Shocking truth behind incredible UFO image that stunned Congress

Daily Mail​

02-05-2025

Internet sleuths have already discovered the stunning truth behind a ' UFO ' image shared on Capitol Hill yesterday by a Pentagon whistleblower.
Former military intelligence official Luis Elizondo spoke before Congress Thursday morning, revealing a never-before-seen image of a cruise ship–sized craft he claimed was spotted hovering 21,000 feet in the air over the western US.
The image quickly flooded social media and was debunked in less than 24 hours.
Users analyzed the photo and located the object, discovering it was actually a snapshot of two irrigation circles in rural Colorado.
Mick West, a British-American science writer and conspiracy theory investigator, wrote on X: 'This UFO photo shows two irrigation circles.
'The roads are perfectly aligned, and the 'shadow' is in the wrong direction.'
West also noted that this isn't the first time Elizondo, who led the Pentagon's program investigating UFO sightings for 10 years, has made a major UFO blunder.
One glaring mistake involved a high-resolution image of a supposed 'mothership' in 2022, which appeared to be piercing through clouds over Romania. It was later debunked as the window reflection of an indoor chandelier lamp.
'It makes you wonder why Elizondo gets fooled by things like this,' West added in his post on X. 'Is he just really bad at analyzing UAP?'
John Greenewald, the creator of The Black Vault, a website archiving millions of declassified government documents, added that a Reddit post revealed the circles in the newest image were sitting on County Road X, in Colorado's Lincoln County.
'I've said it a million times. The internet, and (some) of the users within it, are an amazing resource,' Greenewald tweeted.
Others in the Reddit thread were less forgiving toward Elizondo, with many accusing him of spreading disinformation.
'Trying to clown all of us,' one user wrote. 'If any of the people coming forward are serious, they'll distance themselves from him.'
'Really brings into question what they are doing with disclosure. Starting to think that Elizondo and co. are just disinformation agents,' another added.
Elizondo served as the moderator at the congressional briefing, which featured well-known figures in the UFO community, including Harvard scientist Avi Loeb and Tim Gallaudet, a retired Navy Rear Admiral who has long claimed the existence of underwater alien bases.
Despite his role as moderator, Elizondo took a moment to present the image, which he implied was a UFO.
'You would think this information would be important for somebody to look at,' Elizondo said, challenging the US government to take UFO sightings more seriously.
He told the room of government officials that a civilian pilot had captured the photo while flying over the Four Corners — where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet at a single point.
He described it as being up to 1,000 feet long and metallic.
Despite the criticism, Elizondo doubled down on showing the photo at Thursday's hearing, saying on X Friday that it was an unvetted image he used to prove a point about civilian pilots lacking access to UFO-reporting resources.
'The purpose of me showing the photo was to illustrate the need for civilian and commercial pilots to have a central reporting mechanism to report potential anomalous sightings,' Elizondo posted on X Friday.
'In this case, the pilot who took the photo, using his own camera, did not have a way to report what he believed was anomalous,' he continued.
'The ones who are screaming about it (instead of discussing respectfully it as I hoped) missed the entire point of the photo and are not helping other pilots in the future from coming forward,' the whistleblower added.
Some on social media understood how the pilot and Elizondo could have mistaken the irrigation circles as a UFO, as even the full-color maps of the area tricked some viewers on Reddit.
'Even this one kinda gives the optical illusion effect makes it look like the green circle is floating,' one person admitted.
DailyMail.com was able to track down this area of Colorado on Google Maps, revealing that there are actually several center-pivot irrigation fields all in a row next to the ones in Elizondo's photo.
In this method of farming, a central pivot point anchors a long irrigation arm that rotates around it, watering crops in a circular pattern.
The fields can reach up to a mile in diameter. The ones in the photo shown to Congress are approximately between 1,300 and 2,600 feet long, which would fall in line with the reports of the size of the now-debunked UFO.
Thursday's hearing was led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, the Republican congresswoman from Florida charged by President Trump with overseeing the disclosure of several classified events, including UFO sightings.
Loeb, an Israeli-American astrophysicist at Harvard, said at the hearing that 'there are objects in the sky that we don't understand' while explaining the need for increased funding for UFO detection.
The Harvard scientist said that at least one billion dollars needs to be committed to improving America's efforts to track and monitor the movements of UFOs and UAPs.