AARO case resolution: Eglin AFB UAP

An AARO case resolution of 14 October 2023 on a report from 26 January 2023, when a military pilot on the Eglin Air Force Base training range off Florida detected four objects on radar at 16,000–18,000 feet, apparently flying in formation, saw one of them and captured two infrared still images of it. The pilot described a gray, paneled object about 12 feet across with orange-red colouring, a rounded bottom and a cone-shaped top like an "Apollo spacecraft", and said the jet's radar failed on closing within 4,000 feet.

AARO assessed with moderate confidence that it was "very likely" an ordinary lighter-than-air object such as a large commercial lighting balloon, based on the images, the pilot's accounts, laboratory testing of a similar balloon, the flight geometry and the sun angle. It found the radar failure was a tripped circuit breaker that had tripped three times before on that aircraft, likely coincidental, and confirmed no anomalous behaviour; there was no sensor data on the other three objects.

The report is an example of how AARO resolves individual cases with the data available.

Sources: AARO case resolution (2023)