It was one of the pivotal UFO videos captured by the US military that helped thrust the once-fringe topic into the mainstream — the so-called ‘GOFAST’ infrared video filmed by US Navy fighter pilots off the coast of the Atlantic in January 2015.

But NASA claims it has debunked any exotic or extraterrestrial theories for GOFAST, boasting new analysis that ‘reveals a less extraordinary interpretation.’

In a landmark advisory report released Thursday, the US space agency said — among other findings — that the GOFAST UFO was ‘most likely’ nothing more than a conventional object ‘drifting with the wind.’ 

But meteorological records, climate scientists, US Navy witnesses, and even computer simulations developed and tested by diehard UFO skeptics have cast doubt on the likelihood that NASA’s GOFAST explanation will hold fast much longer.

At the heart of the issue: NASA’s experts, by their own admission, failed to check their math on the UFO’s possible ‘wind drift’ against the global climate science community’s public wind-speed data from the likely time of the GOFAST sighting.

To be sure, despite their own skepticism, NASA‘s UFO advisory panel did otherwise leave plenty of room for UFO true believers, noting in their final report that ‘alien technology operating in Earth’s atmosphere’ was ‘at least plausible.’

The US space agency even appointed a new director of research, Mark McInerney, solely devoted to unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), the new more technically accurate term for UFOs.

But, while the panel expressed hope that their efforts would help reduce the stigma around the reporting and scientific analysis of UAP, NASA’s experts put forth a theory in their final report apparently intended to bring GOFAST back down to Earth.

In doing so, the space agency ignored voices from the squadron of Navy pilots that filmed GOFAST and the no-less-famous GIMBAL infrared UFO video, recorded that same evening in January 2015.

At the NASA group’s open meeting last May, one of its UAP advisory panel members Josh Semeter — an engineering professor and director of Boston University’s Center for Space Physics — presented his preliminary analysis of the GOFAST video.

Semeter made his case that the GOFAST was likely an object coasting in a strong breeze primarily by working with data present on the infrared video’s display: the same intel a Navy weapons systems officer would use in the backseat of a fighter jet.

‘Fortunately the information needed to determine the altitude and velocity of this object is contained on the display,’ Semeter explained.

Based on his trigonometric calculations of the fighter jet’s flight path as the jet filmed the ‘GOFAST’ UAP, itself a moving target, Semeter estimated that the mystery object was cruising at just about 40 miles per hour (mph).

‘That’s a velocity that is consistent with wind speeds at 13,000 feet,’ Semeter told his fellow NASA-appointed advisors this May. And, in fact, the calculated altitude for the GOFAST UAP, according to Semeter and others, was indeed about 13,000 feet.

Semeter’s calculations emerged largely unchallenged in the NASA panel’s final UFO report published this past Thursday — except for one significant caveat. 

‘Our calculation has neglected wind effects on the aircraft,’ NASA’s UFO report stated, ‘and thus there is uncertainty in this result.’ 

But this dry note of caution might drastically understate the importance of these wind effects, to judge from both Semeter’s critics and his allies.

Crucially, the Navy pilot witnesses heard in the GIMBAL video, which was filmed in the same area within approximately 15 minutes of the GOFAST video, state that the wind at their altitude of about 25,000 feet was then blowing ‘120 knots to the west.’  

One computer simulation, created by noted UFO skeptic Mick West and hosted on his skeptics forum Metabunk, found that the GOFAST object would have been going significantly faster than 40 mph when taking this wind speed into account.  

The skeptic’s simulation would have the GOFAST UFO traveling at 320 knots or 369 mph — hundreds of miles faster than the stated wind speed pushing at its back.

‘This suggests that the object could not be a balloon,’ as one Metabunk poster noted, ‘because it needs intrinsic speed in addition [to] wind speed at 13,000 ft.’

As the US National Weather Service notes, ‘wind speed generally increases with increasing height,’ and the Metabunk simulation estimates that 120 knots of wind at 25,000 feet could correspond in this case to 50-to-80 knots of wind at 13,000 feet.

But even with this 50-to-80 knots of wind helping the GOFAST sail along, the UFO would still be going too fast: faster than the top speed of a Cessna 172 aircraft (188 mph), faster even than a top-of-the-line Ferrari 488 GTB (205 mph).

While Mick West praised Semeter’s work for NASA last May, calling it a rare example of ‘peer review’ in UFO research, the prominent UFO skeptic also felt compelled to note that the wind issue left the GOFAST case still far from identified.

‘There are some open questions (and unknowns) re wind,’ West posted to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, ‘but I think this basic analysis is correct.’ 

Other observers, however, were less forgiving of the gaps in this NASA analysis. 

One, a former Obama-era appointee to the US Department of Defense named Marik von Rennenkampff, called Semeter’s omission of the reported wind conditions a ‘significant error.’ 

‘The ‘GOFAST’ video shows a small, sphere-like object with no wings, engines or thermal signature demonstrating ‘very interesting apparent maneuvers.” von Rennenkampff wrote in an opinion piece for The Hill.

The one-time DoD staffer likened the UAP to other small, sphere-like objects reported over the Middle East by the Pentagon’s new UFO investigation office, as well as reports from the other Navy pilots with the squadron that spotted GOFAST. 

But accurate wind speed data for the time of the GOFAST sighting need not be investigated solely via computer models and the recorded statements of the pilots present themselves that day.

Wind speed data from the time and place of the GOFAST sighting is already available — via detailed, archival weather data collated from multiple systems by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which is made open to the public via their ERA5 reanalyzed climate dataset.

Meteorologists and climate science researchers use ERA5 to obtain reliable, global, hour-by-hour weather information for academic research, commercial aviation and government policy making purposes.

It was exactly this kind of data that NASA’s UAP advisory panel leader, astrophysicist David Spergel, referenced when introducing the panel’s final report this Thursday.

‘We looked at NASA’s assets,’ Spergel said. ‘While they provide a comprehensive picture of the ocean, the Earth’s surface and atmosphere for studying our evolving planet, they typically do not have the resolution needed for UAP events.’ 

‘However,’ he added, ‘by providing data on environmental conditions, they can complement other data on UAP.’

In this case, such data would have complimented the infrared video data taken by the Navy and the Navy pilots’ witness testimony. 

Although NASA scientists have experience utilizing ERA5 to study everything from atmospheric rivers of water vapor to the reflection of sunlight off of ice at the South Pole, the space agency’s UFO team did not utilize it in their work on GOFAST.

It is not clear from NASA’s UFO report whether or not they even tasked the agency’s military liaison Mark McInerney, now NASA’s first director of UAP research, with requesting more detailed information on the time or place of the GOFAST event.

Such efforts might have assisted the panel in obtaining ERA5 data proximate to the date, region and elevations of the GOFAST UFO episode — like those obtained by the DailyMail.com from a PhD climate researcher who wishes to remain anonymous. 

Two likely dates have emerged as the most probable candidates for the Navy’s GIMBAL and GOFAST UFO events, which occurred in late January 2015.

In a 2019 statement to Freedom of Information Act researcher John Greenewald, an official spokesperson for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare, Joseph Gradisher, stated that both sightings occurred on January 21, 2015.

But metadata embedded within the original GIMBAL video, as well as an unclassified Department of Defense email, reviewed for a conference paper presented to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics place both sightings on the evening of January 24th, 2015.

The DailyMail.com can confirm the likelihood of these two dates from previous interviews with retired Navy fighter pilot Lt. Ryan Graves, whose squadron reported the GIMBAL and GOFAST events.  

Data from the ERA5 reanalyzed climate dataset, for both the 21st and 24th of January, show that only the later date had wind speeds approaching 120 knots near the region or cruising elevation of 25,000 feet reported by the Navy pilots.

The ERA5 maps are marked with a red dot off the lower Eastern seaboard near Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Florida — in an effort to approximate where the Navy fighter pilots reported witnessing the GIMBAL and GOFAST UAP in January 2015.

These ERA5 maps, alongside the DoD email and the infrared video metadata, help to corroborate the Navy witness heard in the GIMBAL video who describes the wind speed at 25,000 feet as ‘120 knots to the west.’ 

The period for high winds at high altitude persisted from, at least, 4:00 PM ET (21:00 UTC) to 8:00 PM ET (01:00 UTC). 

The prolonged time range means that this ERA5 data also helps confirm pilot testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee which attested that the sightings occurred ‘toward the end of one of the night flights.’

The climate scientist who helped supply the DailyMail.com with the ERA5 wind data described NASA’s explanation of the GOFAST video as ‘low-effort’ and ‘not rigorous.’ 

Semeter and the rest of NASA’s 16-person UAP advisory team, this researchers said, should have tried to ‘get more context from the filming crew [of US Navy aviators].’ 

But this researcher declined to be mentioned by name, citing risk of career repercussions for criticizing the space agency. 

‘As a research scientist I’m writing grants to fund my research, and NASA is one of our funding [agencies],’ this climate researcher said. 

‘I don’t want any problem with them.’

When the agency first announced its UAP advisory panel in June 2022, NASA’s Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator for Research Daniel Evans told CNBC that the budget would be ‘certainly no more than $100,000.’

Evans said that NASA’s budget for the UAP study would be ‘very consistent’ with standard grant review panels. 

It’s unclear how much of the 16-person team’s modest six-figure budget went toward Semeter’s analysis of the GOFAST UAP video. 

Perhaps significantly, Semeter’s trigonometric analysis largely echoed work that had already been previously posted to the skeptics’ forum Metabunk in 2018.

Christophe Spitzer Isbert — a French UFO researcher whose work on a UAP event near Hessdalen in Norway was cited by the French government’s UFO research body Geipan — told the DailyMail.com that he believes NASA should have not rushed its GOFAST opinions into publication  

‘A small set of assumptions replaced hypothesis testing,’ Isbert said. 

‘Assuming the object was lighter than air because it was slow and did not radiate heat does not constitute evidence to support the balloon hypothesis,’ he added.

Isbert expressed his opinion that the US space agency should have attempted to collect a wider set of undisputed evidence on the GOFAST case, perhaps in the form of an official Navy report, before leveraging its stature with these public comments.

As an example, he recommended one possible method to help confirm NASA’s wind-blown hypothesis, a method that also used only data available in the video itself.

‘Tumbling on any axis would be visible as aspect ratio changes (length vs height),’ Isbert noted. ‘This would also be predicted by the balloon hypothesis since the object is not [perfectly] spherical.’

Josh Semeter of NASA’s UAP advisory panel has not yet responded to email and phone requests for comment from the DailyMail.com, but this article will be updated if or when he does. 

Wind power now accounts for almost a third of all the UK’s electricity, overtaking every other source, including gas. Turbines have been built, capacity has increased and costs have come down. But wind is unpredictable.

On calm days, there is not enough of it. On gusty days, too much. This creates problems. When wind turbines generate more electricity than the grid can absorb or distribute, they are simply asked to stop producing. Over the past two years alone, the process has cost around £1.5 billion and huge amounts of energy has been lost, enough to power over a million households, according to think tank Carbon Tracker.

This problem is growing worse each year, making renewable energy more expensive than it should be and slowing the UK’s path towards a fossil fuel free future. Invinity Energy Systems can help to fix the issue. The company makes vanadium flow batteries, which are safe, last for years and are capable of storing electricity for hours at a time.

Invinity shares are 35p and should increase materially as the group rolls out its batteries not just here but across the world.

Today, lithium batteries dominate the market. Used in phones, computers and electric cars, they are known for being ‘energy dense’ so they can store a lot of electricity for their size. But they are more suited to short bursts of power and they degrade within a few years. They are highly flammable too so extreme care has to be taken about how they are installed and maintained.

Vanadium flow batteries are constructed using completely different chemistry. Ideally suited to storing large amounts of power and discharging it over many hours, they retain their potency for decades and carry no risk of overheating and catching fire.

These batteries are also about 30 per cent more expensive than their lithium counterparts. In 2021 however, Invinity embarked on a joint venture with German engineering giant Siemens to develop a battery that was both cheaper and more effective than anything that had gone before it. The new kit, known as Mistral, is being piloted in Canada and commercial sales are expected from next year.

Siemens chose Invinity for a reason – the company has already sold more vanadium flow batteries than any other operator and has assembled a world-class team operating out of Bathgate in Scotland. The team has delivered results. Upfront costs for Mistral will be on a par with lithium batteries, but the product will last much longer, making the lifetime cost significantly cheaper.

Brokers expect Mistral to turbocharge Invinity’s growth. Figures for 2022 will be unveiled this week and should show sales of around £3.6 million. This year however, sales are expected to surge to £25 million, more than doubling to £53 million in 2024.

Chief executive Larry Zulch is ploughing money into Invinity’s future so the group is loss-making at the moment but prospects are bright.

This year alone, there has been a surge of interest in Invinity’s products. The group already operates a major project in Oxford and in April, the Government awarded Zulch a £11 million grant to build the largest vanadium flow battery outside Asia.

This should be delivered next year. Major projects are also under way in Australia, Canada and California, with more requests for batteries coming in thick and fast.

Rising demand makes sense. When renewable energy accounts for a small proportion of a country’s total power, unpredictability can be managed. As wind and solar increasingly replace fossil fuels however, the need for efficient storage rises in sync.

In the UK, estimates suggest that 46 gigawatts (46,000 megawatts) of battery energy storage will be needed by 2035, half of which is expected to come from so-called long duration products, like vanadium flow batteries. Today, we have just 2.6 gigawatts of energy storage and the vast majority of that can only supply power for an hour or two.

Nor is the need confined to this country. In the US, government subsidies are fuelling growth in renewable energy plants, with a commensurate need for efficient storage. In California alone, policymakers admit that they need to increase storage capacity eightfold by 2030 to meet their renewable energy targets. Canada and Australia are pouring money into renewable energy too, and there is mounting interest across Asia.

Invinity has a troubled past. The group was born out of a merger between US-based firm Avalon and RedT, an AIM-listed vanadium battery producer which consistently disappointed. The merged business should achieve greater success. Its technology is cutting-edge, Zulch is a canny operator and demand for safe, reliable and resilient storage is growing fast.

Midas verdict: Backing a loss-making business is never without risk but Invinity is now working hand in glove with engineering powerhouse Siemens and has attracted support from around the world. At 35p, the shares should go far.

Traded on: AIM Ticker: IES Contact: invinity.com or 020 4526 5789