전영역 이상 해결국(AARO): GoFast 케이스 해결 카드 방법론 최종

GoFast Case Resolution

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All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office
U.S. Department of Defense
Case: “Go Fast”
Case Resolution | February 6, 2025
Case Overview
Case Essentials
In January 2015, a U.S. Navy F/A-18F pilot Location: Eastern coast of Florida
recorded an object using a Forward Looking
Date: January 2015
Infrared (FLIR) sensor about 13,000 feet
above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of
Object Altitude (reported): Near ocean’s
Florida.
surface
The video appeared to show the object moving Object Altitude (assessed): 13,000 feet
at high speed. AARO cannot definitively
Object Speed (reported): Appeared to
identify the object, but it displayed no
move at high speeds
anomalous performance characteristics.
Object Speed (assessed): 5 mph - 92 mph
The Department of Defense officially released
the “Go Fast” video in 2020. It is available for Object Shape (reported): Round
public viewing at the Navy’s FOIA Reading
Object Shape (assessed): Spherical or
Room.
oblate ellipsoid
Key Findings
Reporter: U.S. Navy
AARO assesses with high confidence that the Sensor: Forward Looking Infrared
object did not move at anomalous speeds.
Reported Behavior: Moved at high speeds
AARO's analysis showed:
near the ocean’s surface
• The object’s altitude was
Assessed Behavior: An object moving
approximately 13,000 feet.
between 5 and 92 mph at approximately
• The object’s speed ranged from about
13,000 feet
32 m/s (72 mph) to 72 m/s (161 mph)
depending on its heading relative to Summary of Findings: High confidence
the wind. Compensating for the the object did not demonstrate anomalous
wind’s contribution to the object’s performance characteristics
speed, its approximate speed range is 2
m/s (5 mph) to 41.3 m/s (92 mph).
• The object’s heading deviated as much as 32° from wind direction, though most
simulations conducted during AARO’s analysis showed significantly less difference.
The object did not move against the wind in any simulation.
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Determining the object’s true speed and direction of travel (heading) requires knowing the F/A-
18F’s heading. AARO calculated the object’s speed and heading relative to the aircraft because
the video display does not contain the aircraft’s heading. AARO calculated the object’s position
and direction of travel for the entire range of possible wind directions (0° - 360°) to account for
differences in atmospheric conditions between the F/A-18F’s altitude and object’s altitude. This
comprehensive modeling informed AARO’s assessment of whether the object moved with or
against the wind and whether it behaved anomalously for all possible directions of travel.
AARO factored in historical wind speeds and directions at both the object’s altitude (13,000 feet)
and the aircraft’s altitude (25,000 feet), as measured near the time and location of the event:
• At 13,000 feet, wind speed was 30.9 m/s (69 mph) from the west (265°).
• At 25,000 feet, wind speed was 52 m/s (116 mph) from the west southwest (255°).
Figure 1 shows the object’s range of possible speeds calculated while compensating for wind
speed at 13,000 feet. This is considered the “intrinsic” speed. An intrinsic speed of 0 m/s
indicates that the object is moving with the wind, or about 30.9 m/s.
Figure 1: The y-axis represents the object’s speed with wind effects removed. The x-axis represents the wind’s
heading relative to the F/A-18F’s airframe geometry (0° is a headwind). The curve represents the object’s range of
speeds at each angle. The tailwind, headwind, and crosswind cases are denoted by the colored lines. The object’s
lowest possible speed occurs near a headwind while the highest occurs in a tailwind.
Figure 2 shows the object’s range of possible headings relative to the wind direction at 13,000
feet A direction of 0° indicates that the object is moving in the same direction as the wind.
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Figure 2: The y-axis represents the difference between the object’s heading and the wind direction at 13,000 feet.
The x-axis represents the wind’s heading relative to the F/A-18F’s airframe geometry (0° is a headwind). The curve
represents the object’s range of possible directions compared to the wind. The tailwind, headwind, and crosswinds
are denoted by the colored lines. The maximum deviation in the UAP’s direction of travel from wind direction is
32.1°.
Figures 1 and 2 can be used to find the object’s speed and heading compared to the wind for any
direction of the F/A-18F’s travel relative to the prevailing wind direction. As examples, the
object’s apparent speed and direction is summarized here for four scenarios: headwind,
crosswind from the left, tailwind, and crosswind from the right.
1. Headwind (aircraft flying into the wind): The object moved 2.0 m/s (5 mph) faster than
the wind, at a heading of 5° off-wind.
2. Left Crosswind (wind coming from the left side): The object moved 26.5 m/s (59 mph)
faster than the wind, heading 31.5° off-wind.
3. Tailwind (aircraft flying with the wind): The object moved 41.3 m/s (92 mph) faster than
the wind, heading 12.3° off-wind.
4. Right Crosswind (wind coming from the right side): The object moved 27.7 m/s (62
mph) faster than the wind, heading 9.5° off-wind.
The object’s performance characteristics are consistent with historical wind conditions in each
scenario. AARO assesses the object did not demonstrate anomalous performance characteristics.
The object’s apparent high speed is attributable to motion parallax. Motion parallax is an optical
effect that induces an observer to perceive that a stationary or slow-moving object is moving
much faster than that the subject object’s actual speed when viewed from a moving frame of
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reference. The more quickly an observer moves relative to an observed object, the more
pronounced this effect is.
Data Quality and Methodology
AARO analyzed the publicly available 34-second FLIR video, because the original file and its
accompanying metadata are no longer available. The video display provided sufficient
information to assess the object’s altitude and a range of possible speeds. The display showed:
• The range (distance) from the FLIR sensor to the target.
• The FLIR camera’s azimuth (left-right angle) and elevation (up-down angle).
• The aircraft's altitude, speed, and tilt (bank angle).
The aircraft’s exact location and heading (compass direction) during the recording are unknown.1
AARO could not calculate a single speed or heading for the object because the aircraft’s
calculated flight path depends on its exact heading, and the object’s calculated location depends
on the aircraft’s location. Instead, the analysis considered all possible aircraft headings (from 0°
to 360°) to calculate a range of possible speeds and headings for the object. These calculations
include a small margin of error, because the range from the sensor to the object and the sensor
angles are only accurate to a single decimal place.
AARO could not determine the object’s size due to the video’s low resolution and the range from
the sensor to the object. However, pixel analysis (a method of measuring an object’s size based
on pixels relative to an object known dimensions) by AARO’s Intelligence Community (IC)
partner suggested the object was one meter or less in size - comparable to a small drone or bird.
For more technical details on assumptions and methodology, see Appendix A: Estimating UAP
Location, Speed, and Heading from “Go Fast” FLIR Video Data.
1 Editor’s Note: AARO sought but was unable to obtain witness accounts from the F/A-18F aircrew. Updated 20 February 2025.
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Appendix A: Estimating UAP Location, Speed, and Heading from
“Go Fast” FLIR Video Data
February 2025
Introduction
In 2024, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) estimated possible altitude, speed,
and heading solutions for an unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP), commonly known as
“Go Fast.” The executive summary, general overview, and conclusions are provided in the
AARO “Go Fast” Case resolution [ref 1]. This paper presents a more in-depth data analysis for
those interested in the mathematics and calculations applied to the forward-looking infrared
(FLIR) video footage captured by an AN/ASQ sensor pod onboard the F/A-18 Super Hornet
observing the event in January 2015. AARO manually extracted data from a publicly available
video of the “Go Fast” event as the source material to conduct its analysis.
Video footage collected via military sensors, like the AN/ASQ, are not required to collect Full-
Motion Video (FMV) or other Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) products.
Therefore, it is not intended to support intelligence or other rigorous analysis. Thus, video
footage from these platforms often contains compression artifacts or lacks the necessary
metadata to conduct an exhaustive analysis.
For proper FMV products, standard analysis is done using software packages such as SOCET
GXP [ref 2]. SOCET GXP is a suite of geospatial analytic software tools that utilize satellite and
airborne imagery to measure and detect objects and phenomena. Generally, FMV is used to
track objects on the surface of the earth such as road vehicles, ships, and tanks. In these cases,
an object’s location can be determined since an FMV sensor knows where it is and where it is
pointed and can then calculate the distance to the ground point. In the case of the “Go-Fast”
video, the object is not on the ground and the sensor/aircraft location is not provided in the
metadata.
Despite these limitations, the basic techniques used in FMV analysis can be applied with some
alteration for analyzing UAP cases. AARO reconstructed the F/A-18’s flight path and position
and assessed possible trajectories of the “Go Fast” UAP using the mathematics, standard
methods, and conventions defined in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s (NGA)
Motion Imagery Standards Board’s UAS Datalink Local Set Standards (MISB ST 0601.19 dated
March 02, 2023) [ref 3]. Step-by-step calculations are provided in this paper to estimate the
motion characteristics of the UAP in the “Go Fast” event from the same video accessible by the
public.
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Data
The only data available to AARO from the “Go Fast” event were from a compressed Windows
Media File (.wmv) [ref 4]. The recording’s metadata does not contain the F/A-18’s
georeferenced position and heading, which are necessary to determine the UAP’s absolute
position and flight characteristics. The sensor display does contain enough information to find a
speed, relative heading, and altitude of the UAP. These necessary pieces of information are the
elevation angle of the sensor, the azimuth angle of the sensor, the range from the F/A-18 to the
target, the F/A-18 altitude, the F/A-18 speed, and relative frame times. The sensor pod display
shows most of these values as integers, limiting the fidelity of the initial calculations2. The
display is shown in Figure 1 with these fields labeled.
Figure 3: One of the two frames used in the analysis with annotated fields indicate the data extracted from the
video and used in calculations.
To estimate the UAP speed, the first step was to determine its location at two positions separated
by a known time period. For this, the range to the target must be known. From 4232 seconds
until the end of the video, the tracker acquired a target track on the UAP, enabling the range to
be reported. Within this portion AARO focused its analysis on a 13-second excerpt from the
footage between 4239 seconds (“t ”) and 4252 seconds (“t ”). AARO selected this segment
1 2
because, between t and t , the aircraft’s bank angle, altitude, and airspeed remained nearly
1 2
constant. This simplified the estimation of the F/A-18 flight characteristics due to the reduced
number of variables. At t , the F/A-18’s range to the UAP was 4.0 NM and closed in range to
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3.4 NM at t .
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2 Following sections will outline a methodology to estimate values with more precision.
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Table I contains the data extracted from the video footage at t and t . Range and altitude were
1 2
converted to metric units to maintain consistency in calculations. The F/A-18 bank angle was
measured using the yellow lines drawn over the level flight and roll indicator lines in the display
as depicted in Figure 1. This angle, denoted by θ was approximately 14° from t to t . An
B, 1 2
average aircraft altitude of 7,621 m was assumed over this time frame. The speed in Mach
number was converted to m/s [ref 5] at the altitude of the F/A-18, resulting in an average speed
of about 190 m/s over the time frame.
Table I: Data extracted from frames at 4239 seconds and 4252 seconds in the “Go Fast” video.
UAP Location Calculation Methodology
This section contains step-by-step calculations for finding the UAP locations relative to the F/A-
18 at two points in the “Go Fast” UAP event. This provides the reader with a foundational
understanding of the methodology and rough estimate of the speed and heading of the UAP. The
methodology will then be applied to all frames in the t to t interval in a later section.
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Since the data do not provide an absolute location for the F/A-18 at t , the aircraft was arbitrarily
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placed at a reference point that simplified the problem: the origin of an x-y-z cartesian
coordinate system. The axes of this system were defined in a manner consistent with the MISB
ST 0601.19 [ref 3, p. 12] and provided here in Figure 2. The aircraft longitudinal axis is the +x-
axis, the transverse axis the +y-axis, and the vertical axis the +z-axis.
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Figure 4: The three axes defined relative to an air platform in FMV analysis. Longitudinal is the
+x, Transverse is the +y, and Vertical is the +z (pointing down).
This coordinate system was applied to the F/A-18 as depicted in Figure 3. Because the aircraft
altitude was constant over the duration of flight, its path is level and confined to the x-y plane (z
= 0).
Figure 5: The top-down view coordinate system defined with the position of the F/A-18 at the origin with
coordinates [0,0,0]. The aircraft is moving in the +x direction.
With the position of the F/A-18 defined at t , the location of the UAP relative to this position was
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calculated. This calculation was done by defining a line-of-sight (LOS) or “pointing” vector and
then rotating this vector