The Second Confirmed Video

The GIMBAL video is one of three UAP videos officially confirmed as authentic by the U.S. Department of Defense in April 2020. It was captured in January 2015 by the infrared targeting system of an F/A-18 Super Hornet operating from the USS Theodore Roosevelt off the U.S. East Coast.

The video shows a dark, oblong object moving through the sky. What makes it extraordinary is what happens near the end of the footage: the object rotates smoothly, apparently against the prevailing wind, with no visible propulsion system, no wings, and no exhaust.

The pilots watching the feed can be heard saying: "Look at that thing, dude... It's rotating!"

The Rotation Problem

The name "GIMBAL" was given to the video by the To the Stars Academy when it was first published in 2017. Some skeptics initially suggested the rotation was an artifact of the camera's gimbal mechanism — the stabilizing mount that keeps the targeting pod's camera level during flight maneuvers.

This explanation was examined and rejected by analysts. The object's rotation is inconsistent with gimbal artifact behavior. A gimbal artifact would produce a predictable rotation tied to the aircraft's own movement. The rotation in the GIMBAL video does not match this pattern.

Additionally, the object's flight characteristics — moving steadily against the wind, maintaining altitude without any visible lift-generating surfaces — are not consistent with any known aircraft or atmospheric phenomenon.

The Roosevelt Pattern

The GIMBAL encounter was not an isolated incident. It was part of a sustained pattern of UAP encounters experienced by pilots and crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group between 2014 and 2015. These encounters were documented by Ryan Graves, a Navy F/A-18 pilot who has since become one of the most prominent UAP witnesses to testify before Congress.

Graves described objects that appeared to operate continuously in the Roosevelt's operating area — sometimes for days at a time. They were tracked on radar, observed visually, and captured on multiple FLIR recordings. The objects demonstrated the same characteristics across multiple encounters: no visible propulsion, extraordinary maneuverability, and apparent awareness of pursuing aircraft.

The Pentagon Confirmation

When the Pentagon officially confirmed the GIMBAL video in April 2020, it stated that the footage had been released "in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real." The confirmation was significant: it established that the object in the video was real, unidentified, and captured by authenticated military sensor systems.

What the Pentagon did not provide was an explanation. The object in the GIMBAL video remains officially unidentified.

Why It Matters

The GIMBAL video matters for the same reason all three confirmed Navy videos matter: they represent authenticated, sensor-captured evidence of objects demonstrating performance characteristics beyond any known human technology. They are not eyewitness accounts, not blurry photographs, not ambiguous radar returns. They are calibrated infrared footage from military targeting systems, confirmed authentic by the Department of Defense.

The GIMBAL object's rotation — smooth, controlled, against the wind — is a detail that has no conventional explanation. It is one of the clearest visual demonstrations in the public record that something genuinely anomalous is operating in restricted military airspace.

Sources & Original Media

• Go Fast — official USG UAP footage released by the Pentagon (April 2020)
• Pentagon confirms authenticity of UAP videos — DoD statement (April 2020)
• Ryan Graves Congressional testimony — House Oversight Committee (July 2023)
• New York Times: "Glowing Auras and Black Money" — original GIMBAL story (December 2017)
• Americans for Safe Aerospace — pilot UAP reporting organization founded by Graves