They are balloons.
It's a stain.
It's Superman!
Is there anything social media naysayers wouldn't come up with to dismiss new footage of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) flying over a U.S. Air Force base overseas in 2017?
A video of the mysterious floating object – dubbed a “jellyfish” because of its dangling tentacle-like appendages – was released last week by investigative journalists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp.
The publication has since sparked a flurry of wild speculation from armchair debunkers. But there are good reasons not to dismiss this disclosure so easily.
As a journalist covering the UFO beat, I regularly work with Corbell and Knapp, who are behind many groundbreaking reports in the field.
Knapp is a two-time winner of the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Journalism Award.
In 1989, he famously exposed the still-controversial allegations of Bob Lazar, who claimed he had been hired to study aliens at a secret site in Nevada near a U.S. base – a facility now known as Area 51 Reverse engineering technology.
Corbell also earned his place among the pioneering UFO reporters.
In 2021, Corbell released leaked footage of a spherical object – filmed by the crew of the USS Omaha – off the coast of Southern California. The elongated ball can be seen flying in a strong headwind before disappearing into the sea.
A video of the mysterious floating object – dubbed a “jellyfish” because of its dangling tentacle-like appendages – was released last week by investigative journalists Jeremy Corbell (left) and George Knapp (right).
The duo have now released six images that may show unexplained UFOs over conflict zones in the Middle East.
For decades, the U.S. government dismissed this journalism as a conspiracy, until 2017, when the Pentagon confirmed the existence of long-standing secret programs investigating these strange occurrences.
In 2023, under growing public pressure, Congress held its first hearings to investigate the claims of former military pilots who testified under oath about their firsthand accounts of mysterious flying objects discovered around the world.
As more and more UFO evidence comes to light, the government has no choice but to be more transparent. And it is in this spirit of openness that Corbell and Knapp move forward.
They have no theory as to what the “jellyfish” UFO is, and since no plausible explanations have been found, others have rushed to judgment.
Some claim that the purported military infrared footage captured by a surveillance airship showed a smudge on the camera lens – perhaps bird droppings.
The “spot theory” was soon debunked by detectives who enlarged the object and revealed that it was spinning as it flew over Al-Taqaddum airbase in central Iraq in 2017.
A lens swab would have two dimensions. In the video, only three-dimensional objects can appear to rotate.
Another guess was that the “jellyfish” was a collection of balloons. An infrared video expert, Dave Falch, has seemingly burst that bubble.
Falch, known for his in-depth analysis of such recordings, demonstrated through an experiment posted on his Twitter feed that latex balloons are not visible when viewed with infrared.
Some claim that the purported military infrared footage captured by a surveillance airship showed a smudge on the camera lens – perhaps bird droppings.
Another guess was that the “jellyfish” was a collection of balloons. An infrared video expert, Dave Falch, has seemingly burst that bubble.
Falch's analysis is also supported by the first-hand accounts of anonymous military witnesses who reportedly spoke with Corbell and Knapp.
These witnesses, trained to distinguish between harmless balloons, surveillance aircraft and other potentially dangerous aerial objects, still cannot explain what they saw.
The world has no concrete answers, which can be an uncomfortable situation for some. But if solving UFO mysteries were easy, the apparatus of the US Department of Defense and Intelligence would not have found it necessary to create an entirely new unit – the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (ARRO) – in July 2022 to examine them.
UFOs exist. To get used to something.
There are things in our skies, in our oceans, and outside the atmosphere that cannot be explained.
What the “jellyfish” UFO footage does not show is what witnesses Corbell and Knapp reported: that the UFO descended into nearby Lake Habbaniyah for 17 minutes, then resurfaced from the water and at a speed accelerated from 10 km/h at a 45 degree angle until it disappeared from the frame.
If these claims prove true, the “jellyfish” footage would be further sobering evidence that the most powerful nation in history is not the most technologically advanced.
In 2021, Corbell released leaked footage of a spherical object – filmed by the crew of the USS Omaha – off the coast of Southern California. The elongated ball (above) can be seen flying in a strong headwind before disappearing into the sea.
The duo have now released six images that may show unexplained UFOs over conflict zones in the Middle East. (Above) A metallic-looking bullet flying over an Iraqi city was reportedly caught on video by a U.S. spy plane.
Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe hinted at this last year when he acknowledged that the U.S. government had a responsibility to “investigate objects that demonstrate technologies that appear to defy the laws of physics and capabilities that which we as the world's superpower do not have.”'
The situation is so worrying that Five Eyes – the intelligence alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States – has released a classified report on the increasing frequency of UFO encounters, according to Corbell's reports.
Many in Congress, even Democratic Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer, have called for more disclosure. Worryingly, some in the U.S. government may be rolling back the secrecy.
After releasing three UFO videos in 2020, the US Navy has explicitly stated that it will not release any further footage for “national security” reasons. This week, the Pentagon issued a statement on the “jellyfish” UAP, refusing to confirm or deny the authenticity of the video or whether it was reported to AARO.
The public should push harder for answers. Whatever the “jellyfish” is, it is undoubtedly part of a broader discussion about transparency and trust.
No matter how much the doubters and government censors want it to be a stain gone, the problem cannot be erased so easily.
Author Christopher Sharp is founder/editor-in-chief of Liberation Times