Gimbal and Go Fast Videos

For decades, the debate over unidentified flying objects existed in a peculiar twilight, too persistent to ignore, too stigmatized to acknowledge officially. Military pilots who encountered anomalous objects in restricted airspace learned to keep their mouths shut, knowing that a UFO report could end a career. Government programs that studied the phenomenon operated in the shadows, their findings classified and their existence denied. The public was left to sift through a wilderness of speculation, hoaxes, and genuine mysteries without guidance from the institutions best positioned to provide answers. Then, in December 2017, everything changed. The New York Times published a front-page story revealing the existence of a secret Pentagon program that had studied UFOs, accompanied by two extraordinary videos filmed by U.S. Navy pilots showing objects that defied explanation. The “Gimbal” and “Go Fast” videos, captured during training exercises off the East Coast of the United States, became the most important pieces of UFO evidence ever released by a government, triggering a chain of events that would bring the phenomenon from the margins of public discourse to the floor of the United States Congress.

The Roosevelt Strike Group

The encounters that produced the Gimbal and Go Fast videos occurred during the 2014-2015 deployment cycle of the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which was conducting training operations in the warning areas off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. These warning areas, blocks of ocean airspace reserved for military exercises, were the workspace of some of the Navy’s most skilled aviators, pilots and weapons systems officers flying F/A-18 Super Hornets, the front-line fighter aircraft of the U.S. Navy.

Beginning in 2014, pilots from multiple squadrons attached to the Roosevelt strike group began encountering objects in the training areas that they could not identify. The encounters were not occasional or isolated. They were occurring on a near-daily basis, with objects appearing consistently in the same general areas where the Navy was conducting operations. The frequency was alarming. These were not rare, ambiguous sightings at the edge of perception. They were regular, observable phenomena appearing in controlled military airspace, tracked on the most advanced sensor systems in the world.

The pilots who encountered these objects were among the most highly trained aviators on the planet. Navy fighter pilots undergo years of intensive training in visual identification, threat assessment, and sensor operation. They are trained to identify aircraft types at a glance, to distinguish friend from foe in the chaos of combat, and to remain calm and analytical under extreme stress. When these professionals reported that they were seeing objects they could not identify, objects that exhibited performance characteristics beyond anything in their experience, the reports carried an authority that civilian sightings simply could not match.

The Gimbal Video

The video designated “Gimbal” was captured in January 2015 by the infrared targeting system of an F/A-18 Super Hornet operating in the training areas off the East Coast. The footage, lasting approximately thirty-four seconds, shows an oblong object tracked against a featureless background, apparently flying at altitude. The object appears to rotate on its axis while maintaining its flight path, a maneuver that the pilots found deeply puzzling.

On the audio track, the voices of the aircrew can be heard reacting to what they are observing. The most memorable moment comes when one of the pilots, tracking the object on his display, exclaims, “There’s a whole fleet of them,” indicating that multiple objects were visible to the crew, though the camera was tracking only one. The tone of the pilots’ voices conveys a mixture of professional focus and genuine astonishment, the sound of highly trained individuals encountering something that falls outside their considerable expertise.

The object in the Gimbal video displays several characteristics that distinguish it from any known aircraft. It has no visible wings, tail, or flight control surfaces. It shows no exhaust plume or contrail. It appears to rotate around its longitudinal axis, a behavior that would be aerodynamically meaningless and structurally pointless for a conventional aircraft. The infrared signature suggests that the object is warmer than its surroundings, indicating that it is generating heat or reflecting solar energy, but the signature does not match the thermal profile of any known jet engine or propulsion system.

The name “Gimbal” was applied to the video because some analysts initially proposed that the apparent rotation of the object might be an artifact of the camera’s gimbal mechanism, the motorized mount that allows the infrared sensor to track targets while the aircraft maneuvers. However, other analysts and the pilots themselves disputed this interpretation, arguing that the rotation was consistent with the object’s actual behavior rather than a camera artifact.

The Go Fast Video

The second video, designated “Go Fast,” was captured during a separate 2015 encounter and shows an object flying over the ocean at what appears to be significant speed. The footage is captured by the same type of infrared targeting system, and the object appears as a bright point moving rapidly across the sensor’s field of view. The object has no visible wings or propulsion system, and it leaves no wake or exhaust trail.

The aircrew’s reactions on the audio track are, as with the Gimbal video, a mixture of professionalism and amazement. The pilots can be heard expressing excitement and confusion as they track the object, their voices reflecting the difficulty of reconciling what they are seeing with their extensive training and experience.

The Go Fast video has generated debate among analysts regarding the actual speed and altitude of the object. Some researchers, analyzing the sensor data displayed on the video’s heads-up display, have argued that the object’s apparent speed may be partially attributable to parallax effects and that the object may be closer to the water surface and moving more slowly than it appears. Others maintain that the object’s behavior, regardless of its precise speed, remains anomalous and unexplained.

What is not in dispute is that the pilots who encountered the object were unable to identify it, that it did not correspond to any known aircraft or drone in their experience, and that it was operating in restricted military airspace without authorization or identification.

Daily Encounters

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Roosevelt strike group encounters was not any single sighting but the sheer frequency with which objects were being observed. According to Lieutenant Ryan Graves, an F/A-18 pilot who later spoke publicly about his experiences, the objects were being detected almost daily during the 2014-2015 training period. They appeared on radar, were tracked by infrared sensors, and were occasionally observed visually by aircrew.

Graves described the objects as exhibiting a range of behaviors. Some appeared to hover at altitude for extended periods before departing at high speed. Others moved at velocities and executed maneuvers that exceeded the capabilities of any known aircraft, including the Super Hornets that were trying to intercept them. Some appeared to demonstrate what researchers later termed “transmedium” capability, moving from air to water or water to air without apparent difficulty.

The daily presence of these objects in the training areas created a practical problem that went beyond the philosophical question of what they were. They represented a safety hazard. Fighter aircraft operating at high speeds in the same airspace as unidentified objects of unknown capability risked collision. At least one near-miss was reported, in which an object passed between two aircraft that were flying in formation, an encounter that left the pilots shaken and angry.

This safety concern ultimately proved to be one of the factors that broke the silence surrounding the encounters. Pilots who might have been willing to keep quiet about unusual sightings were not willing to accept an ongoing collision risk without reporting it. The objects were in their airspace, every day, and someone needed to acknowledge the problem and do something about it.

AATIP and the Path to Disclosure

The encounters of the Roosevelt strike group did not occur in a vacuum. They were being studied, albeit covertly, by the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a Pentagon initiative that had been established in 2007 with funding secured by then-Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. AATIP’s mission was to investigate reports of unidentified aerial phenomena, particularly those involving military encounters, and to assess whether they represented a potential threat to national security.

AATIP was led by Luis Elizondo, an intelligence officer who had worked in counterintelligence and threat assessment. Under Elizondo’s direction, the program collected and analyzed military UFO reports, including the encounters with the Roosevelt strike group. The program operated with minimal public visibility and limited institutional support, and when its funding was cut, Elizondo resigned from the Pentagon in protest, citing what he described as excessive secrecy and institutional resistance to taking the phenomenon seriously.

It was Elizondo’s resignation and subsequent decision to go public that set in motion the events leading to the December 2017 New York Times story. Working with journalist Leslie Kean and former Pentagon officials, Elizondo facilitated the public release of the Gimbal, Go Fast, and a third video known as “FLIR1” or “Tic Tac,” which had been captured in 2004 during a separate encounter off the coast of California. The release of these videos, accompanied by the revelation of AATIP’s existence, represented the most significant official acknowledgment of UFO phenomena in the history of the subject.

The Pentagon Responds

The release of the videos forced the Pentagon into an unprecedented position. For the first time, the Department of Defense was compelled to address, on the record, the question of unidentified objects encountered by military personnel. The initial response was cautious but extraordinary in its implications. The Pentagon confirmed that the videos were authentic, that they had been captured by Navy pilots during training exercises, and that the objects depicted in them remained unidentified.

This confirmation was historic. For decades, the official U.S. government position on UFOs had been one of denial and dismissal. Project Blue Book, the Air Force’s UFO investigation program, had been closed in 1969 with the public conclusion that UFOs posed no threat to national security and that no UFO had ever represented technological capabilities beyond the current scientific knowledge. The Pentagon’s 2017 acknowledgment that its own pilots had filmed objects exhibiting capabilities that could not be explained effectively repudiated five decades of official denial.

In subsequent years, the Department of Defense took additional steps that would have been unthinkable before the video releases. The Navy implemented new reporting guidelines for unidentified aerial phenomena, encouraging pilots to report encounters without fear of stigma or career consequences. A successor organization to AATIP was established, eventually becoming the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. And in 2022 and 2023, Congressional hearings were held on the subject, with military officials testifying publicly about UFO encounters and the government’s efforts to understand them.

Congressional Action

The Congressional response to the Navy videos and the broader UAP issue represented a fundamental shift in how the United States government addressed the phenomenon. For the first time in half a century, elected officials were treating unidentified aerial phenomena as a serious matter requiring investigation, transparency, and accountability.

Congressional hearings featured testimony from military officials, intelligence professionals, and pilots, including Ryan Graves, who described their encounters in detail. The hearings were bipartisan, with members of both parties expressing concern about the implications of unidentified objects operating with impunity in U.S. military airspace. Legislation was passed requiring the Department of Defense to report regularly on UAP encounters and to establish mechanisms for receiving and investigating reports from military and intelligence personnel.

The shift in Congressional attention reflected a broader change in the cultural standing of the UFO subject. The stigma that had long surrounded the topic, the reflexive ridicule that greeted anyone who took it seriously, began to erode as credible witnesses with impeccable credentials came forward and as the government itself acknowledged that the phenomenon was real and unexplained. The Gimbal and Go Fast videos played a central role in this transformation, providing visual evidence that could be discussed and debated without the taint of crankery that had historically attached to the subject.

Performance Characteristics

The objects documented in the Navy videos, and described by the pilots who encountered them, exhibited performance characteristics that exceeded the capabilities of any known technology. These characteristics were not merely unusual. They were, by the standards of conventional aeronautics and physics, impossible.

The objects demonstrated what appeared to be the ability to accelerate instantaneously from a hovering position to hypersonic speeds, without any visible propulsion system and without producing the sonic boom that would accompany such acceleration through the atmosphere. They maneuvered with apparent disregard for inertial forces, executing turns and changes of direction that would destroy any known airframe and kill any human occupant. They operated without visible exhaust, contrails, or any other evidence of conventional propulsion.

Some objects appeared to demonstrate transmedium capability, the ability to operate in multiple environments, air and water, without modification or performance degradation. This capability, if confirmed, would represent a technological achievement of the highest order, as the engineering requirements for flight through air and movement through water are fundamentally different and difficult to reconcile in a single vehicle design.

The objects showed low observability, being difficult to detect on radar despite their proximity to advanced military sensor systems. When they were detected, their radar cross-sections did not correspond to any known aircraft type. Their infrared signatures were similarly anomalous, not matching the thermal profiles of jet engines, rocket motors, or any other known propulsion technology.

Legacy and Significance

The Gimbal and Go Fast videos represent a watershed moment in the history of the UFO phenomenon. They are not the most dramatic UFO footage ever captured, nor do they provide clear visual identification of the objects they depict. What they provide is something more important: official, authenticated video evidence from the most powerful military in the world, confirmed as genuine by the Department of Defense, showing objects that the United States Navy cannot identify and cannot explain.

This official provenance is what sets the Navy videos apart from every previous piece of UFO evidence. Previous footage and photographs, however compelling, could always be dismissed as hoaxes, misidentifications, or the products of unreliable witnesses. The Gimbal and Go Fast videos cannot be dismissed on any of these grounds. They were captured by military-grade sensors on military aircraft, operated by trained military personnel, and authenticated by the military itself. Whatever the objects in these videos are, they are real, and the United States government has said so on the record.

The videos opened a door that cannot be closed. The stigma that once silenced pilots and researchers has not entirely vanished, but it has been substantially reduced. The institutional denial that characterized the government’s approach to the phenomenon for half a century has given way to a grudging but genuine acknowledgment that something is happening in the skies that cannot be explained. And the questions that the videos raise, about the nature of the objects, the technology they represent, and the implications of their presence in military airspace, have moved from the fringes of discourse to the center of national security discussion.

The Navy pilots who filmed these objects were doing their jobs, flying training missions in routine airspace, when they encountered something extraordinary. They documented what they saw with the tools at their disposal. They reported what they found through proper channels. And eventually, through a circuitous path involving a secret Pentagon program, a frustrated intelligence officer, investigative journalism, and the slow grinding of democratic accountability, what they captured reached the public.

The objects in the Gimbal and Go Fast videos have never been identified. They remain, in the precise language of the Pentagon, unidentified aerial phenomena. They were there. They were real. They were filmed. And despite the combined analytical resources of the world’s most advanced military, no one knows what they are.

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “Gimbal and Go Fast Videos”
• CIA UFO/UAP Reading Room — Declassified CIA documents on UAP