Verified Unexplained

The Pentagon GIMBAL Video

Atlantic warning area off the US East Coast · January 2015 · Military sensor · United States · Added 2026-06-11

Of every piece of UFO footage in circulation, the GIMBAL clip has the strongest paper trail: filmed by a US Navy ATFLIR targeting pod, confirmed authentic by the Pentagon, and still listed as unresolved by the government office created to explain it. The object appears to rotate mid-air while tracking against the wind, as the radar shows a fleet around it.

What did witnesses see at Atlantic warning area off the US East Coast?

A disc- or oval-shaped infrared object at roughly 25,000 feet that appeared to rotate on its axis while moving into the prevailing wind. The aircrew reacted to a whole fleet of them showing on radar, so the object was correlated across radar, infrared, and the aviators' own eyes.

The full GIMBAL ATFLIR sequence released by the Department of Defense — The GIMBAL ATFLIR sequence as released by the US Department of Defense in April 2020. The object appears to rotate near the end of the clip.

More footage and images of this sighting

The complete unedited GIMBAL ATFLIR footage as obtained and published by 8 News Now Las Vegas.

Guardian News coverage of the official April 2020 DoD release of the GIMBAL, FLIR and GoFast videos.

Mick West's skeptical frame-by-frame analysis arguing the rotating shape is infrared glare from a distant jet. Included per the method: the strongest counter-claim, presented as a claim.

What is the official explanation?

Leaked in 2017 and formally released by the Department of Defense in April 2020, which confirmed the footage authentic and the object unidentified. AARO lists all three Navy videos as unresolved, while raising the possibility that the apparent rotation is an ATFLIR gimbal artifact.

What did the witnesses think it was?

Navy aviators of the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group treated these as real, physical, controlled objects with no visible propulsion, present day after day on multiple sensors.

Is the Pentagon GIMBAL Video real? The two-pass assessment

The high-water mark of the archive. The sensor-artifact debunk is real and gradable, but disputed and unconfirmed, so it stays a disputed counter-claim rather than a verdict. Real-and-unidentified is strongly supported; what it is remains open.