Could the Strange Object in this Video be a UFO? | Expedition Unknown: Hunt for Extraterrestrials

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Bienvenidos a Santiago, perhaps the most modern city in South America. Its baroque old buildings are surrounded by modern towers, spacious parks, and a vibrant arts culture. The people here are warm and generous, but the reason I’m here is that they also see a heck of a lot of UFOs—more per capita than any other country. So many that the government established an official agency to investigate the government-founded agency, known as SEFA, in 1997 to look into UFO claims and to keep Chile’s vast air space as clear as possible.

To see their latest evidence, I’ve been invited to SEFA to meet with director Hugo Camus, communications chief Karen Navarro, and the director of Chile’s Civil Aviation Agency, Ricardo Gutierrez.

How many reports a year are we talking about?
Last year we had 85 missile cases—85 cases.

Wow, in one year?

What percentage of those cases are you able to scientifically explain?
72 percent.

72 percent? And in that 72 percent, what are the explanations that you found?
Most sightings turn out to be ordinary objects—things like birds, insects, weather balloons, even other planets like Jupiter or Venus.

Hopi dead bay knows.
But SEFA’s most disturbing case came across their radar—so to speak—only recently. They allowed me to view the raw footage of a government-certified UFO sighting. This footage was actually captured by their own military.

These were given to us by the Navy and were filmed by the helicopter crew.

What is that?
That’s the object. That’s the UFO.

What was the reaction of the crew on board?
They didn’t know what it was, and when they called air traffic control, were there other aircraft or helicopters in the area? They received information that nobody else was where the object was. It was invisible to radar, and the Navy’s thermal video shows it hovering in place. But then something really strange happens.

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Whoa, what’s it doing?

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What is that? What is it doing?

The object is moving, and something’s coming out of it. Something is coming out of it.

How long did this go on for?
Almost four minutes.

And then?
It vanished.

Disappear?
Yeah, the case is still open.

The plume coming from the craft doesn’t match the normal contrails left by a plane. It totally stumped the pilots who filmed it.

Have you ever seen anything like that before?
No, we go… no, no, no.

To investigate what may be the most compelling UFO case in years, I’m heading to an airfield where I’m meeting a researcher attempting to crack the case—Alberto.

Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.

You ready to go?
Alberto Solari has spent almost a decade analyzing UFO reports. Now, he’s devised an ingenious experiment to explain the mysterious Navy footage by trying to recreate it. SEFA has accounted for all planes known to have been flying in the area. The object clearly doesn’t move like a fixed-wing aircraft, so Alberto is taking another approach.

Blairing camera at the feet.
The reason why the flat air controls ever Arabic… It does make it subway that a balloon, which maybe is literally flip under the radar.

Right to test his theory, Alberto has arranged for a hot-air balloon to run parallel to our helicopter so we can film it with the same thermal camera used by the Navy pilots. The hot-air balloon will hopefully mimic the shape and movement of the UFO.

Now we’re getting our first look at how close a match the image really is.

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In fact, the object today matches—we think—compared to the first. The test balloon will release bursts of hot gas from its onboard propane system.

Venting now.

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The pilot fires off the propane while releasing some of the hot air from the balloon.

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The hot gas dissipates into the surrounding air. It barely registers on the thermal camera. A fire extinguisher emits a gas that is both visible and significantly colder than the ambient air. We’re hoping it shows up on the thermal.

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Kind of looks like it, but with feel down the side.

Okay, final analysis: The balloon shape is somewhat similar, but the expulsion of gas—like the video air balloon—what is it?

Great question.
Why would you call it a UFO? That is a mystery to me. I mean, I think because it has so many like this. There is a fascinating element—it’s a true or true unidentified flying object, or UFO.