UAP Analyst — read the evidence, weigh the hypotheses

UAP cases, explained

UAP stands for unidentified anomalous phenomena, the term the US government now uses for what used to be called UFOs. This page turns twelve publicly documented cases into short case files: from the 1947 Roswell debris to the Pentagon’s May 2026 release of declassified files. For each one you weigh the evidence yourself, and then see what the record actually says. The pictures are illustrative reconstructions drawn by the page, not the original footage; the sources are linked after every case.

What is AARO and what does it say?

The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is the US Department of Defense office, created in 2022, that collects and investigates UAP reports. Its March 2024 historical report found no evidence that any UAP sighting involved extraterrestrial technology. AARO also says that some cases stay unidentified simply because the sensors did not collect enough information. “Unidentified” therefore usually means under-documented, not anomalous. The Pentagon’s own releases carry the same caveat: its descriptions of the files are not analytical judgments.

How do you weigh evidence about a UFO?

Intelligence analysts use a method called analysis of competing hypotheses (ACH), developed by Richards Heuer at the CIA. Instead of looking for evidence that supports your favourite explanation, you list every plausible hypothesis, mark each piece of evidence as consistent or inconsistent with each one, and keep the hypothesis with the fewest contradictions. Evidence that fits every hypothesis, like a bright blob on a grey background, tells you very little; evidence that fits one and rules out the others, like a photographer’s confession, tells you a lot. After every case the page shows this matrix and flags the most diagnostic exhibit.

How reliable is a source? The Admiralty grading

Each exhibit carries a two-part grade in the style of the NATO and Admiralty system used in intelligence reporting: a letter from A (completely reliable source) to F (reliability cannot be judged), and a number from 1 (confirmed by other sources) to 6 (truth cannot be judged). A pilot’s memory years later might be B3; a published government analysis with a checkable method might be A2; an anonymous claim might be C4. The grades on this page are the author’s judgement and are there to practise the habit of asking who says this, and how would we know?

Why a slow object can look like it is flying: parallax

Many famous infrared videos show an object held in the centre of the frame while the sea streams past underneath it. If you assume the object is on the sea, you read its speed from the sea’s movement, but if it is actually high up, the movement of the sea behind it measures the jet’s own motion. In the Lab, a perfectly stationary object at 13,000 feet seen from a jet at 25,000 feet flying 369 knots appears to race over the sea at about 400 knots, using apparent speed = |u·H − v·h| / (H − h) with object speed u = 0, jet speed v, jet altitude H and object altitude h. This is generic geometry, not the telemetry of any real clip, but it is the same effect AARO described when it analysed the Go Fast video in 2025.

Why is “unknown” so often the best answer?

When a file has one short clip, no range, no size and no second sensor, the honest conclusion is that it cannot settle the question. That is not the same as “aliens”, and it is not the same as “just a balloon”. A calibrated analyst puts most of the weight on unknown — not enough data and spreads a little over the plausible explanations. The game rewards this on open cases, and punishes it on solved ones, where there is enough evidence to commit.

How the score works

For each case you place 20 chips of 5% across seven hypotheses. Your score is 100 × (1 − D / 0.85), where D is the straight-line distance between your seven shares and the seven reference shares (the square root of the summed squared differences), floored at 0. A perfect copy of the reference scores 100. Across all twelve cases, putting 100% on “unknown” scores an average of 14, spreading chips evenly scores 30, and putting everything on non-human technology scores 0. Because chips are 5% steps, the practical ceiling is about 94–97. On the Tic Tac case, for instance, “unknown” alone scores 49 while “non-human technology” alone scores 0.

The reference estimates are the author’s evidence-weighted judgement for each case, with the reasoning given in the debrief. They are not official findings, and you are free to disagree with them; the exercise is about weighing a file, not about matching a verdict.

The twelve cases

FLIR1 “Tic Tac” — 14 Nov 2004

The video is authentic: the Pentagon confirmed that Navy aviators recorded it and released it officially in April 2020. What the object is has never been officially stated, and no published government analysis resolves the case as of October 2026. What exists: trained pilots’ testimony, a short infrared clip, and second-hand descriptions of radar tracks. What does not exist (publicly): the radar data, a physical sample, or several independent recordings.

GIMBAL — 2014–2015

The Gimbal video was recorded in 2014–2015 by a Navy jet; the Pentagon confirmed it and released it in 2020 as unidentified. Independent analysts have shown how the look of the clip — the glow, the rotation — can arise from camera geometry and glare. That does not prove what the object was, and the Pentagon has not published a resolution.

GO FAST — Jan 2015

In February 2025 AARO published a detailed analysis: the object was about 13,000 feet up, not skimming the sea, and was moving with the wind at roughly 5–92 mph depending on wind conditions — not at an anomalous speed. Motion parallax explains why it looked fast. AARO describes a small airborne object consistent with a balloon or a drone. It did not claim to know which, and it worked from a compressed copy of the video.

AGUADILLA — Apr 2013

In 2024 AARO assessed with high confidence that the object showed no anomalous speed or flight characteristics. It was likely a pair of balloons or sky lanterns drifting at about seven knots over the airport, descending to roughly 200 meters. The apparent splitting came from the changing camera angle (two objects, not one), the apparent speed from motion parallax, and the “dive” from thermal contrast fading as the object reached the temperature of the water.

USS OMAHA SPHERE — Jul 2019

The Pentagon confirmed that Navy personnel recorded the video, and it was included in the UAP Task Force’s examinations. No identification has been published. A strike-group comment, as reported, described a possible spherical unmanned aerial system that moved toward the water and disappeared. A search for wreckage found nothing.

BELGIAN WAVE · F-16 NIGHT — 30–31 Mar 1990

The Belgian wave of 1989–1990 is one of the best-documented in Europe, partly because the Air Force investigated openly and worked with civilian researchers. The night of 30–31 March 1990 is its high point: radar contacts and several lock-ons, but no visual sighting by the pilots. Skeptical analysts propose that some lock-ons were of the jets on each other and that other contacts came from atmospheric layers. Supporters point out that the radars saw something. Both readings use the same data.

PETIT-RECHAIN PHOTO — Apr 1990

For two decades the Petit-Rechain photograph was cited as the best evidence of the Belgian wave. In July 2011 the photographer, Patrick Maréchal, told RTL it was a joke on his colleagues: a painted polystyrene triangle with lights, hung on a string. Laboratories had examined the picture without finding obvious fakery. That is the lesson: a photograph cannot authenticate itself, and “nothing obviously wrong” is a very low bar.

PHOENIX LIGHTS · 10 PM — 13 Mar 1997

The US Air Force explained the 10 pm lights as flares dropped by Maryland Air National Guard A-10s training at the Barry M. Goldwater range, and a Maryland pilot confirmed his flight dropped flares that night. The earlier V-shaped formation, around 8–8:30 pm, is a separate event. Researchers have traced it to A-10s returning to a nearby base. Official confirmation of that one is weaker.

ROSWELL — Jun–Jul 1947

In 1947 the base first announced a “flying disc”, then corrected itself to a weather balloon. In 1994 the Air Force concluded that the debris came from Project Mogul, a classified balloon-train programme designed to detect Soviet nuclear tests. In 1997 a second report suggested that the later stories of alien bodies were memories of other events in the 1950s, such as crash-test dummies, merged with the 1947 debris.

THE LIGHT TRAIN — May 2019 and since

Starlink satellites are launched in batches. Right after launch they travel close together in a line, and sunlight reflects off them while the ground below is already dark. People who see them without knowing about the launch often report a convoy of craft. Satellite trackers can tell you when and where to look. If the line appears on schedule, you have your answer.

LAKE HURON OBJECT — 12 Feb 2023

The National Security Council said the object had no propulsion and sent no signals. An RCMP email dated 13 March 2023, released under Canadian access-to-information law, says a module found on the Lake Huron shore was from a company that sells weather monitoring equipment, though it was uncertain whether it was the shot-down object. A Royal Canadian Air Force document, as reported, suggests a weather balloon from a US National Weather Service radar station in Michigan.

THE FOOTBALL — 2024 (released 8 May 2026)

The clip was part of the first PURSUE release (8 May 2026), submitted by US Indo-Pacific Command in 2024. The Pentagon describes the picture, not the object, and states that it cannot make a definitive determination. AARO has said it found no evidence of extraterrestrial technology in its cases, and that some remain unidentified because sensors did not collect enough information.

Where to see the real footage and files

The official Navy videos known as FLIR1 (Tic Tac), Gimbal and Go Fast were released by the Department of Defense in April 2020. The AARO website publishes reports and cleared videos, the Pentagon’s declassified files are at war.gov/ufo, and NASA’s independent study team published its 2023 report on science.nasa.gov/uap. This site also has a guide to the six PURSUE releases of 2026.

Privacy

Everything runs in your browser. There are no accounts and nothing you choose is sent anywhere. Your scores, best results and daily streak are saved in your own browser’s local storage under one key, and reset on the start screen erases them. Share cards are drawn locally. The site only uses cookieless Simple Analytics page-view counting.

This is an independent educational game. It is not affiliated with AARO, the US Department of War, NASA or any government body, and it does not give any official assessment.

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