Aguadilla UFO and the Mystery in Motion

Few modern ‘flying saucer’ incidents have gripped the public quite like the astonishing Puerto Rico UFO case which unfolded over the skies of the town of Aguadilla in 2013. What started as a routine surveillance mission above the island’s north-west coast soon transformed from ordinary to extraordinary, as a US government aircraft recorded a small object flying over the town before it appeared to fall into the sea.

While there are many famous stories about UFOs – from the Val Johnson Incident and the story of Flight 1628, to the Westall Encounter and the 1996 Varginha event – the Aguadilla UFO mystery smacks different.

Unlike many UFO cases, there’s genuine, government-recorded footage. It wasn’t filmed on a grainy video camera or the result of blurry mobile phone footage. This was specialist infrared footage rather than ordinary consumer video, although image quality and target resolution were still limited. So what did this extraordinary recording actually capture?

Was this a pair of wind-drifted lanterns, a misidentified drone or balloon, a glitch in the sensor, or something else entirely? And why, according to a number of independent analysts, did official explanations struggle to account for key details in the footage?

This is the scarcely believable Aguadilla mystery.

At 9.16pm on 25 April 2013, a US Customs and Border Protection De Havilland Canada DHC-8 Turboprop took off with a four-person crew from Puerto Rico’s Rafael Hernández Airport on a routine coastal patrol.

At approximately 9.20pm, the pilot reportedly saw a pinkish-red light over the ocean northwest of the airport, apparently flying towards the airport. A minute or so later, the pilot contacted the airport control tower which, according to a secondary account, also confirmed visual contact. There was no transponder code and no conventional aircraft signature. What had begun as a standard patrol was now a silent pursuit of what became known as the Aguadilla UFO.

At approximately 9.22pm, the Puerto Rico UFO crossed the shoreline and the crew began infrared tracking with the aircraft’s L-3 WESCAM MX-15D system as the reported light approached the airport area. On the screen, a small, dark ‘black-hot’ infrared signature appeared against the cooler background of the runway and residential rooftops, pacing low over the airport before slipping out across the town at what initially appeared to be treetop height.

The recording ran for three minutes and fifty-four seconds, with the object visible for about two minutes and fifty-six seconds. The object seemed to ignore the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) aircraft completely – there appeared to be no change in speed and no evasive turns, although later conflicting reports noted both straight-line drift and erratic movement. It was reported later that there was no attempt made by the pilot to intercept or engage with the unidentified flying object.

Then, in a sequence that would later be replayed frame by frame, the so-called ‘Aguadilla aliens’ appeared to plunge into the ocean without slowing, move beneath the surface, and finally reappeared as two distinct shapes before fading from view. Again, a conflicting report noted there was no underwater activity.

By the time the CBP plane got back to Rafael Hernández Airport in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico UFO lore got a little more murky. A witness claimed the object delayed the departure of FedEx Flight 58 that took off sixteen minutes late, but could not verify that the object caused the delay. According to another account, knowledge of the video circulated within the CBP office and a copy was later provided to Air Force Intelligence.

An investigator obtained an original copy in October 2013, and copies and commentary began circulating publicly online during 2014, when an unnamed insider with access to the files passed it to a small group of UAP researchers, then called Scientific Coalition for UFOlogy, but now known as The Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, or SCU.

They spent over 1,000 hours poring over the video, individual frame by individual frame. Eventually, they published a comprehensive report claiming, among other things, that: the Aguadilla UFO was between three and five feet in length; it flew at speeds between 40mph and 120mph at or below treetop level; it entered the water with no visible splash and maintained an underwater speed up to 95mph; and that it finally split into two similarly sized objects.

By October 2014, a low-quality video of the Aguadilla aliens was online, on forums, UFO websites and YouTube channels, where viewers saw the same footage the crew – as well as the Department of Homeland Security – had seen. Within months, the tape was being hailed in some corners as the best evidence yet of a ‘transmedium craft’ – an object moving seamlessly between air and water – while sceptics picked apart every frame, convinced there was a more mundane answer.

In late 2024, more than ten years after the Puerto Rico UFO incident, the case stepped out from under the cover of the internet and into the formal machinations of the US Department of Defense. As UAP reports drew growing scrutiny from Congress, the DoD’s All‑domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was presenting their findings about the Aguadilla UFO.

AARO and its partners analysed the footage and associated sensor/aircraft geometry, reconstructed the aircraft’s path and the camera’s line of sight, and began testing whether an illusion could mimic the flight characteristics of the unknown craft.

In AARO’s reconstruction, two small warm objects were drifting with the wind at around 8mph, roughly 600 feet above the ground. They argued that the much faster apparent movement was caused by parallax: as the CBP aircraft circled the area, the camera’s viewpoint was constantly changing, making the objects appear to race across the ground below even though they were moving relatively slowly. AARO said the same changing perspective helped create the impression that the objects approached or entered the sea, while the apparent “split” occurred when two objects travelling close together became easier to distinguish.

In their official report which is available to read online, it says –

AARO assesses with high confidence that the objects did not exhibit anomalous behavior or transmedium capabilities. AARO assesses with moderate confidence that the objects were a pair of sky lanterns.

Unsurprisingly, the Aguadilla mystery didn’t end with the AARO report. For many researchers, the sky‑lantern explanation felt too neat, a way to close a high‑profile case without fully addressing the anomalies which made it famous.

The SCU, who had spent years forensically dissecting the clip, requested further information from the AARO. In their view, the object’s apparent speed, lack of visible propulsion, clean water entries and the ‘split’ into two distinct objects couldn’t all be explained by parallax and lanterns.

Alongside the reports put forward by the AARO and SCU as to what the Aguadilla UFO was, there were other ideas. Some suggested it could have been small drones or experimental craft, perhaps military, flying without transponders or navigation lights. Perhaps sensor effects such as thermal crossover, changing viewing distance, cloud cover or loss of thermal contrast contributed to the apparent behaviour?

A few went further, arguing the Puerto Rico UFO was indeed a transmedium craft of unknown origin… potentially even a genuine alien encounter.

The Aguadilla mystery straddles two sides of a very blurry fence. On one side is the official line, as provided by AARO. On the other, the SCU and other experts concluded that the phenomenon was of unknown origin. While the metaphorical tape stopped rolling, the mystery of this perplexing Puerto Rico UFO carries on regardless.