I offer the below video as a shorter and simplified analysis by Mick West. I'm focusing on this because it was one among several events that Spielberg mentioned as compelling evidence (for him). Again, what I see is just a pile-on of many people re-iterating pov's that are far from legit.
Spielberg mentions the Ariel school incident - too complex to go into here. There is no question that there have been some pretty strange events that have happened over the years - like the Betty and Barney Hill incident.
Growing up there was even a rather well documented UFO Flap that took place a few towns over from where I lived. Very strange events witnessed by very sober people. Maybe I'll post about it - there are some excellent interviews about that particular incident - especially interesting have been body language analysts assessing the interviewees for truthfulness.
Mick West has assessed the trio of videos, called FLIR, GIMBAL and GOFAST.
Mick West, debunker, skeptic, writer.
Likely explanations
“With the help of others, I quickly arrived at likely explanations for all three videos,” West explains. “The FLIR video is most likely a distant plane. The video was taken well after the famous encounter with a hypersonic zig-zagging tic-tac by pilots from the Nimitz [aircraft carrier]. This object doesn’t actually move on screen – except when the camera moves, and it resembles an out of focus low-resolution backlit plane. I don’t know what the pilots saw, but this video does not show anything really interesting.”
The GIMBAL video is also probably of a plane, West continues. “It’s not rotating. What you see is the infrared glare of the engines, larger than the plane. It looks like it is rotating because of an artifact of the gimbal-mounted camera system.” As for the “AURA” around the plane, that’s just image sharpening, he adds. “It happens all the time in thermal camera footage. It’s not an alien warp drive, it’s just the unsharp mask filter.”
Lastly, the GO-FAST video probably shows a balloon, West surmises. “It’s not moving fast, it’s not skimming the water, and you can verify this yourself because all the information you need is in the numbers on screen. It’s just an effect caused by parallax,” he concludes.
Published April 27, 2020: [Video Run Time 2:53] Mick West Channel
"Today the Navy officially released three videos of UFOs. They are called FLIR, GIMBAL and GOFAST. The internet immediately took this as meaning that aliens are real. But the videos are not actually new. They were internally declassified back in 2017, and immediately released by Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy. I started writing about them in December 2017. With the help of others, I quickly arrived at likely explanations for all three videos.
"The FLIR video is most likely a distant plane. The video was taken well after the famous encounter with a hypersonic zig-zagging tic-tac by pilots from the NIMITZ. This object doesn't actually move on screen - except when the camera moves, and it resembles an out of focus low-resolution backlit plane. I don't know what the pilots saw, but this video does not show anything really interesting.
"The GIMBAL video is also probably of a plane. .... It's not rotating. What you see is the infrared glare of the engines, larger than the plane. It looks like it is rotating because of an artifact of the gimbal-mounted camera system. This is all a bit confusing, so I made several videos explaining it.
"Oh, and the 'AURA' around the plane, that's just image sharpening. It happens all the time in thermal camera footage. It's not an alien warp drive, it's just the unsharp mask filter.
"The GO-FAST video probably shows a balloon. It's not moving fast, it's not skimming the water, and you can verify this yourself because all the information you need is in the numbers on screen. It's just an effect caused by parallax. Over the last few years, I've made a variety of videos explaining all this."