In early 1991, a coalition of nations went to war with Iraq in order to throw Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait. The air forces of several nations took part in the bombardment of Iraqi military targets, and in support of coalition ground troops. Amongst these were the RAF, and the USAF.

One evening not so long ago, I was watching a documentary about the 1991 Gulf War on the History International Channel. This channel comes to me on my local cable service. During this programme, a flight of USAF F-15E Strike Eagles was shown in the air. But something was amiss! As the jets flew along on their appointed mission, an object passed through the formation which was not part of the coalition military. What was it?? I might point out that although I don't know what this thing is, it bears a strong resemblance to the "Foo Fighters" reported so frequently 50 years earlier in World War II.

It has been suggested that the object is a speck of detritus on the camera lens. Let me explain why this is not so. IF the object were dust or debris on the camera lens, as the object followed its "course", the airplanes in the scene would necessarily appear to "bounce" around as the camera panned. This is now what we observe in the film, OR animated GIF. The fighter jets remain pretty steady in their relative positions as the object covorts amongst them. In addition, a dust mote would NOT enter from the top of the screen, and exit to the left. A bit of dust on the lens would necessarily remained in sight during the entire incident, and beyond. I believe these facts demonstrate decisively that the object is NOT a speck on the lens of the camera which filmed the event.

The animated GIFs below were made from stills captured from the video tape recorded from a live broadcast on the History International Channel.