A remarkable UFO video released by a Chilean government entity last Friday becomes a lot less remarkable when the mysterious craft’s position in the sky is compared to local flight records.
The UFO sighting captured in the video occurred in 2014, when a Chilean naval helicopter captured 10 minutes of infrared footage of a mysterious craft from an estimated distance of 35 to 40 miles. But the blockbuster moment comes around minute eight of the footage, when the UFO releases a spurt of hot chemical vapor, projecting an immense black streak (indicating heat) across the frame.
Released by the Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (CEFAA), a Chilean government agency within the civil aeronautics directorate, the original report by independent journalist Leslie Kean (author of the excellent book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On The Record) noted a possible explanation for the UFO raised by UFO video analysts Antoine Cousyn, François Louange and Geoff Quick of Ipaco.fr:
“The French analysts proposed that the object was a ‘medium-haul aircraft’ coming in for a landing into the Santiago airport, and ‘the effluent trail observed on two occasions probably results from dumping some cabin waste water, forming a plume oriented along the local wind blowing from the west.’ They based this on their calculation that the distance between the two hot spots was ‘consistent with the standard distance between the two jet engines of a medium-haul aircraft.’”
The IPACO conclusion is portrayed as unlikely and refuted at length:
“Chilean experts knew that this would have been impossible, for a number of reasons: This plane would have been seen on primary radar; it would have had to be cleared for landing in Santiago or at another airport; it would likely have responded to radio communications. Airplanes do not throw out water when landing. In fact, in Chile a plane wishing to eject any material must request permission from the DGAC before doing so; that regulation is widely known and respected. And, it seems unlikely that this experienced pilot would not have recognized this as an airplane, or at least kept that option open afterwards if it were a possibility.”
But while the original article makes the dissenting report seem faintly ridiculous, even condescending to the work of CEFAA, additional analysis by independent researchers at Metabunk.org authoritatively backs up the report’s conclusion: the Chile UFO video is likely footage of flight LA330, flying approximately 800 miles north from Santiago to the Cerro Moreno Airport.
Since the original report (available as a PDF here) is primarily a video analysis, little work was done beyond offering a plausible explanation for what’s seen on the video. This leads to the several deficiencies noted by Kean, including their conjectures regarding the vapor released by the UFO. However, Metabunk.org members Mick West, Trailblazer and Trailspotter uncovered a number of corroborating details that strengthen their case considerably.
Using publicly available data at planefinder.net, West and other Metabunk users uncovered two flight paths (LA330 and IB6830) that perfectly intersected the footage frame. They hypothesized that IB6830 accounts for the craft originally spotted by the pilots, but it’s LA330 seen in close-up in the video. But what about the other problems with the plane hypothesis, such as lack of radar confirmation and radio response?
According to their analysis, the biggest perceptual mistake was made when CEFAA and the pilots misestimated the craft’s distance. The flights they determined were responsible did show up on radar, just 15-30 miles further in the distance.
As for the craft not responding to a hail, here’s Metabunk user TWCobra, who claims to be a pilot familiar with Santiago departure protocols:
The helicopter seems to have tried to call on 121.5. The are a couple of problems with that, Most aircraft don't set that frequency until some time after takeoff which can vary from airline to airline, and if they were listening, unless whoever was calling used their callsign, they wouldn't respond.
They even proposed a new explanation for the chemical cloud released from the UFO, one more satisfying than dumped cabin waste water. No, not chemtrails, but an aerodynamic contrail.
But while their specific answers to objections raised by CEFAA may or may not satisfy, the ultimate conclusion seems near inescapable. West concludes, “unless there was a UFO flying between the plane and the helicopter, mimicking the motion, the banking, the size and and the thermal signature of the plane, then it's a plane.” Since both the original UFO footage has timestamps and GPS coordinates that match the timestamps and GPS coordinates for flights LA330 and IB6830 there can be little doubt that this UFO has gone from unidentified to identified.
