UFOs Videotaped over Los Angeles (2017)
In March 2017, near Los Angeles, California, the footage at the center of this case shows what a MUFON photoanalyst described in his own words as "2 disk or sphere-shaped object apparently ascending" in the sky over Los Angeles, California, in March 2017. This case file covers what witnesses reported, the official narrative, and a two-pass assessment with its evidence tier.
What did witnesses see at Los Angeles?
The footage at the center of this case shows what a MUFON photoanalyst described in his own words as "2 disk or sphere-shaped object apparently ascending" in the sky over Los Angeles, California, in March 2017. According to the analyst's note, one of the two objects "disappears (except for 1 light which is apparent for a few more frames, and then apparently moves to the lower right." That is the entire recorded description of the on-screen event. The clip is short, the two bright forms climb and separate, and one of them fades out while a single point of light lingers for a handful of frames before drifting toward the bottom right of the frame.
The audio on the recording is part of what little context exists. The analyst noted that the soundtrack carries "children talking and possibly a baby," which places the filming in an ordinary domestic or outdoor family setting rather than at any organized skywatch or event. Beyond that, the report is blunt about how thin the surrounding detail is. It states plainly that the "Time and number of witnesses is actually unknown." There is no recorded duration in seconds, no compass bearing, no stated elevation angle, no weather note, and no neighborhood pinned down beyond Los Angeles itself.
The case reached the public not through a news crew or a viral upload but through a chain of UFO researchers. The original videographer is not publicly named. The clip was passed to Jong Han Seo, a long-running Korean researcher tied to Korean UFO research circles, who in turn handed it to the American analyst. Several processed versions of the same clip were prepared for examination, a brightened pass, a marked-up pass with the objects flagged, and a slowed-down pass, so the faint forms could be tracked frame by frame. The objects appear as bright, roughly round shapes against a plain sky, with no surrounding terrain or structures in the frame to anchor scale or distance.
What is the official explanation?
There is no government investigation of this event. No police report, no Federal Aviation Administration inquiry, no military statement, and no mainstream news coverage attaches to the March 2017 Los Angeles clip. The only investigatory apparatus that ever touched it was the civilian Mutual UFO Network, and even there the file is brief and preliminary rather than a finished report.
The document that exists is a short entry filed through the MUFON Case Management System and circulated under the byline of Jeffrey Sainio, identified in the posting as a "former MUFON Staff Photoanalyst." His full recorded write-up reads, in its entirety: "Video shows 2 disk or sphere-shaped object apparently ascending. One object disappears (except for 1 light which is apparent for a few more frames, and then apparently moves to the lower right. Audio shows children talking and possibly a baby. Time and number of witnesses is actually unknown." On the chain of custody he wrote, "Video was submitted through KUFOS member Jong han Seo to me." His one procedural recommendation was operational rather than conclusory: "Suggest the videographer be interviewed by a local FI," meaning a local MUFON field investigator, and he added that the "Videographer has agreed to be interviewed."
That is the whole of the official-adjacent record. Sainio reached no verdict. He did not declare the objects identified, and he did not declare them anomalous. The note explicitly hands the case forward for a witness interview that would establish the basic facts the clip alone could not supply, the time of day, how many people watched, the camera used, and the exact spot in the city. It is worth noting who Sainio is, because his name carries analytical weight. He is the same photoanalyst who, in the October 1998 MUFON Journal, published the motion-smear study that exposed the famous August 1997 Mexico City "UFO over the city" video as a fabrication, showing the building edges blurred more than the inserted craft. A man with that track record did not stamp this Los Angeles clip as either real or fake. He logged it as raw, unverified, and in need of a follow-up interview that the public record never shows was completed.
What did the witnesses think it was?
The videographer is anonymous in every surviving version of the file, so there is no first-person statement on record about what they believed they had filmed. What can be said is narrow and comes secondhand through the analyst's note. The person who shot the clip was willing to stand behind it, agreeing to be interviewed by a local field investigator, which is more cooperation than a hoaxer chasing attention usually offers, and the ambient audio of children and a possible baby points to a casual family moment rather than a staged production.
The most substantial named figure in the chain is Jong Han Seo, the Korean researcher who routed the video to Sainio. Seo is not a casual hobbyist. He has studied UFO reports from the Korean peninsula for more than three decades, has been described as receiving over a thousand reports a year, and has been associated with Korean UFO research and analysis groups. He is also, on his own account, a believer who has described attempting to "telepathically call in" objects with friends and claiming success, so he comes to the material as an enthusiast rather than a neutral skeptic. His role here was as a conduit, not a witness, he did not see the Los Angeles objects himself.
No corroborating witnesses are documented. Nobody else in Los Angeles is on record reporting two ascending disks or spheres on the same day, no second camera caught the same objects, and no air-traffic or astronomical report lines up with the clip. The case rests entirely on one unnamed videographer, one short video, a handful of processed copies of that video, and a few sentences from a respected analyst who declined to call it either way and asked for an interview first.
Is the UFOs Videotaped over Los Angeles (2017) real? The two-pass assessment
Pass one, the entirely ordinary reading. Everything in the file is consistent with a mundane cause that simply was never run down. Two bright, roughly round forms climbing in a plain sky over a major city, with no terrain in frame to fix their size or distance, fit a long list of conventional culprits, releasing party balloons or mylar balloons drifting and catching the light, distant aircraft or helicopters with landing lights, sun glints off something near the camera, or birds and debris rising on a thermal. The behavior described, two objects ascending, one fading while a single light lingers and drifts to the lower right, is exactly what loose balloons do as they shrink with altitude and one slips behind the other. The audio of children and a possible baby suggests an outdoor family setting where released balloons would be unremarkable. Critically, the analyst himself did not exclude any of this. He asked for a witness interview precisely because the clip alone cannot tell you the time of day, the number of objects' true size, or whether anything mundane was tied to a string just out of frame. With no FI interview ever surfacing in the public record, the ordinary explanations remain fully open.
Pass two, if it is genuinely anomalous. Then what the footage records is two structured objects, disk or sphere-shaped, performing a controlled vertical ascent over an American city in daylight, with one executing a clean separation and lateral move as it dims. That would be a daytime, multi-object event of the classic "disk" type. But nothing in the file pushes the case in that direction beyond the bare appearance of the objects. There is no measured speed, no acceleration figure, no radar, no second witness, and no instrument data. The one analyst with the skill to find a hoax fingerprint, the man who broke the Mexico City video, found nothing he chose to flag as anomalous and nothing he chose to flag as fake.
Weighing both passes, this is a thin, single-source, single-witness video case that no official body ever investigated and no independent analyst ever resolved. There is no debunk to dispute, no confession, no recovered prop, and no identified object, so it does not belong in either disputed tier. Equally, there is no authentication, no official documentation, and no corroboration, so it is not Verified Unexplained. It stands solely on a short clip and a few cautious sentences from a respected photoanalyst who asked for a follow-up that the record never shows happened. That is the definition of the Unknown tier, a case that rests on its footage and a single witness, with no official narrative for or against it.
Sources
- www.ufocasebook.com/2017/ufos-videotaped-over-los-angeles-california.html
- tall-white-aliens.com/?p=4237
More cases from this region: UFO sightings in United States
