A strange, jellyfish-shaped object captured moving across the sky near a major U.S. military installation in Anchorage, Alaska, has fueled online speculation. But the Pentagon’s former senior UFO investigator believes the footage may have a far more ordinary explanation.
Video recorded June 15 shows a dark object seemingly suspended near a mountainside and a rainbow, with several long strands hanging below it.
The object appears to pulse and change shape as the strands rise, drop and ripple underneath. It travels toward the left side of the frame, with the strands streaming behind it, before appearing to move back toward the right.
Sara Jane Osborn filmed the unusual scene and shared the video on Facebook the following day.
A dark, jellyfish-shaped object with strands hanging below it was captured on video near Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on June 15, 2026. (Peter & Sara Jane Osborn via Storyful)
“It looks like a friggin alien. I don’t like it,” Osborn says in the footage as she watches the object.
“It’s moving very weirdly,” she adds moments later.
News Outlet contacted Osborn seeking additional information about the sighting.
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson confirmed to News Outlet that officials know about the video.
“We are aware of a video circulating on social media regarding a reported aerial sighting near Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson from June 15, 2026, but have no additional information to provide at this time,” the base’s 673d Air Base Wing Public Affairs office said in a statement.
Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, testified before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities on April 19, 2023. (U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services)
Sean Kirkpatrick, the former head of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, which examines unidentified anomalous phenomena, cautioned against drawing conclusions from social media footage.
“I don’t usually make any assessment from an online video,” Kirkpatrick told News Outlet. “First, as I’ve said many times, social media is not a good source of data for anything, let alone UAP sightings.”
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“The video, if authentic and not generated, is compressed and cannot be used for data analysis. It’s too easy to make up video now and cover your signatures,” he added.
Kirkpatrick said the footage does not reveal enough to establish the object’s size, altitude, distance or true path of movement.
Still, he offered a possible explanation for the unusual shape and motion.
“The motion is similar to a kite with streamers, particularly the waves,” Kirkpatrick said.
Historical weather records indicate that winds were strong enough in Anchorage around the reported time to support that possibility.
Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, sits against the Chugach Range. (Getty Images/Getty Images)
Winds were recorded from the west at 16 mph at 9:55 p.m. on June 15 and from the west-southwest at 15 mph at 10:55 p.m., according to Weather Underground. The sighting was reportedly filmed at approximately 10:15 p.m.
Those wind readings alone do not prove that the object was a kite or that it was traveling with the wind. The video does not show which direction the camera was facing or precisely where the object was in relation to the person filming.
The bright sky also does not make the reported time unusual for Anchorage. In June, daylight remains late into the evening near the summer solstice.
A sign marks the entrance to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on Aug. 13, 2025. (Mark Thiessen/AP)
The base did not say whether military personnel or sensors detected the object, whether it entered military or restricted airspace, or whether any known activity might explain what appears in the video.
Kirkpatrick said identifying the object would require substantially more information than the footage provides.
“If it was a real video and not generated, I would add kite with streamers to the hypothesis category and then do some local research on whether there was any sort of celebration or party, what the wind patterns were, and whether or not there’s any corroborating video from another angle,” Kirkpatrick said.
