Incident: 29 January 2026, early morning, Ike Ike beach, Tarapacá, Chile. SEFAA case 2277, reported 30 August; resolved 7 September and released 8 October 2026. The January date is the investigation’s correction to the initial account.
The submission described a dark disc near the coast, estimated at around twenty metres and watched for several minutes by more than three people. The opening account placed it on 10 February around 22:00. The images and subsequent correspondence produced a substantially different chronology.
Establishing the night
The ten-page investigation examines four iPhone 13 night photographs carrying metadata around 03:05–03:10 on 29 January, together with a later daytime context image. A subsequent witness correction proposed an early-morning time, rather than the original late-evening hour.
SEFAA compared the photographed stars with reconstructed skies. A tested February alternative did not reproduce the arrangement, while the January comparison did. The inquiry accordingly selected 29 January. UKPX retains that corrected date explicitly, rather than presenting the opening date as though the inconsistency had never existed.
The cloud interpretation
The image sequence shows a dark form against the night sky. The agency consulted a meteorological specialist, who attributed the appearance to ragged low cloud of the stratus/fractus type. The star background and coastal viewing conditions were part of that photographic assessment.
An airport weather report was also consulted. Its aviation cloud reporting should not be stretched into proof that no cloud could exist anywhere above the beach: reporting thresholds and a different observing location limit that inference. The investigator’s conclusion concerned the image appearance and the available meteorological context together.
What was and was not established
SEFAA classified the case as resolved, with cloud as the explanation. The original estimate of a twenty-metre disc was not supported by an independently measured distance. An apparently bounded patch in a night photograph is insufficient on its own to establish a solid object with those dimensions.
The file is useful for its date reconstruction as well as its identification. Image metadata can contain errors, but here the investigator also compared an independently structured feature of the photographs: the stars. UKPX has reviewed that published comparison, not recalibrated the original camera files.
The report formed part of the 8 October official release. Its beach locality is well established, while the precise night-time camera position and any claimed object distance remain outside what the public map pin represents.
Location and source record
Approximate public Ike Ike beach reference, not a private campsite, precise camera position or measured object location. Coordinates follow the checked geographical reference.
UKPX reference added 6 November 2026. Incident year: 2026. UKPX read the linked official investigation and reviewed selected key figures; original witness media were not independently examined. Browse Historical Cases · More UFO / UAP / USO references.