The Gimbal video
Infrared footage recorded on 20 January 2015 by a Navy jet from the USS Theodore Roosevelt group off the US East Coast, showing a rotating object.
2015 CE · 36.80, -75.50 · status: disputed
The account
It was published by The New York Times in December 2017 and released officially by the Pentagon in April 2020. It belongs to the 2014–15 East Coast encounters described by pilots such as Ryan Graves.
The sceptical view
Mick West and others argue the rotation is an artefact of the targeting pod's gimbal mechanism and that the shape is infrared glare from a distant jet engine; supporters dispute this reading.
The researched reading
The famous rotation is best explained by the camera, and the object by a distant jet’s glare. The unreleased radar data are what keep it open.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Something known, misidentified | 50% | Mick West’s analysis shows the ‘rotation’ occurs exactly when the targeting pod’s gimbal rolls to track and the glare rotates with it, and that a distant jet’s engine heat fits the size and flight path. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 22% | Supporters dispute the glare explanation and point to the radar ‘fleet’, which has not been released. |
| Secret human technology | 12% | A drone or test aircraft is possible. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 6% | The aircrew’s comment about ‘a whole fleet’ shaped how the clip is read, though those other objects are not in the released footage. |
| Undetermined | 5% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 2% | No natural explanation is proposed. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 2% | Nothing suggests an unusual natural source. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 1% | The Navy confirmed the video as authentic. |
Official position: The Department of Defense released the video in 2020 and classifies the object as unidentified.
Connections in the atlas
- Mick West
- ▶ The government UFO files
- East Coast Navy encounters
- Ryan Graves
- Pentagon officially releases the three Navy videos
- The New York Times reveals AATIP