Just when you think things couldn't get any stranger, this happens. On the north end of the Anchorage, Alaska, metropolitan area is the U.S. military installation, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), a secure installation. So, when strange aerial phenomena start appearing near that area, people start to get a little concerned. This one was recorded in June and has now provoked a response from a former Pentagon expert on unexplained aerial phenomena. This object can't be readily identified, and looks like some kind of flying cephalopod, well, the theories have started flying.
Hint: It's not an alien. It's not from another planet. It's probably from somewhere right around Anchorage, in fact, and there's probably a little kid holding on to the other end of a string attached to the thing.That's right. It's probably a kite.
A bizarre, jellyfish-shaped object filmed moving through the sky near a major U.S. military base in Anchorage, Alaska, has sparked online speculation, but the Pentagon's former top UFO investigator says there may be a much simpler explanation.
Video recorded June 15 shows a dark object appearing to hover along a mountainside near a rainbow, with several long strands dangling beneath it.
The object appears to pulse and shift in the air as the strands rise, fall and wave beneath it. As it moves toward the left side of the frame, the strands trail behind before the object moves back toward the right.
Those are all things a kite would do.
The 673d Air Base Wing Public Affairs office at JBER declined to make any substantive comment at the time, probably thinking that the object was not an alien spacecraft but instead something much more earthbound. As it happens, reacting to the footage after the fact, Sean Kirkpatrick, the former leader of the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), criticized the notion of drawing conclusions from what's clearly a low-quality video. But he also had a much simpler explanation for the object.
Kirkpatrick said the footage alone does not provide enough information to determine the object's size, altitude, distance or actual movement.
He did, however, point to a possible explanation for what appears in the video.
"The motion is similar to a kite with streamers, particularly the waves," Kirkpatrick said.
Historical weather observations show there was plenty of wind in Anchorage around the time of the reported sighting.
It looks very kite-like to this observer, as well. Not an alien.
Granted, the area around JBER is sensitive airspace. JBER is also not all that far from the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport in Anchorage, and even closer is the Merrill Field civil aviation airport. So there's a fair amount of air traffic in the area, with all the concomitant concerns about things cluttering up the airspace. Add to that the fact that it's difficult to see precisely where the video was filmed, although it appears to be one of the ridges of the Chugach range is nearby.
In June, when this video was shot, windy days are common, from Anchorage down to the Turnagain and north to Palmer and Wasilla. Good kite-flying weather. And, yes — this is, in the estimation of this observer, most likely a kite.
So, no reason to get excited.