How math helped debunk this UFO video
April 25, 2025
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3:00Now PlayingHow math helped debunk this UFO video
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as posted by the channelBoston University space physicist Joshua Semeter was part of an independent panel NASA convened in 2022 to study data related to UFOs, sometimes called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs.
PBS News' Casey Kuhn spoke to Semeter about how he used math to explain why one widely-seen UAP video called "GO FAST" was likely an optical illusion.
“The type of math we apply is not graduate school-level math, but it's also probably a little beyond high school math,” Semeter said, explaining the trigonometry he used when analyzing the “GO FAST” video.
Semeter used the data displayed in the video that the military jet captured along with the mysterious object. By taking those numbers and putting them into a trigonometric equation, he came up with an answer to show why the object looked like it was moving so fast.
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