All the explanations make sense, but why didn't the Navy say this, they must know the limitations of their equipment.

@MichaelOzeryansky: I think the answer addresses this. The default behaviour is to NOT tell your enemies what the limitations of your equipment are. Does the Navy care what the ufologists think?

What is the relevance of the reference to aliens? The claim does not mention aliens.

@gerrit aliens are mentioned in the linked story. That's what the interest is. Without the possibility of aliens, there is no story. Otherwise blobs and reflections on photos and in videos have little interest.

@gerrit: I was trying to politely characterise the positions of the core group of people who are interested in UFOs, but will find any rational explanation unsatisfactory. I don't know the words they use to self-identity. Happy for it to be improved.

@WeatherVane If I would be in the military and my videos shows data that's hard to make sense of I would be interested in the data because it shows where it might be possible to improve observation abilities or discover possible ways the enemy uses new stealth tech. The reason the Navy is interested in the videos might be quite different from the reason people on the internet are interested.

@Christian but you are not in the military. Why would they be interested in their own declassified information in a press report, which they previously had access to? And "new stealth technology" is not 10 years old.

I'm confused. This answer is solely based on a single YouTube video. Now, I am aware that Mick West is a noted skeptic. But on the surface, the only source for this answer is a YouTuber with less than 10k subscriptions. Is this really an acceptable way of using references in answers on skeptics.SE? I mean, we have FAQ answers like this and guidelines like this. Don't they apply here? Isn't this answer risking being a "broken window" in the sense of the guideline post?

@Schmuddi: I understand your concern; the reader is given no reason to trust the findings of Mick West. But, my answer doesn't depends on his findings being right. My answer depends on that some people have investigated and have found possible natural explanations. When OP asks "Have they been identified?" I respond: Well, that depends what "identified" means. There's no gold standard official source. We don't expect the Navy to weigh in. We do have skeptics with theories. One can paint anything as unsolved if there is no mechanism to declare it solved.

@Oddthinking The Navy already has weighed in. They've said they don't know what it is. Which means it's not a plane or balloon.

@dan-klasson: Or they can't identify them unambiguously, and can't be arsed to nail it down, when they're fairly confident they're not interesting. If you take a picture of me from an orbiting satellite, you'll probably have trouble identifying it as me (or even gender or ethnicity, given it's an overhead shot), even if you're fairly confident it's a human, and not consider it worth the bother going to any further trouble when it's not useful.

@dan-klasson There were claims of anomalous radar readings, but that's not something we can examine, and I've not seen anyone claim to correlate the exact the behavior and timing of the radar contacts with the videos. The videos are the only thing we can actually examine, and they can easily be explained as observations of normal objects. Claims of other strange occurrences that don't change that. If I show you a blurry picture of a deer through the trees and tell you about how big foot rummaged around my campsite, that picture shouldn't lend credence to the big foot story.

I cheated my way through trigonometry... what's the airspeed of the 'balloon'? - People testifying on camera about what happened on a radar screen carries no weight whatsoever; that didn't happen on THIS camera. Pics or it didn't happen. - And even if you had footage of a radar screen... Bill Paxton, Commando: "We lost 'em, sir."

@dan-klasson: It is a shame you can't read the deleted anecdote by a former USAF pilot and former Skeptics.SE mod, where he describes his first hand experience with a UFO 45 miles away tracking his jet and climbing to twice as high as him. Turns out it was Venus. He goes on to explain how those sort of mistakes can be made, including this line "So, why would someone who has such an extensive data-set of information and knowledge at his disposal make such a classic mistake? To put it bluntly, it’s because our brains suck!"

@Mazura: If you demand high levels of evidence of what happened for every anomaly, fine. But you also have to be happy that not every anomaly will be identified AND you don't get to draw any interesting conclusions from that. The question was "Have these been identified?" and my answer is "Some people have plausible explanations. Some people won't accept them. In that situation, the question makes little sense."

This answer is wrong on its face. The Navy has an official position, and that position is that the objects are unidentified and are concerning to them. You literally did no research.

I'm kind of feeling the same as @AleksandrDubinsky . Was the motivation of this answer simply to try and take down the alien explanation? Because that's irrelevant whether someone thinks that they're aliens or not. The question is whether they are still "unidentified".

@ShadowRanger Your analogy Is not particularly good. There is still identification, in that it's a walking human. The large majority of UFOs are entirely unexplained. They are described, catalog, and studied, and at best people surmise and suspect explanations that make sense. Further, your claim that thre military "can't be arsed" to investigate is false. The American military is apparently very concerned about UFO phenomena, having on numerous occasions spent significant resources to investigate. They would very much like an holistic theoretical explanation.

@WeatherVane More sophisticated explanations than weather balloons and aliens is that many UFOs are instances of an unknown atmospheric phenomena. It's ironic that your handle includes the word "weather", but your comment insists there's no story unless the explanation is aliens.

@fredsbend as I mentioned, the story linked in the question mentions aliens. There may well be other phenomena worthy of study, but that does not make the link a "public interest" story. Clearly, the press would like to stir the "are we alone?" theme. Perhaps the OP could have found a better link - it's the only one, so is central to the question. Bear in kind, this is the Skeptics site. There are no other phenomena metioned about which one might be skeptical.

"Probably" "most-likely" does not identify them. You have to be 100% sure to identify them. Otherwise, we don't know!!

I invite people to read the question again, where the OP expressed surprise because "there are active groups of people whose hobby or job is to analyze this kind of video". This answer shows that there are people like that, and they have found answers.

@TravisWells: See my comment above. If you need to be 100% sure, then I can identify a photograph of my own mother, and you can say "Nonsense, you aren't 100% sure." If you demand that level of certainty, you have to give up being able to draw any conclusions from the phrase "unidentified".

@Oddthinking This is different. The objects are blurry! In the field of mathematics and science. "We" demand 100% certainty when making extradnorairy claims!

@TravisWells: I don't want to devolve into simply gainsaying you here. I don't believe this conversation will be fruitful.

@Oddthinking They have "found answers"? I think you mean speculated explanations while keeping ideas to only simple and known things. If this question does come down to the definition of "unidentified", then you've done a poor job answering it. You could at least, for example, explain how the Navy uses the term and approaches the issue. If you want to specifically address these videos, this one source doesn't cut it.

Okay, this one is causing a lot more controversy than I expected. I brought it to chat. Maybe we can work out what the issue is, and hopefully fix it, or else get a better answer out of it.

Let me start by saying it currently has 78 upvotes. If votes accurately rewarded effort and insight (and no-one ever claimed they did), I think it is worth about 4. This is the HNQ effect, gone mad.

This answer is meant to be a soft "frame challenge" answer. It is not intended to lay down "THIS IS 100% WHAT THE OBJECTS ARE."

Heck, the quote text uses "most likely" and "probably".

I suspect a key issue is that we are interpreting the question differently.

If the question was "Does the Navy officially classify these are unidentified?", my post would NOT be an answer. I wouldn't have submitted it. The competing answer seems to address THAT question. I don't think that is what the question says. If that is what was intended by the OP, we should fix the question.

The question explicitly mentioned hobbyists. I think the question was "Really? Can NO ONE work out what this is?"

And my answer is "Even if some people had, we would still be in the same position."

I REJECT the position that all identifications must be 100% sure. That is NOT how science or epistemology workds.

I REJECT that the Navy is the one true authority - although if the question is "What does the Navy say?" then fair enough, that's the question.

I am doubtful that the Navy is motivated to give all the information they have - which is not the same as saying the Navy is conspiring to mislead us.

I REJECT any attempts to give a false dilemma, suggesting that the opposite of "identified" is alien craft and/or secret military craft, rather than unidentified (and I think people have been pretty good about this.)

I am deeply skeptical of eye-witness reports. We know eye-witnesses get things wrong. We have an (alas deleted) anecdote by a fellow skeptic of his own UFO sighting while flying a military plane.

I have my own story of hearing an explosion and seeing a ball of fire in the sky and scoffing at fellow eyewitnesses for embellishing the details of the UFO. (Turned out, as I expected, to be a military plane with an afterburner.) Only to find a week later, when I was sitting in the same position, that where I recall it being in the sky was not visible from my vantage point. I had unintentionally embellished the details in my mind too.

These are not just any eye witness reports, these are professional observers

You can't just blatantly reject anything without seeing the data, that's not how science works.

And the real data is in radar measurements and reports coupled with multiple top gun pilot direct observations, which led to serious ongoing investigations into the subject matter

Nobody is saying these are ET, just that it requires further study, and that you can't dismiss military pilots and radars by referencing a YouTuber..