The “Jellyfish” UAP: A Thermal Video, and Two Bad Arguments.

What the jellyfish case is, in a paragraph.

The “jellyfish” is a piece of thermal video shot at a United States joint operations base in Iraq and released publicly in January 2024 by the filmmaker Jeremy Corbell. It shows a pale, softly-edged form with trailing appendages moving across the infrared field — the resemblance to a jellyfish is genuine and is why the name stuck. Corbell's account of what the full footage shows goes considerably further than the clip most people have seen: that the object crossed a sensitive installation, moved out over water, made a controlled descent, remained submerged for roughly seventeen minutes, resurfaced, and departed at speed. Transmedium travel — an object operating in both air and water — is the single capability that would most clearly separate a genuine anomaly from a piece of drifting debris, which is why that detail carries the whole case. The Department of Defense has declined to comment, saying only that it does not address the authenticity of allegedly leaked material. Meanwhile the two competing explanations have both run into trouble: the leading published debunk was comprehensively rejected by the sceptic community that examined it, and the most dramatic element of the believer account is contradicted by a former Marine who was stationed at that base, was shown its own footage of the object, and worked alongside the men tasked to track it.

The documented record.

The footage and how it was taken

Verified The video is thermographic — forward-looking infrared — which matters for interpreting it, because a thermal camera renders temperature differentials rather than visible light. Objects can appear to glow, invert, or change apparent brightness as the camera's automatic gain adjusts, and edges are inherently soft. Michael Cincoski, who served at the base as an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tactical controller — and whose account appears again below — has said the footage came from an aerostat, a tethered surveillance balloon of the type flown above such installations to watch the perimeter. That detail explains the platform and the viewing angle. It does not, in itself, explain the object [1][2][3].

The date is not settled

Disputed The footage is almost universally described as 2018, and it is generally the year to use. But the record is looser than the confidence of the coverage suggests: some accounts specify October 2018, at least one places the sighting at the end of 2017, and the former Marine who has spoken publicly about it dates his own experience of the object to January 2018. For a piece of footage whose significance depends on it being a real military recording of a real event, the fact that its date varies by up to a year across sources is worth noting rather than smoothing over [2][3].

What the official position actually is

Verified Corbell's own wording is that the object “has been officially designated by the United States intelligence agencies as a UAP” and that “this designation is currently maintained” — intelligence agencies, not the Pentagon, though a good deal of secondary coverage has silently swapped the two. The Department of Defense's public response was narrower and more careful: it does not comment on the authenticity of alleged DoD material that may have been leaked — the wording of department spokesperson Sue Gough. That is a refusal to engage, not a confirmation and not a denial, and it is the standard formula. Separately, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office's annual reporting does list a “jellyfish”-shaped case among the morphologies in its public dataset — but that entry describes an object with multicoloured flashing lights, which is not the monochrome thermal object in this footage. There is no public indication that AARO has addressed the Iraq video specifically, and the office maintains that it has no evidence of extraterrestrial technology. AARO's published resolution work is relevant context: in its FY2024 consolidated annual report, covering May 2023 to June 2024, it closed 118 cases — roughly 70 per cent of them balloons [1][4].

The Marine who saw the base's own footage

This is the most important piece of testimony in the case and it is routinely left out. Verified Michael Cincoski, a former Marine, arrived at the base in January 2018 as an ISR tactical controller and has spoken publicly about the object. His standing needs stating precisely, because it is often blurred: he was not a live eyewitness. The object had reportedly been seen near the base before he arrived; what he was shown on arrival was the recorded footage, and what he knows beyond that came from the personnel tasked to track it. That still places him closer to the material than almost anyone commenting on it — he has seen more of the recording than the public has — but he is describing footage and colleagues' accounts, not something he watched happen. His account is not a denial that something was there — quite the opposite. He describes it as “the ghost story of the base”: a recurring subject of conversation among personnel, with some Marines tasked to look for it and keep an eye on it, though the base was never placed on any defensive footing over it. Asked whether he had considered a non-human explanation, he acknowledged that it had crossed his mind, because “the theories we had didn't fully explain it” [3].

But on the specific claim that makes the case extraordinary, he is direct: Disputed he disputes that the object dived into the water. What this amounts to is two people who have both seen more of the footage than the public describing what it shows in incompatible ways. In his telling it “seemingly continued into the distance and got smaller” — the ordinary behaviour of something drifting away from an observer — rather than descending into the body of water near the base and submerging. If Cincoski is right, the transmedium element, which is the entire evidentiary weight of the case, does not survive [3].

What each argument actually establishes.

The debunk that was debunked

Here is where this case becomes genuinely instructive. Verified The most widely circulated sceptical explanation held that the jellyfish was not an object at all but an optical artifact — a smudge, fingerprint or defect on a lens or optical layer, distorted by the gimbal-stabilised camera system. It was presented as comprehensive, with technical diagrams, and it travelled widely.

It was then taken apart at Metabunk, the forum run by Mick West — not a venue with any sympathy for extraterrestrial explanations. One contributor called the analysis “utterly and thoroughly wrong,” noting that its author had no working understanding of how a gimbal-stabilised system operates. The substantive objections were simple and decisive: a camera artifact would not be temporary, and operators would have identified it immediately; a smudge would stay fixed relative to the reticle while this object moves around the frame; and the supposed “morphing” that was offered as proof of an optical defect in fact indicates the opposite — a three-dimensional object rotating. The thread carries a [Wrong] tag on the debunk itself [5].

This deserves emphasis because it cuts against the usual shape of these stories. The sceptics did not close ranks around a convenient answer; they rejected a bad one on technical grounds, publicly, and left the case open. Dr. Matthew Szydagis, a physicist at the University at Albany, examined the footage separately and reached the same conclusion, describing a camera smudge as an unlikely explanation [6].

The balloon reading, which is still the strongest

Claimed With the artifact explanation discarded, the leading sceptical position is the mundane one: balloons, or comparable lightweight debris. The evidence marshalled for it is drawn from the video's own behaviour. The apparent rotation indicates a three-dimensional object turning in the air. The partial transparency is consistent with actual balloon material rather than a lens defect. The “tendrils” are consistent with streamers, ribbon, or partly deflated balloons hanging beneath a cluster. And the perceived temperature change — sometimes offered as evidence of an energetic craft — is a well-understood behaviour of thermal cameras auto-ranging their gain, not a measurement of the object.

The general prior supports it too. AARO resolves most of what it closes as balloons, and the archive's PURSUE dispatch notes an Atlantic object from 2020 that is described in the government's own file as a “large, somewhat deformed balloon.”

The 2020 Atlantic report, and a phrase worth noticing

Claimed A heavily redacted U.S. Northern Command document surfaced in July 2026 under the title “Unresolved UAP Report, Atlantic Ocean, 2020,” describing an object of a “darker, maroonish color, approximately 12–15 feet in height” that was “traveling with the wind.” The description has been widely noted as resembling the Iraq jellyfish, and if the resemblance is real it is a useful data point — but not in the direction the coverage implies. Traveling with the wind is the single most diagnostic phrase available about an aerial object. It is what balloons do and what craft do not. An object that shares a silhouette with the jellyfish and is separately documented as wind-borne makes the balloon reading of both stronger, not weaker.

What the balloon reading still has to answer

Unverified Two things keep the case from closing. The first is the absence of target lock during the footage, which analysts on both sides have flagged as odd for a tracked object and which has not been satisfactorily explained. The second is the reported duration and behaviour — a thing that loiters over a defended installation long enough to become a standing joke among the garrison, and that personnel were tasked to watch, is not quite the profile of a stray party balloon. Neither point requires an exotic explanation. Both are unresolved.

The competing readings.

The transmedium reading

Claimed The case as popularly understood: a craft of unknown origin surveilled a US installation, demonstrated the ability to operate in air and water, and left under power. On this account the footage is among the most important ever leaked, because transmedium capability is not something a balloon, a bird, or a drone can fake. The difficulty is that this reading depends almost entirely on a single narrative element — the submersion — which rests on the account of the person who released the video, and which a named servicemember who was at the base contradicts.

The mundane-object reading

Claimed The sceptical case: a cluster of balloons or similar light debris, drifting on the wind across a base, filmed on infrared from a surveillance aerostat, its appearance made strange by thermal imaging and its motion made ambiguous by a moving camera platform. This is the most economical reading, it is consistent with how AARO resolves the large majority of comparable cases, and it is consistent with Cincoski's description of the object simply receding into the distance.

Why both camps have handled this badly

Disputed The jellyfish is a useful case precisely because neither side comes out of it well. The believer account inflated a genuinely strange piece of footage with a submersion sequence that the on-site testimony does not support — and once that element is questioned, a great deal of the significance drains out. The sceptical response initially reached for a technically illiterate explanation that had to be dismantled by other sceptics. What is left, when both overreaches are stripped away, is a modest and honest position: an unidentified object, most probably a balloon, on a piece of real military infrared footage that the Pentagon will not discuss.

The unanswered questions.

The full, unedited footage

Unverified The public has seen a clip. The submersion sequence — the part that would settle the case in one direction — is described rather than widely shown, and no independently verifiable full recording with intact metadata has been released. Until it is, the central claim cannot be assessed by anyone outside the chain that produced it.

Provenance

Unverified The video is leaked material. There is no released chain of custody, no confirmed unit, no case file number, and no official acknowledgement that it is authentic government footage — only a refusal to comment on leaked material, which is not the same thing.

Why there was no lock

Disputed The lack of target lock-on remains genuinely unexplained and is the one technical objection that has survived scrutiny from both directions.

Whether AARO will ever resolve it

Unverified AARO publishes case resolutions with its analytic method where releasable. The jellyfish has been referenced as requiring further analysis but has not, at the date of this file, been published as a resolved case. Given how much of its caseload closes as balloons, a resolution would be informative either way.

The sequence.

1. Late 2017 (one account) An object is reportedly first seen near the base — a dating that conflicts with the more common 2018 attribution.
2. January 2018 Michael Cincoski arrives at the base as an ISR tactical controller and is shown the existing footage and reports. The object is, in his phrase, “the ghost story of the base”; some Marines are tasked to watch for it.
3. 2018 (commonly October) The thermal footage is recorded, reportedly from an aerostat surveillance balloon over the installation.
4. 2020 A separate object is recorded over the Atlantic; the case is later documented by U.S. Northern Command as unresolved.
5. January 2024 Jeremy Corbell releases the footage publicly. It circulates rapidly as the “jellyfish UAP.”
6. January 2024 The Department of Defense responds that it does not comment on the authenticity of alleged DoD material that may have been leaked.
7. 2024 A widely shared “comprehensive debunk” attributes the object to a lens smudge distorted by gimbal stabilisation.
8. 2024 That explanation is rejected at Metabunk on technical grounds and the thread is tagged [Wrong]; a physics professor separately calls the smudge explanation unlikely.
9. 2024 Michael Cincoski speaks publicly, disputing the submersion account and saying the object appeared to recede into the distance.
10. Nov 2024 AARO's FY2024 annual report, covering May 2023 to June 2024, records 118 cases closed — roughly 70% of them balloons.
11. July 2026 A redacted USNORTHCOM document, “Unresolved UAP Report, Atlantic Ocean, 2020,” describes a 12–15-foot maroonish object “traveling with the wind,” widely compared to the jellyfish.
12. Present The case is unresolved. The submersion claim remains uncorroborated and contested by on-site testimony.

Cases on this archive that connect.

The Gimbal and GoFast Videos — the other leaked military infrared footage, and the same lesson about what thermal cameras do to apparent motion.

The Nimitz Tic Tac Encounter — the case with the corroborating sensor data and multiple witnesses that this one lacks.

Dispatch: The PURSUE UAP Files — the ongoing declassified releases, including the Atlantic 2020 object the government's own file calls a deformed balloon.

The UAP Task Force and AARO — how the office assesses cases, and what its resolution rate actually looks like.

Dispatch: AI Cryptids and the Death of the Blurry Photo — why provenance now matters more than imagery.

Full bibliography.

1. NewsNation reporting on the jellyfish UAP video and the Department of Defense's response, January 2024.
2. Singular Fortean, “'Jellyfish' UFO Reportedly Recorded over United States Joint Operations Base in Iraq,” January 9, 2024 — the aerostat account and the conflicting dating.
3. NewsNation and Arab News coverage of former Marine Michael Cincoski's account, including the “ghost story of the base” description and his dispute of the submersion claim.
4. All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), UAP Case Resolution Reports and annual reporting on case dispositions, aaro.mil.
5. Metabunk thread, “A new and comprehensive debunk of the 'Jellyfish' UAP [Wrong],” including Mick West's and other contributors' technical objections to the lens-artifact explanation.
6. NewsNation, “'Jellyfish' UAP video: 'Unlikely' object is camera smudge, expert says” — independent physics analysis.
7. Corbell, Jeremy, public release and accompanying claims regarding the footage, January 2024, treated here as claims by the releasing party.
8. U.S. Northern Command, “Unresolved UAP Report, Atlantic Ocean, 2020” (redacted), surfaced July 2026.
9. General reporting on thermal/FLIR imaging behaviour, automatic gain control, and the interpretation of infrared footage.
10. Global News, UNILAD and Fox News coverage of the January 2024 release and its reception.

Frequently asked questions.

What is the jellyfish UFO video?

A short piece of thermal — forward-looking infrared — footage recorded at a United States joint operations base in Iraq, usually dated to 2018, and released publicly in January 2024 by the filmmaker Jeremy Corbell. It shows a pale, soft-edged shape with trailing appendages moving across the frame; the resemblance to a jellyfish is what gave it the name. It was reportedly filmed from an aerostat, a tethered surveillance balloon flown above the base.

Did the jellyfish UAP really go underwater?

That is the central claim and it is disputed. In Corbell's account the object crossed the base, made a controlled descent into a body of water, stayed submerged for about seventeen minutes, resurfaced and accelerated away. Michael Cincoski, a former Marine who served at the base as an ISR tactical controller from January 2018, disputes it — he says the object “seemingly continued into the distance and got smaller,” which is what something drifting away looks like. Cincoski was not a live eyewitness; he was shown the base's own footage and worked with the personnel tracking it. So the disagreement is between two people who have both seen more of the recording than the public has. No independently verifiable footage of the submersion has been released. Since transmedium travel is the one capability that would make this case genuinely extraordinary, the whole significance of the video rests on a detail that on-site testimony contradicts.

Has the Pentagon confirmed the jellyfish UAP?

No. Corbell has said the object was officially designated a UAP, but the Department of Defense's actual public response was that it does not comment on the authenticity of alleged DoD material that may have been leaked. That is a refusal to engage — neither a confirmation nor a denial, and the standard formula for leaked material. AARO's public dataset does list a “jellyfish”-shaped case, but it describes an object with multicoloured flashing lights — not this monochrome thermal object — and there is no public sign that AARO has addressed the Iraq video specifically.

What is the most likely explanation for the jellyfish UAP?

A cluster of balloons or similar light debris drifting on the wind. The apparent rotation suggests a three-dimensional object turning; the partial transparency is consistent with balloon material; the “tendrils” are consistent with streamers or partly deflated balloons hanging beneath; and the apparent temperature change is a known behaviour of thermal cameras adjusting their gain rather than a property of the object. This is also the prior the data supports — of the 118 cases AARO closed in its FY2024 report, covering May 2023 to June 2024, roughly 70 per cent were resolved as balloons.

Was the jellyfish UAP debunked?

Not exactly, and the story here is unusual. The best-known debunk claimed the object was a lens smudge distorted by the camera's gimbal stabilisation — and that explanation was rejected by other sceptics, at Mick West's Metabunk forum, on technical grounds: an artifact would not be temporary, operators would have spotted it, and a smudge would stay fixed relative to the reticle rather than moving around the frame. The thread carries a [Wrong] tag on the debunk. The physicist Matthew Szydagis of the University at Albany separately called the smudge explanation unlikely. The balloon reading survives; the artifact reading does not.

When and where was the jellyfish UAP filmed?

At a United States joint operations base in Iraq. The date is less settled than coverage suggests: it is generally given as 2018, with some accounts specifying October 2018, at least one placing the sighting in late 2017, and the former Marine who has spoken about it dating his own encounter to January 2018. For footage whose value depends on being a genuine military recording, a dating that varies by up to a year across sources is worth flagging.

What did the Marine who was there actually say?

Michael Cincoski described the object as “the ghost story of the base” — a recurring topic among personnel, with some Marines tasked to look for it and keep watch, though the base was never put on a defensive footing over it. He did not dismiss it: asked whether he had considered a non-human explanation, he said it had crossed his mind because “the theories we had didn't fully explain it.” But he contradicts the dramatic part, saying the object receded into the distance rather than diving into the water.

Is the jellyfish UAP related to the 2020 Atlantic object?

They have been widely compared. A redacted U.S. Northern Command document that surfaced in July 2026, “Unresolved UAP Report, Atlantic Ocean, 2020,” describes an object of a “darker, maroonish color, approximately 12–15 feet in height” that was “traveling with the wind.” If the resemblance is genuine, that last phrase cuts against the exotic reading rather than for it — travelling with the wind is what balloons do and what craft do not.