The recent hubbub over the “Jellyfish UFO” shows your brain’s desire for novelty can block out the truth.
- Within UFO subculture, there are influencers who make money from viewers.
- A recent “jellyfish UFO” embodies the way these videos are blurry and inscrutable.
- People have good intentions, and it’s human nature to fill in gaps in knowledge—especially when you want to believe.
In January, a well-known UFO influencer, Jeremy Corbell, shared footage of something the public has started calling the “jellyfish UFO.” The footage shows “a mysterious object that appears to have dangling tendrils, and which appears to smoothly float over the roofs of a military base in Iraq.” To people who already want to believe in UFO sightings, these kinds of images are just vague enough to show the viewer what they want to see.
Corbell says the footage is from 2018, but a U.S. Marine Corps officer confirmed to reporters that it was from 2017. Corbell’s version is a bootleg recording from someone’s device during some kind of military meeting. It doesn’t appear to have any real mass, any design that conforms to engineering or physics as we know them to exist in the universe, or any signs that an off-camera entity is flying or steering it.
This speculation doesn’t necessarily mean there are no aliens in the universe or any real UFOs that represent alien intelligence and travel. It just means people with fringe beliefs like to urge non-believers to “check out the evidence.” While I think that’s good advice in some situations, it’s increasingly complex to ask people to check out “evidence” that’s monetized per view, like Corbell’s YouTube-hosted video. It directly incentivizes conspiracy thinking that will draw in viewers and bait engagement through comments.
The Information Bottleneck
Mick West is a debunker and investigator of UFO claims like those made by Corbell. He urges people who believe in eyewitness accounts to continue asking for better, more complete evidence. “They all seem to be legitimate videos, in that they were taken by someone in the armed forces, not in the course of their work, but whilst they were in the room. They record a monitor with their phone and send that to Jeremy,” West tells Popular Mechanics. “It’s just the interpretation that’s up for dispute.”
“The ‘Jellyfish’ object seems to be moving quite slowly and in a straight line in the same direction as the wind,” West continues. “So I think it’s probably something lighter than air, like some helium party balloons of various shapes. 3D analysis shows it might be around 1,000 feet up, which explains why nobody could see it at night.”
When people send materials directly to well-known and influential content creators like Corbell, they participate in an information bottleneck, West explains. Corbell has a built-in audience of believers that’s ready to spread content on his behalf and argue with skeptics like West on social media. But West says he wishes more people who surreptitiously record footage like this would share it directly with the public.
Read More – Why UFO Footage Plays Tricks on Your Mind, According to the Guy Who Investigates It
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