Chile.El Bosque, Chile (CEFAA)

On November 5, 2010, the Chilean Air Force (FACh) held an air parade at El Bosque Air Base in Santiago, with squadrons in formation and aerobatic maneuvers before the public. A key detail of the case is that during the event nobody reported seeing anything anomalous: the object was not perceived live. Later, an engineer who had filmed the display noticed, on slowing down his own footage, an object crossing the frame at notable speed. On alerting the authorities, a search for other recordings began.

General (Ret.) Ricardo Bermúdez, director of the Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA), the official Chilean body under the Directorate General of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC), ordered an investigation. CEFAA gathered seven independent videos of the same display, filmed by different people from different vantage points, and consulted U.S. researchers Richard Haines and Bruce Maccabee, an optical physicist. The two clearest tapes were the ones analysed in depth; the others were on cell phones and of poor quality.

In the 2012 presentation, one of the analysts stated that the object moved at a speed far superior to any flying object of known manufacture, a figure that depends on assuming it was far away. Bermúdez argued that the fact that several videos taken from different angles captured an object in the same scene tilted against an insect, and summed up: "Something anomalous was there. What it is remains unknown." After hearing from the entomologists, CEFAA wrote that the images do not show anything that allows the conclusion that they are bugs, "but since we are unable to identify the objects in the videos, the case remains unsolved".

The skeptical explanation, however, stood. Bruce Maccabee, one of those consulted, concluded in November 2012 that 'without further information that would show the objects were distant and hence large, it must be considered most likely that the objects were small and nearby such as insects.' It was not unanimous: in the same report Richard Haines held that 'at least one of these UAP was not a flying insect near the cameras,' based on video of the same UAP recorded by two separated cameras, and in April three entomologists consulted by journalist Leslie Kean doubted they were insects (the Chilean Elizabeth Arias: 'I would say they were not insects'). Kean also noted that Haines and Maccabee worked with the two best videos and that, 'due to circumstances beyond their control, the other five videos are no longer in the CEFAA's possession.' Maccabee's argument is technically sound: the very-high-speed calculation presupposes the object is far away and large, a distance no datum in the case establishes; in his example, a quarter-inch insect about two feet from the camera, flying at about 12 mph, produces the same image. The test that would settle it is the one Kean posed: if the same object appears simultaneously on the two cameras, 20 to 30 feet apart, it is large and distant. Haines held that this happens with at least one; Maccabee concluded the opposite: "the two most promising videos did not show the same object at the same time from two locations". In the same report, Chilean entomologist Elgueta said nothing in the images made him think of an insect right away, but that "by the rounded shape and convex back" they suggested a species of the Coccinellidae family, a ladybird; and the specialists consulted estimated that no experienced entomologist, from any country, could give a definite answer about these images.

At El Bosque, a national state agency (CEFAA/DGAC) gathered multiple independent recordings, convened a technical panel, commissioned photogrammetry and published its verdict.

But the case is also a cautionary lesson about photogrammetry without distance data. The "anomalous" conclusion and the very high speed rest on an unmeasured assumption (that the object was far away) and the near-lens insect explanation accounts for the data more economically. The analysis did not rule out the prosaic null hypothesis, without implying bad faith on CEFAA's part. The official 'anomalous' classification remains on the record as an open institutional-skeptic disagreement, and the case illustrates how an exemplary process can still over-interpret a trivial optical artifact.

There is a broader methodological warning here that applies well beyond Chile. The 'multiple independent videos' argument feels powerful but does not survive scrutiny: if the cause is insects near each separate lens, multiplicity proves only that bugs are common at outdoor events, not that a single craft was present. Robust corroboration requires that the records resolve to the same object in space and time, which Maccabee could not establish by triangulation and which Haines claimed for only one of the objects.