
Ask HN: Why are we not making the most of the recent UFO reports? - wtf_confused
I posit a serious question to all of HN. We have recently been given evidence that on multiple occasions (2005, 2015) the US Navy witnessed UAP&#x2F;UFO aircraft on radar, infrared, and by highly trained pilots. It is the official stance of the US Navy that these aircraft are exactly that: aircraft; not sensor glitches, foreign psy-ops&#x2F;jamming, etc. By all accounts, the UAP were observed by these sensor platforms and pilots performing maneuvers which indicate intelligent control and technology beyond what we can duplicate at present, no matter how hard we try. Each person must set their own standard for proof, but for me pilots, radar, and infrared is enough. I think that&#x27;s a real UFO on those videos and I don&#x27;t care where it came from, I only see opportunity.<p>In the history of humanity our research efforts, hence our advancement, has always been bound by the dreams of visionaries and hampered by the dead ends of failed&#x2F;wrong ideas. To actually have a working piece of highly advanced technology paraded through our best attempt at a floating radar range is the greatest advantage that we have ever come upon. This is a technological goalpost for us, it shows us what is actually possible, and informs our research efforts as to which directions are likely fruitful. Such a guiding hand in our development has never been extended before and I feel we are profoundly stupid to ignore it.<p>I ask the members of this community who also feels that this evidence is sufficient to apply their excess brainpower towards extracting knowledge from these events. We need to figure out everything we can from this and start the conversation within the scientific and technological communities about how we can gain from it. Also, I argue that any knowledge gained needs to be open sourced and that this will only happen if more IQ outside of government is thinking about it than inside. This community could easily ensure that. What can we learn from this?
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unlinked_dll
>By all accounts, the UAP were observed by these sensor platforms and pilots
performing maneuvers which indicate intelligent control and technology beyond
what we can duplicate at present, no matter how hard we try.

The public has very little insight into both what is "possible" to achieve by
military aircraft, and more importantly in this context, their observational
capability.

If the navy says that they spotted an unidentified flying object moving mach X
at a distance of Y km, that tells geopolitical adversaries things like "they
can monitor our railgun fire under these conditions."

Every piece of information we get from the military that _isn 't_ through
investigation needs to be taken with a massive grain of salt, since it's
always been released under the pretenses of information warfare and the
tactical consequences of it being public.

And as an aside, not only does the public have very little insight into what
the military and its contractors can do, the military itself has little
insight into what other parts of the military are doing. It's entirely
possible that one observation from one unit was entirely unaware of another
unit doing another thing.

~~~
wtf_confused
I understand your distrust of the military, but what does this skeptical
outlook gain us? Do you think we stand to benefit more from dismissing these
claims as potentially tainted than seriously investigating them? I do not
think humanity has a strong track record of scientific or technological
advancement when it talked itself out of gaining new knowledge.

~~~
unlinked_dll
It's not distrust of the military, and skepticism is the foundation of the
scientific method. What I'm saying is that one possible explanation here is
that UFO observations are just experimental aircraft and/or observational
technology. While at the same time, we should be extremely careful in vetting
evidence from military sources, since it's highly vetted before we see it.

The "distrust" you sense isn't really distrust, it's the understanding that
all military intelligence is vetted before it reaches the public. In
particular, they're extremely careful to disclose any information that would
compromise operational security - especially as it relates to aerospace
monitoring. The reason for this is that any observational capability of the US
to detect objects at high altitudes/speeds influences the nuclear strategy of
other nations (ie, if you plan for a first strike, you plan around the known
capability of the US to detect it).

And that's where the skepticism comes from. Any disclosure about what was
observed, how it behaved, and the conditions of the observation have real
world impacts on US operational security, and any information regarding that
should be taken with a massive grain of salt.

Basically, treat public intel from the military as a secondary source - not a
primary one. That doesn't eradicate its value, but it puts more onus on you to
be critical of it.

------
gcthomas
I would be concerned if this investigation was hamstrung by the a priori
belief that the unidentified objects/artefacts/blips both existed as a
technological device and were extraterrestrial in origin.

I suspect, sadly, that 'what we can learn' from this is close to nothing
without firmer evidence.

------
mckinney
Late to the party on this one, but I mostly agree with the OP regarding the
magnitude of the evidence. Most of the comments here attempting to explain
away the recent Navy reports as "experimental aircraft" are perhaps
uninformed.

For instance, the Cdr. Fravor account published in the NYT a couple of years
ago regarding the 2004 incident is extremely difficult to explain without
considering otherwordly technology. For example, the instant
acceleration/deceleration witnessed directly by several pilots and on multiple
radar systems corresponds with exactly ZERO technology known to mankind. That
type of acceleration has the same effect as smashing into a mountain at hyper-
mach velocity. There is no mapping of the reported events to our current
understanding of physics; it simply cannot be explained, so forget the idea
that something we built could achieve those maneuvers.

Also the idea that Cdr. Fravor and other pilots who've come forward with their
testimony are all lying or are somehow mistaking what they saw for atmospheric
light tricks is ridiculous. Similarly, the Navy UFO cases that have more
recently surfaced provide yet more of the same level of evidence -- Multiple
pilots, multiple radar, infrared, and other tracking systems, etc. To put
forward the idea that all these people are lying or are mentally unwell or are
somehow sharing a group hallucination is to suggest a far more unlikely event
than the ones they reported.

------
wnkrshm
I haven't looked into these too much but weren't some of the infrared ones
explained as reflections within the optical system? The sun is a pretty bright
source of light, with lots of radiance in the infrared... you can only prevent
so many interreflections within an optical system with coatings - the sun (or
its reflection) can get though at some angles and the tracking algorithms
makes the optical system adjust to keep the artifact relatively stable.

Publishing these as 'unidentified' might be a good way to putyour own branch
into the news cycle and acquire more money through political channels. Also,
keeping enough of the environment/state in which the phenomena occured
classified prevents any foreign actors from precisely identifiying weaknesses
in the systems in use.

~~~
wtf_confused
No, they are not reflections in the optical system. In fact, Raytheon is
actually using this to advertise the system that was involved. I don't think
they would be doing that if it was in fact a flaw in their system that was at
fault. Also, they were tracked on radar, infrared, and visually. How does that
that square with a flawed infrared system?

~~~
wnkrshm
The involved Raytheon FLIR system for the Hornet is also getting replaced [0].
Maybe Raytheon will win the contract.

[0] [https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/us-navy-looks-
to-...](https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/us-navy-looks-to-replace-
or-improve-fa-18ef-eoir-460357/)

------
hos234
Skunkworks & Northrop Grumman sites are all within a 100 miles of the
sightings. That's too much of a coincidence for me. "Highly advanced" projects
coming out of those locations, usually run decades before anyone external even
hears about them.

~~~
wtf_confused
The radar operators report the craft could go from 80,000 feet to 20,000 or
down to sea level in under a second. Out of sheer curiosity, what do you think
they actually have at NG/LM that could move like that? I find that sort of
performance to be beyond us, don't you? I can't see a skunkworks craft doing
that, makes no sense to me.

~~~
unlinked_dll
A better question is, how do we have radar systems that can monitor aircraft
at Mach 52 and tell that an object at 80,000 feet and 20,000 feet is the same
thing? And why are they sharing that with the public?

edit: but to answer your question, a meteor.

~~~
wtf_confused
We know this because the radar operators are on record in many mainstream
media interviews telling us the radar can track these objects performing in
these ways. Also, why do you doubt that the radar can tell the difference
between an object at 80,000 or one at 20,000? Our entire system of air traffic
control would fail if they couldn't do that. But, I will tell you, you are
wrong, it could not be a meteor. Meteors don't hover at 20,000 feet for hours,
nor do they suddenly decide to shoot back up out of the atmosphere after
spending hours hovering at 20,000 feet. Do you have another guess?

~~~
unlinked_dll
I mean I've got plenty of guesses.

\- The operator is lying or otherwise mistaken

\- A radar jamming system under test

\- Noise and/or weather effects

\- Multiple objects

\- Cyber warfare

This isn't to say that I don't think extra-terrestrial intelligence isn't
probably out there. I just think it's extremely improbable that they made it
to earth.

I also think it's possible that the measurement device reported an object, and
a human saw it, but the device wasn't measuring something that was there.
Either by malfunction or sabotage/stealth technology.

------
wtf_confused
To start the conversation, I think we should immediately ask ourselves the
following:

1) Given the performance observed, what sort of power generation technology
could or could not be inside of these craft?

2) Is it even possible to build a 30ft - 40ft physical craft that can endure
g-forces in the 10,000's? If not, does this force us to conclude it is some
sort of warp drive and the craft isn't actually experiencing the forces the
performance data would indicate?

I think that logical reasoning along these lines by experts might yield un-
escapable conclusions that could inform us how they might work and how they
can't possibly work, a start towards what we need to learn and might ignore
along the way.

~~~
mito88
allow me to add that the UFO acronym becomes invalid.

~~~
wtf_confused
Why? Did we change what we call these things because some people in power are
afraid of the taint of woo and made up a new designation? I like UFO:)

------
LinuxBender
If you want more from this, then you would have to get folks to contribute to
enhancing our detection and tracking capabilities to the point of identifying
the unidentified objects. Distill the technology down to simpler and smaller
devices that can be fitted onto more aircraft, ships, satellites, etc. Perhaps
apply machine learning to piece together sensor data. Widen the useful
spectrum of data that is gathered.

~~~
wtf_confused
I agree that such an effort is needed for serious study, or maybe the weeks of
radar tracks the navy may get declassified if enough scientists are
interested, but I think there is ample performance data available from the
pilots themselves to give us order of magnitude estimates of what they are
capable of. From this trained experts can deduce much. I envision clever
people having insights like this:
[http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/people/codoban/PHY138/...](http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/people/codoban/PHY138/Mechanics/dimensional.pdf)

