In a disappointing but not altogether surprising turn of events, an independent investigation into the recently released Chilean UFO footage which created headlines last week suggests that the unknown object was likely just an airplane.
The video and accompanying story generated considerable excitement because it emanated from an official Chilean government UFO investigation group who said that it could not determine what the anomaly was after a two year investigation.
However, a subsequent study of the footage and the circumstances by which it was filmed seemingly deciphered the identity of the 'UFO' rather easily.
The exhaustive and remarkably swift research conducted by Metabunk.org found a specific airliner which would have been flying above and away from the Chilean helicopter at the time of the incident, and thus, appeared as anomalous from that perspective.
The possibility that the 'UFO' was an airplane had previously been put forward by French investigators, but the theory was dismissed by the Chilean government due to the puzzling 'spray' seen coming from the object.
However, according to Metabunk's analysis, the 'mysterious' vapor dispersion from the 'UFO' was probably contrails coming from the airplane rather than any kind of deliberate spray, per se.
In response to these new findings, some UFO enthusiasts have expressed disbelief that the Chilean government would miss such an obvious answer to the mystery, but just such a scenario seems to have already occurred once with the group in the past.
As such, it is safe to say that the Chilean 'UFO' can almost certainly be classified as 'identified' rather than of unknown origin, unless some kind of new information comes to light.
With that issue having been settled for the time being, the more pressing matter surrounding this story may be why the Chilean government was allegedly stumped by the case for two years.
Reminiscent of the infamous Roswell Slides, the highly touted UFO footage wound up being unraveled by amateur researchers within a few days of being made public, using rudimentary resources available to anyone with a passing interest in aviation.
That the Chilean government failed to come to the same conclusions may be more mysterious than anything captured in the footage.