Does it seem to anyone else that missiles bouncing off objects has somehow been the cat that’s got everyone’s tongue?

A Hellfire missile ricochets off a glowing orb. The footage is shown in Congress. The evidence is modern, military-grade, and virtually beyond question. And yet—no explosion in the media, no public reckoning, no paradigm shift.

Obviously, the old beliefs took a direct hit. But the story itself? It won’t even make the news.

Nobody knows where this thread belongs. But if anyone is interested in discussing it I'd like to do so in the speculative arena. Everything before this paragraph was written by AI because it seems to understand the silence better than I. It is most highly enigmatic to me.

25 minutes ago, cladking said:

Everything before this paragraph was written by AI

Which is expressly against the rules.

I can’t e.g. get an AI to clarify how it concludes that the orb was glowing.

If you want to discuss this, upload/link to the video in question, or images, include enough information so it’s not required to watch the video, and don’t outsource the conversation to AI

Hellfire missiles don't bounce.

Here is the detonation sequence for a Hellfire missile...

"A Hellfire missile is launched, guided by laser or radar to its target, and upon impact, an M820 fuze activates the warhead's detonating mechanism. The fuze requires electrical power and significant forward acceleration (greater than 10 Gs) to arm itself. Once armed, it initiates the detonation sequence for the warhead, which can be a HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) charge designed to penetrate armor or a thermobaric charge that disperses and rapidly burns. "

And who, in their right mind, would fire a Hellfire missile at an unidentified object.
Air forces, and armies, of all Hellfire operators have strict rules of engagement, requiring positive identification of targets.

Could this have been simply testing of the guidance system of an unarmed Hellfire missile ?

I did see the b/w video, and there was no evidence of anything glowing, no heat plume of a rocket, and no detonation.

I would ask about these things. I’d ask to see a video of a normal hellfire impact.

I also saw a snippet of the testimony, where a witness said an object was 100 feet away (or something like that) and I would want to know how they determined the distance.

17 hours ago, swansont said:

Which is expressly against the rules.

I can’t e.g. get an AI to clarify how it concludes that the orb was glowing.

If you want to discuss this, upload/link to the video in question, or images, include enough information so it’s not required to watch the video, and don’t outsource the conversation to AI

Understood.

It's about 19 seconds;

Independent TV

Leaked video of US hellfire missile ‘bouncing’ off speedi...

Never-before-seen footage shows a US military Hellfire missile appearing to ‘bounce’ off a shiny object off the coast of Yemen on 30 October 2024. The video, shown to Congress for the first time on...

AI is notorious for gearing answers to the specific user which makes it ideal for translating but can be frustrating when you want to get an overall view of something and it provides only empirical evidence and state of the art knowledge. My AI talks much differently to me. I just asked it why it said it was "glowing". It said it came out of reports and video analysis from the September 2025 House Oversight hearings on UFOs (paraphrasing).

Frankly I'm no longer as sure exactly what I'm seeing here as I was when I started this thread. Initially I couldn't imagine any "reasonable" explanations for the data and now I can even if they are far fetched. Until a good explanation surfaces I do believe any answer will be largely speculation.

17 hours ago, MigL said:

And who, in their right mind, would fire a Hellfire missile at an unidentified object.
Air forces, and armies, of all Hellfire operators have strict rules of engagement, requiring positive identification of targets.

Could this have been simply testing of the guidance system of an unarmed Hellfire missile ?

I'm guessing it was acting as a hostile during conflict so was treated as such. After the fact it was reclassified "unidentified". ...At least I should hope.

Edited September 11Sep 11 by cladking

Contrast that with a missile striking an alleged drug boat a few days ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m42bpQVK5tA

This is zoomed in, since you can see the boat. Can’t say for sure the other conditions are identical, but you can see the bright flash of detonation, which is much brighter than the bright points on the water. Not the case with the UAP video

Since when are hellfire missiles used in air to air combat?

5 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Since when are hellfire missiles used in air to air combat?

The AGM-114L is carried by helicopters ( L is for Longbow Apache ). and, due to its active mm-wave radar guidance, it can be used as a 'fire-and-forget' ordinance against other slow-moving aerial vehicles.
But obviously, not jets.

7 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Since when are hellfire missiles used in air to air combat?

I had the same notion, but research says they are, on occasion. Helicopters and other slow-movers, because it’s subsonic.

Does anyone have thoughts on what the three objects were that appeared to break off the UAP when the missile hit and followed it after impact?

Edited September 13Sep 13 by Moontanman

If the object is unidentified I can’t fathom how you’d identify them.

7 hours ago, swansont said:

If the object is unidentified I can’t fathom how you’d identify them.

???

12 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

???

If you don’t know what the object is, how could you possibly know what breaks off of it?

2 minutes ago, swansont said:

If you don’t know what the object is, how could you possibly know what breaks off of it?

It's relatively obvious that three pieces broke off the object after impact and continued along with it, I have no idea what they were, I was asking if anyone else did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCaSBrLMLTg

45 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

It's relatively obvious that three pieces broke off the object after impact and continued along with it, I have no idea what they were, I was asking if anyone else did.

I don't think so. I think those three were trailing behind to begin with.

Edited September 13Sep 13 by HawkII

14 hours ago, HawkII said:

I don't think so. I think those three were trailing behind to begin with.

That is possible, the vid is not exactly clear enough to be sure.

I'm going to risk being flamed and suggest some bald speculation on this, to be honest we are far from knowing if this vid is even real but...

These so called orbs make me think of an electromagnetic/plasma phenomena. Possibly something natural we are simply unfamiliar with. I see no reason to propose technology of some sort for "orbs", to me they look like a natural phenomenon, hard to explain why exactly.

Edited September 14Sep 14 by Moontanman

Knowing the missile's speed and mass, and its deflection angle after impact, it's possible to calculate the mass of the orb.

Has this been done?

What's most astonishing is that the orb, after being deflected, corrects its trajectory so that it returns to its pre-impact trajectory.

How is it possible that an inert mass can react like that? ^^

3 hours ago, Ser Gio said:

What's most astonishing is that the orb, after being deflected, corrects its trajectory so that it returns to its pre-impact trajectory.

Doesn’t look like that to me. The hellfire does, after turning in to the apparent strike, but the target doesn’t.

It’s hard to say with a featureless background, but it looks like it’s traveling at ~225 degrees before, and closer to 270 deg after. It’s strange that the immediate deflection is at about 150 degrees, or toward the hellfire.

The video embedded in Rep Burlison’s post in this article let me manually run it forward and back by manipulating the progress bar (at the 0:20 mark)

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/ufo-hearing-know-video-seemingly-174100555.html

It’s not obvious to me that the missile “bounced”

15 hours ago, swansont said:

Doesn’t look like that to me. The hellfire does, after turning in to the apparent strike, but the target doesn’t.

Watch again around the 18-second mark of the video:

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/ufo-congress-hearing-video-yemen-b2823663.html

Edited September 18Sep 18 by Ser Gio

3 hours ago, Ser Gio said:

Watch again around the 18-second mark of the video:

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/ufo-congress-hearing-video-yemen-b2823663.html

Yes, as I said, the missile comes in, changes direction toward the UAP, and then returns to original course. The UAP is moving down and to the left, but after the missile passes by and pieces come off, they’re all moving almost straight down.