IncidentAguadilla Incident (25 April 2013, Puerto Rico)

aka Aguadilla Incident (25 April 2013, Puerto Rico)

A US Customs and Border Protection aircraft's thermal camera filmed an object near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico that appeared to skim into the ocean (transmedium) and split in two; AARO and independent analysts concluded it was a pair of wind-drifting sky lanterns misread through parallax and infrared effects.

disputed-optical-artifact A government-sensor IR video whose headline transmedium/splitting behavior is best explained by parallax and infrared effects on wind-drifting sky lanterns (AARO, moderate confidence; independent analysts concur). Disputed by the pro-anomaly side on methodological grounds.

status history (1)

2026-06-14 · new → disputed-optical-artifact — seeded 2026-06-14 — corpus-growth pass (canonical cases the record lacked)

▸ Deep dive — full timeline, named personnel, sensors, theory-by-theory analysis, and the conventional explanations weighed against the open questions →

On 25/26 April 2013 a DHS/CBP aircraft’s Wescam infrared camera recorded ~3 minutes of an object near Rafael Hernandez Airport that appeared to fly low, enter the sea, and bifurcate. The Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies published a detailed analysis arguing anomalous, transmedium kinematics; Metabunk (Mick West, Ruben Lianza) and ultimately AARO (March 2025, moderate confidence) concluded the footage shows a pair of sky lanterns drifting at wind speed, with the apparent high speed, water-entry, and splitting produced by parallax from the moving camera and infrared imaging against the sea-temperature background. It became the canonical test case for both the ‘transmedium’ claim and the demonstration of how IR and parallax manufacture such illusions.

Notable & intriguing

AARO’s March 2025 Puerto Rico case resolution concluded with moderate confidence that the objects were a pair of sky lanterns drifting at ~7 knots, the anomalies explained by parallax and sensor effects.

AARO Puerto Rico UAP Case Resolution (2025); DefenseScoop
The Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (Robert Powell et al., 2015) argued the kinematics were anomalous and transmedium; the group has not conceded but posed methodological questions to AARO.

SCU report (2015); Metabunk

Public-record items already documented about this subject. Folklore is labelled. Sources cited where the specificity warrants it.

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