Family Finds Metallic Disc HIDING in Chilean Mountains — Is This a Flying Saucer?

A family’s routine outing through a remote Chilean valley takes a strange turn when they spot something metallic wedged among the rocks that wasn’t there before — and it’s reflecting sunlight in a way rocks simply don’t.

Something is sitting among the rocks in a remote Chilean valley. It’s disc-shaped, metallic, and completely motionless. The afternoon sun bounces off its surface in a way that stone never could. A family on a day trip sees it first, then films it. The video goes viral within days. What they captured in November 2025 has reignited decades of questions about a region that authorities have long acknowledged as one of the strangest in the world.

The Footage

On November 14, 2025, a man named Fer Valderrama Marín was traveling through the Valle del Limarí with his family. Located in Chile’s Coquimbo region, roughly 500 kilometers north of Santiago, this area sits at the edge of the Atacama Desert — one of the driest places on Earth, with some of the clearest skies anywhere.
Valderrama Marín noticed something in the distance, high up on a rocky outcropping. He filmed what he saw. The footage shows what appears to be a disc-shaped metallic object positioned among the rocks on the upper slopes of the valley. Its surface reflects the intense sunlight, creating a gleaming effect that immediately sets it apart from the surrounding terrain. The object remains completely still throughout the video. Some observers claim they can make out silhouettes or shapes on or near the object.
Valderrama Marín shared the footage on TikTok through the account @dezabedrosky. Chilean ufology accounts quickly picked it up, and by the following week, it had spread to international platforms and news outlets. Coast to Coast AM, the long-running American paranormal radio program, featured the video on its website.

@dezabedrosky 🇨🇱 | Objeto bajo unas rocas del Valle del Limarí, Chile. (Noviembre 14, 2025). Un testigo junto a su familia vio un posible objeto metálico a distancia, bajo un roquerio de la cuenca del Valle del Limarí, de la Región de Coquimbo, norte de Chile recientemente. A distancia se logra apreciar una posible estructura metálica en forma de Disco estacionaria sobre la superficie, reflejando la luz solar. El testigo identificado como Fer Valderrama Marin, se encontraba en un paseo familiar en la cuenca del Valle del Limarí, al Este de Coquimbo, conocida por la ufología local, como un Área Altamente Candente de Avistamientos OVNIs de todo Chile, zona junto al Valle del Elqui. ¿En realidad se trata de una nave extraterrestre estacionada o solamente es una estructura abandonada en medio de la nada?. #ufo #ovni #ufo5537 #zabedrosky ♬ 80s Suspense – ShaneCrixus

Believers and Skeptics

The footage divided viewers immediately. UFO researchers pointed to the object’s disc shape, its metallic reflectivity, and its position in an apparently inaccessible location as evidence of something genuinely anomalous. They noted that the Valle del Limarí, along with its neighbor the Valle del Elqui, has been classified by Chilean ufologists as an “Área Altamente Candente” — a highly active zone for unexplained aerial phenomena.
Skeptics offered more prosaic explanations. Some suggested the object might be an abandoned tent or camping equipment left by hikers. Others proposed it could be a piece of industrial debris or a reflective structure installed by mining operations. The region does have a history of copper mining. As of late November 2025, Chile’s Policía de Investigaciones had not issued any official statement on the footage.
What makes the case difficult to dismiss outright is the location. This isn’t a major city where hoaxes are easy to stage. The Coquimbo region is remote, sparsely populated, and — significantly — home to some of the most serious UFO research institutions in the world.

Chile’s Official UFO Agency

Chile is one of the very few countries on Earth with a government body specifically tasked with investigating UFOs. The Comité de Estudios de Fenómenos Aéreos Anómalos, known as CEFAA, has operated since 1997 under the jurisdiction of the Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil — the equivalent of America’s Federal Aviation Administration, but under Chilean Air Force authority.
CEFAA’s stated mission is to support aviation safety by investigating reports of unexplained aerial phenomena in Chilean airspace, which extends across 32 million square kilometers from the northern border near Arica to the South Pole. The committee includes military personnel, air traffic controllers, pilots, meteorologists, astronomers, and other specialists.
The agency has gained international recognition for taking a scientific approach to cases that other governments simply ignore. When investigations conclude without conventional explanations, CEFAA publicly acknowledges that the case remains unexplained. General Ricardo Bermúdez, who directed the agency during several high-profile investigations, has stated openly that his office makes cases public when warranted and acknowledges the existence of unidentified aerial phenomena when the evidence supports such a conclusion.
CEFAA has also partnered with international organizations. In 2014, the agency signed an agreement with the Aeronautical and Astronautical Association of France to cooperate on UFO research. France operates its own official UFO research organization, GEIPAN, and the two agencies have shared resources and analysis ever since.

Why Coquimbo?

The Coquimbo region appears repeatedly in Chilean UFO reports, and the reasons go beyond local folklore. This area holds some of the clearest skies in the Southern Hemisphere, which is why international organizations have established major astronomical observatories there. The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory sits in the mountains near Vicuña. The region’s pristine atmospheric conditions, combined with its isolation, make it ideal for watching the sky — whether for scientific research or something else.
The New York Times included the Valle del Elqui in its “52 Places to Visit” list in both 2018 and 2019. Lonely Planet ranked it among the top ten destinations in the world the same year. Tourism marketing emphasizes the valley’s “mystical aura,” its spiritual retreat centers, and its astronomical observation opportunities. But a significant portion of visitors come specifically because of the UFO reports.
Local economies have adapted. The town of Paihuano, population around 4,700, has developed a reputation as a UFO tourism destination. Observatories offer night tours that mix legitimate stargazing with speculation about extraterrestrial visitors. Restaurants and hotels cater to ufology enthusiasts. A film production company announced in 2023 that they were developing a movie called “Misión UFO” about the region’s strange history.

The Chilean Roswell

The Valle del Limarí sighting arrived against the backdrop of one of Chile’s most enduring UFO mysteries: the 1998 Paihuano incident, often called “El Roswell Chileno.”
On October 7, 1998, at approximately 3:45 in the afternoon, residents of Paihuano watched a metallic object hovering over Cerro Las Mollacas, a hill visible from most of the village. Multiple witnesses described a silver or orange-gold cylinder or disc, roughly 15 meters across. Mayor Lorenzo Torres was among those who witnessed what happened next.
The object rose vertically, made an abrupt turn, and appeared to split into two pieces. Both parts crashed on or near the summit of Las Mollacas. Witnesses reported a sound they compared to breaking glass.
The impact coincided with a series of strange events across the region. Weak earthquakes registered on local instruments. Power failed in Paihuano and neighboring villages including Pisco Elquí and Monte Grande. Television and radio broadcasts cut to static.
Carabineros — Chile’s national police — attempted to reach the crash site on horseback. According to Cesar Uribe, a retired officer who participated in the operation, the trek to the location took approximately six hours. One horse, named Calambrito, died during the ascent from the exertion. When officers reached the area, they found nothing.
By the following day, according to witness accounts, military forces had established a perimeter extending to neighboring towns. Residents reported seeing unmarked helicopters operating at low altitude after dark, without standard navigation lights. Omar Prieto, who managed a tourist resort in Pisco Elquí, observed these flights between midnight and dawn on October 9. Others described military trucks moving toward Las Mollacas on back roads.
Within days, the military presence vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Farmers who tried to graze their livestock near Las Mollacas were turned away by uniformed personnel. Then, suddenly, the soldiers were gone.
Local enthusiasts who later examined the hillside reported finding a gap at the foot of Las Mollacas, approximately 5 meters long and 40 centimeters deep. They noted boot prints and vehicle tracks around the depression, along with stones covered in an unidentified substance.

Official Explanations

Chilean authorities offered several explanations for the Paihuano incident over the following weeks and months. Carabineros closed their investigation by suggesting that what witnesses saw might have been sunlight reflecting off white stones in the Quebrada Las Mollacas.
Arturo Gómez, an astrophotographer at the Cerro Tololo Observatory, noted that 14 weather balloons had been launched from nearby Cerro Pachón around that time. One might have gone off course and crashed in the area. The observatory’s official position was that the object was one of their instruments.
Gustavo Rodriguez, representing CEFAA, publicly contradicted this explanation. The agency maintained no record of balloon launches in the area matching the described event. Despite officially declining to investigate the case, CEFAA quietly dispatched personnel to interview witnesses, including psychiatric consultant Mario Dusuel and geophysicist Carlos Leiva.
Other proposed explanations included space debris, a crashed communications satellite, an experimental aircraft, a meteorite, and even mass hallucination. The Chilean Air Force refused to comment on the incident entirely, though one witness claimed to have been privately questioned by a Chilean Air Force captain about what he saw.
None of these explanations satisfied the witnesses, many of whom remained adamant about what they observed for years afterward. One resident who lived at the foot of Cerro Las Mollacas told investigators that he had looked at the hillside every day of his life and knew its features intimately. Whatever appeared there that October afternoon, he insisted, was not a painted stone.

A Pattern of Phenomena

The 1998 incident was neither the first nor the last unusual event in the Coquimbo region. Four months before the Paihuano crash, in June 1998, another object reportedly came down in the Quebrada de Huchumi area. Witnesses described seeing something crash into the snow. According to local accounts, the object was recovered by military forces and transported to Vicuña in large containerized trucks.
In 2008, while the President of Chile was delivering a speech at a high school in Paihuano, attendees spotted a UFO overhead. Multiple people photographed the object.
In 2013, dozens of witnesses in Vicuña reported seeing an unidentified object zigzag across the sky before crashing into a mountainside.
The pattern extends beyond the Coquimbo region. Chile’s Agrupación de Investigaciones Ovniológicas (Group of Ufological Investigations of Chile) tracked sightings at El Enladrillado, a strange geological formation in the Altos de Lircay National Reserve. Between January 1995 and mid-1996, investigators documented an average of two confirmed sightings per week at that location.
In November 2014, a Chilean Navy Airbus Cougar AS-532 helicopter was conducting a routine patrol over the Pacific coast when a technician spotted an object in the airspace. The crew filmed it for nine minutes using the helicopter’s infrared camera. The footage shows an elongated object with two bright thermal discharges that don’t align with its direction of movement. Neither the helicopter’s radar nor ground stations could track the object. Attempts to communicate on standard radio frequencies received no response.
CEFAA studied the footage for two years, consulting an astrophysicist, image experts, a nuclear chemist, and specialists from the French GEIPAN agency. The committee could not identify the object. General Bermúdez stated that they knew what it wasn’t — it wasn’t any of the conventional explanations they tested — but they couldn’t say what it was. The agency released the footage to the public in January 2017.
A UFO skeptic named Mick West later proposed that the object was a commercial airliner, Iberia flight IB6830, climbing out of Santiago and leaving engine exhaust trails visible in infrared. His analysis tracked flight data and offered a plausible conventional explanation that CEFAA has not officially endorsed or rejected.

The Atacama Disc

CEFAA made headlines again in 2014 with a case from the Collahuasi copper mine, more than 14,000 feet above sea level in the Andean plateau of far northern Chile. Four technicians working at the remote mine observed a disc-shaped object that approached slowly and hovered at approximately 2,000 feet for more than an hour.
One technician photographed the object with a Kenox Samsung S860 camera. The images show a flattened disc with a brilliant metallic appearance. The object made no sound and eventually departed toward the east.
The witnesses initially chose to keep the sighting private, concerned about skepticism. Months later, the photographer showed the images to the mine’s chief engineer, who forwarded them to CEFAA.
Chile’s meteorological office confirmed the sky was absolutely clear at the time, ruling out lenticular clouds. CEFAA determined there were no drones operating in the area — Jose Lay, the agency’s international affairs director, noted that workers in that region were familiar with drones from fishing company operations and would recognize them immediately. Officials also ruled out experimental aircraft, conventional planes, and weather balloons.
The agency’s analyst concluded the object measured between 5 and 10 meters in diameter and appeared to emit its own light energy. The study noted that the brightness on the underside of the craft could not have been caused by sunlight, which was reflecting off the top. CEFAA classified it as a UFO.
Retired US Navy physicist Bruce Maccabee, a well-known photo analyst, examined the images and concluded the object had moved a considerable distance between frames. He stated it was clearly not any normal thing seen in the sky and warranted further study.

A Country That Takes UFOs Seriously

Chile’s openness to UFO research stands in contrast to how most governments handle the topic. The country established official investigation mechanisms in 1997, more than two decades before the United States publicly acknowledged similar programs. Chilean officials speak openly about cases they cannot explain. The military provides data to civilian researchers.
This institutional support has made Chile a destination for serious ufologists worldwide. Researchers have noted that the country’s clear skies, remote terrain, and mineral-rich soil — including uranium deposits in the Valle del Elqui region — create conditions that some theorists believe attract unusual phenomena.
The Valle del Limarí footage from November 2025 arrived in this environment. Whether it shows an abandoned tent, a mining artifact, or something that defies conventional explanation remains unknown. It emerged from one of the few places on Earth where such questions are taken seriously enough to warrant official investigation.
Fer Valderrama Marín and his family captured roughly a minute of footage of something metallic sitting among the rocks of a remote valley. That footage has now been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. Chile’s official UFO agency has not yet commented on the case. The object, whatever it was, remains unidentified.

References

Captan supuesto OVNI oculto entre las rocas en Valle del Limarí, Chile – El Heraldo de México
Revuelo en Chile: Captan supuesto OVNI oculto entre rocas del Valle del Limarí – Red Uno de Bolivia
Flying Saucer Found on Side of Chilean Mountain? – Coast to Coast AM
La enigmática historia del “Roswell chileno”: un ovni que cayó en Paihuano en 1998 – BioBioChile
¿Ovni caído en Paihuano? La historia del “roswell chileno” a 25 años del misterio – Diario el Día
The Paihuano Incident – UFO Crash And Retrieval In The Chilean Mountains? – UFO Insight
UFO Crash/Retrievals in Chile – UFO Evidence
Ufology in Chile: The best destinations for the sighting of UFOs – Chile Travel
4 “hot spots” to see UFOs in Chile – GoChile
A Local’s Guide to the Elqui Valley, Chile – Go Ask A Local
El Enladrillado: the place where adventure and ufology meet – Chile Travel
Why San Clemente, Chile, Is Considered the Unofficial UFO Capital of the World – Matador Network
The Possible and the Impossible: Reflections on Evidence in Chilean Ufology – SciELO
Chile Releases Official Study on UFO Photos – HuffPost
Groundbreaking UFO Video Just Released By Chilean Navy – HuffPost
Chilean Government Releases Declassified UFO Video – Universe Today
Chile Can’t ID Mysterious Aircraft Caught on Video – Newsweek
Chilean Commission for Studies of Unidentified Space Phenomena – The UFO Database
I Went Alien Hunting on Chile’s Mountainous ‘UFO Route’ – Vice
Chilean researcher wants inquest into alleged Paihuano UFO crash opened 19 years later – SOTT.net

NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popular conspiracy theories, is NOT an AI voice.