The Nellis Range Tracking Tape
1994 · Nellis Range Complex, Nevada · USA
WHAT IT IS
A tracking camera on the Nevada test range locks onto a lumpy, four-lobed object while the operators ask each other what it is. Before Gimbal, the most detailed military UFO footage the public had seen.
THE CASE FOR
The tape is said to have come out of the contractor tracking stations on the Nellis range. On it the operators can't identify the object, see it climb straight up and run a simulated missile engagement against it. It was shown at CSETI's congressional briefing in April 1997.
THE CASE AGAINST
Nothing about it is official: the tape was smuggled out and sold to Paramount, and the Air Force has never acknowledged it. Mick West's analysis at Metabunk finds the motion consistent with a balloon; others have suggested an aircraft or an insect near the lens. The camera's range readout is unreliable (the object's size holds steady while the range triples), and no identification has been agreed.
WHERE IT STANDS
Unexplained. No identification has been established. The record leaves it open.
STATUS IS OUR CURRENT ASSESSMENT, NOT A VERDICT · REVIEWED 4 OCT 2026
THE RECORD
- DATE
- 1994
- PLACE
- Nellis Range Complex, Nevada · USA
- RECORDED BY
- Range tracking camera (site S-30) · leaked tape
- TECHNICAL
- Range tracking camera, azimuth / elevation / range overlay · site S-30, with a later segment from S-13 · aired on Hard Copy (Feb 1995) and Sightings (Dec 1995) · film: TheGameraObscura's stabilised copy on YouTube
