This Warzone story is also interesting, because it contains actual logs and emails released under FOIA. Those are much less sensationalist than the OP story:
The radio operator reported one moving at 138 knots which is approx 160mph. The DRL RacerX has recorded speeds over 163.5 mp getting a guiness world record, although this was indoors.
It seems pretty crazy that the Pentagon would be completely befuddled and would have absolutely no clue that these are just foreign drones, though, no? That's what the article seems to be arguing.
To me it would seem much more likely that the top brass know or strongly suspect they're indeed drones invading our airspace but are acting like they're unexplained phenomena as part of some sort of psyop/deception/intelligence/adversary-signaling stratagem. I'm not sure what the motive would be, there, but that sounds more plausible than random speculators online having more inference ability than the entire US military. Even if you assume the height of institutional incompetence, surely someone among the most powerful military in history would propose such a theory.
But the objects are able to fly 11,000 miles-per-hour, able to turn instantly, with no wings, no propulsion and no exhaust, disappear instantly and go into the ocean.
Or the drones are a simple way of messing up all targeting systems. If you ever made a Carrier fleet in Starcraft 1 (where massing units was a thing), the swarm of carrier drones would force the enemy units to target those little thing instead of the main units.
Given that this site contains such stories as "Crop circle season underway in the UK" and "Marilyn Monroe’s diary of secrets may have led to her death," I'm going to question if it's a reliable source.
It's a project of KLAS/Las Vegas. It's a CBS affiliate that has worked with Senator Harry Reid to declassify a lot of government secrets over the decades.
If you pre-emptively have contempt for something by association rather than investigating it on its merits, it seems you risk missing out on any information you have there.
Maybe I disagree with your view on this, so I reflexively reject the rest of the comments you make on HN, even if one of them was insightful and could really help me. That might be a little dumb, so I would try not to do that, personally. I get if you would do differently tho, seems like you might from what you say here. ;p;) xx
I posted a couple different sources on this, but I'm glad this post is the one that got upvoted to front page, because it's a good compilation of the various resources about this newly released footage: explanatory discussion with George Knapp, actual footage, Twitter thread where announced, transcript of footage.
Conspiracy nuts are like broken clocks, and sometimes they're really the first people to put together stories before the Amazon Washington Post will report it
There is a combat flight sim called DCS where individuals repeatedly attempt different methods of killing carrier groups.
The general take away is that anti-aircraft/missile systems are good enough that the only solution is to saturate the air defense and exhaust the 500-1500 million dollar missiles the carrier group has on hand to deploy (assuming you got past the air wing).
A swarm of ultra-cheap drones each with 50-100kg of explosive changes the cost dynamics of defending a ship/carrier group.
Two problems with drones, their range isn't enough and they would need to navigate visually towards the boat because all radio including GPS would be jammed if you tried this.
For the range, I think the typical outer perimeter of a carrier group is 100 to 200 nautical miles as patrolled by the air wing. Then at 20 nautical miles you would run into ships, and that's still too far away to launch a big swarm of ultra cheap drones because they wouldn't make it to the carrier.
Ultra-cheap drones are small. Small means very short range, so the launch platform for the drones becomes the target (kill the archer, not the arrows). This is no different than when we were concerned with Backfire regiments attacking the CSG with Kingfish etc.
I'd assume building a drone capable of carrying enough ordnance to sink a ship over that much distance would be higher than the equivalent cost for a cruise missile?
That threat's not exactly new and it's undoubtedly one of the reason that the US Navy is investing in directed energy weapons research - people mostly think of lasers, but the hugely powerful AESA radars on modern combat ships are also candidates.
EDIT: I couldn't easily find data on the AN/SPY-6 AESA radar that's going into the newest generation of ships, but the AN/SPY-1 PESA system from the prior generation has 6 MW peak power output.
I'd take any "debunking" video from that creator with a small foothill of salt. I feel like a long time ago he made genuinely insightful journalism into scams/ falsities but it seems a few years ago it just turned into a pessimists reaction video channel.
Even just looking at that video now, you can see it has been "debunked" by this latest release of info and 5 seconds of looking through the comments and you can see people pointing out falsehoods stated in the video.
Your "debunking" video has already been debunked: your video released on May 9, the radar data you are pretending to debunk was released on May 27. Your linked video does not address the footage released today! :p ;) xx
> This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws.
This “radar data” is video of FLIR visuals captured on the screen of a FLIR system in the San Diego area. In other words, grainy video of grainy video. From a film maker with an agenda that is, by contrast, extremely clear.
If they want to talk about radar data, that would be something different from video of video. An assertion about the data is also not the data, it is just a mere assertion about the data.
FLIR is the same system that showed the tic tac objects in another incident.
Also in the San Diego area.
The pilot in the tic tac incident, Dave Fravor, said that he is a class clown type.
He also said that the programmer of the FLIR system is one of his best buddies and was at his wedding.
He said there were three other people with him on that day (2 fighter craft, 2 people in each one) so he says it’s not just him, he has others who back him up. But, notice, that is just his assertion. The other three people have gone dark and don’t want to talk. An assertion about having backup is not backup. It is just a mere assertion.
All we have for tic tac is Dave and the FLIR video.
Imagine you are a Top Gun trained fighter pilot and get to experience the immersive 3D way of being that others don’t have any inkling of. You might feel pretty special.
And then when you get back to earth, you’re just another ordinary Dave.
What if you could juice things up a little bit, so that when you’re back on the ground, people would still know how special you are? What if your buddy who works on the FLIR system could be in on it?
Again, all we have for tic tac is Dave and the FLIR video.
Kinda similar with this new incident, since everyone on board apparently was unable to locate or forgot they had their smartphones.
I would bet dollars to donuts that self described class clown Dave Fravor and his FLIR programmer buddy are still best buddies and still live in the San Diego area.
> This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws.
A lot of confusion over what a cell phone camera can capture.
Average cell camera lens is around 24mm. If you were to photograph an air show with that you, you would be getting nothing usable. Even at 500mm you will need to crop out the majority the frame.
Then comes lens shake mathematics. If you were photographing a baseball game you’d have to be shooting at 1/1000 of a second to stop the motion of the ball.
To capture the motions of objects such as these you’d need a professional camera maxed out shutter speed 1/8000 of a second and a 500mm lens with an extender. Run the numbers on that budget...
Then think of the ISO factor. Image sensors sensitivity at night is still developing. Good luck capturing an object moving 10gs at ISO 12,000...
Getting a picture of an object in motion with a cell phone is not gonna turn out great. Especially at great distances. You need thousands of dollars worth of equipment and a firm grasp of photo science. It’s not for amateurs.
Brass tacts. You need an amazing camera, amazing lens, and the technical prowess to know how to stop motion through photography.
A lot of confusion over what a cell phone camera can capture.
Average cell camera lens is around 24mm. If you were to photograph an air show with that you, you would be getting nothing usable. Even at 500mm you will need to crop out the majority the frame.
Then comes lens shake mathematics. If you were photographing a baseball game you’d have to be shooting at 1/1000 of a second to stop the motion of the ball.
To capture the motions of objects such as these you’d need a professional camera maxed out shutter speed 1/8000 of a second and a 500mm lens with an extender. Run the numbers on that budget...
Then think of the ISO factor. Image sensors sensitivity at night is still developing. Good luck capturing an object moving 10gs at ISO 12,000...
Getting a picture of an object in motion with a cell phone is not gonna turn out great. Especially at great distances. You need thousands of dollars worth of equipment and a firm grasp of photo science. It’s not for amateurs.
Brass tacts. You need an amazing camera, amazing lens, and the technical prowess to know how to stop motion through photography.
I think that at this point, whenever someone tells us that we, or something we value, is important to them, we can safely consider it an insult, they are just giving the middle finger to us.
Our European visitors are important to us.
This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws.
Interesting to me how the mainstream media is running with this now. Why? There are tons of UFO reports from military eye witnesses going back to WWII. Why are we now getting this wave of, ok it’s reasonable to elevate this topic to nightly news and congressional inquiry?
The most interesting thing about all of this is the US Navy's apparent pathetic inability to acquire, identify, or even image with any fidelity, numerous potentially threatening objects moving freely within the vicinity of its state of the art vessels.
Joy "This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws"
As somebody in the UK, that kinda seems messed up.
[+] [-] NoGravitas|4 years ago|reply
They don't even have to be all that high-tech; the US was doing similar things in the 1960s.
[+] [-] flohofwoe|4 years ago|reply
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39913/multiple-destroy...
[+] [-] tristanj|4 years ago|reply
1) can hover a few meters above the ocean without generating rotor downwash
2) can accelerate away at 100+g
Both of those rule out any known drone or helicopter. David Fravor, one of the pilots, explains this in an interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E
[+] [-] giantandroids|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meowface|4 years ago|reply
To me it would seem much more likely that the top brass know or strongly suspect they're indeed drones invading our airspace but are acting like they're unexplained phenomena as part of some sort of psyop/deception/intelligence/adversary-signaling stratagem. I'm not sure what the motive would be, there, but that sounds more plausible than random speculators online having more inference ability than the entire US military. Even if you assume the height of institutional incompetence, surely someone among the most powerful military in history would propose such a theory.
[+] [-] JustSomeNobody|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flowerlad|4 years ago|reply
What kind of "cheap drone" can do that?
[+] [-] runawaybottle|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runawaybottle|4 years ago|reply
Edit:
Listen, the US Defense department knows what these are. They are just soft letting China and Russia know that this was cute.
[+] [-] jasonhansel|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] weswpg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuaxo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charadeyouare|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] reaperducer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graderjs|4 years ago|reply
Maybe I disagree with your view on this, so I reflexively reject the rest of the comments you make on HN, even if one of them was insightful and could really help me. That might be a little dumb, so I would try not to do that, personally. I get if you would do differently tho, seems like you might from what you say here. ;p;) xx
I posted a couple different sources on this, but I'm glad this post is the one that got upvoted to front page, because it's a good compilation of the various resources about this newly released footage: explanatory discussion with George Knapp, actual footage, Twitter thread where announced, transcript of footage.
[+] [-] calvinmorrison|4 years ago|reply
Conspiracy nuts are like broken clocks, and sometimes they're really the first people to put together stories before the Amazon Washington Post will report it
[+] [-] lumost|4 years ago|reply
The general take away is that anti-aircraft/missile systems are good enough that the only solution is to saturate the air defense and exhaust the 500-1500 million dollar missiles the carrier group has on hand to deploy (assuming you got past the air wing).
A swarm of ultra-cheap drones each with 50-100kg of explosive changes the cost dynamics of defending a ship/carrier group.
[+] [-] t0mas88|4 years ago|reply
For the range, I think the typical outer perimeter of a carrier group is 100 to 200 nautical miles as patrolled by the air wing. Then at 20 nautical miles you would run into ships, and that's still too far away to launch a big swarm of ultra cheap drones because they wouldn't make it to the carrier.
[+] [-] lizknope|4 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS
Lots of comments about why it could be overwhelmed. The ammo is still expensive and limited
https://www.quora.com/Why-cant-we-rely-on-the-Phalanx-CIWS-t...
It looks like like Raytheon is still pushing the Phalanx though
https://www.flightglobal.com/civil-uavs/raytheon-offers-phal...
Northrop wants to use lasers
https://warriormaven.com/land/army-c-ram-base-defense-will-d...
[+] [-] flohofwoe|4 years ago|reply
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/hit-and-sunk-swedis...
[+] [-] greedo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tootie|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NovemberWhiskey|4 years ago|reply
EDIT: I couldn't easily find data on the AN/SPY-6 AESA radar that's going into the newest generation of ships, but the AN/SPY-1 PESA system from the prior generation has 6 MW peak power output.
[+] [-] avereveard|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsnell|4 years ago|reply
Do you happen to have any pointers to more details (e.g. forum threads)? I love reading about that kind of optimization in games.
[+] [-] time0ut|4 years ago|reply
Just curious how carrier battle group defenses supposedly fair against a nuclear ASBM with evasive terminal maneuvers.
[+] [-] aliasEli|4 years ago|reply
https://web.archive.org/web/20210528131648/https://www.myste...
Debunking by Thunderf00t:
https://youtu.be/Th4VlqQyVr4
[+] [-] robkop|4 years ago|reply
Even just looking at that video now, you can see it has been "debunked" by this latest release of info and 5 seconds of looking through the comments and you can see people pointing out falsehoods stated in the video.
[+] [-] gfodor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graderjs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] romseb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] technicolorwhat|4 years ago|reply
Alright then.
[+] [-] Jiocus|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] softwarebouwer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] natch|4 years ago|reply
If they want to talk about radar data, that would be something different from video of video. An assertion about the data is also not the data, it is just a mere assertion about the data.
FLIR is the same system that showed the tic tac objects in another incident.
Also in the San Diego area.
The pilot in the tic tac incident, Dave Fravor, said that he is a class clown type.
He also said that the programmer of the FLIR system is one of his best buddies and was at his wedding.
He said there were three other people with him on that day (2 fighter craft, 2 people in each one) so he says it’s not just him, he has others who back him up. But, notice, that is just his assertion. The other three people have gone dark and don’t want to talk. An assertion about having backup is not backup. It is just a mere assertion.
All we have for tic tac is Dave and the FLIR video.
Imagine you are a Top Gun trained fighter pilot and get to experience the immersive 3D way of being that others don’t have any inkling of. You might feel pretty special.
And then when you get back to earth, you’re just another ordinary Dave.
What if you could juice things up a little bit, so that when you’re back on the ground, people would still know how special you are? What if your buddy who works on the FLIR system could be in on it?
Again, all we have for tic tac is Dave and the FLIR video.
Kinda similar with this new incident, since everyone on board apparently was unable to locate or forgot they had their smartphones.
I would bet dollars to donuts that self described class clown Dave Fravor and his FLIR programmer buddy are still best buddies and still live in the San Diego area.
Doesn’t prove anything, but food for thought.
[+] [-] hindsightbias|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chimen|4 years ago|reply
This says much more than it actually says
[+] [-] trev86759|4 years ago|reply
Average cell camera lens is around 24mm. If you were to photograph an air show with that you, you would be getting nothing usable. Even at 500mm you will need to crop out the majority the frame.
Then comes lens shake mathematics. If you were photographing a baseball game you’d have to be shooting at 1/1000 of a second to stop the motion of the ball.
To capture the motions of objects such as these you’d need a professional camera maxed out shutter speed 1/8000 of a second and a 500mm lens with an extender. Run the numbers on that budget...
Then think of the ISO factor. Image sensors sensitivity at night is still developing. Good luck capturing an object moving 10gs at ISO 12,000...
Getting a picture of an object in motion with a cell phone is not gonna turn out great. Especially at great distances. You need thousands of dollars worth of equipment and a firm grasp of photo science. It’s not for amateurs.
Brass tacts. You need an amazing camera, amazing lens, and the technical prowess to know how to stop motion through photography.
[+] [-] trev8dav8|4 years ago|reply
Average cell camera lens is around 24mm. If you were to photograph an air show with that you, you would be getting nothing usable. Even at 500mm you will need to crop out the majority the frame.
Then comes lens shake mathematics. If you were photographing a baseball game you’d have to be shooting at 1/1000 of a second to stop the motion of the ball.
To capture the motions of objects such as these you’d need a professional camera maxed out shutter speed 1/8000 of a second and a 500mm lens with an extender. Run the numbers on that budget...
Then think of the ISO factor. Image sensors sensitivity at night is still developing. Good luck capturing an object moving 10gs at ISO 12,000...
Getting a picture of an object in motion with a cell phone is not gonna turn out great. Especially at great distances. You need thousands of dollars worth of equipment and a firm grasp of photo science. It’s not for amateurs.
Brass tacts. You need an amazing camera, amazing lens, and the technical prowess to know how to stop motion through photography.
[+] [-] srmarm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corecoder|4 years ago|reply
Our European visitors are important to us.
This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws.
[+] [-] hakanito|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m3kw9|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephc_int13|4 years ago|reply
I don't like the way this story is unfolding.
[+] [-] lootsauce|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pengaru|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zenst|4 years ago|reply
As somebody in the UK, that kinda seems messed up.
[+] [-] DSingularity|4 years ago|reply