017-06-12 à 23.47.29.png

I know there are other ways to find out where some military aircrafts are in real time when their mode-s transponder is on and displays their position (which is not always the case) but I don't know (yet) if we can go back in time like in planefinder.



 
So I noticed Travis Taylor has spoken about this case on Ancient Aliens.
He seems to lean to it being Extra terrestrial in nature.
Thoughts?
The clip is from Season 15, which aired in 2020. The case was solved in 2017.

The analysis presented in the video is terrible, almost entirely nonsense, and demonstrates a failure to fully grasp what is going on, and the various physical principles involved.

I started a Twitter thread outlining the errors, maybe Taylor will respond.

Source: https://twitter.com/MickWest/status/1551250686163046400
 
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Including the full unedited viedeo...
I don't think there's much new there, certainly nothing to change the outcome.

Looking at the video did prompt me to update this graphic to include a frame where motion blur reveals the four engines.
engine flares banked closeup overlay.jpg
 
I don't think there's much new there, certainly nothing to change the outcome.

Looking at the video did prompt me to update this graphic to include a frame where motion blur reveals the four engines.
engine flares banked closeup overlay.jpg
Mick, do we know if the Chilean Navy crew who took the IR video saw the object/trail visually (Mark 1 eyeball) in addition to on the IR system?
 
Mick, do we know if the Chilean Navy crew who took the IR video saw the object/trail visually (Mark 1 eyeball) in addition to on the IR system?
The answer to your question is given in detail by those nine .pdf files available for download on John Greenewald's web site, like Marcelo Neira's Form, to name only one. They're all in the Spanish language though, but anyway even a Google translation suffices to clarify any doubt for that matter.
 
The answer to your question is given in detail by those nine .pdf files available for download on John Greenewald's web site, like Marcelo Neira's Form, to name only one. They're all in the Spanish language though, but anyway even a Google translation suffices to clarify any doubt for that matter.
Can you quote the relevant bit?
 
The release includes the full radar track. Is the aircraft candidate you identified where we expect it to be on the radar relative to the helicopter? That would seal the deal I think.
 
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