In 2017, a grainy military video known as “GoFast” hit the internet, setting off a storm of speculation. Captured by a U.S. Navy F/A-18 fighter jet and officially released by the Pentagon in 2020, the footage appeared to show a mysterious object tearing across the ocean surface at high speed.
Alien tech?
Secret drone?
Physics-defying threat?
None of the above. According to a new 2025 resolution report from the Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), the object wasn’t moving that fast at all.
It wasn’t even near the water.
The case that once stirred global headlines has now become a textbook example of how misperception, missing data, and parallax can create a phantom threat out of an ordinary object.
Are we to believe this? See for yourself:
📹 The Video That Fooled the World
What made “GoFast” so compelling wasn’t just the footage-it was what wasn’t visible:
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No visual reference points
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No altitude markers for the object
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No aircraft heading metadata
The object appeared to be skimming the ocean’s surface at impossible speeds.
But AARO’s full technical analysis, using frame-by-frame trajectory calculations, found the object was at an altitude of 13,000 feet-and moving at a speed between 5 and 92 mph, depending on wind direction.
🌬️ Caught in the Wind
The object’s speed wasn’t anomalous-it was atmospheric.
“The object did not move against the wind in any simulation.”
- AARO Final Report, Feb 2025
Using weather data from the time and location of the event, AARO factored in wind speeds at both 13,000 and 25,000 feet.
After modeling hundreds of possible wind-relative vectors, the conclusion was clear: the object was simply drifting with the wind, like a balloon or lightweight drone.
🎯 A Misfire of Perception
So why did it look so fast?
One word: parallax.
“The more quickly an observer moves relative to an observed object, the more pronounced this effect is.”
As the F/A-18 flew by at 190 m/s (~425 mph), the object appeared to shoot past the camera.
But it wasn’t.
It was nearly stationary in airspace, and the pilot’s fast-moving perspective warped the visual experience-creating the illusion of incredible speed.
📐 Geometry Over Hype
The report includes a complete 3D vector reconstruction of the object’s path using:
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Sensor azimuth and elevation angles
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Ranges between 4.0 and 3.4 nautical miles
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The F/A-18’s altitude, bank angle, and speed
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13 seconds of FLIR footage analyzed frame-by-frame
Even after calculating for 360° of possible wind directions and accounting for four wind scenarios (headwind, tailwind, crosswinds), the object’s heading and speed were always within conventional parameters.
“At its peak, the object’s intrinsic speed was about 92 mph-no faster than a car.”
🤖 A Balloon, a Bird, or a Hype Machine?
Though the exact object remains unidentified, its performance and size (~1 meter or less, per pixel analysis) point to a small balloon, drone, or even bird-nothing exhibiting signs of propulsion, maneuverability, or technology beyond human capability.
And yet, GoFast was treated as one of the Pentagon’s “top three” UAP clips.
🕳️ When the Unknown Is Just Unclear
The most important lesson from the GoFast report isn’t about the object-it’s about how easily incomplete data, visual illusion, and viral framing can manufacture mystery.
What AARO delivered wasn’t a revelation. It was a reminder:
The extraordinary demands not just evidence, but perspective.
