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Explained: New Navy UFO Videos

Explained: New Navy UFO Videos on HackerTube: recommended by 5 Hacker News commenters across 5 separate months, 2020–2026.

Mick West

explainer · evergreen

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Mick West explains the three Navy UFO videos (FLIR, GIMBAL and GOFAST) released in 2020, giving mundane explanations such as a distant plane and camera artifacts. He notes the videos were not new and had been circulating since 2017.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it as a calm, evidence-based debunking whenever the Navy UFO videos come up.

people recommended it
5
separate months
5
strong recommendations
2
discussed on HN
2020–2026
“Mick West has some great videos on it”
— rhinoceraptor, Sep 2022, in “Navy Says All UFO Videos Classified, Releasing Them Will Harm National Security”

What HN commenters said

8 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

mrandishMay 2026Strongly recommends

For anyone else who has a UFO-crazy uncle, I've found Mick West's YouTube channel to be invaluable [link] . Mick is a retired video game programmer (Spider Man, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk), who does extremely well-researched videos analyzing UFO claims. He's not flashy or trying to be entertaining, just thorough, evidence-based and scientifically rigorous. He'll even do controlled experiments, recreations and 3D models to validate what's going on. And he's unfailingly respectful no matter how unhinged the claim. His work explaining the "Gimbal Video" is a good example: ▶ this video

in “US Government releases first batch of UAP documents and videos” · View on HN

rhinoceraptorSep 2022Strongly recommends

All of the hyped UFO videos released over the past few years are easily explainable given a basic understanding of geometry, imaging and gimbals. Mick West has some great videos on it: ▶ this video

in “Navy Says All UFO Videos Classified, Releasing Them Will Harm National Security” · View on HN

treesprite82Jun 2021Recommends

> I found 3 pentagon confirmed videos today of Unidentified flying shapes going super fast. Whatever they are, this is pretty surreal If you're talking about the 3 videos I assume you are, I'd recommend checking out Mick West's videos on them: ▶ this video

in “Sam Harris on UFO Disclosure” · View on HN

acqqJun 2020Recommends

Not weird at all: ▶ this video Mick West's full playlist with explanations: [link] An article mentioning Mick West: [link] [link]

in “Astronomers detect regular rhythm of radio waves, with origins unknown” · View on HN

DSingularityApr 2020Recommends

Apparently, no real gymnastics needed — just some domain knowledge. I was also freaked out by these videos until I saw this: ▶ this video

in “Pentagon officially releases UFO videos [video]” · View on HN

modzuMar 2021Cites it

just because it hasn't been explained easily does not imply there's a problem with our beliefs about technology. for example, that they are objects at all is already an assumption that could be wrong. what do you make of this? ▶ this video

in “New details on military UFO sightings” · View on HN

Show 2 more comments
acqqAug 2020Cites it

> these have low credibility Lower then low, to the point that whenever somebody mentions them, I believe there was just a "wish to be true" and then stop. When checked, it was just a "rerelase" of the old already published material (one can also think about to whose benefit that distraction was) which was already carefully debunked by Mick West: ▶ this video Mick West's full playlist with explanations: [link] An article mentioning Mick West: [link] Also, one day after NYT published their article "No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon’s U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public" they published a correction too: "Correction: July 24, 2020 An earlier version of this article inaccurately rendered remarks attributed to Harry Reid , the retired Senate majority leader from Nevada. Mr. Reid said he believed that crashes of objects of unknown origin may have occurred and that retrieved materials should be studied; he did not say that crashes had occurred and that retrieved materials had been studied secretly for decades. An earlier version also misstated the frequency with which the director of national intelligence is supposed to report on unidentified aerial phenomena. It is 180 days after enactment of the intelligence authorization act, not every six months." Emphasis mine, now imagine how many articles in how many media were written before the above correction, and it will explain what most of the consumers got as the message (namely, the first, utterly fake version with fake "crashes").

in “I Hope the Search for Extraterrestrial Life Finds Nothing (2008) [pdf]” · View on HN

mouzoguMay 2020Cites it

I think you mean this one: ▶ this video One thing that is not really explained is why experienced pilots would not be aware of the phenomena explained in this video. Seems to me they would experience this all the time. fwiw I don't think it's actually an extraterrestrial object.

in “The US Navy Admits UFO Videos Are Real” · View on HN

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