The Yemen 'Hellfire orb' video
A clip shown to Congress in September 2025, described as an MQ-9 tracking an orb off Yemen on 30 October 2024 that a Hellfire missile hit without stopping it.
2024 CE · 38.89, -77.01 · status: claim
The account
Rep. Eric Burlison said he had been given the video and played it at the 9 September 2025 task-force hearing. George Knapp told the panel he had heard of the event before and described the missile as bouncing off.
The sceptical view
The Pentagon has not authenticated the clip or explained it; without the original sensor data, range and context, sceptics argue the 'bounce' could be a misread of a near miss or debris.
The researched reading
A dramatic clip with no confirmed origin or data. Interesting if verified; for now ordinary readings are at least as likely.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Something known, misidentified | 36% | In low-resolution IR, a missile passing close to or through a light object such as a balloon, or debris thrown from a near miss, can look like a ‘bounce’; inert blade Hellfire variants do not explode on contact. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 20% | If authentic and the missile did strike, the object’s survival is hard to explain, but neither condition has been established. |
| Secret human technology | 18% | Off Yemen, adversaries use decoys and balloons; a hardened target or test object is possible. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 9% | The clip was presented with the conclusion already attached, which shapes what viewers see. |
| Undetermined | 7% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 5% | It came from an anonymous whistleblower without metadata; edited or misattributed footage cannot be excluded. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 3% | An unusual atmospheric object is unlikely but possible. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 2% | No natural explanation fits a tracked target. |
Official position: The Pentagon has not authenticated or explained the video shown to Congress in September 2025.