Good videos, with context.
Explained: "Go Fast" UFO Video - Not Low and Not Fast - Like a Balloon!

Explained: "Go Fast" UFO Video - Not Low and Not Fast - Like a Balloon!

Mick West
6 HN recommenders · discussed 2019–2023
Open YouTube ↗

About this video

Mick West analyzes the Navy "Go Fast" UFO footage and shows with simple trigonometry and the data overlay that the object is slow and high up, consistent with a balloon. He explains how parallax makes it look fast and argues the original TV claims were wrong.

Why it appears in the archive

HN commenters repeatedly cite it as a checkable, math-based debunking of the famous UFO clips whenever UAP stories come up.

AI-generated summary and labels from the source dataset; verify important details against the video. Source & credits.

From the Hacker News discussion

simonh · 2023-02 · strong rec

See for yourself. This is the most clear case of misidentification. All the data you need is shown in the instrument recording and he takes us through how to interpret it step by step. Of course Mick has the advantage of having plenty of time to work through exactly what all the instrument readings are telling us and perform all the trigonometry to interpret it accurately, and explain it to us step by step, while the pilots just eyeballed it and got their estimates wrong. On the other hand the Pentagon analysts had all the time they could want to do the same analysis and still got it wrong. But you don't need to take anyone's word for it, look at the footage yourself and you can do all the calculations independently with middle school geometry. [VIDEO]

Read original comment ↗
jonathankoren · 2019-09 · rec

This is the video. I don’t know why you’re dismissive. It’s literally just trigonometry using numbers displayed in the video itself. [VIDEO]

Read original comment ↗
catalogia · 2020-04 · rec

Have you watched his debunking of the "Go Fast" video? ( [VIDEO] ) I don't see any wiggle room around what he lays out, certainly not enough to warrant putting 'debunk' into "scarequotes". The object simply was not 'going fast'; it was a weather balloon sized object moving at weather balloon speeds that only looks like it's going fast due to parallax. The only question in my mind is whether the USN is filled with fools who couldn't figure out what he figured out, or whether they're deliberately fucking with us. I'm strongly inclined to think it's the later.

Read original comment ↗
CydeWeys · 2020-05 · rec

Yes, here's an in-depth explanation by someone who actually did the math: [VIDEO] Tl;dr it can simply be explained as a balloon drifting in the wind.

Read original comment ↗
acqq · 2020-05 · rec

That's only the reminder in the sense of "I've made other videos before about that" of Mick West. The relevant playlist of Mick West with many videos with detailed analysis is: [LINK] For example [LINK] Explains how the camera's automatic tracking system contributes to the appearance of movements which aren't real at all. Or: [VIDEO] how the appearance of the "fast movement" is actually due to the plane speed, not the speed of the object observed, which is almost certainly something simple like a weather balloon ...and much more details there.

Read original comment ↗
herbstein · 2023-02 · rec

> Doesn't explain the Tic Tac videos He covers the "Tic-Tac" and "Go Fast" videos too, just not in that specific video. Like in this one, where he explains how the "Go Fast" video isn't actually even a fast video zipping just above the water, but rather an object flying at roughly wind-speed at about 12000 feet. [VIDEO]

Read original comment ↗
methodover · 2019-09 · reference

Gofast is just a weather balloon. [VIDEO] Gimbal is a jet. The perceived rotation is an artifact of the camera rotating on a gimbal. [LINK] Nimitz is also a jet. It’s far away, and blurry. [LINK] It would be really cool if these were alien spaceships. They’re likely not.

Read original comment ↗
methodover · 2019-09 · reference

Reposting my comment from yet another HN post on these pretty mundane videos. Gofast is just a weather balloon. [VIDEO] Gimbal is a jet. The perceived rotation is an artifact of the camera rotating on a gimbal. [LINK] Nimitz is also a jet. It’s far away, and blurry. [LINK] It would be really cool if these were alien spaceships. They’re likely not.

Read original comment ↗