NEWS · SANTIAGO, CHILE
Chile’s official UFO office explains almost every September report
Venus, satellites, a kite, car windshields and an illegal drone at the Air Force parade: what Chile’s government found when it investigated 18 sightings.
Chile is one of the few countries with a permanent, public government office for unidentified aerial phenomena. SEFAA — formerly CEFAA — is part of the country’s civil aviation authority, the DGAC. On October 8 it posted 18 case files on reports made between late July and late September 2026, most of them from greater Santiago.
SEFAA only investigates reports that come with original, unedited photos, video or audio that are not AI-generated. Reports without them are closed. Of the 17 files we read, almost every case with usable material turned out to have an ordinary explanation.
What the sightings turned out to be
On September 14, a “metallic sphere” photographed at Tobalaba aerodrome as Chilean Air Force (FACh) jets passed overhead turned out to be a kite. Five days later, a rooftop photographer shooting the FACh air parade over Santiago with a 200mm lens caught a silver disc in the frame. SEFAA identified it as a drone flying in restricted airspace — which, it said, posed a risk to air operations and is now the subject of legal action.
Other cases were Venus, or Venus plus a hovering drone; satellite passes and sunlight glinting off satellites; a LATAM airliner on its way from Puerto Montt to Santiago; and reflections on car windshields. A “20-metre black saucer” over Iquique was clouds. Lights near Coquimbo came from the ground. A triangle over Vitacura was a small, slow aircraft flying very low. Three cases were closed for lack of data or footage.
Why it matters
Pentagon releases and congressional hearings get the headlines, but much of the work of investigating UFO reports looks like this. Public reports are compared against flight tracks, satellite pass times and astronomy software, and most turn out to be ordinary. Chile publishes the results every month, case by case, with photos — a level of openness few governments match. The August batch of 11 cases went up on September 10.
SEFAA’s case numbers have now passed 2,280. Publishing the explained cases alongside the rest shows how much of the work is ruling things out, and gives any case that stays unexplained some context.
