
Navy pilots report unexplained flying objects - bkohlmann
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/politics/ufo-sightings-navy-pilots.html
======
klingonopera
The videos in the article are Gimbal[1] and Go Fast[2]. The incident that
occured in 2004 is FLIR1[3].

This[4] analysis of Go Fast is pretty good, and sounds plausible, the author
concludes that it's most likely a bird. He also analyzes FLIR1[5] and takes a
look at Gimbal[6]. To me, it seems like FLIR1 might just be another jet moving
away, and the "Tic-Tac" shape is just the IR-cone of a jet exhaust. As to
Gimbal, Parabunk has yet to offer an analysis...

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1uLwUTDA0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1uLwUTDA0)

[2]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxVRg7LLaQA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxVRg7LLaQA)

[3]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rWOtrke0HY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rWOtrke0HY)

[4]: [http://parabunk.blogspot.com/2018/04/analysis-of-
ttsa-2015-g...](http://parabunk.blogspot.com/2018/04/analysis-of-ttsa-2015-go-
fast-ufo-video.html)

[5]: [http://parabunk.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-2004-uss-nimitz-
tic...](http://parabunk.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-2004-uss-nimitz-tic-tac-
ufo_22.html)

[6]: [http://parabunk.blogspot.com/2018/04/ttsa-gimbal-and-go-
fast...](http://parabunk.blogspot.com/2018/04/ttsa-gimbal-and-go-fast-videos-
from.html)

~~~
colanderman
It's appropriate that the first video is called "gimbal", because that's
exactly what it is.

Watch the angle readout at the top of the video. The rotation of the object
happens exactly around the time that the angle passes 0°. Why is this?

Have you ever watched a PTZ security camera rotate up and over the vertical
axis and down the other side? It will tilt up until it nears the vertical
axis, at which point it will rotate _around_ that axis, and then tilt back
down, now facing the other way. It does this to avoid _gimbal_ lock [1], a
state in which it would lose a degree of freedom of rotation. (In this case,
it's not the vertical axis, but the forward axis.)

Why doesn't the image rotate then? [shallow speculation] The video software
keeps it oriented so that it matches the plane's orientation. (Note that the
feed is square, making it easier to make full use of the sensor regardless of
rotation.)

Why _does_ the object rotate? This should give you a clue where the object is.
If the background is not rotating while the camera is rotating, but the object
is, the object _is on the camera_. It will _appear_ to rotate as the video
software rotates the image to compensate for the camera rotation about the
forward axis.

So why is the object moving? Well, it's not moving, not if it's on the camera.
But whenever the camera moves, it would _look_ like it's moving relative to
the background.

So why is the camera moving? It's tracking the object. But the object isn't
moving! Well, the camera doesn't track _movement_. It tracks _position_. The
object is slightly offset from the center of the frame, so the tracking
software slightly moves the camera to compensate. This of course does not
change the situation, so the tracking software repeats its compensation. This
constant camera movement in a single direction gives the appearance that the
object is moving.

Why does the object show up on an infrared camera in the first place? It must
be warm.

So… what is this warm object, which is stuck on the camera, slightly off-
center, causing the tracking software to follow it, through and around the
camera's axis, giving the appearance that the object is moving and then
rotating?

Well, it's the same thing as this article in the NY Times, which, in service
of securing funding from the UFO & Hitler Channel (as @floatrock astutely
noted), decided to lend its gravitas to an easily-explainable video glitch
which has been paraded by conspiracy theorists as incontrovertible validation
of their deepest-held beliefs that extraterrestrials, against all probability,
regularly visit Earth.

Bird shit.

Why am I paying for a NY Times subscription again?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock)

~~~
lisper
The problem with that theory is that the object rotates but the clouds in the
background don't.

~~~
colanderman
I called out that fact as evidence _for_ the theory, so I'm not sure what you
mean. Can you clarify why this is contradictory?

~~~
lisper
Sorry I misunderstood your argument on first reading. My mistake.

------
king_magic
Well, it’s a year later, and it doesn’t really seem like there’s anything new
here. Luis Elizondo (who’s basically Guy Fieri mixed with Fox Mulder) looks
and sounds like a crackpot, and keeping this up sure seems like a good way to
drive sales of Leslie Kean’s book about UFOs. So I’m really not inclined to
believe this is anything really extraordinary, since so little credible,
verifiable information has trickled out over the past year.

“The incidents tapered off after they left the United States, the pilots
said.”

Yeeaaaah, sorry, but this sounds like complete bullshit to me. And IMO, way
below what The NY Times should deliver.

~~~
deytempo
Doesn’t look like The NY Times website is delivering much of anything..

------
busymom0
I was just reading on the SpaceX subreddit on how a lot of people are
reporting the Starlink satellites as UFO:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/bso4wt/footage_of_s...](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/bso4wt/footage_of_starlink_satellites_seen_from_the/?st=jw5r8wrb&sh=074c758b)

~~~
istjohn
My family and I saw the Starlink satellites two days ago at midnight. They
were twice as bright as anything else in the sky except the moon. It was
surreal to see these bright points of light move across the sky in single-file
lockstep motion, like a train on invisible tracks. My best guess was an
asteroid had broken up in the atmosphere, but the lights were really too
uniform for that to be correct.

~~~
Raphmedia
I'm kind of worried right now. Is this a temporary configuration or will the
Starlinks always be that visible? If it stays the same, the night sky is going
to be wild once they lunch all 12,000 of them.

~~~
anotheryou
[https://youtu.be/GEuMFJSZmpc](https://youtu.be/GEuMFJSZmpc)

------
rpz
Anybody else notice an uptick of these sorts of articles lately in the
mainstream press?

~~~
hendzen
its a very successful marketing campaign by the history channel for the show
mentioned in the article

------
dmix
Both of those videos looks like optical illusions or radar bugs. Too bad there
isn’t some sort of standard helmet cam so we can see from their direct
perspective and get a better idea of how it might happen.

Someone’s digging through the radar data too and there could be more multi-
source correlations.

So far it seems each of these are single source with two people in the plane
seeing it? Or two pilots flying in tandem facing the same way and speed.

~~~
pp19dd
Those videos were FLIR, not radar. These are trained pilots with experience in
identifying flying objects, and the thing that stood out to them is they
didn't see a source of propulsion. The movement characteristics were unlike
anything they've seen. The object in question was flagged for their inspection
by radar and they followed up visually. What they saw was baffling. The videos
came from the aircraft and have been released by the Pentagon.

Regarding how many eyes have seen this. Take a read of the Nimitz Carrier
Strike Group report of the incident (PDF) which might answer some of your
questions and raise others:
[https://media.lasvegasnow.com/nxsglobal/lasvegasnow/document...](https://media.lasvegasnow.com/nxsglobal/lasvegasnow/document_dev/2018/05/18/TIC%20TAC%20UFO%20EXECUTIVE%20REPORT_1526682843046_42960218_ver1.0.pdf)

Edit: adding a couple of excerpts from the report.

\- "AAVs would descend "very rapidly" from approximately 60,000 feet down to
approximately 50 feet in a matter of seconds. They would then hover or stay
stationary on the radar for a short time and depart at high velocities and
turn rates"

\- "The AAV did take evasive actions upon intercept by the F/A-18
demonstrating an advanced acceleration (G), aerodynamic, and propulsion
capability."

\- "The Anomalous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) was no known aircraft or air vehicle
currently in the inventory of the United States or any foreign nation."

\- "The AAV exhibited advanced aerodynamic performance with no visible control
surfaces and no visible means to generate lift."

So here's what this comes down to. Three possibilities in order of likelihood:

* A: Psyop fakery: doctored videos were released through official channels, trying to fool other countries we saw something unusual. But why? Who benefits from that? What does it show to others, that our own military is unaware of experimental technology?

* B: Another country has made a giant leap in technology, possibly physics resulting in aerial combat superiority and this should scare any military leader, because if it's real this means the U.S. is no longer the biggest sky predator.

* C: Nonterrestrial origin.

I don't think there are any other possibilities. Last two are a game changer.
First one is just bizarre. The weirdest thing, again, is that these videos
were released by the Pentagon. You can request copies yourself by filing a
FOIA request with the following wording "seeking cockpit videos cleared for
release to Louis Elizondo in the fall (September-October) of 2017."

~~~
ineedasername
There's another possibility. These reports seem to be coming from a very
specific class of pilot. Not just military pilots, but those flying the
fastest aircraft. Not from commercial pilots or people just in general
watching the sky. (Plane spotting is something many people do). I see one
obvious possibility: Accelerating like that is a huge physiological strain,
and may very well cause artifacts in vision.

For something like the FLIR footage I'm similarly skeptical. Artifacts can
appear there as well, and frankly if some unknown research group or ET is able
to mask their presence in the visual spectrum, heat signatures ought to be
_easy_ , it's tech that already exists.

~~~
JohnBooty
Perhaps in some cases.

In some of these cases, your theory requires multiple systems (multiple human
eyes, IR cameras, radar) to experience corresponding simultaneous glitches -
sometimes aboard multiple craft, some of which are surface ships!

One of the incidents was picked up on radar both by the missile cruiser USS
Princeton and (faintly) by an EC-2 Hawkeye radar plane. Those radar planes
don't pull high G's, and last I checked the USS Princeton sure the _heck_
doesn't.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz_UFO_incident#Encoun...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz_UFO_incident#Encounter)

~~~
ineedasername
Sure, but given thousands uponn thousands of flight hours, multiple
simultaneous issues can line up. It's the swiss cheese model of systems
failures, a fascinating way of explaining complex failures. Basically it says
that if you have the potential for lots of small failures, they may on
occasion line up and cause something quite a bit bigger.

It's certainly seems more plausible than a phenomenal that no other commercial
pilots, plane spotters, or even military pilots flying slower aircraft have
reported like this

~~~
JohnBooty
If these kind of incidents aren't optical illusions or equipment malfunctions
(two very big if's!) then the next most likely explanation IMHO is that these
are drones being used by foreign nations to probe our nation's defenses and/or
send a message to us that they have some _very_ advanced unmanned aircraft.

If true (big "if!") that would explain why only military pilots have reported
these things.

------
nabla9
Navy Pilot’s 2004 UFO: A Comedy of Errors
[https://skepticalinquirer.org/2018/05/navy_pilots_2004_ufo_a...](https://skepticalinquirer.org/2018/05/navy_pilots_2004_ufo_a_comedy_of_errors/?%2Fsi%2Fshow%2Fnavy_pilots_2004_ufo_a_comedy_of_errors)

------
coleifer
Jacques Vallee, a noted computer scientist in his own right, is one of the
best reads if you're interested in this stuff. He's not a crackpot and doesn't
seem to be pushing an agenda one way or another.

~~~
jml7c5
Er...

"Vallée proposes that there is a genuine UFO phenomenon, partly associated
with a form of non-human consciousness that manipulates space and time. The
phenomenon has been active throughout human history, and seems to masquerade
in various forms to different cultures. In his opinion, the intelligence
behind the phenomenon attempts social manipulation by using deception on the
humans with whom they interact."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Vallée](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Vallée)

~~~
coleifer
To wit, there seems to be an intelligent phenomenon going on, and it appears
throughout history. He doesn't say anything about what it could be, simply is
describing the phenomenon.

Also, I've read his books. Wikipedia quotes don't really give the same
impression as his writing.

~~~
angstrom
It appears to have an observer quality to it. The one that sticks out the most
in my recent memory is the 2006 Chicago O'Hare sighting. I remember this going
through a pretty quick 1 or 2 day news cycle. Fairly alarming given the number
of people witnessing the phenomenon and the backgrounds of the people
observing it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_O%27Hare_International_Ai...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_O%27Hare_International_Airport_UFO_sighting)

Obviously rainbows are an example of a shared hallucination and the phenomena
manifests differently dependent on the observer's viewing angle. At the moment
I'm not convinced these aren't unexplained atmospheric phenomena because I've
never seen one. I know some ideas put forth include ball lightning for at
least some UFOs. Assuming these cases to involve intelligence may just be our
misinterpretation of the phenomena.

~~~
mnky9800n
Wait, rainbows are a shared hallucination?

~~~
angstrom
It’s refracted light arcing in the atmosphere. That’s not a hallucination.
Treating it as some continuous entity is a hallucination of our minds. There’s
nothing suggesting the start of the arc has anything to do with the end, but
we call the collective refraction phenomena we witness a rainbow. UFOs could
also be something that we collectively fail to comprehend well enough to
categorize the constituent parts.

------
vonnik
I'd just like to point out that Navy pilots are not privy to all US government
programs to build new flying objects. Some of those programs are secret.

------
f02a
As someone who has personally seen a couple of these things, I'm convinced
that either extraterrestrial anthropologists are observing our planet, or
human governments are operating highly advanced, top-secret craft. (I tend to
think it's probably both.)

Think of it this way: if a group of violent, power-hungry monkeys on a nearby
planet invented ICBMs and nuclear weapons, you'd want to keep an eye on
them... wouldn't you?

~~~
clouddrover
Why would I want to keep an eye on them when "nearby" is an interstellar
distance that they have no practical possibility of crossing any time soon,
when I have technology that massively outclasses theirs, and when I know where
they are but they don't even know I exist?

Wouldn't I have better and more interesting things to do with my time?

~~~
f02a
Obviously, for the extraterrestrial theory to work, you have to imagine you
can warp or fold spacetime to get where you need to go, rather than using a
conventional engine. Then the universe gets a bit smaller.

~~~
krapp
>Obviously, for the extraterrestrial theory to work, you have to imagine you
can warp or fold spacetime to get where you need to go, rather than using a
conventional engine.

That's fantasy, though. One might as well imagine aliens coming to Earth
riding dragons through magic portals, as far as reality is concerned.

For any extraterrestrial theory to work and be plausible as a speculative
explanation for real world events, it has to assume the speed of light is an
inescapable hard limit on everything, because that seems to be the universe we
actually live in.

~~~
klingonopera
Wormholes can exist on hard and solid physics theories, and people are trying
to find out if they can make this work in practical situations.

Therefore, your "fantasy" of them coming to earth through magic portals may
not be so far off. Whether or not a dragon makes for a good spaceship remains
to be seen...

~~~
krapp
> Wormholes can exist on hard and solid physics theories, and people are
> trying to find out if they can make this work in practical situations.

You kind of skipped over the part where someone discovers that wormholes _do
actually_ exist, and that it's possible for anything to traverse them, much
less circumvent the speed of light while doing so. There is, as yet, not
"this" to make work in any practical situation. Theories abound, but not all
of them agree that wormholes, if they were to exist, are even practical[0].

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19665563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19665563)

------
beautifulfreak
"It looked to the pilot, Lieutenant Graves said, like a sphere encasing a
cube." That was oddly specific. A search on UFO + cube leads to this video.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPquewvNAE4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPquewvNAE4)
with alleged photos of cube-shaped objects in clouds, which look cool.Yah just
never know what to believe.

------
dontbenebby
Jumping from "It's not American" to "Maybe it's extraterrestrial" seems like a
big leap. What if they're Chinese?

~~~
hendzen
why would the chinese take the _insane_ risk of testing an experimental drone
in US airspace and near US fighters during a training exercise...

~~~
Barrin92
why the hell would aliens take that risk

~~~
starpilot
We are ants. It's no risk.

------
jasonhansel
> It looked to the pilot, Lieutenant Graves said, like a sphere encasing a
> cube.

I'm no expert, but how could this possibly make any aerodynamical sense for a
flying vehicle? It makes me suspect that the objects are just meteorological
phenomena.

~~~
GorgeRonde
MHD.

Also, completely off topic: why not try to make a MHD train instead of
hyperloop ?

------
pts_
NYT doesn't take debit card and I don't have a credit card. Your loss NYT.

~~~
MaikuMori
The unsubscribe process is even worse. You have to call them, it's not
possible to unsubscribe in the website. Extra fun if you're not from the
states.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
Set you address as located in California. They are required by state law to
allow you to unsubscribe via the web, and they enable that feature _only_ if
you say you live in the state.

~~~
ahakki
Or subscribe via App Store. Unsubscribing is also a pain (10 clicks in obscure
places) but no calling.

------
_of
It's much more likely that this is just because of bugs in the code than
aliens. I imagine these systems consist of millions of lines of code, sooner
or later there will be a bug like this.

~~~
f02a
You might also consider that there are orders of magnitude more stars in our
own galaxy than lines of code in any system built on Earth.

------
efesak
Uh, It just seems like insect in the sensor

------
arisAlexis
This has been posted and upvoted a lot one month ago, why again? No new data.

------
marksullivan
Hooey! Sounds to me the Navy is in need of more funding and this is how they
ask. FUD+$= Huge Penions/Perks.

------
RappingBoomer
earth lights...google hessdalen

------
RogueAngel
Electrogravitic manipulation. Amazing, but if the science/tech behind it
became public, it would be quickly weaponized.

Some day, maybe...

------
Causality1
Just going by pure math conjecture it's unlikely there is intelligent life
remotely similar to us in our galaxy. Supposing it takes ten thousand years
for a technological civilization to double the number of planets it occupies.
In that case it will fill the galaxy in less than a million years, so for two
species to meet before one dies out or prevents the other from evolving they
have to arise within the same million year period. In a galaxy over thirteen
billion years old that's quite unlikely.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
There is no pure math in this space - just hand-waving and conjecture.

We have exactly no information about xeno-evolution. It's not even a given
that aliens would be motivated to colonise the galaxy, or that they'd do it in
a way that would be recognisable to us.

It's hard enough to predict where human civilisation is going to be fifty
years from now. The idea that we have any clue what an alien civilisation will
do over millions of years is... unconvincing.

~~~
postalrat
I think it disproves the distances are too vast. Nothing more. The rest is in
your head.

