IncidentGoFast Video (2015)

The GoFast video is a 35-second infrared clip captured in 2015 by the ATFLIR (Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared) pod of an F/A-18F Super Hornet operating off the U.S. East Coast, during the same operational period as the Roosevelt East Coast UAP encounters (see roosevelt-2014). The footage shows a small object racing across the ocean surface at extraordinary apparent speed; the pilot’s voice-over includes the exclamation “Whoa, got it! Woooo! What the [expletive] is that thing?” and includes a discussion among the crew about whether the object is “going against the wind.”

The video was one of three officially declassified by the U.S. Navy on 27 April 2020 (with the Gimbal video and the Nimitz Tic Tac FLIR1 video). The release confirmed that the footage was genuine Navy footage and that the object had not been identified.

The credulous reading: the GoFast footage shows an object racing extraordinarily fast and low over the ocean surface, with apparent speeds and low altitudes inconsistent with conventional aircraft. The crew’s contemporaneous reactions reflect their reading that the object was anomalous.

The skeptical reading, advanced most prominently by Mick West (see figure-west-mick), is that the GoFast object is an ordinary aircraft at altitude (~13,000 feet), with the apparent low altitude and high speed produced by parallax compression. The ATFLIR camera is locked on the object as the F/A-18F itself moves at high speed; the object’s distance below the F/A-18F creates a parallax effect against the ocean surface seen far below — the moving F/A-18F’s camera, looking down at a shallow angle, sees the object foreshortened against the ocean surface, with the object’s apparent speed dominated by the parallax-induced angular motion across the visible frame. West’s analysis includes period-correct flight reconstruction using the ATFLIR’s recorded altitude, target range, and target altitude metadata visible on the video itself: the target range (~3.3 nm) and the target altitude (~13,000 feet) are visible on the HUD-overlay numerics in the released clip, and these numbers — read against the F/A-18F’s own altitude (~25,000 feet) — are consistent with an aircraft at altitude rather than a sea-skimming object.

The HUD-overlay numerics read by West are visible in the released video and form the technical anchor for the analysis: a target altitude of ~13,000 feet contradicts the visual impression of a sea-skimming object. The credulous reading would require the HUD-overlay numerics themselves to be in error or to be displaying something other than the target altitude — a position not adopted by the named pilots associated with the Roosevelt encounters.

See also: roosevelt-2014; gimbal-2015; figure-graves; figure-west-mick.