The Jellyfish UAP

In January 2024, filmmaker Jeremy Corbell and journalist George Knapp published a thermal video, recorded in 2018 by a U.S. surveillance system over a base in Iraq, showing an irregular object with dangling appendage-like features drifting low across the terrain. Corbell reported that, per his sources, the object crossed the base, entered a body of water, remained submerged for a period, and re-emerged before departing. The nickname "jellyfish" stuck immediately, and the clip became one of the most argued-over military leaks of the decade.

The footage, apparently from an aerostat- or tower-mounted surveillance sensor, tracks the shape moving steadily across the field of view without visible propulsion. The released clip does not include the claimed water entry or exit. Corbell said the object was designated a UAP within channels, defied identification by operators, and displayed thermal characteristics that shifted, details resting on his unnamed sources.

The video itself, authentic-looking military sensor imagery whose provenance has not been officially confirmed or denied, plus Corbell's sourced narrative. No radar, no second sensor, and no official record has been released. MWN's related reporting covered the 2026 claims of a similar "drone swarm" phenomenon in the Iran strike context, where the jellyfish comparison resurfaced.

The Pentagon declined comment on the video's specifics. Unlike Corbell's 2021 releases, no formal authenticity confirmation followed. AARO has not published a resolution.

Mick West's analysis proposes the object is not in the sky at all: the shape's fixed internal geometry and its motion are consistent with a smudge or water droplets on the camera housing or an optical element, drifting across the scene as the sensor pans, with apparent ground-track an artifact of the moving gimbal. Others proposed drifting debris, balloons with hanging lines, or birds in thermal bloom. Proponents object that operators tracked it as an object, that the smudge theory struggles with parallax against terrain, and that the claimed submersion (if the sources are right) ends the debate. Since the decisive footage remains unreleased, the case is a proxy war over source trust.