The Pentagon authorises release of three unclassified Navy videos (November 2004 and January 2015) that had leaked in 2007 and 2017, says they reveal no sensitive capabilities, and keeps the objects classified as unidentified.
“The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as “unidentified.”” source
Internet Archive copy (1 May 2020). The defense.gov address now redirects to war.gov and refused automated access (HTTP 403).
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 015SHEET 2 OF 5
Testimony
Interviews and witness statements: who, in what role, when and where it was said.
OFFICIALHouse Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs · 2023-07-26
Official transcript. Ryan Graves, an F/A-18F pilot with VFA-11 in 2014, describes a near miss with a ‘dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere’ and says the Gimbal debrief radar showed a fleet of objects.
“The recording on the AT FLIR system shows a single object that rotates.” source
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 015SHEET 3 OF 5
Press
Newspaper and magazine coverage, then and now. Linked, never copied.
PRESSJohn Greenewald Jr., The Black Vault · 2019-09-11
Publishes the Navy's written answers via spokesman Joseph Gradisher: Gimbal and GoFast were both recorded on 21 January 2015, and the Navy considers what they show unidentified. The Navy gave no location.
“The Navy considers the phenomena contained/depicted in those 3 videos as unidentified.” source
Press report of an official statement given to the site by email.
PRESSHelene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean, The New York Times · 2019-05-26
Pilots of the VFA-11 squadron from the carrier Theodore Roosevelt describe objects seen almost daily from summer 2014 to March 2015 off the East Coast, and a near-collision reported in a mishap report. Dates the Gimbal clip to 20 January 2015.
“No one in the Defense Department is saying that the objects were extraterrestrial, and experts emphasize that earthly explanations can generally be found for such incidents.” source
Internet Archive copy (20 January 2026); nytimes.com refused automated access.
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 015SHEET 4 OF 5
Video
Official footage and video discussions. YouTube loads only when you press play.
OFFICIALNaval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) FOIA reading room · 2020-04-27
The official download page for the three released clips, listed as FLIR, GOFAST and GIMBAL. The source files the Pentagon pointed to in its 2020 statement.
Internet Archive copy (1 May 2020); navair.navy.mil blocked automated access (Cloudflare 403).
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 015SHEET 5 OF 5
Analysis
Our own reading of the file, written from the sources on the other sheets. Opinion is marked as such.
These two clips are often shown together, but they are now in different places. GoFast has had two official analyses. NASA's study team and AARO both used the numbers on the camera display to work out that the object was about 13,000 feet up, not skimming the waves, and moving at speeds consistent with the wind. AARO's figure, after removing the wind, is 5 to 92 mph. The impression of speed comes from the jet's own motion.
Gimbal has had no such treatment in public. The Navy and the Pentagon still call it unidentified. The rotation that gives the clip its name has been explained by independent analysts as an artefact of the camera's gimbal mount and the glare of a distant hot source; that reading is not official. Ryan Graves has testified that the radar picture at the debrief showed several objects. That radar data has not been released.
So the label stays Unexplained, but for different reasons. For GoFast, the anomaly is gone and only the identity is missing: a pixel analysis for AARO put it at one meter or less, comparable to a small drone or bird. For Gimbal, there is neither an official identification nor an official analysis.
What it shows
That both videos are genuine Navy recordings: the Navy confirmed their dates and the Pentagon released them officially.
That Navy aircrew reported unidentified objects repeatedly in 2014–2015, and one of them has testified about it under oath.
That the GoFast object, on AARO's analysis, did not move at an anomalous speed.
What it doesn't prove
That either object was extraordinary. Unidentified means not identified; AARO found nothing anomalous in GoFast.
What Gimbal was. No official analysis of it has been published, and independent analyses are not official.
That more footage or radar data exists in releasable form. Witnesses describe it; nothing of it has been released.
The other side
The strongest case against Unexplained is that neither clip shows anything that needs a new explanation. Mick West argued in 2020 that GoFast probably shows a balloon, its speed an effect of parallax, and that Gimbal is probably a distant plane: the infrared glare of its engines, appearing to rotate only because the camera's gimbal mount rotates. AARO's own GoFast analysis agrees on the parallax. On this reading the objects are unidentified only because nobody kept the data needed to name them.
Uses GoFast as a worked example: from the display numbers, the object was at about 13,000 feet, moved about 390 metres in 22 seconds (about 40 mph) and was colder than the ocean. The team says the calculation neglects wind and more data are needed.
“This further supports the conjecture that the object is most likely drifting with the wind.” source
Release date from NASA's UAP page: https://science.nasa.gov/uap/
OFFICIALAll-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, US Department of Defense · 2025-02-06
AARO's analysis of the public 34-second clip (the original file and metadata no longer exist): altitude about 13,000 feet, wind-corrected speed 5–92 mph, never moving against the wind, size one metre or less. High confidence nothing anomalous; identity unknown.
“AARO cannot definitively identify the object, but it displayed no anomalous performance characteristics.” source
Internet Archive copy (11 October 2026) of the PDF on aaro.mil, which refused automated access. Listed on AARO's UAP Case Resolution Reports page. Editor's note in the PDF, 20 Feb 2025: AARO could not obtain the aircrew's accounts.
A sceptical analyst's summary of the three videos: GoFast probably a balloon whose speed is a parallax effect; Gimbal probably a distant plane whose engine glare appears to rotate because of the camera's gimbal system. Independent, not official.
“It looks like it is rotating because of an artifact of the gimbal-mounted camera system.” source
West's longer Gimbal analysis: four observables in the video that, he argues, point to an infrared glare hiding a hot object, rotating only because the camera rotates while tracking. Disputed by other analysts; not official.
“the most likely thing we are looking at is actually a camera artifact” source
TO VERIFY Candidates, not yet checked
Whether AARO has analysed Gimbal: no case resolution found on its list as of October 2026.
The Gimbal date: Navy 21 January 2015 versus New York Times 20 January 2015.
The 2014 VFA-11 safety (mishap) report on the near miss: described by Graves and the NYT, not released.
Ryan Graves's written statement to the House Oversight Committee (July 2023): not opened.
Criticism of NASA's 40 mph estimate (opinion pieces in The Hill, 2023): seen in search results only, not opened.
Found, but not linked to a source we trust. Not on the sheets until they are.
