Footage Of Bizarre Aircraft Over California Goes Viral – But It's Not A UFO

Humans have a long history of spotting objects in the sky that they aren't able to identify. The first recorded UFO sighting in America dates all the way back to 1639, before the country itself was founded. The governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, recounted how three men in a rowing boat spotted a mysterious light in the sky and eventually found themselves one mile upstream with no recollection of how they got there. Though there are several potential logical explanations, this was the first of thousands of unexplained sightings in the U.S. alone.

Unidentified flying objects are often oddly shaped, brightly-lit, have erratic flight patterns, and travel faster than humanly possible. In December 2025, a few lucky Californians spotted something amazing in the sky, and though it looked like an almost impossible sight, it wasn't a UFO or something out of a sci-fi movie. This particular flying object was identified as a Roc, an experimental aircraft owned by Stratolaunch. Based on its eye-catching design, it's not surprising that it caught the attention of jet-spotters. Below, take a look at the Roc in the air several years ago.

Stratolaunch is an aerospace company headquartered in Mojave, California. The company "designs, manufactures, and launches aerospace vehicles and technologies to fulfill several important national needs" but it's most widely-known for the massive, dual-fuselage aircraft spotted in the air over California.

According to Stratolaunch, the Roc helps accelerate "access to the hypersonic environment so our customers can achieve and our nation can advance." The gargantuan aircraft is used to carry and release rockets and hypersonic aircraft (traveling at least five times the speed of sound) at high altitudes. This aerial testing is used to complement ground testing and can offer critical flight data.

For those on the ground, the site can be awe-inspiring. The Roc is the largest aircraft to ever fly. It boasts two fuselages, looking like two planes fused together with one giant wing in the middle. Its wingspan is 385 feet, longer than a football field, and it weighs 1.3 million pounds at takeoff. It has six engines and can carry a payload of more than 500,000 pounds.

Despite its enormous capabilities, the Roc isn't named after the famous wrestler but a bird of prey from Arabian folklore. Stratolaunch says this mythical bird was large enough to launch a fully-grown elephant and would carry sailors to safety. In 2024, the company successfully executed flight tests where a Roc reached 35,000 feet, and earlier this year it completed a hypersonic flight and recovery with the Talon-A2 (TA-2) fully autonomous test vehicle. If you want a chance to catch Roc in the air, it appears to be a "in the right place at the right time" scenario, as Stratolaunch does not provide any kind of public testing calendar on its website.