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Here is another UFO incident from another country (Belgium) with multiple corroborating observations and very high acceleration/deceleration: https://en.wikiped
by tristanj 9y ago
Here is another UFO incident from another country (Belgium) with multiple corroborating observations and very high acceleration/deceleration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave
The evidence includes:
1. Statements by thirty different groups of witnesses, three separate groups of police officers, documenting the sight of a large object flying at low altitude. An estimated 13,500 people on the ground saw the object, of which 2,600 filed written statements describing in detail what they saw.
2. Detection on radar of the object from two F-16 Fighter jets scrambled to intercept the object
3. Secondary detection of the object from ground radar at a nearby military airfield
4. Data from the F-16s suggesting near impossible maneuvers. Quoting wikipedia:
"During the first radar lock, the target accelerated from 240 km/h to over 1,770 km/h while changing altitude from 2,700 m to 1,500 m, then up to 3,350 m before descending to almost ground level – the first descent of more than 900 m taking less than two seconds. Similar maneuvers were observed during both subsequent radar locks. On no occasion were the F-16 pilots able to make visual contact with the targets [NB: it was around midnight hence poor visibility] and at no point, despite the speeds involved, was there any indication of a sonic boom."
5. A low quality photo, which may have been faked.
With regards to the evidence presented, I find it very difficult to come up with a convincing explanation of this incident.
- taneq 9y agoSounds like a cluster of balloons with directional radar reflectors on it? So what you're seeing is not a single rapidly moving source, but multiple stationary point sources each being detected intermittently?
- brango 9y agoYou'd hope fighter pilots would be able to identify a balloon when they see one.
- tigershark 9y agoI guess so. What is the connection with this story in which no pilot made any visual contact with anything?
- tristanj 9y agoExplanation yes. Convincing explanation no. It could have been caused by balloons. Balloons can't fly at 2000km/h, nor accelerate at 100g, so for the ballon hypothesis to work you'd have to assume there was also a major malfunction in the two F-16 lock-on systems. You'd also have to assume there was a major failure in the military ground radar system. However, when you make those assumptions, that opens up a can of worms for other possible explanations. Assuming there was sensor system malfunction, the incident could also be explained though a flock of helicopters flying around. Or it could have been several NSA spy planes flying around. I've seen both those explanations put forth as an explanation for what happened in Belgium. I don't believe it's possible to disprove either your balloon hypothesis nor the helicopter hypothesis. There's just not enough evidence to make any convincing explanation.
- kamaal 9y agoIts also a little hard to believe the systems malfunction theory. How is it that the systems from various departments of the government. Each of which are totally independent of each other, suddenly all malfunction at once at the same time, and the event happens, and then again the systems get back to functioning perfectly fine?
- ckastner 9y ago> The evidence includes I highly recommend reading the Skeptical explanations section of that article. Among other things: [...] but the Belgian military only reported three such locks, and upon analyzing the data, all three radar locks were on each other.
- tristanj 9y agoTroublingly, the skeptical explanations section does not resolve the thousands of eyewitness reports from people claiming to see the UFOs. The reports describe a low flying object visible before the F-16s took flight. The helicopter explanation put forth in the section hypothesizes the eyewitnesses mistook at least 3 different models of helicopters as UFOs. While possible, I don't believe it likely that a fleet of helicopters could be flying in the area without the air traffic control nor the Belgian military being aware of it.
- ckastner 9y ago> Troublingly, the skeptical explanations section does not resolve the thousands of eyewitness reports from people claiming to see the UFOs Actually, that section contains a very reasonable explanation: Hallet's thesis is that the Belgian UFO wave was mostly a mass delusion, boosted by the work done by the SOBEPS. This mass delusion would have followed Philip J. Klass's law: Once news coverage leads the public to believe that UFOs may be in the vicinity, there are numerous natural and man-made objects which, especially seen at night, can take on unusual characteristics in the minds of hopeful viewers. Their UFO reports in turn add to the mass excitement, which encourages still more observers to watch for UFOs. This situation feeds upon itself until such time as the media lose interest in the subject, and then the « flap » quickly runs out of steam..
- tristanj 9y agoTrouble is, mass hysteria is a rather terrible explanation, as it is a logical explanation for nearly any observable phenomena. It can be adapted to retort practically any eyewitness account. For example, it's possible to argue for and against the hypothesis that the earth is flat using the retort that the other side is suffering from mass delusion. Furthermore, a mass hysteria explanation needs to be coupled with the an explanation of the unidentified objects detected on both the ground and F-16 radars.
- Luc 9y agoRadar signals need software to be interpreted. Need I say more than that? Some team did their utmost best to write the code that's running in those F16s. They really were excellent engineers, with no doubt huge budgets. And they got it kind of running and after a few years of debugging got the most obvious crashes and other bugs fixed. I think it rather likely that some disparate echoes got interpreted as reflecting from a single object, and that's how you get things travelling at incredible speeds.
- jvanderbot 9y agoThis. I work with state of the art radar systems and automated target recognition / tracking. It's common to have false tracks jumping out of the noise. These tracks can accelerate zero to thousands, jump positions and altitides, whatever you imagine. If you build a machine to track jitters in electromagnetic returns and let it run wild, it'll show you all kinds of amazing things.