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There was a fun theory on UFOs I saw recently. The general premise is this: U.S. adversaries realized they couldn't compete with the U.S. on spending. So they
by r3trohack3r 4y ago
There was a fun theory on UFOs I saw recently.
The general premise is this:
U.S. adversaries realized they couldn't compete with the U.S. on spending. So they got creative and loaded the equivalent of Pringles cans up with a bunch of sensors, hooked them up to either a balloons or relatively cheap unmanned aircraft, and sent them through U.S. airspace to collect intelligence. They'd occasionally get caught (perhaps on purpose) and cause a base to scramble to intercept. The proposed theory on why they'd get caught on purpose was to gather up intelligence on what a response would be flying through the airspace.
It's possible they've been doing this for more than a decade and the military has gotten caught with egg on it's face having ignored the reports for so long.
- themodelplumber 4y agoFunny, though tbh it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. I even hesitate to mention some ideas that immediately come to mind that would be easier/more efficient to really nail than the Pringles can idea. Plus many of the more prominent base-personnel sightings land quite a bit far from that particular ballpark. Take a look into the Rendlesham Forest incident for example. The problem with "summing up UFO contact" is that the variety of encounters is absolutely insane. Compare Rendlesham to Varginha, etc. It really starts to bring out the "inter" in the more colorful inter-dimensional contact theories.
- r3trohack3r 4y agoHad never heard of the Rendlesham Forest incident - what a rabbit hole. Thank you for sharing.
- cpursley 4y agoKnowledge like this is what keeps bringing me back to HN.
- GartzenDeHaes 4y agoIf you know something about how the USAF responds to incidents, the idea of the deputy base commander and disaster preparedness running around in the middle of the night chasing UFO's is hilarious. It's obviously a practical joke that got out of hand.
- r3trohack3r 4y agoJust watched some interviews. The guys claiming to have “downloaded” an alien signal by touching the craft. The signal was transmitted in binary and just happened to be ASCII encoded English. Odd that a ship from 8100 transmitted data in an archaic dialect of an ancient language using an ancient encoding that just happened to match the language and encoding in widespread use during this guys lifetime. Having a hard time with this.
- JohnBooty 4y agoFunny, though tbh it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. Yeah. My best understanding based on watching a lot of retired military personnel is that isolated incidents cost the US almost exactly zero additional dollars. The way an Air Force base works is this: there is a budget. This covers the (considerable) costs of the base itself, the personnel, the equipment, and so on. Active-duty fighter pilots must fly a certain number of hours per month to remain on active status. Just like any other demanding activity (sports, competitive gaming, whatever) their skills require constant maintenance. These flying hours are of course budgeted. (This will be true of literally any air force; it's not specifically a USAF thing) Things like these incident responses, and even things like flyovers before sporting events, come out of those predetermined budgeted flying hours that they were going to fly anyway. So isolated incidents like these don't really increase USAF expenses in a meaningful way. Those $400K/ea missiles will presumably need to be replenished but this must be compared to the USAF's total budget of $180 billion. To put any strain whatsoever on the US's capabilities our foes would need to start sending large amounts of drones: essentially, a saturation attack. More than we can comfortably respond to. Which is of course... extremely possible. But as long as these remain isolated incidents we can surmise that our adversary's goal is not "cost the US a bunch of money."
- mistermann 4y agoA potential flaw in this plan: while everything you say may be true, it is not broadly known. If China (or whoever) was to keep floating these things our way and we kept shooting them down at a don't worry about it, we're pot committed rate of ~$400k per incident, maybe people's blind faith in the military and politicians might be replaced with some rare curiosity, and maybe even displeasure! (Though: it's not like they have an alternative to vote for, but that too is not immutable, it only seems that way.) Keeping people immersed in a complex narrative is a lot easier than one would think, but it is also a very tricky balancing act that can get upset by the weirdest things. Personally, I'm all for it - anything that has the potential to wake up the American/Western public from their dream state is a good thing in my books, plus it makes for good entertainment.
- 4y ago
- LarryMullins 4y ago> it seems like there are cheaper ways to cause the US to spend gobs of cash. Yeah, the Mig-25 / F-15 thing comes to mind. Soviets develop a super secret jet, very big, very fast.. it must be very impressive fighter jet! America is spooked so tons of resources are poured into the F-15 to make the absolute best possible air superiority fighter jet they can, to counter this new Soviet threat. Except then it turns out that the Mig-25 was never a fighter jet, it was an interceptor that was very fast in a straight line but not much more. So the US built an incredible air superiority fighter to counter a phantom of a jet that never really existed in the way America thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#Focus_on_air_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#F... Come to think of it, maybe China is going low-tech with balloons to avoid this dynamic?
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago> So the US built an incredible air superiority fighter to counter a phantom of a jet that never really existed in the way America thought. Are you sure that's what really happened, or did a group of people in the Air Force want an air superiority fighter and use the Mig-25 as the excuse?
- LarryMullins 4y agoBy all accounts I have read, the defection of Viktor Belenko with a Mig-25 really did change the way NATO understood the Mig-25.
- somat 4y agoBut it does not end there. The f-15 in turn spooked the soviets, and they put a bunch of money into the Su-27 program.
- voldacar 4y agoPringles cans have never been observed to move in ways that violate Newton's laws
- x3n0ph3n3 4y agoNor has there been good evidence of UAPs doing so.
- krapp 4y agoGiven the possibilities of an alien spacecraft observed on Earth violating the known laws of physics, or some error on the part of the observer, I'm going with the latter every time. First, prove that everything we know about physics is wrong at a fundamental, irreconcilable level. Then explain why our completely wrong models of physics still work as well as they do. Then explain the Fermi Paradox in light of the apparent existence of easy faster than light/antigravity technology and confirmation of the existence of other technologically advanced civilizations in the universe. Then I'll be willing to concede the still practically nil chance of any of those aliens actually being here given the vast size of the observable universe as being likely enough to consider. Don't get me wrong, I want it to be true. I desperately want it to be true. I've been fascinated by UFOlogy and sightings and the related folklore for decades. I want some fate for humanity other than us slowly choking to death on our own poison, alone on this island in the midst of vast seas of infinity. It's just that the bar for proving any other possibility is higher than a third-hand account of someone seeing a light in the sky that moved really fast.
- mistermann 4y ago> Given the possibilities of an alien spacecraft observed on Earth violating the known laws of physics, or some error on the part of the observer, I'm going with the latter every time. You know, it isn't (physically) necessary to choose anything. > First, prove that everything we know about physics is wrong at a fundamental, irreconcilable level. Why does everything have to be wrong, in an irreconcilable manner? > Don't get me wrong, I want it to be true. I dunno man, the opposite seems to be the case - are you not at least suffering from motivated reasoning, to some degree? > I want some fate for humanity other than us slowly choking to death on our own poison, alone on this island in the midst of vast seas of infinity. Me too!! Consider this idea: our cultural tendency to form beliefs absent of proof (therefore: faith based, which is usually considered a big no no) causes substantial harm, and our tendency to write it off as "that's just people" or (begrudgingly) as "well, of course I'm only expressing my opinion, that's what everyone is always doing" are not proper common sense and reasonableness, but rather are emergent behaviors that cause humanity to be permanently stuck in a local maxima (on certain dimensions, while ongoing successes in specific domains like science, engineering, computing, etc make it appear like we have our shit substantially together comprehensively). Of course, this is speculation - but what if it is actually true to a non-trivial degree?
- NikkiA 4y agoMaking a high altitude balloon highly visible (eg, put lights inside it) and sitting back and waiting is actually a terrific tactic for finding out maximum operational ceiling of interceptors when the number is non-public.
- JohnBooty 4y agoMission accomplished. The previously published ceiling of the F-22 was 50K feet. The Pentagon said it (edit: by "it" I mean the F-22) was flying at 58K feet when it shot down the first balloon. Guess it can do (at least) 58K. This was probably not entirely groundbreaking news to anybody including China. Everybody knows that the published specs of military hardware are intentionally distorted in one direction or another. The F-15's known ceiling is 65K feet for example. So it's not surprising that newer fighters can match that.
- XorNot 4y agoMost US missiles can shoot above the operational height of their planes.
- JohnBooty 4y agoSorry. I should have been clearer with that "it." The Pentagon said the F-22 was flying at 58K feet and the balloon was at 60-65,000 feet. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3288543/f-22-safely-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-off-south-carolina-coast/ https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/32... Of course, that could be a lie too!
- khuey 4y agoThere's not really any reason the Pentagon needed to state the F-22 was at 58k if that was actually new information (I haven't investigated the previously admitted service ceiling). They could have just as easily have claimed it was at 50k when it fired. EDIT: Wikipedia claims the service ceiling of the F-22 is 65k feet anyways.
- nsxwolf 4y agoIt's like Israel's "Iron Dome" interceptors. $50,000 each to take out what amounts to a $50 Estes model rocket.
- TheGuyWhoCodes 4y agoI don't think it's a fair comparison because a rocket hit could be much more expensive in direct and collateral damage than 50k
- LarryMullins 4y agoYeah, a $50k missile to save even a single unoccupied house is a missile that paid for itself. And if it saves a few human lives then it was positively cheap. If bankrupting Israel by forcing them to expend Iron Dome interceptors is Hezbollah's plan, it obviously isn't working.
- jxramos 4y agoI wonder how much is going into location technology much like ShotSpotter but for rockets and mortar and all that sort of thing. They may already know the origins of fire but maybe can't fire back at that precise location or something?
- LarryMullins 4y agoCounter-battery radar that can track artillery shells or ballistic rockets back to their point of origin have been around for many years now; the Israelis surely know exactly where the rockets are being fired from. I think they (usually) avoid firing back because they know there would be civilian casualties and want to avoid some of that bad PR. One such system operated by Israel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EL/M-2084 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EL/M-2084
- nsxwolf 4y agoTrue. But they're unguided, almost none of them will cause real damage, but you have no choice but to take all of them out to prevent the losses from a lucky shot - at great expense. It's a great way to drain your enemies funds, great asymmetric warfare. Casualties are just icing on the cake.
- nostromo 4y agoThose UFOs were lens flares. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs Turns out we like to spend gobs of money even when we're just chasing our shadow.
- united893 4y agoThat video helps explain one property one of the UFO videos (the rotation) but doesn't explain the rest. Doesn't explain the Tic Tac videos. It does not explain why these were observed on radar as well. While some of the videos have explanation, I would kindly encourage you to look at this with more curiosity.
- herbstein 4y ago> Doesn't explain the Tic Tac videos He covers the "Tic-Tac" and "Go Fast" videos too, just not in that specific video. Like in this one, where he explains how the "Go Fast" video isn't actually even a fast object zipping just above the water, but rather an object flying at roughly wind-speed at about 12000 feet. https://youtu.be/PLyEO0jNt6M https://youtu.be/PLyEO0jNt6M
- LarryMullins 4y ago> It does not explain why these were observed on radar as well. The lens flare was caused by the camera looking at the ass end of another jet. The radar saw the other jet. For even one of these videos to have a mundane explanation that should have been obvious to the Navy upon investigation, I think that discredits the lot. Either the Navy couldn't figure it out themselves (which seems highly improbable), or for some reason the Navy is deliberately misleading the public, or at the very least allowing some of their personnel to mislead the public and playing coy about it. I think this is what's happening.
- zeven7 4y ago> or for some reason the Navy is deliberately misleading the public, or at the very least allowing some of their personnel to mislead the public and playing coy about it But why?
- xwdv 4y agoThey need to stop doing this. If they send out thousands of cheap balloons it would be like a denial of service attack!! We don’t have the bandwidth to basically dog fight thousands of aircraft simultaneously!! We’ll go bankrupt!
- Eduard 4y ago> We don’t have the bandwidth to basically dog fight thousands of aircraft simultaneously!! We’ll go bankrupt The defense industry will go ritch, though
- thedorkknight 4y agoThat was actually similar to a concern from CIA director Walter Bedell Smith: >According to Smith, it was CIA’s responsibility by statute to coordinate the intelligence effort required to solve the problem. Smith also wanted to know what use could be made of the UFO phenomenon in connection with US psychological warfare efforts. https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/cias-role-in-the-study-of-ufos-1947-90/#rft18 https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/cias-role-in-t...
- JohnBooty 4y agoThe proposed theory on why they'd get caught on purpose was to gather up intelligence on what a response would be flying through the airspace. It's certainly the most likely explanation. Accordingly, it seems highly possible that the countries targeted by such incursions (a) realize their response time is being tested (b) fuzz/delay their responses by some certain amount of time in order to frustrate such efforts.
- foreverobama 4y ago[dead]
- cjg_ 4y agoMore or less the premise of this 2021 article: 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...
- PM_me_your_math 4y agoThis is a cat and mouse game that we've been playing for decades. USA has surveillance aircraft in the air at all times, especially near ADIZ. It also has at least one of two national command and control aircraft in the air at all times. The USA has been probed more times than can be counted, and we've probed other countries just as much. What's new is ignoring a threat while over territorial waters or sparsely populated areas and letting it glide across the country before deciding to shoot it down.
- mtnGoat 4y agoI don’t think that’s new based on the most recent incident. I recall the pentagon saying this has been going on for a few years. But if, by saying new you mean the last decade, that’s fair.
- PM_me_your_math 4y agoI was referring to the general surveillance of opposing forces by governments. Even still, balloons have been used for surveillance and attack for over one hundred years. During the siege of Yorktown in 1862, Union General Fitz Porter decided to do some surveillance using only one rope on an observation balloon. The rope snapped and he drifted over enemy lines. Confederates tried to shoot him down but missed. Eventually the wind sent him back over Union lines. Balloons were used in WW1 as observation posts (ushering in wide-spread use of parachutes) and in WW2 for both observation and area over-flight denial. By May 1945, Japan sent almost 10,000 armed balloons across the pacific. They were largely ineffective, however, they did kill a pregnant mother and five children who discovered a downed balloon in Bly, Oregon. 285 Japanese balloons were recovered, one as far east as Texas.
- John23832 4y agoIt’s not theory, it’s actually military practice. Adversaries spend 100k for a military grade drone. What do shoot it down with? A 1M dollar Patriot? Whatever you choose will be orders of magnitude more expensive than the drone. Israel’s Iron Dome has the same issue. It costs massively more for defense than attack.
- m3kw9 4y agoAin’t like 100 of ballon’s were shot down. So it doesn’t apply here
- jeremyjh 4y agoIt would be an air to air missile like a sidewinder which still costs $400k. Just scrambling a couple jets would cost tens of thousands on top of that I’m sure.
- metadat 4y agoMore than tens of thousands of dollars, military aircraft are incredibly expensive to operate and maintain. Beyond the obvious fuel costs, every hour of flight time is followed up by N hours of service. If I remember correctly, the F-22 Raptor is the champ in terms of highest ratio of service required per hour of flight (40:1). The F-35 clocks in at 4-8 hours of service per hour flown (6:1). One example from the article linked below: USMIL budgeted $39m dollars for the blue angels to fly 69 days in one year. It's up to 11 F/A-18 Hornets at once, but in my experience they only fly for a couple of minutes for a show. Plus, who knows what kind of math games the military plays in terms of budget reporting. Operating commercial aircraft is already very expensive, and military craft are an order of magnitude moreso. The planes are beautiful, though <3, and remain operationally effective. https://www.inverse.com/article/33711-military-flyover-costs-fourth-of-july https://www.inverse.com/article/33711-military-flyover-costs... Edit: Good points @elif and sandworm101, thank you!
- gnicholas 4y agoDoes the flight time for these operations reduce the amount of time pilots would otherwise have to spend training and staying current?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoWhen the US spends on the military, where does the money go?
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