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Telescope

Does a video show a massive metallic UFO orb over a volcano in Mexico? No, that's not true: The round object in the video is a telescope on the top of the dormant Sierra Negra volcano. The telescope's concave dish-shaped reflector is 50 meters wide, the lighting at the time the video was filmed made an optical illusion of a convex orb-like shape.

The video appeared in a post on X (archived here) where it was published by @dom_lucre. It was captioned:

🔥🚨BREAKING: A massive metallic UFO orb was spotted over a volcano in Mexico.
Locals claim this has been going on for years and allege that there's 'an alien base inside Pico de Orizaba.'

This is how the 38-second video posted on X appeared at the time of writing:

(Image source: screenshot of @dom_lucre post on X by Lead Stories)

The post's caption mentions Pico de Orizaba (archived here), the highest mountain in Mexico. Aside from a cross marking the 18,406-foot summit, this dormant volcano does not have any manmade features constructed at the top.

A 56-second version of this video was also posted on YouTube (archived here) on August 4, 2025. This video is titled, "Enorme OVNi Esférico registrado entrando no Vulcão Pico de Orizaba, México. 03/07/2025." which translates to, "Huge Spherical UFO Recorded Entering the Pico de Orizaba Volcano, Mexico". Discreetly tucked inside the video, spliced into the footage of the mysterious object shot from a moving car, there is a still image showing a giant telescope and two mountain peaks between the 0:44 and 0:49 second timestamps (pictured below).

(Image source: screenshots of @AdrianoManoelCarvalho YouTube video by Lead Stories)

A reverse image search for this photo returned a post on Instagram (archived here). The caption translated from Spanish to English by Google reads:

The Alfonso Serrano Large Millimeter Telescope is installed on the top of the Sierra Negra Volcano at an altitude of 4,600 meters above sea level. In my second photo you can see the imposing Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) in the background, the top of Mexico 🇲🇽

Additional searches for views of the volcanos, such as with Instant Streetview (archived here) show the telescope on the peak of Sierra Negra is visible from distance (pictured below). The website for the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) contains other photos and a diagram of the telescope (archived here), stating the primary reflector had a diameter of 50 meters (164 feet).

(Image source: screenshot with detail of Google Instant Street View by Lead Stories)

Because the mountains in the video are shrouded in clouds, there are no distinct shadows (below left) to give context to the unusual shape appearing in the mist. Later in the video, (at time code 00:28) the shadows of the cars on the highway (below right) reveal that the sunlight is coming from the behind and the left. It is an optical illusion that the concave telescope reflector appears to be a spherical object. If it were truly a sphere, it would be lit just like the car on the highway, with the left side illuminated and the right side in shadow.

(Image source: screenshots of @dom_lucre post on X by Lead Stories)

Lead Stories reached out to the LMT Help Desk for comment. They replied on August 6, 2025:

The video you linked shows our observatory, the Large Millimeter Telescope, peaking out of the clouds. It observes millimeter light and has a large 50 meter dish in order to do so. The observatory and dish are located over 10,000 ft in the air on the peak of Sierra Negra, which the poster mistook for a UFO.