Explained: New Navy UFO Videos
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN recommends it as a calm, evidence-based debunking whenever the Navy UFO videos come up.
What it is
Mick West explains the three Navy UFO videos (FLIR, GIMBAL and GOFAST) released in 2020, giving mundane explanations such as a distant plane and camera artifacts. He notes the videos were not new and had been circulating since 2017.
Recommended by 5 HN commenters across 5 different months, 2020 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec rhinoceraptor · 2022-09 · on “Navy Says All UFO Videos Classified, Releasing Them Will Harm National Security”
All of the hyped UFO videos released over the past few years are easily explainable given a basic understanding of geometry, imaging and gimbals. Mick West has some great videos on it: [this video]
Strong rec mrandish · 2026-05 · on “US Government releases first batch of UAP documents and videos”
For anyone else who has a UFO-crazy uncle, I've found Mick West's YouTube channel to be invaluable [LINK] . Mick is a retired video game programmer (Spider Man, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk), who does extremely well-researched videos analyzing UFO claims. He's not flashy or trying to be entertaining, just thorough, evidence-based and scientifically rigorous. He'll even do controlled experiments, recreations and 3D models to validate what's going on. And he's unfailingly respectful no matter how unhinged the claim. His work explaining the "Gimbal Video" is a good example: [this video]
Recommends DSingularity · 2020-04 · on “Pentagon officially releases UFO videos [video]”
Apparently, no real gymnastics needed — just some domain knowledge. I was also freaked out by these videos until I saw this: [this video]
Recommends acqq · 2020-06 · on “Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown”
Not weird at all: [this video] Mick West's full playlist with explanations: [LINK] An article mentioning Mick West: [LINK] [LINK]
Recommends treesprite82 · 2021-06 · on “Sam Harris on UFO Disclosure”
> I found 3 pentagon confirmed videos today of Unidentified flying shapes going super fast. Whatever they are, this is pretty surreal If you're talking about the 3 videos I assume you are, I'd recommend checking out Mick West's videos on them: [this video]
Cites mouzogu · 2020-05 · on “The US Navy Admits UFO Videos Are Real”
I think you mean this one: [this video] One thing that is not really explained is why experienced pilots would not be aware of the phenomena explained in this video. Seems to me they would experience this all the time. fwiw I don't think it's actually an extraterrestrial object.
Cites acqq · 2020-08 · on “I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing (2008) [pdf]”
> these have low credibility Lower then low, to the point that whenever somebody mentions them, I believe there was just a "wish to be true" and then stop. When checked, it was just a "rerelase" of the old already published material (one can also think about to whose benefit that distraction was) which was already carefully debunked by Mick West: [this video] Mick West's full playlist with explanations: [LINK] An article mentioning Mick West: [LINK] Also, one day after NYT published their article "No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon’s U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public" they published a correction too: "Correction: July 24, 2020 An earlier version of this article inaccurately rendered remarks
Cites modzu · 2021-03 · on “New details on military UFO sightings”
just because it hasn't been explained easily does not imply there's a problem with our beliefs about technology. for example, that they are objects at all is already an assumption that could be wrong. what do you make of this? [this video]