FLIR

FLIR (Forward-Looking Infrared) is the military thermal-imaging camera technology mounted on fighter jets and other aircraft that produced the most consequential UFO footage of the last two decades — the FLIR1 video from the 2004 Nimitz encounter and the Gimbal and GoFast videos filmed during the 2015 USS Roosevelt carrier deployment, all three released publicly by the Pentagon in 2020 and central to the 2021 ODNI report's most-discussed cases. Understanding how FLIR actually renders a scene is essential to interpreting these videos correctly, and is central to both sides of the ongoing analytical debate: the technology captures heat signatures rather than visible light, meaning object size, distance, and true shape are much harder to judge directly from the footage than viewers instinctively assume, and the sensor's own gimbal mount introduces a distinctive rotating-frame artifact that skeptical analysts argue explains the "Gimbal" video's apparent spinning motion as a camera-tracking effect rather than genuine object rotation. Proponents counter that the underlying radar and visual pilot testimony accompanying each video is independent of, and doesn't depend on, how the FLIR footage itself is read, meaning even a fully explained camera artifact wouldn't resolve the broader case on its own.