Jellyfish UFO from TMZ's 'UFO Revolution'

To my eye, the object in this video LOOKS less elaborate than the original, less complex. IF the same object/incident, it suggests that the structure of what appears to be a balloon is less ornate than it appears in the IR image -- might some swaths of material or areas of pigment on a balloon hold heat differently (or reflect IR differently) and appear streaky/tentacley in IR? I didn't see any hint of that in the test footage shot with my son's IR drone, but perhaps our balloons didn't have the same pigments, or had not been through the appropriate conditions during a flight over the desert!
 
Is this different video of the same event? If so, I'd go more ghost now than alien.
The shape of the thing doesn't seem to match at all, unless it's taken at an entirely different time before some degradation/deflation has occurred. However, as common as bunches of balloons are, I'd think it more likely that it's a completely different one.
 
The shape of the thing doesn't seem to match at all, unless it's taken at an entirely different time before some degradation/deflation has occurred. However, as common as bunches of balloons are, I'd think it more likely that it's a completely different one.
Could be -- even if it were to turn out to be more or less at the same time, it is not unlikely that where one balloon/bunch was released or got away, others did as well. "The party is over, let's cut these loose and watch them fly away!"
 
Could be -- even if it were to turn out to be more or less at the same time, it is not unlikely that where one balloon/bunch was released or got away, others did as well. "The party is over, let's cut these loose and watch them fly away!"
I suspect that similar "strange objects" can be seen over any fairgrounds almost every day.
 
Seems unlikely. Saladin is 30 miles north of the airbase where the Jellyfish was (now labeled Al Taqaddum Airport). The original jellyfish was drifting to the West. Not impossible. But I also don't think it looks the same.

So, it's the Invasion of the Jellyfish Aliens! I'll be on the lookout.
 
I found this interesting:

1742699333053.png

Shafaq News/ Iraq's Nineveh and Saladin provinces announced Thursday a public holiday in celebration of Newroz.

Nineveh Governor Abdul Qadir Al-Dakhil ordered the suspension of work across all government departments and institutions for the day.

Similarly, Saladin declared a holiday for one of its districts to mark the occasion. Essential services and security departments, however, will continue operations.

Newroz, marking the first day of the Kurdish new year, falls on March 9 in the Greek calendar and March 21 in the Western calendar. It is celebrated as a national and cultural holiday, symbolizing renewal and unity, with traditions dating back thousands of years.


1742699448850.png
 
This coincidence may have no bearing on the jellyfish video, but just providing a potential reason why there may be more balloon activity during this time.

This one is older and from Afghanistan but you get the gist (same celebration lots of balloons):

1742700164095.png


Afghan revellers gather in front of the Hazrat-e-Ali shrine in Mazari-i-Sharif for Newroz festivities

Taken from
1742700221217.png
 
This one appears to be deliberately mimicking a human being, something like the 'jetpack man' (balloons?) that appeared a few years ago.
https://gizmodo.com/l-a-s-mystery-jetpack-allegedly-captured-on-video-but-1845955170
r7s2jkhpimt8gf47mufx.jpg

L.A.'s Mystery 'Jetpack' Allegedly Captured on Video, But We Still Have Questions
A pilot in Southern California has captured video of what appears to be a person flying a jetpack, the first visual evidence of an unexplained flying object that seems similar to a reported jetpack sighting near the Los Angeles airport in August. But we still have a lot of questions about what we're seeing in the video and local authorities haven't shared any answers.
The video, captured by a pilot for Sling Pilot Academy and uploaded to YouTube, is from December 21 and was captured at an altitude of roughly 3,000 feet near Palos Verdes, California. The island in the background is Catalina Island, according to Sling Pilot Academy.
An American Airlines pilot first reported a jetpack sighting near LAX in August but all we had was a transcript of the pilot's conversation with air traffic control. This new video provides a look at what may have been the same type of aircraft, or could be something else entirely. We simply don't know enough at this point and the video, as you can see below, is somewhat blurry.
 
AARO statement out on X, saying they have assessed that it is a cluster of a balloons. I hope their forthcoming report on it has details about what they did to reach this conclusion.

External Quote:
In 2017, an infrared sensor onboard a force protection aerostat near Al Taqaddum Air Base captured video of an unidentified object. AARO assesses this was a cluster of partially and fully inflated balloons. AARO used full-motion video and pixel analyses to inform its assessment.

A full case resolution report is forthcoming. Watch the full video here


Source: https://x.com/DoD_AARO/status/1917294137188995106

The 2nd tweet in that thread links to their video hosting site, which contains slightly more text.
External Quote:

In October 2017, an infrared sensor onboard a force protection aerostat near Al Taqaddum Air Base, Iraq, captured 17 minutes of video of an unidentified object.

AARO assesses that the object was a cluster of partially and fully inflated balloons. The object's appearance is consistent with other recorded observations featuring balloon clusters. AARO employed full-motion video analysis and pixel examination techniques to inform its assessment.

AARO assesses that the object did not demonstrate anomalous performance characteristics. AARO used geo-locational data from the aerostat to assess the object's speed and direction of travel.
Source: https://www.dvidshub.net//video/960331/al-taqaddum-object
 
I didn't realize it at first but in the AARO tweet they shared the 17-minute version of the sighting that Cincoski had talked about.
The event was filmed and soldiers could access that feed through their work terminals, multiple individual recordings of varying lengths were made this way but they were all of the same video. Cincoski says the event lasted about 17 minutes as far as he knew but it was technically possible that a longer version could exist (if it does, he has neither seen it nor heard about it)
https://www.dvidshub.net//video/960331/al-taqaddum-object

I can't upload the video directly here because it's 17 minutes long

They also seem to show the date of the sighting, the first of October 2017.

I just assumed we had the same video content as before.
 
Something I just noticed while trying to search that dvidshub website, that might be worth noting, is that the 'All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office' appears to have the unit id 'ADARO' in their system:

https://www.dvidshub.net/unit/ADARO

despite being commonly referred to as 'AARO' including in all of their own documentation and on their website:

Screenshot_aaro-header.png


On the main video search page (https://www.dvidshub.net/search/2.0?filter[type]=video) I also cannot get anything to come back in the 'unit' filter selector with the text filter 'AARO', or 'ADARO' or 'All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office' or 'All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office'.

Screenshot_unit-filter.png
Screenshot_unit-filter-none.png


This was annoying me. So I took some time to dig through the page request log to get at the underlying search API, send a few variants of unit names against that, and did get results from that. Specifically using the unit name 'All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office' (and its capitalized equivalent).

Not that anything interesting was found. There was only 4 videos, and I think AARO has published to twitter about each of them. The link below is to those 4 results and another smaller file with a filtered set of fields:
https://gist.github.com/theferrit32/59a4d2c35559a68a3312df64cdad289b
(added in code format to get it to stop it from embedding)

One interesting thing is that there is a field in the JSON response called `is_spherical` which is explicitly set to false for some of these, and omitted for others. None have it set to true.
 
Twitter user

ProPixel Video Analysis and Research

@BillyKryzak


Posted an analysis of this video, with a conclusion of not balloons


Source: https://x.com/BillyKryzak/status/1924111686094430433



Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1kpwum2/propixel_analyzes_the_jellyfish_video_i_do_not/


The video they post looks weird, like it superficially looks like the Jellyfish video and there's hints of AI use (diffusion) in their comments


Source: https://x.com/BillyKryzak/status/1924180784577233345


However I am having trouble matching the posted video to any section of the orginal video, even taking into account upscaling..
 
The video they post looks weird, like it superficially looks like the Jellyfish video and there's hints of AI use (diffusion) in their comments
Yes. Commentators on reddit make a good case that this is exactly what it looks like: an AI hallucination loosely based on the original video.
 
You can bloody see through the balloons. How much more does one need? Are aliens made of jelly?
 
You can bloody see through the balloons. How much more does one need? Are aliens made of jelly?
There's debate about how balloons look on FLIR type cameras under different circumstances, are they transparent, reflective, does it depend on the specific materials mylar, foil coated mylar, some sort of paper covering etc.

A neutral recreation of various scenarios would help.

One of the main issues with these military FLIR videos is our inability to do physical recreations due to the equipment and scale of the sightings.
 
A reddit user in a post raised what I think is an interesting critique of the stable balloon comparison video
it's still argument from incredulity. the motion we're accustomed to seeing requires turbulent air (to blow one part this way and the other part that way), but at some altitude, the wind is more steady, and it wouldn't happen.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1kpwum2/comment/mt1uqc8/


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1kpwum2/comment/mt17mz2/
 
I think most people analyzing the Jellyfish really don't take into account just how far away it is being filmed from,
1747660489899.png

This is essentially how I think most people imagine the Jellyfish to be moving, without much room. They talk about things like ground effect or people/animals reacting to it as if it were right there.
1747660627468.png

While this is a different valid position. Any talk about ground effect, dogs reacting, variations in temperature, etc. goes out the window if you take this as a plausible distance.

To even begin to pull arguments like "the air would be too turbulent", you'd need to first prove the height (which might be possible to narrow down with the 17-minute version but I'm knowledgeable enough to do that without putting too much effort).

Having seen the 17-minute version, I am surprised as to how rigid the whole thing is for such a long period of time, even in theoretical calm winds, which is why I'm personally inclined to think it's actually a single balloon like these
1747661998320.png
1747662012129.png
 
I think there's a small but perceptible rotation of the group at about 37 seconds into ProPixel's video (while the narrator is telling us there's no change), judged by the spacing between the three "dangling legs". I don't know the height that ground-effect turbulence should reach, but I do know that in the longer video that we initially watched, there was quite a lot of shape change from beginning to end.
 
it's still argument from incredulity. the motion we're accustomed to seeing requires turbulent air (to blow one part this way and the other part that way), but at some altitude, the wind is more steady, and it wouldn't happen.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1kpwum2/comment/mt17mz2/
Adding to the "argument from incredulity" angle, there's also an assumption that the source video is relatively "raw" and unfiltered infrared, when we know there is a significant amount of processing -- such as contrast enhancement and sharpening on the target -- involved to improve the immediate usefulness of the image to the operator.
 
Yesterday after I saw that twitter thread I was doing some more thinking about a frame like this that shows the object slightly warmer than most of the ground. If it is balloons at a very high altitude where the air is colder I would expect the balloons to look colder than the ground. But in this video the balloons are at a much lower altitude, I think under 2000 ft, and maybe significantly lower like under 1000ft. So in this frame either the ground is reflecting the cold sky (like the metal containers in the back left), or the ground surface is actually colder than the object. This is at night, and I think the most common scenario would be for the air temp to be colder than the ground temp. Maybe air temp will warm up faster than the ground just before sunrise? I can't recall if this has been well explained in this thread yet. I couldn't find it.

Screenshot 2025-05-19 at 1.03.18 AM.png


Doing a little testing at home with some balloons outside with the sky (cold) as the background. Showing that balloons warmer than the background do have clear overlapping effects where areas of intersection look significantly warmer than one balloon by itself. I think everyone here already knew this but in that twitter thread I saw some suggestion that this implied the object was itself generating warmth in those darker areas.

20250518224603-IR.jpg
20250518224614-IR.jpg


I then wanted to take some photos of dirt or sand. I unfortunately don't have sand on hand right now but do have a lot of pots of dirt at room temperature that have not been watered in over well over 24 hours. So the temp should be fully equalized to room temp. But the soil is still damp.

On this bookshelf I have an unfinished ceramic pot (so it's porous) that has moderately damp soil and a rosemary plant inside it. I am surprised at how cold the dirt and pot surface appears on the IR camera, despite it having fully temperature stabilized with the room. I am guessing this is due to the evaporative cooling effect. To the large pot's left is another unfinished ceramic pot that is completely dry with nothing in it, behind that is a glass candle jar you can see me reflecting off, and then to the left is a steel water bottle full of ice water. My interior room temperate is kept in what I'd consider a tight range of temperature of 1 or 2 degrees F, so this is not just a case of the damp pot of soil having adjusted to a colder indoor temp and then not warming up as fast to a warmer room temp as the dry pot. The IR camera is even reading the soil at 65.2ºF while the room is 71ºF.

20250518234509-IR.jpg
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Here is another unfinished ceramic pot with damp soil. To its right an unfinished ceramic pot but with a plastic pot inside it containing damp soil and a plant, so the slightly damp soil is not in direct contact with the ceramic pot sides. The next photo is an inflated latex balloon dangling from fishing wire with an edge in front of the camera partially obscuring the slightly damp ceramic pot, showing that the balloon at room temp appears warmer than the ceramic pot despite the fact that both are sufficiently stabilized to the ambient temperature, but the pot is slightly damp and appearing cold.

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I will take a quick trip out tonight with some balloons to find some sand after the sun goes down. (r/brandnewsentence?)
 

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Yesterday after I saw that twitter thread I was doing some more thinking about a frame like this that shows the object slightly warmer than most of the ground. If it is balloons at a very high altitude where the air is colder I would expect the balloons to look colder than the ground. But in this video the balloons are at a much lower altitude, I think under 2000 ft, and maybe significantly lower like under 1000ft. So in this frame either the ground is reflecting the cold sky (like the metal containers in the back left), or the ground surface is actually colder than the object. This is at night, and I think the most common scenario would be for the air temp to be colder than the ground temp. Maybe air temp will warm up faster than the ground just before sunrise? I can't recall if this has been well explained in this thread yet. I couldn't find it.

View attachment 80484

Doing a little testing at home with some balloons outside with the sky (cold) as the background. Showing that balloons warmer than the background do have clear overlapping effects where areas of intersection look significantly warmer than one balloon by itself. I think everyone here already knew this but in that twitter thread I saw some suggestion that this implied the object was itself generating warmth in those darker areas.

View attachment 80480View attachment 80481

....
I will take a quick trip out tonight with some balloons to find some sand after the sun goes down. (r/brandnewsentence?)
I take it these are regular latex balloons?

"Mylar" balloons -- those with reflective foil coating -- look somewhat different in infrared, reflecting the surrounding environment instead of being transparent. (There were long discussions of this in https://www.metabunk.org/threads/jellyfish-ufo-from-tmzs-ufo-revolution.13304/page-15#post-309689 and a video from Mick at
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snwqUpQ6oSE
).

And of course you often find both types of balloons in the same bundle.
 
I take it these are regular latex balloons?

"Mylar" balloons -- those with reflective foil coating -- look somewhat different in infrared, reflecting the surrounding environment instead of being transparent.
Yes my photos above are latex balloons. I have a bunch of foil-lined mylar balloons too but yes they are opaque and highly reflective to IR.
20250519125542-IR.jpg
 
There's debate about how balloons look on FLIR type cameras under different circumstances, are they transparent, reflective, does it depend on the specific materials mylar, foil coated mylar, some sort of paper covering etc.
This may be of some help.

Source: https://youtu.be/QkZZ1lOgMrg


We played about with metalized foil balloons (often termed "Mylar balloons") and latex balloons. The foiled ones are very opaque and reflective in the wavelengths of IR our camera ses. the latex were very transparent.

EDIT: I see others have posted similar imagery already. But I suppose it can;t hurt to have lots.
 
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