Aguadilla Airport FLIR Incident
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On the night of April 25, 2013, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security / Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Predator B unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operating over northwestern Puerto Rico captured approximately three minutes of forward-looking infrared (FLIR) thermal video of an unidentified object. The object was tracked from Rafael Hernandez Airport in Aguadilla as it flew at low altitude, crossed the airport's active runway approach (causing a brief flight delay for an inbound commercial aircraft), proceeded over the ocean, entered the water, traveled submerged or at the surface, re-emerged from the water, and continued flight - demonstrating apparent transmedium capability between air and water environments. The DHS/CBP footage was not officially released by the agency. It became available to researchers and was analyzed extensively by the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). In 2015, SCU published a 47-page technical analysis of the footage. The analysis concluded the object's observed flight characteristics - including speeds below aircraft stall speed, the water entry and exit without apparent deceleration or structural disruption, and the split into what appeared to be two objects - could not be explained by any conventional aircraft, drone, bird, or marine animal known to the analysts. The SCU analysis was authored by researchers with professional backgrounds in physics, engineering, and intelligence analysis. The DHS did not officially acknowledge the footage or the SCU report. The Aguadilla case is considered one of the strongest instrumental UAP cases in the post-2010 period due to the quality of the sensor platform and the anomalous behavior documented.
Key Facts
- ›Date: April 25, 2013, approximately 9:20 PM AST
- ›Location: Rafael Hernandez Airport, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico and adjacent ocean
- ›Sensor platform: DHS/CBP Predator B UAV with FLIR thermal imaging system
- ›The object caused a brief flight delay for an inbound commercial aircraft at Rafael Hernandez Airport
- ›Object was tracked at speeds estimated between 40 and 120 mph - below stall speed for any known fixed-wing aircraft
- ›Object entered the ocean without apparent deceleration or structural disruption
- ›Object traveled at or below the ocean surface and then re-emerged and continued flight
- ›Object appeared to split into two objects during the water entry/exit phase
- ›DHS/CBP did not officially acknowledge the footage or the incident
- ›Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) published a 47-page technical analysis in 2015
- ›SCU found no conventional explanation for the observed flight characteristics
- ›Footage authenticated as genuine DHS/CBP thermal video by researchers with professional credentials