CASE FILE CL-2014-001

Chilean Navy Helicopter Infrared Recording

11 November 2014 · Pacific coast between San Antonio and Quintero, Valparaíso Region, Chile · Location generalized (Approximate) · CL

Official finding

Fenómeno Aéreo No Identificado (FANI) — classified by CEFAA as an unidentified aerial phenomenon after a two-year technical investigation. Committee director General Ricardo Bermúdez summarized the finding as, "We don't know what it was, but we know what it wasn't."

Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (CEFAA), Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil, Chile

Caso Armada — CEFAA case findings on the 11 November 2014 Navy helicopter recording

Anomaly Index assessment

Unresolved: insufficient data

CEFAA's own multi-disciplinary review, including its photogrammetry department, ruled out birds, insects, gliders, and known aircraft types based on the object's apparent lack of visible wings or fuselage and its thermal signature, and classified the case as unidentified. An independent open-source analysis using publicly available flight-track (ADS-B) data proposed a close match between the object's motion and the two brief plume events and Iberia flight IB6830, a commercial airliner climbing out of Santiago, but CEFAA's investigators reviewed and rejected that explanation as inconsistent with the object's thermal signature and apparent proximity to the helicopter. No radar or other independent sensor corroborates either account, and the public record does not include enough of CEFAA's internal analysis to evaluate why it rejected the airliner explanation, so the two assessments cannot be reconciled from the material currently available.

Anomaly Index assessments are editorial evaluations of the public record. They are not official government determinations.

Unresolved means that the available evidence does not support a reliable identification. It does not imply extraterrestrial or nonhuman origin.

What was reported

On 11 November 2014, a Chilean Navy Airbus Cougar AS-532 helicopter was flying a coastal patrol between the ports of San Antonio and Quintero, in the Valparaíso region, while a technician tested a newly acquired high-definition WESCAM MX-15 forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera. At approximately 13:52 local time, the technician noticed an object to the left of the helicopter, over the ocean, and began recording. Both the pilot, a Navy captain, and the technician stated they could also see the object with the naked eye and reported it to air traffic control; the pilot later described it in a written report as a "flat and elongated structure," while the technician described a "semi-oval shape." The object appeared to maintain a constant bearing and roughly matched speed with the helicopter for the duration of the roughly ten-minute recording. At around the eight-minute mark, the infrared footage shows what the crew described as two separate emissions of a hot gas or liquid trailing behind the object. Neither the helicopter's onboard radar nor coastal ground radar stations detected the object, though both detected the helicopter itself; controllers confirmed no civil or military air traffic had been authorized in the area. The Navy forwarded the footage to CEFAA, which studied the case for roughly two years before releasing its findings and the footage publicly in January 2017.

What is verified

A Chilean Navy Cougar AS-532 helicopter crew recorded an unidentified object on infrared and visible-light camera off the Valparaíso coast on 11 November 2014.[1]
Neither the helicopter's onboard radar nor coastal ground radar stations detected the object during the encounter.[1]
CEFAA, the Chilean government's official anomalous-aerial-phenomena investigation office, studied the case for approximately two years before publicly releasing its findings and the footage in January 2017.[1]
CEFAA's investigation, including its photogrammetry department, concluded the object was not a bird, insect, glider, or known aircraft type, and classified the case as an unidentified aerial phenomenon (FANI).[1]
Iberia flight IB6830, a four-engine Airbus A340, departed Santiago and was climbing through high altitude in the general area and time window of the recording.[3]

Evidence ledger

Evidence items documenting this case
Type	Description	Originality	Source organization	Released	Raw or edited	Metadata	Provenance	Known limitations	Source
Infrared	Approximately ten minutes of raw WESCAM MX-15 forward-looking infrared footage of the object, including two apparent thermal plume events.	Original	Chilean Navy	2017-01 (publicly released by CEFAA)	Raw	Partial	Recorded by Navy personnel during an operational patrol; forwarded to CEFAA for analysis and released publicly alongside CEFAA's findings in January 2017.	No onboard radar or ground radar corroboration of the object's range or true altitude exists, which limits independent calculation of the object's actual size, speed, and distance from the camera.	[1]
Official document	CEFAA's compiled case file, including the pilot's and technician's written statements, photogrammetry department analysis, and internal correspondence among investigators.	Original	CEFAA, Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil, Chile	2017-01	Unknown	Partial	Compiled by CEFAA during its investigation and released publicly in January 2017, alongside the footage.	Represents CEFAA's internal analytical process and conclusions rather than a fully reproducible technical dataset; underlying radar logs and complete flight-track records for the area were not released in full.	[1]
Military eyewitness	Written statements from the helicopter's pilot and camera technician describing the object's appearance and behavior.	Original	Chilean Navy	2014-11 (statements taken); 2017-01 (released)	Unknown	Partial	Taken by Navy officers shortly after the encounter and forwarded to CEFAA.	The two crew members' descriptions of the object's shape differ ("flat and elongated" versus "semi-oval"), and no independent witness corroborated the sighting.	[1]

Proposed explanations

Iberia flight IB6830 producing aerodynamic contrails

Proposed by Independent analyst Mick West (Metabunk), 2017

Supporting: Publicly available ADS-B flight-track data for IB6830, an Airbus A340 climbing out of Santiago at high altitude and considerable distance from the helicopter, closely matches the object's apparent bearing, timing, and rate of relative motion; aerodynamic contrails forming and dissipating at that altitude and humidity are consistent with the two brief "plume" events recorded on infrared.

Contradicting: CEFAA's investigators reviewed and rejected this explanation as inconsistent with the object's recorded thermal signature and apparent proximity to the helicopter; the crew maintained they could also see the object visually as a discrete shape rather than a distant airliner.

Plausible

Unidentified aerial phenomenon

Proposed by CEFAA (official finding)

Supporting: CEFAA's photogrammetry and technical review ruled out birds, insects, gliders, and known aircraft silhouettes, and found the object's apparent behavior and thermal signature did not match any catalogued object type in its assessment.

Contradicting: CEFAA's published materials do not fully reconcile the object's recorded track with the independently reconstructed position of IB6830, which an outside technical analysis argued was a close match.

Disputed

Why this classification?

This case is classified as Unresolved: insufficient data because CEFAA's own technical review and an independent open-source flight-track analysis reach opposite conclusions about the same footage, and the public record does not contain enough detail about CEFAA's internal reasoning to adjudicate between them. No radar or second sensor corroborates either account, leaving a single infrared recording as the only direct evidence channel, which is not enough on its own to confirm or rule out a conventional explanation.

What remains unknown

Why the object was not detected by either the helicopter's onboard radar or coastal ground radar stations, if it was a large commercial aircraft at high altitude and long range.
Why CEFAA's investigators rejected the airliner explanation, and whether their internal analysis has been published in enough detail to evaluate that rejection independently.
Whether independent radar data for IB6830's climb-out track over this period has ever been obtained and directly compared to the footage's timeline.

Classification history

2014
Object reported by aircrew; footage forwarded to CEFAA for analysis — Chilean Navy
2017
Fenómeno Aéreo No Identificado (FANI) — unidentified aerial phenomenon — CEFAA / Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil
2017
Likely Iberia flight IB6830 producing aerodynamic contrails — Independent analysts (Metabunk / Mick West)
Independent open-source analysis, not adopted by CEFAA.
2026
Unresolved: insufficient data — Anomaly Index
Editorial assessment; see index_assessment.rationale and dossier.why_classification.

Sources

Primary source: Tier A
Caso Armada — CEFAA case findings on the 11 November 2014 Navy helicopter recording (opens in new tab)Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (CEFAA), Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil, Chile · 2017-01-11 (public release); investigation conducted 2014-2016 · archived copy (opens in new tab)
Source provenance note
CEFAA's own published findings on the case, released alongside the Navy footage in January 2017 after roughly two years of committee review. The original cefaa.gob.cl domain is no longer live following the office's 2021 reorganization into SEFAA (Sección de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos); the archived Wayback Machine snapshot is used as the stable reference copy. CEFAA classified the case as a Fenómeno Aéreo No Identificado (FANI) — an unidentified aerial phenomenon. Original cefaa.gob.cl host no longer resolves as of 2026-07-15 (CEFAA was reorganized as SEFAA under DGAC); the case material remains accessible via the archived copy.
Primary source: Tier A
SEFAA — Sección de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos (successor office to CEFAA) (opens in new tab)Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil (DGAC), Chile — Sección de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos · 2021-present
Source provenance note
Official Chilean government office, dependent on the civil aviation authority DGAC, responsible for investigating anomalous aerial phenomena in Chilean airspace. Renamed from CEFAA to SEFAA in October 2021 (Resolución Exenta N.° 04/3/0113/1385). Used here to confirm the investigating body's official standing and its published case-handling methodology.
Context only: Tier C
Explained: Chilean Navy "UFO" video — Aerodynamic Contrails, Flight IB6830 (opens in new tab)Metabunk (independent open-source analysis forum) · 2017-01
Source provenance note
Crowdsourced technical analysis led by Mick West using ADS-B flight-track data to argue that the recorded object matches Iberia flight IB6830, a four-engine Airbus A340 climbing out of Santiago that would have been producing aerodynamic (non-persistent) contrails at high altitude and distance from the helicopter. The reconstruction matches the object's apparent trail growth, timing, and bearing. CEFAA's investigators considered and rejected this explanation. Discovery/context source only; cannot independently qualify a case for inclusion.