AGUADILLA 2013

1. Public Record

Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, night of 25-26 April 2013. A Customs and Border Protection DHC-8 from the Caribbean Air and Marine Branch is up on a routine patrol. Shortly after takeoff from Rafael Hernández Airport the captain and the tower both have a light that does not belong on the field. No transponder. No call. A commercial departure is held. The crew treat it as a possible smuggler and put the infrared on it. The tape that later leaves the building is three minutes and fifty-four seconds.

On the tape the contact crosses the airport twice, changes outline from a forward horseshoe to something more round, runs for the Atlantic, and appears to meet the water without a splash the crew can respect. At one time-code a second heat source seems to come out of the water and join it. An anonymous letter later tells The Black Vault to call the tower and the branch. SCU's 2015 paper gives transmedium speed and a split. AARO's 2025 reconstruction gives two small slow objects, parallax, sky lanterns, and no dip into the sea. The dates on the overlay fight each other by one local day. The tape does not.

A customs aircraft. A runway without a squawk. A minute of water that two benches cannot share.

The object was spotted visually by the captain of the aircraft, and the Aguadilla control tower operator. It appeared to have a strange red light.

2. Date of Incident

25 April 2013, 21:22 local in the SCU / letter reading, labelled 26 April on AARO and DVIDS. Tape duration 3:54.

3. Location

Rafael Hernández Airport and the Atlantic off Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Approximate 18°30 N 067°08 W.

4. Official Narrative

CBP recorded a real infrared sequence. AARO in 2025: high confidence no transmedium event, moderate confidence sky lanterns. Official narrative does not call the tape a fake. It calls the behaviour ordinary once parallax is in the room.

5. Witness Layer

DHC-8 captain and crew. Aguadilla tower. Later SCU analysts. AARO reconstruction team. The unsigned letter that pointed at the branch.

It skims on top of the ocean and submerges, unaffected by the hydrodynamic forces.

Motion parallax created the apparent speed. Loss of thermal contrast made them seem to vanish at the waterline.

6. Recovery Logistics

The 3:54 infrared. No wreckage in the surf. No lantern recovered on the sand. DVIDS release of the sequence.

7. Assessment

The tape is the spine. A customs crew and a tower delayed a departure for a light with no squawk. That hour is not a forum story. What the water does on the tape is the fight. SCU sees a split and a dive. AARO sees two lanterns and a camera angle. Both benches sat with the same minutes. They did not sit with the same ocean.

This folder keeps Aguadilla as a working-sensor night, not as a closed lantern and not as a proved craft. AARO is allowed to be late and confident. It is not allowed to un-fly the DHC-8. The red light the captain called still has to live next to the reconstruction.

8. Materials & Remains

CBP infrared. SCU 2015. AARO 2025. Tower and crew as named in the letter. No object.

9. Key Personnel

CBP DHC-8 crew / Aguadilla tower : The night.

SCU : The first long paper.

AARO : The 2025 close.

10. Aftermath

The clip becomes a staple of the sensor decade. Puerto Rico keeps older object talk around the same coast. The lantern sentence arrives twelve years late and does not put the tape back in a drawer.

11. Current Archive Status

Status: Apr 2013. CBP tape. Waterline argued. Lantern late.

Confidence: High that a CBP aircraft recorded 3:54 of a light over Aguadilla with tower eyes on it. Low that lanterns are proved. Low that the waterline is proved as a dive.

Filing note

A customs patrol after takeoff, a runway with no squawk, a red light the tower could see, three minutes fifty-four of infrared, a waterline two benches will not share, a close that arrived in 2025 with lanterns in its mouth.

They held a commercial departure. That is not how a station treats a party balloon.