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Famous Navy UFO video was camera glare, evidence suggests

342 points by mromanuk 5y ago

NyxWulf 5y ago
So the anomaly that the carrier group tracked, then scrambled fighter jets for. The object that four different pilots saw visually, and was confirmed on multiple different sensors. That was camera glare? The video is only one piece of the evidence. The pilots are trained, and other sensor systems confirmed what the camera was showing. This analysis is pretty flimsy.
- mountainriver 5y ago
  Camera glare my friend, case closed
  - csa 5y ago
    > Camera glare my friend, case closed I came here to say this. There will be no further discussion.
    - csa 5y ago
      I guess HN missed the attempt at a joke here. This just seems to be a way that the government can point to an “expert” and say it was nothing, thereby alleviating the need for the government to comment on the “nothing”. I’m guessing the classified file on this is very interesting.
- zmgsabst 5y ago
  This analysis even admits that there’s an object required for the “glare” to exist. This analysis doesn’t reject an actual object being tracked: it confirms it and describes it as one that causes IR glare!
  - NyxWulf 5y ago
    So the claim is...these highly trained pilots and the other sensor systems didn't realize that objects cause IR glare, but this guy did. Case closed.
    - stouset 5y ago
      I'm quite confident that most people here are going to find a calm, measured, and thorough explanation of the observed phenomenon more credible than a snarky and instinctive dismissal that doesn't even bother to address a single one of the clearly demonstrated points in the analysis.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > So the claim is...these highly trained pilots and the other sensor systems didn't realize that objects cause IR glare, but this guy did. Case closed. And frankly the "this guy" appears to be someone with no expertise and who is strongly biased towards particular investigatory outcomes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_West: > Mick West is a British science writer, skeptical investigator, and retired video game programmer. He is the creator of the websites Contrail Science and Metabunk, and he investigates and debunks pseudoscientific claims and conspiracy theories such as chemtrails and UFOs. Not to say he isn't right in this case, but I'm equality unenthusiastic about "skeptics" like that as I am about conspiracy theorists. Edit: on second thought, I'm somewhat more unenthusiastic "skeptics" like that. Conspiracy theorists can at least be entertaining sometimes, while "skeptics" tend to just bore you with self-assured arrogance while they take pot shots at low-hanging fruit.
      - msla 5y ago
        > Conspiracy theorists can at least be entertaining sometimes Right up until they're sure that there's a child molestation ring in the basement of a pizza parlor that doesn't have a basement, and someone goes and shoots up the place because the conspiracy theory was so damn entertaining.
        5y ago
- tshaddox 5y ago
  > the gimbal UFO video almost certainly shows a glare that hides the actual object This is in the first 15 seconds of the YouTube video.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- cma 5y ago
  > The pilots are trained Fraver (not sure he was one of the ones in this incident) has a history of UFO pranks, shutting down engines and gliding over campfires then lighting up after burners when right over them, explicitly to give a UFO experience, and someone found a contemporaneous report of him doing it, so it wasn't just a story.
  - Teever 5y ago
    Source?
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      He told the story to Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRM8AMrqqsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRM8AMrqqsc (at 3:57)
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - tunap 5y ago
      Jets do this regularly over the Colorado River and various, otherwise desolate gathering places around AZ. I've witnessed such shenanigans a dozen or so times over the last 3 decades. One jet distracts onlookers while another sneaks up to buzz low over the deck(or, perhaps it's just incidental to their training Ops, IDK). These maneuvers are tests of skill, technology & amusement.
    - cma 5y ago
      What ceejayoz linked below
  - bostonsre 5y ago
    So your are saying the one with evidence was a prank because he screwed around on a training mission?
    - stouset 5y ago
- a9h74j 5y ago
  > the carrier group tracked Naive question: If a carrier group cannot, in essentially real-time, document three dimensional trajectories at this point (four if you include speed), what possible defense can they claim to have against evasive incoming missiles, etc.
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    Carriers are most likely partly obsoleted by hypersonic missiles that travel and maneuver at mach 20 (which Russia and China have), in addition to 100 megaton nuclear torpedoes that travel at 120mph (which Russia has). https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/03/russias-new-poseidon-super-weapon-what-you-need-to-know/ https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/03/russias-new-pos... https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/10/14/will-ground-based-hypersonic-missiles-replace-aircraft-carriers-in-the-defense-budget/ https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/10/14/will-ground-bas...
    - smachiz 5y ago
      I mean... assuming the Russians have anything that works is probably not a great assumption based on their performance in Ukraine. But I think they provide overlapping, but different, roles. But missiles and torpedoes is why aircraft carriers travel in carrier groups that have defensive capabilities against torpedoes and missiles.
      - mcast 5y ago
        It wouldn’t make much sense for Russia to show their cards and use modern war tech on Ukraine, a country with a (relatively) primitive military. They’re barely even using fighter jets.
        water8 5y ago
        Except for the fact that they are https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/us/russia-ukraine-weapons-decoy.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/us/r...
- Miner49er 5y ago
  Do you have links to reading more about this? The video saying it was glare made it seem like the object was very far from the jet, much farther then the naked eye could see. Was it closer at some point?
- nabla9 5y ago
  That "four different pilots" stuff has not been confirmed as far as I know. All people involved in these stories are hustlers, including that one ex-pilot who peddles the story. You must look at every statement they make separately. They give one fact that can be verified and then they tie lies or unverified stuff on that. btw. Luis Elizondo is has not been charge of any UFO stuff. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history-channel-luis-elizondo-pentagon/ https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history...
  - bostonsre 5y ago
    Have any of them made any money from this? What is the hustle?
    - nabla9 5y ago
      Oh yes. To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences (media & entertainment company) makes this stuff up and sells it. https://tothestars.media/ https://tothestars.media/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Stars_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Stars_(company)
      - bostonsre 5y ago
        The navy pilots are members of that organization?
      - astrange 5y ago
        > According to SEC filings, as of October 2018 only $1 million of those shares had been sold and the company had a $37.4 million deficit, largely from a stock incentive plan for its employees, prompting Ars Technica and Vice to question its financial sustainability.[4][5] I happened to read the SEC filings when they were doing this and am certain it's fine and Vice reporters just don't know how startup finances work. What I did notice is that the perfectly normal looking and very detailed Form C didn't say the company owned any IP from alien spaceships or was going to acquire it. Their website definitely suggested it though, so if you're lying you could sue for securities fraud.
- gfodor 5y ago
  The gimbal video is not a video of the object from the Nimitz incident. There is a video of that but it’s less compelling in terms of evidence, but also afaik not cleanly debunked. (I think it’s called FLIR?)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - native_samples 5y ago
    Yes, Flir1: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/2021-05-29/navy-ufo-videos-skeptics https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/202... They're all ATFLIR videos. It's basically the same thing - a far away hot object, likely another aircraft, turns into an IR cylinder-shaped blog on screen which is then incorrectly interpreted as being an actual cylinder. The apparent movement at the end is just the ATFLIR losing lock as the guy constantly zooms in and out.
- colordrops 5y ago
  It was also tracked on radar.
  - beebeepka 5y ago
    Weather balloon launched by swamp gas burp
    - bonestamp2 5y ago
      Maybe. That would be 14 weather balloons in this case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyP79v9e84 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyP79v9e84
- willidiots 5y ago
  The "saucer" shape and its rotation were IR glare, that's the point of the video. He's very clear that he's NOT debunking the existence of an object. The exhaust of a jet engine, or another high-heat signature, could cause such glare. AFAICT no pilots saw this shape with their naked eye. They were miles away from the target and relying on what they saw via their sensors.
  - subsubzero 5y ago
    So actually Commander Fravor saw the object with his own eyes, he is one of the pilots who was sent in to engage the craft after it appeared on radar from the carrier group, here is a detailed video of him talking about the incident with Lex Fridman(AI reasearcher - MIT) on his podcast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E
    - tptacek 5y ago
      I'm literally learning about this "gimball video" from this video, so I don't have all the background, but the video we're looking at wasn't taken by David Fravor; it was taken by Chad Underwood? In the video we're looking at, we don't so much have to guess how far away the object was; the camera video itself indicates it. It's too far away to discern shape and rotation accurately with a naked eye. The video goes into detail about this, and the details aren't complicated.
      - recuter 5y ago
        Spoken like a true none believer. I shun thee. Even the pentagon said they can't explain the UFOs, clearly they are preparing society for a big reveal. ;) Edit: I'm betting half the downvotes are from people not picking up on my sarcasm, and the other half is from people picking up on my sarcasm.
        wglb 5y ago
        From the Guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
- StanislavPetrov 5y ago
  >This analysis is pretty flimsy. Flimsy is an extremely generous and flattering word if you know anything about the details of this case or the testimony of the Navy's top pilots who witnessed and tracked this object from different vantage points both visually and with instruments.
- user-the-name 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tptacek 5y ago
  I don't know much about this whole story (I'm not a UFO person) and am learning most of what I know about it from this video and this thread, but: the people saying that this video depicts an actual object rotating in the sky appear to be making the extraordinary claim here: the connection between the rotation and the camera system seems compelling. The horizon is moving as the camera/plane moves; the object is not moving. You can't refute that with "these are highly trained fighter pilots": the horizon is moving with the camera, the object isn't. Training's got nothing to do with it. The shape we're looking at is, in part, an artifact of the camera, unless the aliens are somehow reprogramming the camera to fuck with us.
  - bonestamp2 5y ago
    > The shape we're looking at is, in part, an artifact of the camera, unless the aliens are somehow reprogramming the camera to fuck with us. It's possible the IR glare is an intentional countermeasure produced by the craft. It might sound far-fetched, but the military can already jam some cameras already, and they apparently license this technology too: https://techlinkcenter.org/technologies/selective-camera-jamming-system-for-increased-security-and-privacy/72671316-58d3-402a-83b8-6956cec5877c https://techlinkcenter.org/technologies/selective-camera-jam... The US Navy has (admittedly controversial) patents for technologies that could produce a craft with these flight characteristics: https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Salvatore+Cezar+Pais https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Salvatore+Cezar+Pais The first time these craft were spotted on radar was during a Navy exercise where they were testing new radar equipment, and the craft were coming from the direction of San Clemente island (an island that is a Navy base). Here's a short video that talks about the radar sighting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyP79v9e84 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyP79v9e84 In the Nimitz case, the "UFO" disappeared, and then met the pilots at their rendezvous point. How did it know where the rendezvous point was? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBpcfeHI0Kk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBpcfeHI0Kk Sightings of these UFOs have only ever been mentioned by US forces. Who knows what is going on, but if I had to make a guess and I considered all of this information, it seems likely that the "UFOs" are experimental US aircraft.
    - tptacek 5y ago
- likeabbas 5y ago
  ^This is the key point. These objects have been tracked on radar, FLIR, and multiple pilot witness testimony off both coasts for decades now. Attempting to debunk a single one of these three leaked videos is pointless because they do not show the entire context of the events happening. I implore everyone to watch these two interviews with Christopher Melon, the former Deputy Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. And to read the DNI report on UAPs It will change your entire perception of these incidents and show you to view them as true national security issues. 1. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2V0uWX1C4m8xEL0HHYqbnE?si=ef7d577c64cb4183 https://open.spotify.com/episode/2V0uWX1C4m8xEL0HHYqbnE?si=e... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdxcgS4spRM&t=1393s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdxcgS4spRM&t=1393s 3. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelima... There are unknown objects flying with impunity in our restricted military airspace, some that exhibit characteristics that nothing of human origin can accomplish. This should terrify you. Edit: Why the downvotes? Please explain to me your logic. I'm just listing things that people with credibility in our government said, including the Department of National Intelligence.
  - argvargc 5y ago
    Why should a peaceful demonstration of technical superiority terrify anyone? It's clear whomever, or whatever, possesses this superior technology could fly circles around and/or obliterate us on a whim, but has expressly decided not to, and instead simply announced: "Hey, I have this." If they/it perceived us as a threat, we'd surely be gone already. That leaves only our hopefully sane response, to influence what happens next. Being terrified would be exactly wrong.
    - likeabbas 5y ago
      If you look into Lue Elizondo's, former head of AATIP, comments on this, you will come to find that he believes these things are testing are doing reconnaissance to test our military capabilities - which is scary to me. The technology they are displaying is awesome, but it is something we should be very wary of.
- pengaru 5y ago
  > So the anomaly that the carrier group tracked, then scrambled fighter jets for. The object that four different pilots saw visually, and was confirmed on multiple different sensors. That was camera glare? I don't think we can trust the accounts of anyone in the employ of the government, past or present, when it comes to this kind of thing. For all we know to misinform is the mission, propaganda if you will. Consider how much of what you said above is practically verbatim regurgitation of their vernacular. Jargon is often abused to sound qualified, smart, and authoritative. AKA B.S. alert.
- Reubachi 5y ago
  I'm quite surprised to see this community be so on board with the "Oh really, the obvious saucer was lens glare and not aliens?" train. USAF and reitred officals have gone on record to say that they actively release doctored footage and/or false narratives, sometimes via pop culture figures, to muddy waters on current technology or to sow discourse among enemies. This reeks of n example of that, and not aliens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage_Men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage_Men
RobertMiller 5y ago
Mick West debunked these to my satisfaction ages ago. The only question I have left is whether the whole thing was a US Navy psyop or whether the navy was just looking the other way and playing coy when those pilots were creating a retirement career in UFOlogy.
- TooKool4This 5y ago
  Or if you follow Hanlon's razor, if the Navy is incredibly (scarily) incompetent!
  - radicaldreamer 5y ago
    That's a given (see all the ships crashing into other ships in the South Pacific a couple of years ago -- and not noticing for hours!)
  - RobertMiller 5y ago
    That is possible, but I think strains credibility. The GOFAST video is egregious, I find it hard to believe nobody in the US Navy was able to calculate the actual [mundane, very... balloon-like] speed of that object using basic trigonometry. I think it's more likely the Navy knew there was nothing actually exotic in that video. The Defense Department described the subject of GOFAST, Gimble and FLIR videos as "UAV, Balloons, and other UAS". 'Balloons'; they know what it is. They're not even lying, they're being coy or misleading.
    - astrange 5y ago
      The Drive thinks they're drone balloons. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40054/adversary-drones-are-spying-on-the-u-s-and-the-pentagon-acts-like-theyre-ufos https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40054/adversary-drones... https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40638/what-we-know-about-the-high-tech-balloons-lingering-off-the-coasts-of-the-u-s-recently https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40638/what-we-know-abo...
  - emkoemko 5y ago
billsmithwicks 5y ago
I like Mick West, and even though camera glare isn't usually picked up on radar by the navy, it's sufficient to fulfill Occam's razor.
- zionic 5y ago
  Mick West is a buffoon, and his “debunking” videos intentionally mislead his audience. I say this because he has had this explained to him again and again but he still ignores evidence. When you have infrared, multiple radar, and visual observations simultaneously of an object and pretend all you have is a grainy infrared video REPEATEDLY it goes beyond skepticism into deceit.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    We have a grainy infrared video, and claims of other infrared, radar and visual observations. Claims are easy to make and hard to analyze. Video is all we can analyze, and the video is unconvincing. Why then should we believe the claims?
    - user-the-name 5y ago
    - zionic 5y ago
      We have incredibly strong claims that lead to congressional hearings and classified reports to Congress. The public videos are heavily redacted and lower quality than the classified ones. So is your claim that they’re all lying? Is Congress in on it?
      - tsimionescu 5y ago
        No, my claim is that a few are lying and/or exaggerating the truth, and most others are unwilling or unable to point out the lies. Just like what happened with Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction", which were a much more consequential lie, I hope you'd agree. It's definitely an easier explanation than supernatural alien craft.
tiahura 5y ago
I find the “bump” aspect persuasive. I’d like to see similar analysis of the East Coast cruise missile ufo video.
ssully 5y ago
Mick West has some interesting videos and does a good job debunking a lot of crap, but to me he is on the complete opposite spectrum of a UFO truther in that he doesn't seem to leave any room for the possibility that he might be wrong. With that said, I suggest reading this New Yorker piece [1] on the subject. It's actually how I came to learn about Mick. He is covered a bit in the story and gives decent counter points at certain parts. [1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentag...
- zionic 5y ago
  What? Mick west does a terrible job, all of his arguments that I’ve seen are preposterous, and require ignoring tons of evidence.
  - ssully 5y ago
    I think I could have gone harder on my second sentence. I do think he has some good debunking video's, but I would agree with you in that he does ignore a lot of evidence. When I say he is on the opposite spectrum of a UFO truther, I mean that I don't take him serious because his only goal seems to be to get a debunk video out regardless of merit.
toptal 5y ago
Didn’t they actually see the object on multiple radars using multiple types of detection methods? Assuming that’s true, the camera glare story seems unlikely.
- netsharc 5y ago
  The video states that there's something there, but its heat signature is causing the glare (the video is in IR). Was the object flying steadily and rotating weirdly throughout the video? You can't see how the object is flying, the smooth motion and weird rotation you perceive is the effect of the glare!
Jerry2 5y ago
You can try the live simulation here: https://www.metabunk.org/gimbal/ https://www.metabunk.org/gimbal/ It's amazingly well done! Quick inspection shows that it was done with tree.js. Neat!
Johnny555 5y ago
Isn't he only debunking the image that appeared on the video as being glare as opposed to the actual object? So the object is real, but what appeared in the video is glare, not an actual representation of the object? West contends that what is being seen in the video is actually infrared glare that hides a hot object behind it and only rotates in the way it does because the camera rotates when tracking the target from left to right.
- stouset 5y ago
  Yes, that is correct. There was still an unidentified flying object, but the remaining aspects of its behavior do not require invoking advanced unknown technology to explain.
- notfbi 5y ago
  UFO-ers were using things like the rotation speed as definitive evidence of some like other-worldly advanced technology. Demonstrating that it was the glare/gimble brings it back into the realm of just a normal far-away plane. It also casts doubt on the expertise of the pilots/military who didn't realize what happened.
  - zionic 5y ago
    Except they had RADAR locks, experienced jamming, and had visual identification in some cases. The whole “lens flare from a far away plane” hypothesis has been throughly debunked. You have to ignore evidence to reach that conclusion.
    - notfbi 5y ago
      Isn't the visual identification and jamming from other events? Can you share where it is best thoroughly debunked? The stuff linked so far in this thread (Friedman podcast; pilot Lehto analysis) isn't good.
- nwallin 5y ago
  Correct. IR video tends to bloom. If the object is hot enough, (for instance, a jet engine exhaust, a burning vehicle, a refinery flare...) you'll have a blob of smudge around/behind it on the video. The video is contending that the rotation of what is seen on the video isn't the object itself rotating. Instead, the blob is elongated as a result of glare/lens flare/diffraction gradient, and this elongation is aligned with the rotational axis of the gimbal. As the gimbal nears gimbal lock, it is forced to rapidly rotate to continue tracking the object. This rapid rotation of the gimbal causes the glare to rapidly rotate. I do have a background in IR video, gimbals, and translating between gimbal telemetry and real life coordinates and the explanation in the video looks good to me.
lamontcg 5y ago
> Evidence Suggests Famous Navy UFO Video Was Camera Glare
jmyeet 5y ago
I honestly don’t know what to make of these observations other than I’m utterly convinced they’re not alien, super high tech or break the laws of physics (eg inertia). There was no alien crash in Roswell. I also file believe any government is competent enough for the claimed cover up and associated psyops. What I do find interesting is the overlap between people who buy into various conspiracy theories and people who are religious, were religious or would otherwise be likely to be religious. There’s some fascinating psychology here and I think it boils down to a combination of wishful thinking and the comfort derived from there being a Grand Plan rather than just a collection of random stuff that just happens. “Can’t be explained” is typically “hasn’t been explained yet”. Lack of an explanation is nothing more than that. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I approach this from the other direction. Given the huge benefits of a Dyson Swarm and the fact that it seems to require no exotic materials and no more physics it looks increasingly likely that we are very alone in the Milky Way and even if we aren’t it requires an awful lot of hubris to suggest a species would spend the considerable effort and tens of thousands of years to come here and hide. Like this is Main Character Syndrome at its finest.
- user3939382 5y ago
  > wishful thinking and the comfort derived from there being a Grand Plan You may not have meant this by your comment, but in general I find a related analysis common among atheists, that religious people believe what they do because it feels good. I find that's often wrong, and when generally applied condescending, as if atheists are simply more emotionally mature. On the contrary many religious people will tell you they believe what they do because it seems to them to be true. > Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. One might consider the existence of the universe extraordinary evidence (for the existence of God). That said I think we can mostly agree that based on what we know so far, "aliens" is a fairly implausible explanation for any given unexplained phenomenon. Where ever you fall on that debate, I don't think it has anything to do with religious beliefs except as far as the biases of the people who conduct these psychology studies goes.
  - water8 5y ago
rpilot8 5y ago
Recently Jim Lacatski confirmed that Colm Kelleher ran the daily operations of AAWSAP/AATIP. Colm was also the deputy administrator of NIDS which started in 1995. This along with the fact that Lue Elizondo used remote viewing to “save soldiers” in Afghanistan are pretty shocking revelations. AASWAP produced no results and shut down. Yet Elizondo talks often about a 23-minute close video of a craft. And has allegedly shown videos on his phone to people. Only recently have people claimed the government has high quality evidence, yet the evidence seems to be unclassified (but not public). If such evidence exists, it’s almost hard to believe it’s only recently been discovered and it hasn’t somehow leaked out. The whole ordeal is highly suspicious.
- voldacar 5y ago
  Elizondo is a very sus character. He talks and talks but has produced nothing of any substance
bally0241 5y ago
I suppose the radar signature was camera "glare" too, smh. This is pretty weak.
- zionic 5y ago
  Exactly! The number of comments in this thread treating this and mick west as credible is disturbing
- netsharc 5y ago
  The video states that there's something there, but its heat signature is causing the glare (the video is in IR). Was the object flying steadily and rotating weirdly throughout the video? You can't see how the object is flying, the smooth motion and weird rotation you perceive is the effect of the glare! But nah, of course you know better!
  - bally0241 5y ago
    You're right, some random guy on the internet definitely knows better than the first hand witnesses and U.S. Navy! Actually, it was probably swamp gas. Case closed.
    - netsharc 5y ago
      "Some random guy" did the research, showed you other examples of glare, did all the maths, but hey, you DO know better! Well done!
      - bally0241 5y ago
        "Research"
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  It's probably worth at least skimming the article prior to dismissing it. He's not saying nothing's there. > He says that his video does not address the object itself as it’s not clear what the object is and there is nothing to say that it isn’t special or exemplary in some way. He just argues that his analysis shows that it isn’t actually exhibiting any incredible behavior and opens the door to other “mundane possibilities” like a distance small jet just flying away and the heat of the engines is what is creating a large glare on the thermal camera. He's saying the supposedly magical behavior is explicable. Without that, it's a fairly boring "someone's probably flying a drone near our ships" sort of incident.
oblib 5y ago
Interesting how so many are willing to accept "camera flare" as a concrete explanation. One thing that bothers me about this explanation is we know those pilots had a lot of experience with those systems so I'd expect they'd know "camera flare" when they saw it on those displays. But it's clear from the audio they did not recognize it as that. And there was more than one pilot seeing it, and from different angles. I'd like to hear what the pilots and ship crew members think about this.
- zionic 5y ago
  https://youtu.be/ro29w4ESw44 https://youtu.be/ro29w4ESw44 Has an actual fighter pilot’s reaction.
  - oblib 5y ago
    That was pretty painful to watch with the fast forward going on for so long. I didn't try to take that in. Seems to me like our gov's own investigation would've found gimbal glare to be the culprit if that were the case. But they didn't. What they said is: "Of the 144 reports we are dealing with here, we have no clear indications that there is any non-terrestrial explanation for them — but we will go wherever the data takes us..." And: "We absolutely do believe what we're seeing are not simply sensor artifacts." [https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/politics/ufo-report-pentagon-odni/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/politics/ufo-report-pentagon-...]
  - Workaccount2 5y ago
    Actual video from the pilot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tyw4JA00AMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tyw4JA00AMc
    - zionic 5y ago
      This link is much better, thanks. It’s too late for me to edit my post I should have used this.
    - vinkelhake 5y ago
      And here's a long video where Mick West and Chris Lehto discuss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neTfX9Jx5AY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neTfX9Jx5AY
Vixel 5y ago
The narrator sounds like an alien. That analysis is what they WANT us to think.
progre 5y ago
Direct link to the source https://youtu.be/qsEjV8DdSbs https://youtu.be/qsEjV8DdSbs
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mzvkxlcvd 5y ago
disinfo
oblib 5y ago
Sitting here knowing we have a helicopter and a land rover on Mars it doesn't feel like it's entirely impossible for an alien craft to be here, looking at us. I can't make the leap to believe without doubt there is, or even to believe there probably is. But it is not impossible. We've already proved it's not, and we're not really all that smart.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Anyone on Mars would have very clearly seen the Rover landing and known exactly what it was and where it was coming from. They also didn't arrive in Mars from the opposite end of the Galaxy, they arrived from the next planet over. Most importantly, no one on Mars would think that the rover or helicopter are defying theaws of physics, bending space time or anything like that, which are real claims made by army personnel about the objects seen in some of these videos.
- ssully 5y ago
  Yup, that's kind of where I am at. I think I lean more towards "this definitely isn't aliens", but if it's aliens then I definitely think these are unmanned drones keeping an eye on us.
  - zionic 5y ago
    Von Neumann probes is the most likely explanation IMO.
- stouset 5y ago
  Space is really big. The difference in effort between getting an oversized RC car to Mars and getting a huge supermaneuverable space-and-aircraft to the nearest habitable planet is about the same as walking down tree driveway to get your paper and… well, getting a huge supermaneuverable space-and-aircraft to the nearest habitable planet. Then doing it over and over just to play mind games with the primitive apes on the planet while somehow evading anything resembling a decent camera or photographer? I’m not going to say it’s strictly impossible. But it sure as hell isn’t plausible.
rhema 5y ago
Well, the only reason they were scrambled to begin with is that they had been tracking these objects for weeks using advanced radar. As I understand it, the radar is based on multiple resolutions. The active radar can point in the direction of objects of interest and get very very precise measurements. It's not just the video, its the radar data. The thing that pushed me over the edge in believing these things is the long podcast interview between Commander David Fravor and Lex Fridman.
- zardo 5y ago
  > its the radar data Did the Navy release the radar data, or an analysis based on it?
  - rhema 5y ago
    Not that I know of, so I take your point there. Here's a related video with some radar data https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh4QngYJG4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh4QngYJG4I . In the interview, Frevor does talk about the radar and instrumentation on the plane, but it's been a while since I listened to it.
  - BluSyn 5y ago
    Unfortunately, radar data - from all the incidents in question - will never be released, as the hardware involved is highly classified. We only get footage from the IR camera because the IR tech is not "classified" (basically off-the-shelf FLIR cameras with fancy object tracking software).
- shepardrtc 5y ago
  A good point brought up by Fravor and conveniently ignored by people is that when describing the incident, they saw multiple objects. Their camera pods, however, could only track one at a time.
- beeboop 5y ago
  Fravor is a convincing person, but he's also ultimately an asset of the US military. I want to believe him, but unfortunately the simplest and most likely explanation for this situation is that he's lying, and lying in combination with other people. Most likely because they were incentivized or asked to. I listened to maybe half of that interview, and I really really do not buy the response to Lex's question of "Why didn't this cause more commotion in the ranks?" Fravor said because he was the commander of 17 airmen and 300 sailors and has the weight of that command on him. I get it, but this is also his job, and we all tend to acclimate to our jobs. I don't think this guy and all other witnesses were so burdened with the idea of being a CO that they weren't able to process a potentially world-changing event. If this was in the middle of a real war and real combat - of course that's different. But this was just during the millionth training exercise of this guy's career. He was also quick to move on from this question, and did so without any prompting from Lex. He went on to what sounded like a rehearsed talking point (I'm sure because he's said it so many times) about how he doesn't get paid for these appearances, but there's no way to know what other outside incentives he may have to go on these shows. That Lex doesn't push back on this at all is disappointing, but I get that he's not there to interrogate him. The final sticking point - Fravor admits that he's an apologist for secrecy and the US government hiding things for reasons of "national security". Clearly someone with this belief would welcome the idea of lying repeatedly, very publicly, to help cover something up. What I'm implying is that something did happen that day (that is much more mundane), but we're not getting the honest story, and Fravor outright suggesting it was something we know to be impossible with currently technology is likely obfuscating the truth of something that is probably an embarrassing mistake/leak/something that the US government doesn't want there to be public clarity on.
deutschew 5y ago
It is bewildering that they expect people to actually believe intelligent people to discount the IR footage from the F-18 just based on this article that reads like the "it was a weather balloon" trope we often get whenever we ask questions. edit: holy crap, there are actually lot of people on HN buying it!
- MauranKilom 5y ago
  Do you have some factual counterpoint to the analysis, or just "the conclusions sounds like something I don't want to hear"?
- zionic 5y ago
  I for one get really annoyed with the people who go “it’s aliens!” every time, but the cynical “debooonkers” that will seemingly go to any length to say it’s _not_ aliens bother me even more. We simply need more information.
mikeInAlaska 5y ago
Listen to the Navy pilot himself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E
deepnotderp 5y ago
Lens glare tracked by radar. That's a new one.
- ChrisGranger 5y ago
  The claim isn't that there is no flying object. The glare accounts for its appearance.
  - zionic 5y ago
    So when the pilot says “it’s rotating!” And the lens flare rotates with it, that’s just a coincidence? The far-away-plane hypothesis would have the exhaust as a point source. The lens flare would maintain it’s orientation as the plane rolled.
ynniv 5y ago
What is the point of this story? Someone lacking context could watch this and arrive at the conclusion that "the Navy video of a UFO has a simple conventional explanation", which is how the presenter delivers his arguments. He meticulously demonstrates that the shape of the object which is the subject of the video is an artifact of camera glare from overexposure. In case you are not convinced, he breaks it down into four reasons, supporting each of them with data based on a detailed understanding of the system. If you are still not convinced that this shake is camera glare by the end of the video, I would be surprised. And yet, whether the shape of the subject is representative of the object or an artifact of the camera is almost irrelevant to whether or not this is a video that should be investigated. The source of the glare is clearly not part of the camera or the aircraft. We should not treat the silhouette of the object as valuable data, but it says nothing of the actual object that is being tracked. The presenter does not suggest this, and the post spins the whole event as being "debunked". I don't know why "debunking" things seems to have become a cottage industry, but there was considerable effort put into analyzing and visually modeling this thoroughly condescending presentation.
- xmaayy 5y ago
  He literally says something to the effect of "I'm only saying that the glare is obscuring the true shape of the object" in the first minutes of the video.
  - tejohnso 5y ago
    Yet the title of the article says the video was camera glare. Which doesn't even make sense. But what it suggests is that the entire contents can be explained away as camera glare. So blame the media in this case perhaps?
    - tptacek 5y ago
      There is no way to watch this video and come away with the understanding that there was no object at all. It spends a tedious several minutes demonstrating the connection between glare and objects emitting light, and multiple long, tedious disclaimers that it is not arguing that there is no object at all in the video. You have to want it to be saying something else to take away a different message.
darkhorn 5y ago
Could it be a ball lightning? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning
alphabetting 5y ago
Still convinced the intelligence and technology it would require to get here would make us identifying aliens in our ozone impossible. They'd only be seen if they wanted to be. First contact could be seeing a von neumann probe or some other kind of scout type aircraft in space but it wouldn't be like the videos.
lsllc 5y ago
More specifically camera glare caused by swamp gas from a weather balloon that was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
orblivion 5y ago
Maybe they're just gaslighting us to keep us a safe distance from any certainty on this issue.
oyebenny 5y ago
The title of this article sucks. Real bad.
SubiculumCode 5y ago
From the first I thought it looked like a bug smashed on the gimble lens because of how it orated relative to the horizon. Fascinating explanation why it could be glare from an actual object.
russdpale 5y ago
Im pretty suspicious, why does an MIT AI researcher have a youtube channel? Does he not get paid enough with his salary? Also, this is a four hour video, what is the timestamp of the comments you refer to?
- e40 5y ago
  There's an index in the video notes.
- nkassis 5y ago
  Some people have YouTube channels as hobbies ? I don't see the issue.
- darig 5y ago
- vo2maxer 5y ago
  > Im pretty suspicious, why does an MIT AI researcher have a youtube channel? Does he not get paid enough with his salary? Could you please elaborate on why you think that an MIT researcher having a YouTube channel where is had some very interesting interviews somehow makes it suspicious?
  - russdpale 5y ago
    Because he would be busy doing researcher things and making money and not worried about something like youtube?
- drc500free 5y ago
  removed needlessly snarky comment
  - Banana699 5y ago
    Those are 3 very, wildly, different men that you're comparing.
  - 5y ago
belter 5y ago
- David Fravor and his colleagues, are highly credible witnesses of something they observed visually. - This is certainly a very interesting interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIUBjvY4PnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIUBjvY4PnQ - There are visual observations, and what are, ( by military standards), flimsy short images/video. - This analysis partially explains one part of it, without excluding the presence of an object. - There is also Radar data, but it has not been published or time correlated to the reported visual observations. Observations: - These Aliens only seem to want to goof around with folksy US pilots. - Pilots known to simulate UFO sightings, fans of UFO invasion stories and stories of Russians shooting UFO's and getting shot back. ( watch the interview...). - These Aliens show up exclusively during their training time and with sightings restricted to areas with US carrier groups exercises. Also... - The Aliens don't show up with their "Tic Tac's" or seem to be interested on the Ukraine conflict. - They don't care about EU or Latin America citizens... - Don't want to play around with the Russian or Chinese Air Force. - They don't show up in the data of any of the existing Military satellites capable of reading a bus ticket on the ground from 400 km. - These Aliens don't show up in the observations of the thousands of professional and amateur astronomers, that scan the sky a total of thousands of hours every night, using some of the most exquisite optical instruments available. I would say: They either don't exist, or if they do, they are pretty dumb and we have nothing to fear.
- avl999 5y ago
  These observations have also been made by military adjacent organizations in UK, France and China. It is definitely not a US pilot specific thing.
  - belter 5y ago
    References?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- xcvasdfasfwe 5y ago
birdyrooster 5y ago
Obviously it was glare, it looked like bokeh…
throwaway984393 5y ago
Those crafty aliens.
avl999 5y ago
> But a new detailed analysis by self-described debunker, skeptic, and UFO investigator Mick West Ignored as soon as I read the name "Mick West". The guy's brand is to be a debunker which in of itself is not bad but I am not gonna trust a video game developer's (brand aligning) explanations of this phenomenon compared to trained fighter pilots and the US Navy/Pentagon who have found no explanation of this phenomenon thus far.
- nwallin 5y ago
  > the US Navy/Pentagon who have found no explanation of this phenomenon thus far. "Released no explanation to the public" != "have found no explanation". The DoD is simply not in a habit of releasing information to the public unless they're instructed to do so by the executive branch.
  - avl999 5y ago
    They did not have an explanation as of last spring when they were forced to disclose everything they knew about the phenomenon by an act of congress. There wasn't even a redacted appendix.
    - nwallin 5y ago
      You're not characterizing the report correctly. The report that was released to the public is a 9 page preliminary assessment. It is almost entirely fluff. It does state that of the 144 reported cases of UAP over the course of the period of study, there were 21 reports written. Those would be the interesting reports, and precisely none of the those were released to the public, redacted or otherwise. Here's the report for anyone who's interested. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelima...
phendrenad2 5y ago
Nitpick: This isn't "evidence", this is "analysis". The title of the video itself is "Gimbal UFO - A New Analysis". A photography magazine can't be expected to understand the difference though, I guess.
imwillofficial 5y ago
Camera glare is often known to disable ships and cause small fleets to mobilize to investigate
Maursault 5y ago
Why, at the time, were Navy pilots behaving so incredulously, and why did they not pull up along-side the UFO and simply eyeball its identification? And why did they let it get away? What is it that Navy pilots are supposed to be doing when they're inscrutably not pursuing possible unidentified threats?
BluSyn 5y ago
FYI, Mick West is not an "expert". He has no experience with military hardware. Everyone involved in the incident, or has background knowledge of the classified details, says there are multiple sensors confirming the footage, including direct visual by the pilots. This can not possibly be explained by "lens flair". People say trust the experts. Well, in this case, the experts are the ones who know the military hardware, who flew the plane, who tracked the objects (plural) on radar. That is not Mick West. Mick West is a professional debunker, which means he analyses these videos with a baked-in assumption that it's "fake", not from an unbiased view. If you fall for Mick West's BS, you aren't any different from UFO nuts who fall for Steven Greeer's. I suggest thinking for yourself instead.
- jollybean 5y ago
  This comment, which doesn't reference any of the very powerful bits evidence, and merely spouts a lot of ad hominem, probably belongs on YouTube. I see very compelling evidence for an argument, which makes your comment seem even more 'unhinged'. "he analyses these videos with a baked-in assumption that it's "fake", not from an unbiased view" The balance of 'unbiased view' of either it's 'aliens or something mundane' is going to almost always land on 'something mundane'. "I suggest thinking for yourself instead." This is the statement of the true conspiracy theorist: "Don't believe the evidence in front of you! 'Think for yourself' and 'Make up your own reality!'"
  - BluSyn 5y ago
    I actually agree with you in general. > "Don't believe the evidence in front of you! 'Think for yourself' and 'Make up your own reality!'" I never said this. Evidence is very important. Notably Mick West offered no new "evidence", only supposition. Supposition in direct contradiction to known facts of the case (eg, other sensors, pilot reports, visual confirmations, etc). I never claimed to know the answer. But I do claim that Mick West is generating faulty conclusions derived from bad assumptions. So in this case you could make a compelling argument that Mick West is the conspiracy theorist. So we go around and around debunking the debunker who debunked the debunker. It's all a waste of oxygen.
- 5y ago
rblion 5y ago
I call bullshit. Prove me wrong.
verytrivial 5y ago
I watched that video when it first came out and saw what looked like sun glare in the middle of image and ignored it and kept looking for what was meant to be the UFO. It was even rotating like you see those FLIR videos that keep up-up during fly-overs. I was like -- "That's it? Seriously? Come on!" The rotation looks like ansiotropic surface features on the lense where someone has wiped (perhaps a bit too hard) the surface and left streaks. (Or it's reflections between elements, I don't know.) It's hard to know if the lense is rotating, or the camera itself -- you only see the nett result on the monitor after all the transformations are done. Exact same thing with the more recent super fast UFOs that are so totally birds locked while the camera orbits against a deep-zoom background. I wonder how many other people have seen these exact features dozens of times, tried to point it out, but it just gets lost in the endless garbage factory that is media these days.
cf141q5325 5y ago
Joe Scott predicted as much, rather liked his explanation if somebody is bored. Starts around here https://youtu.be/Hv-sbtCAz9Y?t=732 https://youtu.be/Hv-sbtCAz9Y?t=732
mlindner 5y ago
It's amazing how many imbeciles on hacker news actually believe that we actually saw UFOs. There is simply no evidence for them. (The sheer idea of a "saucer" for a UFO is straight out of fiction even, it's also conveniently exactly the same shape as a smudge on literally anything. A smeared spec of mud becomes a UFO saucer.)
WalterBright 5y ago
A simple rule of thumb is if it's a grainy, out-of-focus, smeary blob doing impossible things, it's not a UFO. It's a hoax or an artifact of the camera. Where are the sharp, hi-res UFO pix? If there are UFOs, that is?
ck2 5y ago
Always find "UFO are aliens" belief so non-logical. Like a FTL civilization would even be curious about earth, having such advanced sensor technology to avoid dust at beyond light speed that they actually need to cruise around in the atmosphere? Or that their ship would be so small? There's no penalty for mass in space, why not make it the size of a city? Certainly a FTL civilization has no construction limitations. We have small plane-sized craft because of our limitations on power and mass and construction abilities. Aliens that can "visit" would be nothing like us.
- PlanckMeasure80 5y ago
  But this assumes FTL travel is the only way they’d show up?
  - ck2 5y ago
    At 10% the speed of light it would take 45 years to get here and slow down from Alpha Centauri, and it goes way up from there: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/7Gdct9VzQFHUYf8Ec8GXmY.jpg https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/7Gdct9VzQFHUYf8Ec8GXmY.jpg Again that's exponentially beyond anything we could do and why would they even bother buzzing around inside the atmosphere if they can do that? Unless you are saying they are popping in from other dimensions/universes and that's way beyond even FTL theory. Earth would be a huge yawn to them. They'd catalog it and move on. Unless earth-like planets are so incredibly rare to find even with those abilities.
sennight 5y ago
ugh, more and more each day I hate the fact that Obama undid the last of the legal impediments to domestically targeted military counter-intelligence operations. It is no coincidence that there is a massive gap in military related UFO sightings that matches up perfectly with when it was illegal for the government to spread paranoid delusion in the interest of national security. How anyone could think that an advanced spacefaring species could spend over 50 years reconnoitering the planet - but primarily in restricted airspace used for bleeding edge military flight tests and over a whole lot of empty ocean... its depressing.
tudorradubarbu 5y ago
I don't get it :))
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
antishatter 5y ago
I suspect It’s a Chinese or Russian sub floating a balloon that specifically does things to capture information on our radar systems.we used to do it to them too.
qgin 5y ago
Wasn’t this tracked by multiple operators in more than one location using visible light and also radar and was visually confirmed by pilots? How does glare explain that?

342 points by mromanuk 5y ago

So the anomaly that the carrier group tracked, then scrambled fighter jets for. The object that four different pilots saw visually, and was confirmed on multiple different sensors. That was camera glare? The video is only one piece of the evidence. The pilots are trained, and other sensor systems confirmed what the camera was showing. This analysis is pretty flimsy.

mountainriver 5y ago
Camera glare my friend, case closed
- csa 5y ago
  > Camera glare my friend, case closed I came here to say this. There will be no further discussion.
  - csa 5y ago
    I guess HN missed the attempt at a joke here. This just seems to be a way that the government can point to an “expert” and say it was nothing, thereby alleviating the need for the government to comment on the “nothing”. I’m guessing the classified file on this is very interesting.
zmgsabst 5y ago
This analysis even admits that there’s an object required for the “glare” to exist. This analysis doesn’t reject an actual object being tracked: it confirms it and describes it as one that causes IR glare!
- NyxWulf 5y ago
  So the claim is...these highly trained pilots and the other sensor systems didn't realize that objects cause IR glare, but this guy did. Case closed.
  - stouset 5y ago
    I'm quite confident that most people here are going to find a calm, measured, and thorough explanation of the observed phenomenon more credible than a snarky and instinctive dismissal that doesn't even bother to address a single one of the clearly demonstrated points in the analysis.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > So the claim is...these highly trained pilots and the other sensor systems didn't realize that objects cause IR glare, but this guy did. Case closed. And frankly the "this guy" appears to be someone with no expertise and who is strongly biased towards particular investigatory outcomes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mick_West: > Mick West is a British science writer, skeptical investigator, and retired video game programmer. He is the creator of the websites Contrail Science and Metabunk, and he investigates and debunks pseudoscientific claims and conspiracy theories such as chemtrails and UFOs. Not to say he isn't right in this case, but I'm equality unenthusiastic about "skeptics" like that as I am about conspiracy theorists. Edit: on second thought, I'm somewhat more unenthusiastic "skeptics" like that. Conspiracy theorists can at least be entertaining sometimes, while "skeptics" tend to just bore you with self-assured arrogance while they take pot shots at low-hanging fruit.
    - msla 5y ago
      > Conspiracy theorists can at least be entertaining sometimes Right up until they're sure that there's a child molestation ring in the basement of a pizza parlor that doesn't have a basement, and someone goes and shoots up the place because the conspiracy theory was so damn entertaining.
      - 5y ago
tshaddox 5y ago
> the gimbal UFO video almost certainly shows a glare that hides the actual object This is in the first 15 seconds of the YouTube video.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
cma 5y ago
> The pilots are trained Fraver (not sure he was one of the ones in this incident) has a history of UFO pranks, shutting down engines and gliding over campfires then lighting up after burners when right over them, explicitly to give a UFO experience, and someone found a contemporaneous report of him doing it, so it wasn't just a story.
- Teever 5y ago
  Source?
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    He told the story to Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRM8AMrqqsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRM8AMrqqsc (at 3:57)
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - tunap 5y ago
    Jets do this regularly over the Colorado River and various, otherwise desolate gathering places around AZ. I've witnessed such shenanigans a dozen or so times over the last 3 decades. One jet distracts onlookers while another sneaks up to buzz low over the deck(or, perhaps it's just incidental to their training Ops, IDK). These maneuvers are tests of skill, technology & amusement.
  - cma 5y ago
    What ceejayoz linked below
- bostonsre 5y ago
  So your are saying the one with evidence was a prank because he screwed around on a training mission?
  - stouset 5y ago
a9h74j 5y ago
> the carrier group tracked Naive question: If a carrier group cannot, in essentially real-time, document three dimensional trajectories at this point (four if you include speed), what possible defense can they claim to have against evasive incoming missiles, etc.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Carriers are most likely partly obsoleted by hypersonic missiles that travel and maneuver at mach 20 (which Russia and China have), in addition to 100 megaton nuclear torpedoes that travel at 120mph (which Russia has). https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/03/russias-new-poseidon-super-weapon-what-you-need-to-know/ https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/03/russias-new-pos... https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/10/14/will-ground-based-hypersonic-missiles-replace-aircraft-carriers-in-the-defense-budget/ https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/10/14/will-ground-bas...
  - smachiz 5y ago
    I mean... assuming the Russians have anything that works is probably not a great assumption based on their performance in Ukraine. But I think they provide overlapping, but different, roles. But missiles and torpedoes is why aircraft carriers travel in carrier groups that have defensive capabilities against torpedoes and missiles.
    - mcast 5y ago
      It wouldn’t make much sense for Russia to show their cards and use modern war tech on Ukraine, a country with a (relatively) primitive military. They’re barely even using fighter jets.
      - water8 5y ago
        Except for the fact that they are https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/us/russia-ukraine-weapons-decoy.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/us/r...
Miner49er 5y ago
Do you have links to reading more about this? The video saying it was glare made it seem like the object was very far from the jet, much farther then the naked eye could see. Was it closer at some point?
nabla9 5y ago
That "four different pilots" stuff has not been confirmed as far as I know. All people involved in these stories are hustlers, including that one ex-pilot who peddles the story. You must look at every statement they make separately. They give one fact that can be verified and then they tie lies or unverified stuff on that. btw. Luis Elizondo is has not been charge of any UFO stuff. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history-channel-luis-elizondo-pentagon/ https://theintercept.com/2019/06/01/ufo-unidentified-history...
- bostonsre 5y ago
  Have any of them made any money from this? What is the hustle?
  - nabla9 5y ago
    Oh yes. To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences (media & entertainment company) makes this stuff up and sells it. https://tothestars.media/ https://tothestars.media/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Stars_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Stars_(company)
    - bostonsre 5y ago
      The navy pilots are members of that organization?
    - astrange 5y ago
      > According to SEC filings, as of October 2018 only $1 million of those shares had been sold and the company had a $37.4 million deficit, largely from a stock incentive plan for its employees, prompting Ars Technica and Vice to question its financial sustainability.[4][5] I happened to read the SEC filings when they were doing this and am certain it's fine and Vice reporters just don't know how startup finances work. What I did notice is that the perfectly normal looking and very detailed Form C didn't say the company owned any IP from alien spaceships or was going to acquire it. Their website definitely suggested it though, so if you're lying you could sue for securities fraud.
gfodor 5y ago
The gimbal video is not a video of the object from the Nimitz incident. There is a video of that but it’s less compelling in terms of evidence, but also afaik not cleanly debunked. (I think it’s called FLIR?)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- native_samples 5y ago
  Yes, Flir1: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/2021-05-29/navy-ufo-videos-skeptics https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/202... They're all ATFLIR videos. It's basically the same thing - a far away hot object, likely another aircraft, turns into an IR cylinder-shaped blog on screen which is then incorrectly interpreted as being an actual cylinder. The apparent movement at the end is just the ATFLIR losing lock as the guy constantly zooms in and out.
colordrops 5y ago
It was also tracked on radar.
- beebeepka 5y ago
  Weather balloon launched by swamp gas burp
  - bonestamp2 5y ago
    Maybe. That would be 14 weather balloons in this case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyP79v9e84 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyP79v9e84
willidiots 5y ago
The "saucer" shape and its rotation were IR glare, that's the point of the video. He's very clear that he's NOT debunking the existence of an object. The exhaust of a jet engine, or another high-heat signature, could cause such glare. AFAICT no pilots saw this shape with their naked eye. They were miles away from the target and relying on what they saw via their sensors.
- subsubzero 5y ago
  So actually Commander Fravor saw the object with his own eyes, he is one of the pilots who was sent in to engage the craft after it appeared on radar from the carrier group, here is a detailed video of him talking about the incident with Lex Fridman(AI reasearcher - MIT) on his podcast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E
  - tptacek 5y ago
    I'm literally learning about this "gimball video" from this video, so I don't have all the background, but the video we're looking at wasn't taken by David Fravor; it was taken by Chad Underwood? In the video we're looking at, we don't so much have to guess how far away the object was; the camera video itself indicates it. It's too far away to discern shape and rotation accurately with a naked eye. The video goes into detail about this, and the details aren't complicated.
    - recuter 5y ago
      Spoken like a true none believer. I shun thee. Even the pentagon said they can't explain the UFOs, clearly they are preparing society for a big reveal. ;) Edit: I'm betting half the downvotes are from people not picking up on my sarcasm, and the other half is from people picking up on my sarcasm.
      - wglb 5y ago
        From the Guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
StanislavPetrov 5y ago
>This analysis is pretty flimsy. Flimsy is an extremely generous and flattering word if you know anything about the details of this case or the testimony of the Navy's top pilots who witnessed and tracked this object from different vantage points both visually and with instruments.
user-the-name 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 5y ago
I don't know much about this whole story (I'm not a UFO person) and am learning most of what I know about it from this video and this thread, but: the people saying that this video depicts an actual object rotating in the sky appear to be making the extraordinary claim here: the connection between the rotation and the camera system seems compelling. The horizon is moving as the camera/plane moves; the object is not moving. You can't refute that with "these are highly trained fighter pilots": the horizon is moving with the camera, the object isn't. Training's got nothing to do with it. The shape we're looking at is, in part, an artifact of the camera, unless the aliens are somehow reprogramming the camera to fuck with us.
- bonestamp2 5y ago
  > The shape we're looking at is, in part, an artifact of the camera, unless the aliens are somehow reprogramming the camera to fuck with us. It's possible the IR glare is an intentional countermeasure produced by the craft. It might sound far-fetched, but the military can already jam some cameras already, and they apparently license this technology too: https://techlinkcenter.org/technologies/selective-camera-jamming-system-for-increased-security-and-privacy/72671316-58d3-402a-83b8-6956cec5877c https://techlinkcenter.org/technologies/selective-camera-jam... The US Navy has (admittedly controversial) patents for technologies that could produce a craft with these flight characteristics: https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Salvatore+Cezar+Pais https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Salvatore+Cezar+Pais The first time these craft were spotted on radar was during a Navy exercise where they were testing new radar equipment, and the craft were coming from the direction of San Clemente island (an island that is a Navy base). Here's a short video that talks about the radar sighting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyP79v9e84 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyP79v9e84 In the Nimitz case, the "UFO" disappeared, and then met the pilots at their rendezvous point. How did it know where the rendezvous point was? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBpcfeHI0Kk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBpcfeHI0Kk Sightings of these UFOs have only ever been mentioned by US forces. Who knows what is going on, but if I had to make a guess and I considered all of this information, it seems likely that the "UFOs" are experimental US aircraft.
  - tptacek 5y ago
likeabbas 5y ago
^This is the key point. These objects have been tracked on radar, FLIR, and multiple pilot witness testimony off both coasts for decades now. Attempting to debunk a single one of these three leaked videos is pointless because they do not show the entire context of the events happening. I implore everyone to watch these two interviews with Christopher Melon, the former Deputy Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. And to read the DNI report on UAPs It will change your entire perception of these incidents and show you to view them as true national security issues. 1. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2V0uWX1C4m8xEL0HHYqbnE?si=ef7d577c64cb4183 https://open.spotify.com/episode/2V0uWX1C4m8xEL0HHYqbnE?si=e... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdxcgS4spRM&t=1393s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdxcgS4spRM&t=1393s 3. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelima... There are unknown objects flying with impunity in our restricted military airspace, some that exhibit characteristics that nothing of human origin can accomplish. This should terrify you. Edit: Why the downvotes? Please explain to me your logic. I'm just listing things that people with credibility in our government said, including the Department of National Intelligence.
- argvargc 5y ago
  Why should a peaceful demonstration of technical superiority terrify anyone? It's clear whomever, or whatever, possesses this superior technology could fly circles around and/or obliterate us on a whim, but has expressly decided not to, and instead simply announced: "Hey, I have this." If they/it perceived us as a threat, we'd surely be gone already. That leaves only our hopefully sane response, to influence what happens next. Being terrified would be exactly wrong.
  - likeabbas 5y ago
    If you look into Lue Elizondo's, former head of AATIP, comments on this, you will come to find that he believes these things are testing are doing reconnaissance to test our military capabilities - which is scary to me. The technology they are displaying is awesome, but it is something we should be very wary of.
pengaru 5y ago
> So the anomaly that the carrier group tracked, then scrambled fighter jets for. The object that four different pilots saw visually, and was confirmed on multiple different sensors. That was camera glare? I don't think we can trust the accounts of anyone in the employ of the government, past or present, when it comes to this kind of thing. For all we know to misinform is the mission, propaganda if you will. Consider how much of what you said above is practically verbatim regurgitation of their vernacular. Jargon is often abused to sound qualified, smart, and authoritative. AKA B.S. alert.
Reubachi 5y ago
I'm quite surprised to see this community be so on board with the "Oh really, the obvious saucer was lens glare and not aliens?" train. USAF and reitred officals have gone on record to say that they actively release doctored footage and/or false narratives, sometimes via pop culture figures, to muddy waters on current technology or to sow discourse among enemies. This reeks of n example of that, and not aliens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage_Men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage_Men

RobertMiller 5y ago

Mick West debunked these to my satisfaction ages ago. The only question I have left is whether the whole thing was a US Navy psyop or whether the navy was just looking the other way and playing coy when those pilots were creating a retirement career in UFOlogy.

TooKool4This 5y ago
Or if you follow Hanlon's razor, if the Navy is incredibly (scarily) incompetent!
- radicaldreamer 5y ago
  That's a given (see all the ships crashing into other ships in the South Pacific a couple of years ago -- and not noticing for hours!)
- RobertMiller 5y ago
  That is possible, but I think strains credibility. The GOFAST video is egregious, I find it hard to believe nobody in the US Navy was able to calculate the actual [mundane, very... balloon-like] speed of that object using basic trigonometry. I think it's more likely the Navy knew there was nothing actually exotic in that video. The Defense Department described the subject of GOFAST, Gimble and FLIR videos as "UAV, Balloons, and other UAS". 'Balloons'; they know what it is. They're not even lying, they're being coy or misleading.
  - astrange 5y ago
    The Drive thinks they're drone balloons. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40054/adversary-drones-are-spying-on-the-u-s-and-the-pentagon-acts-like-theyre-ufos https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40054/adversary-drones... https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40638/what-we-know-about-the-high-tech-balloons-lingering-off-the-coasts-of-the-u-s-recently https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40638/what-we-know-abo...
- emkoemko 5y ago

billsmithwicks 5y ago

I like Mick West, and even though camera glare isn't usually picked up on radar by the navy, it's sufficient to fulfill Occam's razor.

zionic 5y ago
Mick West is a buffoon, and his “debunking” videos intentionally mislead his audience. I say this because he has had this explained to him again and again but he still ignores evidence. When you have infrared, multiple radar, and visual observations simultaneously of an object and pretend all you have is a grainy infrared video REPEATEDLY it goes beyond skepticism into deceit.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  We have a grainy infrared video, and claims of other infrared, radar and visual observations. Claims are easy to make and hard to analyze. Video is all we can analyze, and the video is unconvincing. Why then should we believe the claims?
  - user-the-name 5y ago
  - zionic 5y ago
    We have incredibly strong claims that lead to congressional hearings and classified reports to Congress. The public videos are heavily redacted and lower quality than the classified ones. So is your claim that they’re all lying? Is Congress in on it?
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      No, my claim is that a few are lying and/or exaggerating the truth, and most others are unwilling or unable to point out the lies. Just like what happened with Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction", which were a much more consequential lie, I hope you'd agree. It's definitely an easier explanation than supernatural alien craft.

tiahura 5y ago

I find the “bump” aspect persuasive. I’d like to see similar analysis of the East Coast cruise missile ufo video.

ssully 5y ago

Mick West has some interesting videos and does a good job debunking a lot of crap, but to me he is on the complete opposite spectrum of a UFO truther in that he doesn't seem to leave any room for the possibility that he might be wrong. With that said, I suggest reading this New Yorker piece [1] on the subject. It's actually how I came to learn about Mick. He is covered a bit in the story and gives decent counter points at certain parts. [1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentag...

zionic 5y ago
What? Mick west does a terrible job, all of his arguments that I’ve seen are preposterous, and require ignoring tons of evidence.
- ssully 5y ago
  I think I could have gone harder on my second sentence. I do think he has some good debunking video's, but I would agree with you in that he does ignore a lot of evidence. When I say he is on the opposite spectrum of a UFO truther, I mean that I don't take him serious because his only goal seems to be to get a debunk video out regardless of merit.

toptal 5y ago

Didn’t they actually see the object on multiple radars using multiple types of detection methods? Assuming that’s true, the camera glare story seems unlikely.

netsharc 5y ago
The video states that there's something there, but its heat signature is causing the glare (the video is in IR). Was the object flying steadily and rotating weirdly throughout the video? You can't see how the object is flying, the smooth motion and weird rotation you perceive is the effect of the glare!

Jerry2 5y ago

You can try the live simulation here: https://www.metabunk.org/gimbal/ https://www.metabunk.org/gimbal/ It's amazingly well done! Quick inspection shows that it was done with tree.js. Neat!

Johnny555 5y ago

Isn't he only debunking the image that appeared on the video as being glare as opposed to the actual object? So the object is real, but what appeared in the video is glare, not an actual representation of the object? West contends that what is being seen in the video is actually infrared glare that hides a hot object behind it and only rotates in the way it does because the camera rotates when tracking the target from left to right.

stouset 5y ago
Yes, that is correct. There was still an unidentified flying object, but the remaining aspects of its behavior do not require invoking advanced unknown technology to explain.
notfbi 5y ago
UFO-ers were using things like the rotation speed as definitive evidence of some like other-worldly advanced technology. Demonstrating that it was the glare/gimble brings it back into the realm of just a normal far-away plane. It also casts doubt on the expertise of the pilots/military who didn't realize what happened.
- zionic 5y ago
  Except they had RADAR locks, experienced jamming, and had visual identification in some cases. The whole “lens flare from a far away plane” hypothesis has been throughly debunked. You have to ignore evidence to reach that conclusion.
  - notfbi 5y ago
    Isn't the visual identification and jamming from other events? Can you share where it is best thoroughly debunked? The stuff linked so far in this thread (Friedman podcast; pilot Lehto analysis) isn't good.
nwallin 5y ago
Correct. IR video tends to bloom. If the object is hot enough, (for instance, a jet engine exhaust, a burning vehicle, a refinery flare...) you'll have a blob of smudge around/behind it on the video. The video is contending that the rotation of what is seen on the video isn't the object itself rotating. Instead, the blob is elongated as a result of glare/lens flare/diffraction gradient, and this elongation is aligned with the rotational axis of the gimbal. As the gimbal nears gimbal lock, it is forced to rapidly rotate to continue tracking the object. This rapid rotation of the gimbal causes the glare to rapidly rotate. I do have a background in IR video, gimbals, and translating between gimbal telemetry and real life coordinates and the explanation in the video looks good to me.

lamontcg 5y ago

> Evidence Suggests Famous Navy UFO Video Was Camera Glare

jmyeet 5y ago

I honestly don’t know what to make of these observations other than I’m utterly convinced they’re not alien, super high tech or break the laws of physics (eg inertia). There was no alien crash in Roswell. I also file believe any government is competent enough for the claimed cover up and associated psyops. What I do find interesting is the overlap between people who buy into various conspiracy theories and people who are religious, were religious or would otherwise be likely to be religious. There’s some fascinating psychology here and I think it boils down to a combination of wishful thinking and the comfort derived from there being a Grand Plan rather than just a collection of random stuff that just happens. “Can’t be explained” is typically “hasn’t been explained yet”. Lack of an explanation is nothing more than that. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I approach this from the other direction. Given the huge benefits of a Dyson Swarm and the fact that it seems to require no exotic materials and no more physics it looks increasingly likely that we are very alone in the Milky Way and even if we aren’t it requires an awful lot of hubris to suggest a species would spend the considerable effort and tens of thousands of years to come here and hide. Like this is Main Character Syndrome at its finest.

user3939382 5y ago
> wishful thinking and the comfort derived from there being a Grand Plan You may not have meant this by your comment, but in general I find a related analysis common among atheists, that religious people believe what they do because it feels good. I find that's often wrong, and when generally applied condescending, as if atheists are simply more emotionally mature. On the contrary many religious people will tell you they believe what they do because it seems to them to be true. > Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. One might consider the existence of the universe extraordinary evidence (for the existence of God). That said I think we can mostly agree that based on what we know so far, "aliens" is a fairly implausible explanation for any given unexplained phenomenon. Where ever you fall on that debate, I don't think it has anything to do with religious beliefs except as far as the biases of the people who conduct these psychology studies goes.
- water8 5y ago

rpilot8 5y ago

Recently Jim Lacatski confirmed that Colm Kelleher ran the daily operations of AAWSAP/AATIP. Colm was also the deputy administrator of NIDS which started in 1995. This along with the fact that Lue Elizondo used remote viewing to “save soldiers” in Afghanistan are pretty shocking revelations. AASWAP produced no results and shut down. Yet Elizondo talks often about a 23-minute close video of a craft. And has allegedly shown videos on his phone to people. Only recently have people claimed the government has high quality evidence, yet the evidence seems to be unclassified (but not public). If such evidence exists, it’s almost hard to believe it’s only recently been discovered and it hasn’t somehow leaked out. The whole ordeal is highly suspicious.

voldacar 5y ago
Elizondo is a very sus character. He talks and talks but has produced nothing of any substance

bally0241 5y ago

I suppose the radar signature was camera "glare" too, smh. This is pretty weak.

zionic 5y ago
Exactly! The number of comments in this thread treating this and mick west as credible is disturbing
netsharc 5y ago
The video states that there's something there, but its heat signature is causing the glare (the video is in IR). Was the object flying steadily and rotating weirdly throughout the video? You can't see how the object is flying, the smooth motion and weird rotation you perceive is the effect of the glare! But nah, of course you know better!
- bally0241 5y ago
  You're right, some random guy on the internet definitely knows better than the first hand witnesses and U.S. Navy! Actually, it was probably swamp gas. Case closed.
  - netsharc 5y ago
    "Some random guy" did the research, showed you other examples of glare, did all the maths, but hey, you DO know better! Well done!
    - bally0241 5y ago
      "Research"
ceejayoz 5y ago
It's probably worth at least skimming the article prior to dismissing it. He's not saying nothing's there. > He says that his video does not address the object itself as it’s not clear what the object is and there is nothing to say that it isn’t special or exemplary in some way. He just argues that his analysis shows that it isn’t actually exhibiting any incredible behavior and opens the door to other “mundane possibilities” like a distance small jet just flying away and the heat of the engines is what is creating a large glare on the thermal camera. He's saying the supposedly magical behavior is explicable. Without that, it's a fairly boring "someone's probably flying a drone near our ships" sort of incident.

oblib 5y ago

Interesting how so many are willing to accept "camera flare" as a concrete explanation. One thing that bothers me about this explanation is we know those pilots had a lot of experience with those systems so I'd expect they'd know "camera flare" when they saw it on those displays. But it's clear from the audio they did not recognize it as that. And there was more than one pilot seeing it, and from different angles. I'd like to hear what the pilots and ship crew members think about this.

zionic 5y ago
https://youtu.be/ro29w4ESw44 https://youtu.be/ro29w4ESw44 Has an actual fighter pilot’s reaction.
- oblib 5y ago
  That was pretty painful to watch with the fast forward going on for so long. I didn't try to take that in. Seems to me like our gov's own investigation would've found gimbal glare to be the culprit if that were the case. But they didn't. What they said is: "Of the 144 reports we are dealing with here, we have no clear indications that there is any non-terrestrial explanation for them — but we will go wherever the data takes us..." And: "We absolutely do believe what we're seeing are not simply sensor artifacts." [https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/politics/ufo-report-pentagon-odni/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/politics/ufo-report-pentagon-...]
- Workaccount2 5y ago
  Actual video from the pilot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tyw4JA00AMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tyw4JA00AMc
  - zionic 5y ago
    This link is much better, thanks. It’s too late for me to edit my post I should have used this.
  - vinkelhake 5y ago
    And here's a long video where Mick West and Chris Lehto discuss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neTfX9Jx5AY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neTfX9Jx5AY

Vixel 5y ago

The narrator sounds like an alien. That analysis is what they WANT us to think.

progre 5y ago

Direct link to the source https://youtu.be/qsEjV8DdSbs https://youtu.be/qsEjV8DdSbs

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mzvkxlcvd 5y ago

disinfo

oblib 5y ago

Sitting here knowing we have a helicopter and a land rover on Mars it doesn't feel like it's entirely impossible for an alien craft to be here, looking at us. I can't make the leap to believe without doubt there is, or even to believe there probably is. But it is not impossible. We've already proved it's not, and we're not really all that smart.

tsimionescu 5y ago
Anyone on Mars would have very clearly seen the Rover landing and known exactly what it was and where it was coming from. They also didn't arrive in Mars from the opposite end of the Galaxy, they arrived from the next planet over. Most importantly, no one on Mars would think that the rover or helicopter are defying theaws of physics, bending space time or anything like that, which are real claims made by army personnel about the objects seen in some of these videos.
ssully 5y ago
Yup, that's kind of where I am at. I think I lean more towards "this definitely isn't aliens", but if it's aliens then I definitely think these are unmanned drones keeping an eye on us.
- zionic 5y ago
  Von Neumann probes is the most likely explanation IMO.
stouset 5y ago
Space is really big. The difference in effort between getting an oversized RC car to Mars and getting a huge supermaneuverable space-and-aircraft to the nearest habitable planet is about the same as walking down tree driveway to get your paper and… well, getting a huge supermaneuverable space-and-aircraft to the nearest habitable planet. Then doing it over and over just to play mind games with the primitive apes on the planet while somehow evading anything resembling a decent camera or photographer? I’m not going to say it’s strictly impossible. But it sure as hell isn’t plausible.

rhema 5y ago

Well, the only reason they were scrambled to begin with is that they had been tracking these objects for weeks using advanced radar. As I understand it, the radar is based on multiple resolutions. The active radar can point in the direction of objects of interest and get very very precise measurements. It's not just the video, its the radar data. The thing that pushed me over the edge in believing these things is the long podcast interview between Commander David Fravor and Lex Fridman.

zardo 5y ago
> its the radar data Did the Navy release the radar data, or an analysis based on it?
- rhema 5y ago
  Not that I know of, so I take your point there. Here's a related video with some radar data https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh4QngYJG4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh4QngYJG4I . In the interview, Frevor does talk about the radar and instrumentation on the plane, but it's been a while since I listened to it.
- BluSyn 5y ago
  Unfortunately, radar data - from all the incidents in question - will never be released, as the hardware involved is highly classified. We only get footage from the IR camera because the IR tech is not "classified" (basically off-the-shelf FLIR cameras with fancy object tracking software).
shepardrtc 5y ago
A good point brought up by Fravor and conveniently ignored by people is that when describing the incident, they saw multiple objects. Their camera pods, however, could only track one at a time.
beeboop 5y ago
Fravor is a convincing person, but he's also ultimately an asset of the US military. I want to believe him, but unfortunately the simplest and most likely explanation for this situation is that he's lying, and lying in combination with other people. Most likely because they were incentivized or asked to. I listened to maybe half of that interview, and I really really do not buy the response to Lex's question of "Why didn't this cause more commotion in the ranks?" Fravor said because he was the commander of 17 airmen and 300 sailors and has the weight of that command on him. I get it, but this is also his job, and we all tend to acclimate to our jobs. I don't think this guy and all other witnesses were so burdened with the idea of being a CO that they weren't able to process a potentially world-changing event. If this was in the middle of a real war and real combat - of course that's different. But this was just during the millionth training exercise of this guy's career. He was also quick to move on from this question, and did so without any prompting from Lex. He went on to what sounded like a rehearsed talking point (I'm sure because he's said it so many times) about how he doesn't get paid for these appearances, but there's no way to know what other outside incentives he may have to go on these shows. That Lex doesn't push back on this at all is disappointing, but I get that he's not there to interrogate him. The final sticking point - Fravor admits that he's an apologist for secrecy and the US government hiding things for reasons of "national security". Clearly someone with this belief would welcome the idea of lying repeatedly, very publicly, to help cover something up. What I'm implying is that something did happen that day (that is much more mundane), but we're not getting the honest story, and Fravor outright suggesting it was something we know to be impossible with currently technology is likely obfuscating the truth of something that is probably an embarrassing mistake/leak/something that the US government doesn't want there to be public clarity on.

deutschew 5y ago

It is bewildering that they expect people to actually believe intelligent people to discount the IR footage from the F-18 just based on this article that reads like the "it was a weather balloon" trope we often get whenever we ask questions. edit: holy crap, there are actually lot of people on HN buying it!

MauranKilom 5y ago
Do you have some factual counterpoint to the analysis, or just "the conclusions sounds like something I don't want to hear"?
zionic 5y ago
I for one get really annoyed with the people who go “it’s aliens!” every time, but the cynical “debooonkers” that will seemingly go to any length to say it’s _not_ aliens bother me even more. We simply need more information.

mikeInAlaska 5y ago

Listen to the Navy pilot himself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E

deepnotderp 5y ago

Lens glare tracked by radar. That's a new one.

ChrisGranger 5y ago
The claim isn't that there is no flying object. The glare accounts for its appearance.
- zionic 5y ago
  So when the pilot says “it’s rotating!” And the lens flare rotates with it, that’s just a coincidence? The far-away-plane hypothesis would have the exhaust as a point source. The lens flare would maintain it’s orientation as the plane rolled.

ynniv 5y ago

What is the point of this story? Someone lacking context could watch this and arrive at the conclusion that "the Navy video of a UFO has a simple conventional explanation", which is how the presenter delivers his arguments. He meticulously demonstrates that the shape of the object which is the subject of the video is an artifact of camera glare from overexposure. In case you are not convinced, he breaks it down into four reasons, supporting each of them with data based on a detailed understanding of the system. If you are still not convinced that this shake is camera glare by the end of the video, I would be surprised. And yet, whether the shape of the subject is representative of the object or an artifact of the camera is almost irrelevant to whether or not this is a video that should be investigated. The source of the glare is clearly not part of the camera or the aircraft. We should not treat the silhouette of the object as valuable data, but it says nothing of the actual object that is being tracked. The presenter does not suggest this, and the post spins the whole event as being "debunked". I don't know why "debunking" things seems to have become a cottage industry, but there was considerable effort put into analyzing and visually modeling this thoroughly condescending presentation.

xmaayy 5y ago
He literally says something to the effect of "I'm only saying that the glare is obscuring the true shape of the object" in the first minutes of the video.
- tejohnso 5y ago
  Yet the title of the article says the video was camera glare. Which doesn't even make sense. But what it suggests is that the entire contents can be explained away as camera glare. So blame the media in this case perhaps?
  - tptacek 5y ago
    There is no way to watch this video and come away with the understanding that there was no object at all. It spends a tedious several minutes demonstrating the connection between glare and objects emitting light, and multiple long, tedious disclaimers that it is not arguing that there is no object at all in the video. You have to want it to be saying something else to take away a different message.

darkhorn 5y ago

Could it be a ball lightning? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning

alphabetting 5y ago

Still convinced the intelligence and technology it would require to get here would make us identifying aliens in our ozone impossible. They'd only be seen if they wanted to be. First contact could be seeing a von neumann probe or some other kind of scout type aircraft in space but it wouldn't be like the videos.

lsllc 5y ago

More specifically camera glare caused by swamp gas from a weather balloon that was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.

orblivion 5y ago

Maybe they're just gaslighting us to keep us a safe distance from any certainty on this issue.

oyebenny 5y ago

The title of this article sucks. Real bad.

SubiculumCode 5y ago

From the first I thought it looked like a bug smashed on the gimble lens because of how it orated relative to the horizon. Fascinating explanation why it could be glare from an actual object.

russdpale 5y ago

Im pretty suspicious, why does an MIT AI researcher have a youtube channel? Does he not get paid enough with his salary? Also, this is a four hour video, what is the timestamp of the comments you refer to?

e40 5y ago
There's an index in the video notes.
nkassis 5y ago
Some people have YouTube channels as hobbies ? I don't see the issue.
darig 5y ago
vo2maxer 5y ago
> Im pretty suspicious, why does an MIT AI researcher have a youtube channel? Does he not get paid enough with his salary? Could you please elaborate on why you think that an MIT researcher having a YouTube channel where is had some very interesting interviews somehow makes it suspicious?
- russdpale 5y ago
  Because he would be busy doing researcher things and making money and not worried about something like youtube?
drc500free 5y ago
removed needlessly snarky comment
- Banana699 5y ago
  Those are 3 very, wildly, different men that you're comparing.
- 5y ago

belter 5y ago

- David Fravor and his colleagues, are highly credible witnesses of something they observed visually. - This is certainly a very interesting interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIUBjvY4PnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIUBjvY4PnQ - There are visual observations, and what are, ( by military standards), flimsy short images/video. - This analysis partially explains one part of it, without excluding the presence of an object. - There is also Radar data, but it has not been published or time correlated to the reported visual observations. Observations: - These Aliens only seem to want to goof around with folksy US pilots. - Pilots known to simulate UFO sightings, fans of UFO invasion stories and stories of Russians shooting UFO's and getting shot back. ( watch the interview...). - These Aliens show up exclusively during their training time and with sightings restricted to areas with US carrier groups exercises. Also... - The Aliens don't show up with their "Tic Tac's" or seem to be interested on the Ukraine conflict. - They don't care about EU or Latin America citizens... - Don't want to play around with the Russian or Chinese Air Force. - They don't show up in the data of any of the existing Military satellites capable of reading a bus ticket on the ground from 400 km. - These Aliens don't show up in the observations of the thousands of professional and amateur astronomers, that scan the sky a total of thousands of hours every night, using some of the most exquisite optical instruments available. I would say: They either don't exist, or if they do, they are pretty dumb and we have nothing to fear.

avl999 5y ago
These observations have also been made by military adjacent organizations in UK, France and China. It is definitely not a US pilot specific thing.
- belter 5y ago
  References?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
xcvasdfasfwe 5y ago

birdyrooster 5y ago

Obviously it was glare, it looked like bokeh…

throwaway984393 5y ago

Those crafty aliens.

avl999 5y ago

> But a new detailed analysis by self-described debunker, skeptic, and UFO investigator Mick West Ignored as soon as I read the name "Mick West". The guy's brand is to be a debunker which in of itself is not bad but I am not gonna trust a video game developer's (brand aligning) explanations of this phenomenon compared to trained fighter pilots and the US Navy/Pentagon who have found no explanation of this phenomenon thus far.

nwallin 5y ago
> the US Navy/Pentagon who have found no explanation of this phenomenon thus far. "Released no explanation to the public" != "have found no explanation". The DoD is simply not in a habit of releasing information to the public unless they're instructed to do so by the executive branch.
- avl999 5y ago
  They did not have an explanation as of last spring when they were forced to disclose everything they knew about the phenomenon by an act of congress. There wasn't even a redacted appendix.
  - nwallin 5y ago
    You're not characterizing the report correctly. The report that was released to the public is a 9 page preliminary assessment. It is almost entirely fluff. It does state that of the 144 reported cases of UAP over the course of the period of study, there were 21 reports written. Those would be the interesting reports, and precisely none of the those were released to the public, redacted or otherwise. Here's the report for anyone who's interested. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelima...

phendrenad2 5y ago

Nitpick: This isn't "evidence", this is "analysis". The title of the video itself is "Gimbal UFO - A New Analysis". A photography magazine can't be expected to understand the difference though, I guess.

imwillofficial 5y ago

Camera glare is often known to disable ships and cause small fleets to mobilize to investigate

Maursault 5y ago

Why, at the time, were Navy pilots behaving so incredulously, and why did they not pull up along-side the UFO and simply eyeball its identification? And why did they let it get away? What is it that Navy pilots are supposed to be doing when they're inscrutably not pursuing possible unidentified threats?

BluSyn 5y ago

FYI, Mick West is not an "expert". He has no experience with military hardware. Everyone involved in the incident, or has background knowledge of the classified details, says there are multiple sensors confirming the footage, including direct visual by the pilots. This can not possibly be explained by "lens flair". People say trust the experts. Well, in this case, the experts are the ones who know the military hardware, who flew the plane, who tracked the objects (plural) on radar. That is not Mick West. Mick West is a professional debunker, which means he analyses these videos with a baked-in assumption that it's "fake", not from an unbiased view. If you fall for Mick West's BS, you aren't any different from UFO nuts who fall for Steven Greeer's. I suggest thinking for yourself instead.

jollybean 5y ago
This comment, which doesn't reference any of the very powerful bits evidence, and merely spouts a lot of ad hominem, probably belongs on YouTube. I see very compelling evidence for an argument, which makes your comment seem even more 'unhinged'. "he analyses these videos with a baked-in assumption that it's "fake", not from an unbiased view" The balance of 'unbiased view' of either it's 'aliens or something mundane' is going to almost always land on 'something mundane'. "I suggest thinking for yourself instead." This is the statement of the true conspiracy theorist: "Don't believe the evidence in front of you! 'Think for yourself' and 'Make up your own reality!'"
- BluSyn 5y ago
  I actually agree with you in general. > "Don't believe the evidence in front of you! 'Think for yourself' and 'Make up your own reality!'" I never said this. Evidence is very important. Notably Mick West offered no new "evidence", only supposition. Supposition in direct contradiction to known facts of the case (eg, other sensors, pilot reports, visual confirmations, etc). I never claimed to know the answer. But I do claim that Mick West is generating faulty conclusions derived from bad assumptions. So in this case you could make a compelling argument that Mick West is the conspiracy theorist. So we go around and around debunking the debunker who debunked the debunker. It's all a waste of oxygen.
5y ago

rblion 5y ago

I call bullshit. Prove me wrong.

verytrivial 5y ago

I watched that video when it first came out and saw what looked like sun glare in the middle of image and ignored it and kept looking for what was meant to be the UFO. It was even rotating like you see those FLIR videos that keep up-up during fly-overs. I was like -- "That's it? Seriously? Come on!" The rotation looks like ansiotropic surface features on the lense where someone has wiped (perhaps a bit too hard) the surface and left streaks. (Or it's reflections between elements, I don't know.) It's hard to know if the lense is rotating, or the camera itself -- you only see the nett result on the monitor after all the transformations are done. Exact same thing with the more recent super fast UFOs that are so totally birds locked while the camera orbits against a deep-zoom background. I wonder how many other people have seen these exact features dozens of times, tried to point it out, but it just gets lost in the endless garbage factory that is media these days.

cf141q5325 5y ago

Joe Scott predicted as much, rather liked his explanation if somebody is bored. Starts around here https://youtu.be/Hv-sbtCAz9Y?t=732 https://youtu.be/Hv-sbtCAz9Y?t=732

mlindner 5y ago

It's amazing how many imbeciles on hacker news actually believe that we actually saw UFOs. There is simply no evidence for them. (The sheer idea of a "saucer" for a UFO is straight out of fiction even, it's also conveniently exactly the same shape as a smudge on literally anything. A smeared spec of mud becomes a UFO saucer.)

WalterBright 5y ago

A simple rule of thumb is if it's a grainy, out-of-focus, smeary blob doing impossible things, it's not a UFO. It's a hoax or an artifact of the camera. Where are the sharp, hi-res UFO pix? If there are UFOs, that is?

ck2 5y ago

Always find "UFO are aliens" belief so non-logical. Like a FTL civilization would even be curious about earth, having such advanced sensor technology to avoid dust at beyond light speed that they actually need to cruise around in the atmosphere? Or that their ship would be so small? There's no penalty for mass in space, why not make it the size of a city? Certainly a FTL civilization has no construction limitations. We have small plane-sized craft because of our limitations on power and mass and construction abilities. Aliens that can "visit" would be nothing like us.

PlanckMeasure80 5y ago
But this assumes FTL travel is the only way they’d show up?
- ck2 5y ago
  At 10% the speed of light it would take 45 years to get here and slow down from Alpha Centauri, and it goes way up from there: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/7Gdct9VzQFHUYf8Ec8GXmY.jpg https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/7Gdct9VzQFHUYf8Ec8GXmY.jpg Again that's exponentially beyond anything we could do and why would they even bother buzzing around inside the atmosphere if they can do that? Unless you are saying they are popping in from other dimensions/universes and that's way beyond even FTL theory. Earth would be a huge yawn to them. They'd catalog it and move on. Unless earth-like planets are so incredibly rare to find even with those abilities.

sennight 5y ago

ugh, more and more each day I hate the fact that Obama undid the last of the legal impediments to domestically targeted military counter-intelligence operations. It is no coincidence that there is a massive gap in military related UFO sightings that matches up perfectly with when it was illegal for the government to spread paranoid delusion in the interest of national security. How anyone could think that an advanced spacefaring species could spend over 50 years reconnoitering the planet - but primarily in restricted airspace used for bleeding edge military flight tests and over a whole lot of empty ocean... its depressing.

tudorradubarbu 5y ago

I don't get it :))

deleted 5y ago

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antishatter 5y ago

I suspect It’s a Chinese or Russian sub floating a balloon that specifically does things to capture information on our radar systems.we used to do it to them too.

qgin 5y ago

Wasn’t this tracked by multiple operators in more than one location using visible light and also radar and was visually confirmed by pilots? How does glare explain that?