3 ms·
Looks like an insect stuck on the camera lens.
by magnat 9y ago
Looks like an insect stuck on the camera lens.
- rrmm 9y agoI wouldn't guess an insect, but it does seem to track too well to the heading change of the aircraft. There seems to be no independent movement other than an orientation change. Is the pilot in the video talking to a wingman or his weapons officer? (I think F-18E's are single seaters, but F-18F has a backseat).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jboggan 9y agoThere were multiple contacts and the F-18s had telemetry on the objects, it wasn't just an optical trick. Also how do two different jets see the same insect stuck on a lens?
- AgentME 9y agoIs there video available from multiple jets? Maybe they didn't ever clearly see it. Maybe they kinda thought they saw something, and lead themselves to believe they did because the other jet was so sure of it. About the radar comment: how often are there false positives on the radar? If they didn't see anything at all, would they have written off the radar results because they normally get that kind of noise? Maybe after thinking they saw something, they read too far into the radar noise. Yeah, I know I'm proposing a couple coincidences, but we only hear about the situations where all the coincidences line up. And really, a couple mild coincidences lining up like this must happen often across the world, and seems more likely to describe this case than this being something extraordinary.
- dfox 9y agoIf they had telemetry then they had to have pretty good idea of what that thing is in order to decode said telemetry or even recognize its RF emissions as telemetry.
- Gravityloss 9y agoDoes the infrared camera lens zoom or focus by rotating? It looks like it's doing that towards the end. Something stuck to the front element probably wouldn't be so much in focus, it should be something deeper in the lens. For example a piece of paint can become dislodged (has happened to me with binoculars).
- gfodor 9y agoYou've cracked the case!