Is this a UFO? New video matches viral 2015 marshmallow man sighting. Watch

The skies over Los Angeles became a cosmic movie set in September 2015 when a massive, glowing white figure drifted into view.

Onlookers bypassed standard flying saucer descriptions entirely, pointing out that the bizarre silhouette looked exactly like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters, who is a famous fictional movie character depicted as a giant, puffy paranormal monster made of white marshmallows wearing a sailor hat.

The footage exploded across social media networks, logging millions of hits as viewers argued whether it was an extraterrestrial visitor, or just a brilliant helium balloon prank.

Now, that viral internet memory has abruptly transformed into a matter of high-stakes military investigation.

The United States Department of War published its second official release of declassified files, which are documents cleared of government secrecy, under the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters on May 22, 2026, pulling the old mystery back into the spotlight.

Independent researchers digging through the newly uploaded archives on the official portal spotted an unmistakable anomaly in a video catalogued as NAG UAP 1 JUN 20.

The abbreviation UAP stands for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, which is the modern scientific and military term used instead of UFO to describe unexplained objects or lights tracked in the air, underwater, or in space.

The official military file displays a nearly identical, upright white shape moving through the air with the exact same unnatural posture.

What was once mocked as a digital hoax is now officially classified as a genuine aerial mystery, forcing scientists to take another look at the decade-old phenomenon.

THE UNEXPLAINED PHYSICS OF THE SEQUOIA RESURGENCE

What makes the resurgence of this footage so compelling to the scientific community is the precise nature of the object’s flight path.

The military file, which draws parallels to another civilian sighting from Sequoia National Park, shows an object that completely defies standard aviation mechanics, which is the science behind how aircraft design, engineering, and structures allow them to operate safely.

It does not possess visible wings, rotors, or propulsion exhaust, which is the forceful stream of gases or fuel expelled from an engine to push a vehicle forward.

This lacks any signature belonging to traditional aircraft, helicopters, or commercial drones, ruling them out completely.

Furthermore, the object maintains a rigid vertical alignment, which means it is locked in a perfectly upright, straight up and down position.

The core of the mystery comes down to two completely separate events that look like mirror images of each other.

The first occurred in September 2015, when civilians in Los Angeles filmed a bizarre, puffy white shape that the internet nicknamed the marshmallow man.

The second occurred five years later on June 1, 2020, when a military tracking sensor captured an identical silhouette flying over the Middle East.

Even though these two objects look like the exact same entity, they are separate encounters recorded half a decade and thousands of miles apart, suggesting that this strange shape is a repeating phenomenon rather than a one-off event.

The earlier 2015 sighting over Sequoia National Park captured an identical white, amorphous silhouette that internet sleuths famously dubbed the Sequoia alien.

Both profiles show an irregular, humanoid form that appears to hover with a single leg-like extension.

While typical weather balloons drift, rotate, and expand as atmospheric pressure changes, this white silhouette moves with a highly fluid motion that looks like it is walking or floating upright in the air.

The Department of War has officially labeled the footage as unresolved. This means that advanced sensory data, or information collected by high-tech equipment like military radar, optical cameras, and infrared heat sensors, and engineering reviews could not match the object to any known terrestrial.

SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS AND PERSISTENT METEOROLOGICAL ANOMALIES

While the online community is focused on the humanoid shape, atmospheric scientists caution against leaping to extraterrestrial conclusions.

Analysts point to pareidolia, a well-documented neurological phenomenon, which is a hardwired brain trick or psychological tendency where the human mind naturally forces familiar patterns, like faces or bodies, onto completely random or ambiguous shapes.

When low-resolution military footage is heavily magnified, the naturally occurring pixelation, which is the grainy blurring that happens when digital image blocks become visible to the eye, can easily create the illusion of limbs or a distinct torso.

However, even if the humanoid appearance is a trick of light and shadow, the tracking data remains a genuine scientific anomaly.

If these two distinct objects spotted five years apart, first in 2015 and then again in 2020, are merely stray balloons, their ability to maintain absolute structural stability against high-altitude crosswinds without tumbling remains completely unexplained.

Standard airborne debris or atmospheric balloons typically distort or rotate wildly when subjected to changing high-altitude wind vectors.

By contrast, the military thermal tracking footage from June 1, 2020, confirms that the object maintained its rigid structural profile throughout its flight.

Rather than drifting passively with the wind, the object executed controlled, slow rotations on its axis while holding its precise shape, directly challenging the conventional civilian debris hypothesis.

The civilian debris hypothesis is the theory that an unexplained aerial object is actually just an ordinary, man-made item like a stray helium balloon or party decoration drifting through the sky.

As the disclosure initiative prepares its third wave of digital disclosures, the focus remains on gathering hard empirical data, or verifiable evidence obtained through direct experimentation or scientific measurement, to determine whether the skies are hosting advanced domestic technology, foreign surveillance systems, or something else entirely.