NYT: GIMBAL Video of U.S. Navy Jet Encounter with Unknown Object

I think the theory of the glare of the front window is pretty sound. The optical mechanical mechanism is indeed a gimbal based design, making the image rotate while using the gimbal mechanism. This is usually rectified by using an compensating optical element, or just by rotating the image plane.
My 2cts!

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Thinking about how the military keeps the IR tech they use 'secret' (ITAR ect), I wonder how much more we can conclude technically? The designs of Raytheon's system we will obviously not find on google.

 

It would have been helpful if in the video another high brightness item was visible, as then we could have observed if that item also has the same flare effect, and more importantly, IF its (flare) direction is identical to the ufo, and also rotates. Too bad!

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Here's a clue that the ATFLIR window is attached to a component called "gimbal housing." This page has this photo

 

centered directly on the housing window and below it states (I've added bold to key term):

So rotation of the window may rightfully be said to be rotation of the 'gimbal-camera system'. And so the file name of "Gimbal" for the DoD footage in question might not isolate just the gimbal camera within the housing as the cause but more broadly could also refer to its entire housing component with window. That seems to broaden the case for the window as possible cause of the rotation in question.

The filename having been 'gimbal' is, I suspect, a significant factor. Perhaps the file is a snippet because it was cropped on the artifact and was in a database of known FLIR artifacts where each artifact-example file was named by the cause of that artifact, and they are used to train pilots about screen artifacts that can be confusing. That would explain why Elizondo reportedly got the DoD to approve the release of the footage on the misleading claim that he wanted to train pilots, suggesting that was their intended purpose in the first place.

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That was the concise version of my reply to @marrowmonkey. Here is the long-winded version: I've never piloted a military jet. I wasn't there to directly observe the people talking in the video. In the absence of any info saying otherwise, I assumed the audio was representing communication between two pilots in two different planes. But sure (if I'm allowed to speculate), it could be they are in the same plane. I can't think of a reason why they couldn't be.

Does that help?

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Regarding the somewhat informal language that is being used by the two voices in the Gimbal clip, I've seen several people (elsewhere) declare the audio must be fake because such language is just not used by professionals. This is simply not the case.

Check out this real audio from a real mission, where emotions are high, and tell me what you think. I think it's fair to say that if the audio in our UFO clip is legit, and the 2 men communicating are genuinely as baffled as they appear, that what they are experiencing could be fairly classed as a "stressful" or "shocking", or at the very least "out of the ordinary" event to them. It's not as serious, of course, as the situation in the audio below, but still.... The words

"Shit", "bummer", "dude", "cool", "homie" and "man", are all used.

"This is a recreation of what happened to Captain Scott "Spike" Thomas during Desert Storm in 1991. This was filmed entirely in game using Falcon BMS 4.32. The audio is from the real mission."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd-ApIMVRA0

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Commenting on this informal use of language, Scott Thomas says:

"I know what you're thinking. You thought fighter pilots always spoke in standardized terms, with tactical jargon, and we do – just not always. From day one in the F-16, I learned communication discipline. We strive for Clear, Concise, and Correct (C3) Comm. This situation called for a different level of "correct" comm. We all have friends and colleagues that we relate to and communicate with on a different level. For Neck and me, this was personal. The first rule of flying and talking is: You have to sound cool. If you sound like a dork, you lose credibility instantly. We all wish we sounded like James Earl Jones but for those of us who don't, we do our best. Throughout this stressful situation, we still communicated effectively. We were clear, concise, and even correct. Though not correct by tactical standards, the messages and information we shared were correct to us."

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There's an uncanny similarity in this depicted shape (in black outline) of the radar cross section of a Mig-21 jet and the shape of the Gimbal target...



The source says: Computer simulation radar scattering characteristics of Mig-21

Having watched the gimbal video so many times, the robustness of this similarity is hard to believe! There are split seconds in the Gimbal footage where all the spikes on top can be seen including the two angling left and right, but they appear as white 'rays' that made me wonder if they're signs of a jet with dual angled tail fins.

But there isn't as I can quickly perceive an obvious connection with the radar cross-section of this jet and the FLIR signal of a jet. However, there's a lot of closeness here in that both this and the Gimbal footage involve jets and screen targets. So my curiosity is stirred to suspect there might be a common cause to this shape and the Gimbal shape. Perhaps the ATFLIR system incorporates radar data on hard-to-image targets.

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