The Aguadilla case joins a reported visual observation from a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) aircraft with an infrared recording subsequently analysed by outside investigators and the US government. The published crew narrative reaches readers through anonymous sources described by the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). Later claims about speed, water entry and separation depend on interpreting the recording. Keeping those source histories distinct permits assessment of the crew's reported experience without attributing every subsequent technical conclusion to its members.
Aircraft crew associated with the Aguadilla visual report and thermal recording
How the crew narrative entered the public record
SCU's 2015 report identifies Witness A as a CBP pilot and one of four crew members. Its investigators initially communicated with him through Witness B, who supplied the video and returned questionnaires. The described arrangement establishes a mediated source chain. It does not securely identify B as one of the people aboard the aircraft.
In SCU's account of its February 2014 interview with B, Witness A noticed a pink or red light towards the ocean. B said the tower also saw it; the light went out near the shore and the crew followed the target with thermal imaging. This sequence distinguishes the reported initial visual sighting from the subsequent display observations.
The published source arrangement does not provide four signed, independently accessible crew statements. Descriptions of the tower's observation and the onboard radar's failure to detect a target also reach readers through this account. They require their own recordings or logs before they can function as independently checked corroboration.
Evidence review
Anonymity restricts public comparison of the participants' positions, interview wording and access. It does not by itself determine whether the report is accurate. The pertinent question is which observations are directly attributable and how their recording history can be checked.
The initial light, the thermal image and a reconstructed trajectory are different evidential objects. A statement about one cannot silently authenticate the others. In particular, a camera operator's tracking activity does not establish the target's range or prove that an apparent disappearance involved entry into water.
Original 162-page PDF acquired from SCU's report link. Selected text read at PDF pages 4, 8–13, 21, 23–26 and 43–45; original page images inspected at pages 4, 10, 11, 21, 61, 66 and 67. Pages 10–11 describe the source arrangement. Original crew questionnaires, complete video, interviews and radar dataset were not independently examined. Reproduced correspondence is evidence of the requests and responses shown, not proof of every asserted missing record.
Publisher page read. Distinguishes first report release on 10 August 2015 from the webpage's 2018 posting and 2024 update. Embedded videos and linked alternative-hypothesis papers were not independently inspected in this review.
Official report URL returned an access error. All seven pages of the reproduced report were visually inspected through the separately listed mirror. High confidence in the absence of anomalous performance is distinguished from moderate confidence in the sky-lantern identification. Raw model coordinates, pixel-analysis outputs and crew interview records were not independently examined.
Seven-page PDF used to inspect the report when the official endpoint was inaccessible. This is a reproduction of the same agency document, not another independent assessment. Conflicting aircraft endpoint altitudes and sunset times were not resolved here and are not used to support a new calculation.
What the recording can establish about the witness account
A single moving camera records a direction towards a target, while determining that target's three-dimensional motion requires additional constraints. Different assumed distances can produce different speeds from the same sequence. The technical dispute therefore bears on the reconstruction of the event, rather than supplying additional eyewitnesses.
SCU's reconstruction interprets the sequence as an object travelling rapidly and entering water. The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), in its March 2025 report, assesses with high confidence that the video shows no anomalous performance or movement between air and water, and with moderate confidence that the targets were two sky lanterns. Its model places the objects over land and explains apparent rapid movement through parallax, the shift caused by the observing aircraft's own motion. The confidence levels belong to different propositions and should remain separate.
AARO also identifies early frames showing two objects and interprets later losses of contrast without requiring submersion. Those findings challenge the proposed water entry and splitting. Its public report presents a model and selected illustrations, rather than a complete set of independently reproduced trajectory calculations. A technically specific official assessment can be evaluated without treating its institutional origin as a substitute for the underlying measurements.
In its statement of 28 April 2025, SCU asked AARO for trajectory coordinates, error margins, cloud information and the pixel analysis used to assess an apparent occlusion. These requests identify measurements needed to compare the reconstructions. The statement records SCU's position at that date; it does not establish that no subsequent answer or analysis could exist.
The crew's reported visual experience and the later technical analyses have separate source histories. An anonymously reported light and a preserved sensor recording can justify investigation while leaving their physical explanation contested. Neither the crew label nor the recording's circulation turns one mediated narrative into four independent testimonies, or converts an analyst's inferred motion into something every crew member personally observed.
Key dates
25–26 April 2013
Different local event dates appear in SCU's account and AARO's case card; they are retained as a source discrepancy rather than silently harmonised.
20 October 2013
SCU records receiving the video from its anonymous source.
15 February 2014
SCU dates its meeting with Witness B, the intermediary for the pilot account.
10 August 2015
SCU identifies this as the first release of its detailed report.
20 March 2025
AARO publishes its conventional-object assessment and distinguishes its confidence in performance from its proposed identification.
28 April 2025
SCU publishes technical questions seeking information needed to compare AARO's reconstruction with its own.
Original 162-page PDF acquired from SCU's report link. Selected text read at PDF pages 4, 8–13, 21, 23–26 and 43–45; original page images inspected at pages 4, 10, 11, 21, 61, 66 and 67. Pages 10–11 describe the source arrangement. Original crew questionnaires, complete video, interviews and radar dataset were not independently examined. Reproduced correspondence is evidence of the requests and responses shown, not proof of every asserted missing record.
Publisher page read. Distinguishes first report release on 10 August 2015 from the webpage's 2018 posting and 2024 update. Embedded videos and linked alternative-hypothesis papers were not independently inspected in this review.
Official report URL returned an access error. All seven pages of the reproduced report were visually inspected through the separately listed mirror. High confidence in the absence of anomalous performance is distinguished from moderate confidence in the sky-lantern identification. Raw model coordinates, pixel-analysis outputs and crew interview records were not independently examined.
Seven-page PDF used to inspect the report when the official endpoint was inaccessible. This is a reproduction of the same agency document, not another independent assessment. Conflicting aircraft endpoint altitudes and sunset times were not resolved here and are not used to support a new calculation.
Complete short statement read. Its technical requests and account of AARO's response are attributed to SCU and dated to April 2025; the statement is not evidence of the present status of every subsequent exchange.