Marine says ‘jellyfish’ UAP was ‘ghost story of the base’

'Jellyfish' filmed over a joint operations base in Iraq in 2017 or 2018
It remains classified as a UAP by the Pentagon: Jeremy Corbell
Marine: 'It didn’t seem to be posturing to threaten us'

Updated: Jan 12, 2024 / 11:04 AM CST

(NewsNation) — A Marine officer spoke with NewsNation about footage of what’s been dubbed a “jellyfish” UAP (unknown aerial phenomenon) spotted in Iraq around 2018.

Investigative journalist Jeremy Corbell released the video earlier this week of a jellyfish-looking object over a military base.

A marine who spoke with NewsNation said those on the base never called it the “jellyfish” but nicknamed it the “spaghetti monster.”

The marine, Michael Cincoski, was an intelligence surveillance recognizance tactical controller at the base in Iraq in 2018.

He says initial reports that the video was taken that year are incorrect and that the object was spotted near the base at the end of 2017.

When Cincoski arrived in 2018, he says he was shown the full video and that soldiers weren’t sure what to make of it.

Cincoski says the video was taken from an aerostat, a big balloon that looks like a blimp and was over the base. It has cameras on it to keep a lookout for threats.

“Toward the end, it seemingly continued off into the distance,” Cincoski said. “It got smaller and smaller. It got seemingly far enough away where they could not see it anymore — whether it dropped into the water or it just continued over the lake, because there is a lake next to the base we were at. At no point in the video can you see it drop into the lake or shoot into the sky like there have been some claims. That never happened.”

Cincoski wondered if the object in the video could be nonhuman.

“It crossed my mind because the theories we had didn’t fully explain it,” he said. “Our curiosity kind of goes there. Is this something extraterrestrial or paranormal or whatever you want to call it?”

It wasn’t posturing to threaten them, Cincoski said.

“It wasn’t like we needed to take immediate action,” he said. “I think it was handled in the best way possible. It ended up being the ghost story of the base.”

NewsNation has asked the Pentagon for a response about the video and whether any investigation was done. It has acknowledged the inquiry but hasn’t responded yet.