12 ms·
Carrier Group in Recent UFO Encounters Had New Air Defense Tech
- mannykannot 7y agoSo, in at least a couple of cases, these events coincide with the deployment of new air defense tech with advanced information processing capabilities? One should at least consider the possibility that they are machine-generated artifacts, possibly responses to unusual conditions that have mundane explanations.
- lugg 7y agoOr its just aliens.
- api 7y agoWasn't there optical and IR footage? Seems unlikely that many discrete systems would all have ghosting artifacts at the same time and location. Or maybe I am mixing reports. I've read about several recently.
- etrevino 7y agoYeah, as I understand it there were visual sightings as well.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoIR is optical too; same phenomenon can affect both.
- api 7y agoBoth radar and IR? From different vantage points? Seems just as far fetched as aliens or someone else's (China, Russia?) black budget tech saying "hi." Or hell maybe it's some of our own secret tech being tested against our own conventional tech. That would explain why the military brass showed up right after. They were collecting their data. I have to come out of the closet though and say I don't totally dismiss aliens. I would need a lot more evidence to make it more than a speculation, but IMHO it is not an unreasonable one. The discovery that Earth like planets are likely common makes the Fermi paradox very paradoxical. One potential answer is indeed "they are here but are not making overt contact." There are numerous rational reasons an intelligence might avoid overt contact, too many to list here...
- TeMPOraL 7y agoYou wrote optical and IR. Anyways, the only footage I've seen so far is that FLIR video from a plane showing a weird object that happens to precisely follow the rotation of the camera and behave exactly as you'd expect an internal reflection in sensor optics to behave. Given that this is apparently the only footage publicly available from that incident, I'm inclined to discount the reports that some people say they saw something on other instruments.
- macawfish 7y agoI was under the impression that the camera/plane was tracking the object
- TeMPOraL 7y agoIt was. But the video looks like the camera software is trying to track something that's on or within the camera, thus doing a steady rotation at roughly uniform rate. In plane's frame of reference, this footage would correspond to an object trajectory shaped like a circle centered around the plane. That's a pretty weird trajectory to have. See for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9D8dzl4zGk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9D8dzl4zGk. And tell me, why would the UFO start rotating exactly at the moment the camera is about to cross 0 degrees, and persist through what looks like camera axis reorientation, continuously rotating at the rate about 2x of the rate camera axis rotates?
- tatersolid 7y agoMost gimbal-based mechanical systems systems are made to rotate “unnecessarily” to avoid gimbal lock when two of the gimbals are about to coincide. The fact that this happens at very near zero degrees makes perfect sense if that’s where the gimbals would become aligned and locked.
- NikkiA 7y agoThe footage was IR only... The pilots audio discussed 'seeing' the things, but it's not 100% assertained, except via post-hoc assertion by the rights owner of the video, that the pilots aren't referring to what they see on their MFDs.
- wbl 7y agoThere is no rights owner. It was made by government employees in the course of official duties hence uncopyrighted.
- dontbenebby 7y ago>One should at least consider the possibility that they are machine-generated artifacts I'll certainly consider that as a partial explanation, but IIRC some pilots made visual contact as well.
- nasseri 7y agoThe article detailing the tic-tac incident has links to video interviews with roughly 15 pilots who made visual contact with the UFO, and whose stories corroborate one another.
- fnord77 7y agoor even worse - some sort of external hacking that produced fake targets that the Navy proceed to chase around. Over and over in the articles, pilots were quoted as saying they never actually saw the UFO despite the radar sensors saying it should be right in front of them
- instantwhat 7y agoThat is not true at all. What articles did you read? See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20071582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20071582
- instantwhat 7y agoThat makes no sense. Testimony from the pilots who intercepted the object indicates the object demonstrated awareness of their presence. Watch this video of a U.S. Navy F/A-18 squadron commander (not an average military pilot) who intercepted one of the objects and engaged in aerial maneuvers with it. He describes intercepting the object, flying about one mile away from it, with the object demonstrating awareness of his presence by mirroring his maneuvers. Then he flew aggressively at it, and the object responded by rapidly flying away. It then showed up on radar at the position he was returning to, where he had been flying a combat air patrol before he was sent to intercept the object, indicating that the object had been aware of his aircraft all along. The commander also said that the flying object appeared to be maneuvering about 20,000 feet over an unknown object which was submerged just beneath the ocean surface. https://youtu.be/jCaruUtiPHo https://youtu.be/jCaruUtiPHo Other testimony recounted at https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27666/what-the-hell-is-going-on-with-ufos-and-department-of-defense https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27666/what-the-hell-is... mentions that the ships had been tracking these objects on radar for a few days already, with them appearing suddenly on radar at 80,000 feet, rapidly descending vertically to 20,000 feet, and then flying straight up again, disappearing past 80,000 feet. The ships went to non-drill battle stations while the aircraft intercepted the object.
- maxander 7y agoIt makes perfect sense- in the same way that your reflection in a mirror "demonstrates awareness of your presence." An illusion generated by a sensor glitch or interference is entirely liable to move around when the sensors and interference moves around, and flight computers tracking the glitch would plausibly show it "performing maneuvers" that make no sense for physical objects, such as the ones you describe.
- instantwhat 7y ago> It makes perfect sense- in the same way that your reflection in a mirror "demonstrates awareness of your presence." The commander in the video did not describe it as being like a reflection. Why don't you watch his 6-minute testimony and then offer an informed opinion? > flight computers tracking the glitch would plausibly show it "performing maneuvers" that make no sense for physical objects, such as the ones you describe. This is an example of "coming up with less-extraordinary theories that contradict the evidence," as gfodor said[1], because you have asserted "glitches" in "flight computers" and ignored the pilots' eyeballs, which corroborated the radar contacts that had been observed over several days. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20072598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20072598
- noetic_techy 7y agoRadar Contact (on multiple days) + FLIR Contact + Human Eyeball confirmation by two types aircraft in which these things buzzed them != a technical anomaly. Watch the recreation and the eyewitness testimony videos from multiple vantage points. https://youtu.be/PRgoisHRmUE https://youtu.be/PRgoisHRmUE (recreation of ONE of the west coast incident, starts at around 9:00 in) https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27666/what-the-hell-is.. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27666/what-the-hell-is.... (note the embedded videos of testimonies) https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28231/multiple-f-a-18-.. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28231/multiple-f-a-18-.... (new tech, east coast incident years later)
- sheeshkebab 7y agoAt first I thought these were just glitches in complex military imaging and sensor software/hardware. But then a more sane version of me took over and concluded that I’m looking at aliens in YouTube videos.
- threezero 7y agoPilots made visual contact in at least two cases, so not just a sensor glitch for those.
- milesvor 7y agoSecond Foundation
- deepaksurti 7y agoFor more information about Second Foundation, see [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Foundation
- etrevino 7y agoSo, the US was testing unknown and presumably expensive drone technology on Carrier Air Groups? Why would they do that in a "live" situation with people who would report it? I would think (and perhaps I'm wrong) that keeping advanced craft secret would be in the US interest. I don't buy the ET explanation and I don't buy this one either. If it is real and it is a craft it's much more likely it was a state actor testing us.
- protomyth 7y agoWhy would they do that in a "live" situation with people who would report it? Because they want to warn off some nations that are getting a bit aggressive with something that might give them pause.
- deepnotderp 7y agoTo test whether or not the advanced craft can be shot down? If the test was conducted on, say the Chinese military, then it would be very geopolitically dangerous it was shot down.
- Shivetya 7y agoWell this level of sensor capability would be an ideal real world means of testing the latest stealth, aircraft, and detection, technologies all at once. It also reveals just how blind even the best equipped ships are and that you need to be able to integrate so many resources at once to have real security.
- spookybones 7y agoWhen the stealth bomber was top secret and still being tested, most of the army, air force, and navy was unaware of it. Something flying at such a high altitude was considered impossible. Naturally, Air Force fighter pilots were some of the first to observe it, and some of those pilots wondered out loud if it was an alien encounter. No one at Area 51 corrected them. So, this could be a similar scenario. It could even be the case that those working on this unidentified flying object did not know the new radar tech was being tested. The many branches of the DoD are not as coordinated as they may seem. I still don’t believe there was unassisted visual confirmation. And if they are using combined radar imagery, it seems that much more likely that a glitch in one radar system would cause a glitch in all systems. Then again, I’m heavily speculating.
- Gpetrium 7y agoSometimes a perceived "lack of coordination" is built into the program to ensure the principle of least privilege is followed, lowering the risk of leakage and many other issues that may occur.
- WindowsFon4life 7y agoDo you mean SR-71 instead of the B2?
- le-mark 7y agoIndeed, B-2 doesn't fly particularly high, this comment seems a bit inaccurate.
- mmorris 7y agoProbably meant the U-2.
- InCesna14995 7y agoNever underestimate a Cessna 150 filled to the load-bearing-safety brim with conspiratorial materials. #Area50995
- karmakaze 7y agoThe heat signature is interesting. When seen in black mode, the hot center is surrounded by a white cooler-than-atmosphere halo. What could be the use of such a thermoelectric effect? Or if it's a by-product what else could be causing it?
- macawfish 7y agoHm... Cryogenic hydrogen?
- remarkEon 7y agoTin foil hat time: What kind of exotic or near-future engine tech could produce a signature like that? (No I don't think it's Aliens ... if it's Aliens, they'd have the means to travel interstellar distances and if they can do that then surely they can keep themselves hidden).
- karmakaze 7y agoNot suggesting either way but the logic is flawed. Presupposes desire to be hidden. Possible that the entire purpose is to gently assert presence.
- typeformer 7y agoI hope this puts it to rest for all the doubters here. Hell, you think the HN crowd would start to get excited about the possibility of seeing ET code soon...
- locknumber110 7y agoNo disrespect intended, but none of this proves anything. A few super-low-res videos that could be faked by anyone with an installation of Blender on a computer made sometime in the past decade? Scratchy mumbly pilot voiceovers that could be performed by anyone with audio recording technology made sometime within the past half-century? An article co-written by a frequent Coast-to-Coast guest? Alien visitation would indeed by exciting, but I'm going to need more tangible evidence. Preferably from more objective and dispassionate authors. On a related note, we live in an era where billions of people are within arms' reach of internet-connected HD-or-better video cameras, 24/7. If ET is indeed visiting, it'd be front-page on Youtube within minutes.
- Abishek_Muthian 7y agoThen probably it is a UAV from another U.S. DoD dept acting as a Red Team to test the 'New Air Defense Tech'.
- remarkEon 7y agoWith what kind of UAV, though? Some exotic one that can't easily be identified?
- Abishek_Muthian 7y agoAll we can say from the F-18 Pilot's accounts are they're 'out of this world' type of UAV! Jokes apart, my rationale is if it is really an alien space craft then U.S. Govt has no reason to keep it quiet especially when its NASA is spending Billions to find some bacteria in neighbouring planet. More over, 'Alien revelation' would come handy as an effective distraction for ongoing issues. Not that it hasn't been done earlier.
- typeformer 7y agoIf you think this stuff is wild wait till more people hear about UAP’s turning off Nukes, with military eyewitnesses verifying that it happened on multiple occasions...
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y agoWhat?
- blincoln 7y agotypeformer is referring to Robert Hastings' claim that military personnel witnessed UFOs disabling nuclear weapons, e.g. https://www.livescience.com/10146-ufos-disarm-nuclear-weapons.html https://www.livescience.com/10146-ufos-disarm-nuclear-weapon....
- dmix 7y ago> Hastings [who makes a living selling UFO books] claims that a global conspiracy exists in which all major governments have been covering up evidence of UFOs for decades. mhm
- jjtheblunt 7y agounmanned aerial platforms?
- gibybo 7y agoUnidentified Aerial Phenomena
- zyxzevn 7y agoWe had foo-fighters in the second World War. Not much has changed.
- blincoln 7y agoAgreed. It would be neat if it were aliens, but it's probably some sort of uncommon atmospheric/environmental effect[1] that didn't show up on less-advanced radar. I'm no physicist, but I'm thinking something like a pocket of plasma trapped by air pressure or the Earth's magnetic field. The "flying away at high speed" effect is probably caused when whatever trapped the plasma destabilizes. [1] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(lightning) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(lightning)
- instantwhat 7y agoThat makes no sense. Testimony from the pilots who intercepted the object indicates the object demonstrated awareness of their presence. Watch this video of a U.S. Navy F/A-18 squadron commander (not an average military pilot) who intercepted one of the objects and engaged in aerial maneuvers with it. He describes intercepting the object, flying about one mile away from it, with the object demonstrating awareness of his presence by mirroring his maneuvers. Then he flew aggressively at it, and the object responded by rapidly flying away. It then showed up on radar at the position he was returning to, where he had been flying a combat air patrol before he was sent to intercept the object, indicating that the object had been aware of his aircraft all along. The commander also said that the flying object appeared to be maneuvering about 20,000 feet over an unknown object which was submerged just beneath the ocean surface. https://youtu.be/jCaruUtiPHo https://youtu.be/jCaruUtiPHo Other testimony recounted at https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27666/what-the-hell-is-going-on-with-ufos-and-department-of-defense https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27666/what-the-hell-is... mentions that the ships had been tracking these objects on radar for a few days already, with them appearing suddenly on radar at 80,000 feet, rapidly descending vertically to 20,000 feet, and then flying straight up again, disappearing past 80,000 feet. The ships went to non-drill battle stations while the aircraft intercepted the object.
- 7y ago
- new4thaccount 7y ago"And by intention or chance, this is exactly what happened." Funny how the author is hinting that they believe the exercise might have been intentionally setup to see how the systems could handle the UFO.
- myko 7y agoRight, it's kind of reasonable to think the government might want to test their advanced radar capabilities against their advanced surveillance / stealth craft.
- new4thaccount 7y agoI have mixed feelings on this one. The craft reported by pilots seems to be far beyond anything we're currently aware of as civilians. Of course we've had skunkworks programs before like the SR-71 and the Stealth Fighter that were amazing craft in their own right and unknown to the public for years, but this isn't making a rocket ship or a plane fly that has some weird edges. The tic-tac object (as I understand the interviews) implies significant strides in materials science, propulsion, and probably many other things as well. Is it really possible for all of that to happen entirely underwraps? Or do the other major military powers have similar capabilities? If the pilots had just reported something like a really fast plane with an unusual design, then the US testing our new monitoring systems against the plane makes perfect sense.
- bitL 7y ago1) are owners of Earth returning to harvest the crop (of plastics?)? 2) are the authors of /r/outside beta-testing a new faction? 3) are humans from the future messing around, then looking up incidents in history books and competing with each other who made a bigger splash? 4) is there a group of humans with so much advanced technology and science that the rest of us are just neanderthals in comparison?
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago#2 I forgot that that was a thing. Makes sense. #3 seems existentially hard to prove- and it seems like half the competition would be getting cold, hard evidence that they did it- recording themselves doing whatever at a much higher resolution than possible might work. #4 Makes sense. Maybe the earth is actually flat, and they got to the other side of it? [/s, obviously]
- lend000 7y agoAny interesting anecdotes on HN? I haven't seen anything like this unfortunately, but I've heard enough stories from people I consider reliable to believe that some of these UFO sightings are ET ships/drones monitoring us. All the stories seem to have incredible accelerations involved and chaotic movements as a common theme.
- aussieguy1234 7y agoUFOs are real. But that doesn't mean aliens are. More than likely a foreign country has invented advanced technology and is keeping it secret. The sightings all happened near the coast, right where you'd expect advanced recconissance aircraft to be.
- myko 7y agoThe thing that really freaks me out about these stories are that they sound similar to what my grandfather (who I always thought was a bit crazy) told me he saw when he was in the Air Force. He told me he saw a red tic tac shaped object flying in the sky off the coast somewhere in Asia that caused the water underneath it to bubble, and it eventually flew off faster than any aircraft he had seen previously. It seems more likely these are some advanced man-made aircraft it's just eerily similar to my GF's story that would have happened decades ago (maybe in the 60's? I'm not really sure exactly when he was in the Air Force).
- gowld 7y agoMore than more than likely, operators got confused by a known sensor glitch in a new sensor design.
- gfodor 7y agoSkepticism means positing alternative theories that explain the evidence, not coming up with less-extraordinary theories that contradict the evidence, which is what most of the threads here do. Super intelligent AI certainly seems plausible as a thing which could exist. Fusion powered sub-light speed autonomous drones certainly seems like a thing which could exist. Any super intelligent AI would take actions to ensure it's preservation, and extraterrestrial (to it) civilizations confer x-risk. My pet theory is that these things are real, and are a autonomous surveillance and intervention system deployed by an extraterrestrial entity or civ (AI or organic is irrelevant) to prevent an external threat in the form of a galaxy-ending weapon. They are subluminal but such a system would have galaxy-wide coverage in at worst a few tens of centuries. We will likely never know since these things are so far beyond our ability to capture or analyze, but my theory at least doesn't break physics. The reason I like my theory is that one could imagine humanity building and deploying such a system inductively, when we have the tech and determine the largest x-risk to our civilization are external emerging civilizations developing weapons or tech which could destroy the galaxy (perhaps inadvertently, like a misplanned AI takeoff)
- svd4anything 7y ago> We will likely never know since these things are so far beyond our ability to capture or analyze, but my theory at least doesn't break physics. I’m not sure about that. For sake of discussion assume they are self replicating Von Neumann probes [1] from an ET civilization, interesting something serious scientists would predict we might find as first evidence. We do now have working high energy laser weapons. I would vote to shoot at them. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft
- deepnotderp 7y agoYes, let's shoot at something that's sent from a civilization with technology incomprehensibly more advanced than ours. Great idea, I'm sure they won't be able to annihilate us in a few seconds.
- 7y ago
- bhouston 7y agoI think it is a system malfunction when everything comes together.
- convivialdingo 7y agoI spent my childhood around New Mexico, my family also knew a handful of scientists out at the labs. We heard a lot of funny stories. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if some gov tech was testing against the Navy. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if we just don’t have a clue. My uneducated, completely bonkers guesses would be plasma stealth drones or multibeam lasers. I knew several scientists in the 90s that worked on lasers to create floating hotspots, weapons targeting, and to create artificial chaff. Plasma stealth has also been in development by the Russians for a long time - perhaps someone was testing such systems also. The idea is to inject plasma around a craft - and also to possibly use it for propulsion in an magnétohydrodynamique drive. Glowing white ball would be an apt description. Again - it’s all purely speculative and sci-fi. I wouldn’t rule out aliens - but it’s really the last possibility simply because the probability is basically almost zero just due to distance, cost, and energy.
- deepnotderp 7y agoMy bet is also that it is a hypersonic plasma stealth drone. Plasma injection also reduces drag and aerodynamic heating if done right, that would also explain the anomalous thermal signature. especially at hypersonic velocities Being a drone would explain accelerations that would kill humans.
- Recurecur 7y ago"Being a drone would explain accelerations that would kill humans." It doesn't explain: - Operations far from any support vehicles (no carrier like the F-18s had). Must be a nuclear/LENR/antimatter power source. - Going from hover to high supersonic/hypersonic. No current hypersonic platform has anything like that capability - The acceleration involved in the extremely rapid course change at the end of the one video has been estimated at "hundreds of Gs". That's far beyond the current highest performance missiles, which top out at a few tens of Gs. This is similar to several historical reports. - The lack of conventional wings, control surfaces or visible windows/sensors - The "field effect" visible around the object at times. There's no technology in the open literature like that. I find these videos extremely convincing, and interesting! request: Provide a way to do decent lists!
- yummypaint 7y agoIts kindof jarring how the article is written like a series of marketing bullet points. Where is the discussion of possible atmospheric effects or other explanations?
- dmix 7y agoFunny, a first deployment of a highly complex networked software driven system developed by gov contractors, being admittedly used by newly trained people (a training program called COMPUTEX as per the article), makes me even more sceptical that it may simply be an error/anomaly rather than providing better evidence of it being UFOs. If this is indeed positive evidence, then the big question not asked was how many of these sensors detected the object in real time? If it was just 2-3 from the same sources (ie, jets or circling surveillance planes in the same area) then it's no different than technology from 2004 or earlier. Radar is still radar. The fact they are all linked together helps with real-time analysis. But in matters of UFO investigations their real-time interconnectivity doesn't really add any additional validation. When a post-incident analysis could simply reconstruct the moment by cross-checking multiple unconnected sensors present at the time - as any investigative team would have in prior eras. The upgrades to the E-2C Hawkeye seem to be only related to the networking functionality adding real-time analysis on top of the system rather than providing better individual radar tracking. Unless I'm missing the part where each sensor became more accurate individually regardless of realtime networking or after-the-fact analysis? Not to mention the whole uncertainty that first-deployment of new software brings to the whole equation.
- svd4anything 7y ago> Unless I'm missing the part where each sensor became more accurate individually regardless of realtime networking or after-the-fact analysis? Yes I think you are missing that. My understanding is that multiple individual radar systems were all upgraded, in some cases using more solid state components over mechanical and with higher accuracy and then all networked together. And additionally the FLIR imagery is an independent system/observation. Supposedly there are actually many documented incidents, and in particular 2 separated by almost 10 years, with remarkably similar observations of UAP characteristics. Either this is a big hoax or there are UAPs of whatever origin and it is an issue.
- noetic_techy 7y agoRadar Contact + FLIR Contact+ Human Eyeball confirmation by two types aircraft != a technical anomaly. Watch the recreation and the eyewitness testimony videos from multiple vantage points. https://youtu.be/PRgoisHRmUE https://youtu.be/PRgoisHRmUE (recreation of ONE of the west coast incident, starts at around 9:00 in) https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27666/what-the-hell-is.. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27666/what-the-hell-is.... (note the embedded videos of testimonies) https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28231/multiple-f-a-18-.. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28231/multiple-f-a-18-.... (new tech, east coast incident years later)
- jtolds 7y agoMy theory is that these UFOs aren't physical but are projections from elsewhere, literally like a TV projector. If two sources direct waves at the same location correctly, perhaps the interference can make the air molecules emit light like ships? Some audio advertising is starting to do this with sound waves (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_from_ultrasound https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_from_ultrasound). These projected ships would look like they could defy physics with how they fly. Are these UFO sightings always over water? Maybe there's some submarine source?
- deepnotderp 7y agoWe can already do that with multibeam lasers.
- stevenhuang 7y agoFor these encounters to coincide with the first tests of next gen tech, it's entertaining to imagine these "aliens" were caught unawares and subsequently improved their stealth posture as a result of us seeing things we're not supposed to. Some hubris in that, but if they really are just automated probes, they may be reactionary in nature and adjust behaviour accordingly, and not, say, analyzing our comms and behaving "intelligently"... Of course it could be that they just want to be seen. Or that we really are imagining things--the ghostly artifacts of a complex system with kinks not yet sorted out.
- deepnotderp 7y agoSo my best bet explanation for a non-UFO explanation is a hypersonic plasma cloaked, MHD controlled drone. Control despite visible wings or aerodynamic surfaces, at will invisibility to radar, anomalous thermal signatures, hypervelocity at relatively low altitudes, accelerations that will kill humans, can all be explained by this. However, I will admit that the extremely high reported acceleration afaik is not something we know of. Perhaps solid rocket boosters?