Case · C-077

Chilean Navy helicopter 2014: the FLIR video studied by CEFAA

Central Chilean coast, west of Santiago · Chile · Nov 11, 2014

In flight Military witnesses Video

What happened

On November 11, 2014, at about 13:50 local time, the crew of a Chilean Navy Cougar AS-532 helicopter patrolling along the coast west of Santiago filmed for about nine minutes, with a FLIR camera in visible and infrared, an object that on two occasions seemed to release a trail; air traffic control reported no traffic in the area and attempts at radio contact went unanswered. CEFAA examined the case for about two years with military and civilian consultants and the majority of the committee classified it as an unidentified aerial phenomenon; the video was made public by the journalist Leslie Kean in January 2017. The Italian channel Omega Click then obtained from the DGAC, through an access request, the complete file (minutes, witness forms, consultants' analyses and original video), published by The Black Vault in January 2023.

Proposed explanation

French experts consulted by CEFAA (analysis of November 26, 2015 with the IPACO software) concluded it was a probable twin-engine jet on landing approach; Mick West and the Metabunk forum (2017) identify it as Iberia flight IB6830, an Airbus A340 that took off from Santiago and was moving away from the camera at more than 50 km, with aerodynamic contrails. The majority of the CEFAA committee instead classified it as an unidentified aerial phenomenon, objecting among other things that no radar detected it and that it did not respond to radio calls.

Official investigation

Armada de Chile; DGAC – Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA)

Words of the document

probablemente un avión bimotor a reacción en su fase de acercamiento para aterrizar

Official documents

1. Informe entrevista caso Armada de Chile · DGAC – CEFAA (Chile) (The Black Vault copy, file obtained by Omega Click) · Apr 24, 2015
2. Video de la Armada de Chile – Análisis de Francia (Cousyn, Louange, Quick) · French consultants of CEFAA (DGAC file, The Black Vault copy) · Nov 26, 2015

Sources

1. Leslie Kean, HuffPost, January 2017: the Chilean Navy video still unexplained (press, pro-disclosure)
2. Metabunk: “Explained: Chilean Navy UFO video – Aerodynamic Contrails, Flight IB6830” (analysis, skeptical)
3. The Black Vault: documents on the Chilean Navy helicopter case (November 11, 2014), obtained by Omega Click (other)

On this site

People 3

• Leslie Kean
• Mick West
• John Greenewald Jr.

Documents 1

• The Chilean file on the FLIR video recorded by a Navy helicopter on November 11, 2014 Documented provenance

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