note / May 11, 2026

The Hellfire UAP clip is missing the boring data

file: UAP Logbook
status: public note
updated: 2026-05-11

The Yemen clip looks strange because a missile appears to pass through an object without an explosion. The useful question is simpler: what can be read from the video, and what is missing?

video sourceHank Green: This is the Most Embarrassing UFO Video I've Ever Seen

The clip

At the September 2025 House UAP hearing, Rep. Eric Burlison showed a video said to come from October 30, 2024, off the coast of Yemen. It appears to show an MQ-9 tracking a bright object over water while another drone fires a Hellfire missile at it.

The viral version is simple: the missile hits the object, does not explode, seems to bounce or pass through, and the object keeps moving with smaller pieces nearby.

That is enough to make a good clip. It is not enough to make a good conclusion.

What Ross emphasizes

Ross Coulthart treats the video as unresolved and potentially anomalous. In his discussion, the interesting parts are the apparent survival of the object, the lack of detonation, the pieces that seem to continue with it, and the Pentagon's refusal to authenticate or explain the clip publicly.

He also notes the weak provenance: the video was reportedly dead-dropped to Burlison, metadata was scrubbed, and the public version lacks the full sensor package.

That last part matters more than the drama. Without the raw data, everyone is arguing from a cropped, leaked, degraded view.

What Hank Green says

Hank Green's explanation is blunt: this looks like a missile going through a high-altitude balloon or a lightweight drone, not a missile bouncing off exotic technology.

His main points are practical. The object's apparent speed can be exaggerated by zoom, range, and parallax. The ocean is farther behind the object than it looks. The drone is moving too. The missile not exploding is not automatically strange, because a Hellfire is not primarily an air-to-air proximity weapon. If the nose fuze is not crushed hard enough, it may not detonate.

He also argues that the debris staying near the object is what torn balloon material or lightweight fragments could look like if they were already drifting together in the same air mass.

The useful disagreement

The strongest skeptical point is the fuze point. “No explosion” is not the same as “nothing known can explain this.” A missile can pass through or damage a light object without producing the cinematic blast people expect.

The strongest anomalous point is not “it bounced.” It is the lack of public provenance and the unresolved behavior of the fragments after impact. Are they pieces of the missile, pieces of the object, sensor artifacts, or separate objects? The public clip alone does not settle that.

This is where most takes become sloppy. One side treats every pixel as a craft feature. The other treats every oddity as already explained by a balloon. The video does not justify either level of certainty.

What is missing

The missing parts are boring but decisive: full-length original video, unredacted sensor metadata, platform track, object range, laser range timing, wind data at altitude, missile type and fuze configuration, and any post-engagement tracking.

With those, the case could become mundane quickly. Without them, it remains a short military clip that looks stranger than it can be measured.

Where this leaves it

The Hellfire clip is worth keeping in the file, but not because it proves a missile bounced off a UFO. It is worth keeping because it shows how quickly a low-context military video becomes a belief test.

The honest position is narrow: the clip is real-looking, poorly sourced in public, probably compatible with a lightweight airborne object, and still not fully explainable from the public version alone.