A never-before-seen video released last week by a member of Congress appears to show a US military 'Hellfire missile' bouncing off a bright, shiny orb-like object that was being tracked off the coast of Yemen on 30 October last year.
The video was released by Rep. Eric Burlison, who got it from an anonymous whistleblower, at a House Government Oversight subcommittee hearing into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), which is the current scientific term for objects or phenomena observed in the air, space, or sea that cannot be immediately identified.
The video has sparked intense debate, especially considering that the Hellfire missiles are among the US military's most devastating weapons and the UAP appeared to completely disable it within seconds.
What happened in Yemen?
- A video, taken on October 30 last year off the coast of Yemen shows a UAP being hit by the Hellfire missile shot from an MQ-9 Reaper drone.
- However, although the Hellfire missile establishes contact with the UAP and breaks off a few small pieces from it, the warhead does not detonate.
- Instead, the missile appeared to bounce right off and continue along its path after contact.
- Lawmakers and witnesses stressed that no known US technology could withstand a Hellfire strike.
- "Are you aware of anything in the U.S. arsenal that can split a Hellfire missile like this…and do whatever blob thing it did, and then keep going?" Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., asked each witness.
- During sworn testimony, US Air Force Veteran Jeffrey Nuccetelli, Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Alexandro Wiggins, and Air Force Veteran Dylan Borland admitted that the video frightened them.
- Nuccetelli and Wiggins also testified that no US technology is capable of surviving such a strike.
- At the time that the video was purportedly taken, the waters off Yemen were an active combat zone as US Navy ships and aircraft protected commercial shipping lanes from missiles and drones fired at shipping vessels by the Houthi militants in Yemen.
What is a hellfire missile?
- The AGM-114 Hellfire was originally designed in the US during the Cold War as an anti-tank missile.
- Since then, it has evolved into a versatile precision weapon used for drone strikes and surgical air raids. Today, it is capable of defeating any known tank in the world.
- A Hellfire is an air-to-ground, laser guided, subsonic missile. It can also be used as an air-to-air weapon against helicopters or slow-moving fixed-wing aircraft.
- It can be guided to targets either from inside aircrafts or by lasers outside the aircraft.
- The Hellfire missile has a mass of about 45 kilogrammes. Its warhead contains a high-explosive anti-tank with a shaped charge, a tandem charge, a metal augmented charge and blast fragmentation.
What do the experts say?
- Analysts at the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) determined that the video captured an optical illusion involving a weather balloon and that the high rate of speed captured by the sensors aboard a Navy fighter jet was due to parallax and the angle from at which the camera viewed the object.
- AARO has repeatedly emphasized that no evidence linking UAP cases to extraterrestrial activity has been found.
- Avi Loeb, founding director of Harvard University's Black Hole Initiative and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University, said there was reasonable possibility that the UAP in the video is a drone launched by the Houthis.
- Loeb said, "The simplest interpretation is that the missile missed the main body of the target."
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