Ok so let’s just say that the author is correct, and this thing, among other sightings, are actually US secret projects. I can believe that, but I would be much angrier if the government has been covering up some sort of wild capabilities for at least the past 30 years than if they have been covering up aliens for the past 80 years. If we have the ability to fly silently at high speeds, we have the ability to generate much more power at much lower cost than we do currently…which means the technology is a secret because releasing that tech into the world liberates the peasants from their rulers.
If these are indeed secret government projects, you’d wonder why did taxpayers ever fund a trillion+ dollar F-35 program that keeps running into problems year after year.
Surely these black ops operations couldn’t have had a bigger budget than the F-35 (if they did, you’d ask how did they source the funds?). And if they didn’t, how were they able to get these experimental aircraft to fly better and faster than the trillion dollar F-35 jets - decades ago? And if they were, why are we not funding these hypersonic gravity defying jets instead of an evolutionary upgrade to 4th gen fighter planes.
I would say the probability that the US has technology that was demonstrated in the pentagon UFO tapes would be more surprising to me than if these craft were actually made by non-humans.
If the US had possession of such technology in a black project we would see some of the technology "bleed" into other projects, notably the air force and drone technology. And right now nothing the US possesses has those capabilities.
An alternate theory is that this is ruse by the US or another foreign govt. projecting images into the sky and moving them like a person using a laser pointer does across a wall. I don't know of any technology that can project an image into the sky like that, and then there is the radar signatures seen on some of these things.
I think it is much more mundane. The mythology around secret aircraft makes them out to have super-performance or strange advanced characteristics, when these things probably weren't true at all.
I would believe exactly the opposite. Things like "flying saucers" were attempts at secret advanced aircraft which worked, but not particularly well, and never really went on to be anything more than experimental aircraft. Leaks happened from time to time to prod adversaries to worry and try to develop competing technology to waste their time and resources.
There are probably a handful of other examples, aircraft that were tried but never made to work very well, work on new principles of design that haven't been figured out yet, and are still on the drawing board with various attempts to make them work ongoing.
Cmdr. David Fravor in one of his interview mentioned, that he does not believe that it is a secret gov program – he was talking about tic tac, not this incident – because since that encounter it would have come to light by now, because the commercial value is just simply too great to stay secret. And that this is what typically happens to military tech.
If you believe any of what Bob Lazar described, the government may know enough to get craft to liftoff and maneuver but not actually understand the power source yet. Like dropping an electric car into the Middle Ages. Someone will press the power button eventually, and even drive it, but they won’t actually be able to re-use that technology for a long time. Again, if you believe.
That is almost certainly a mirage of the mountains in the background. Look at the "UFO" image and then look at the more recent image of the location down the page a bit. There is a particular peak that looks suspiciously similar to the UFO.
Mirages often feature a mirror image of the object, as if it's sitting in a body of water with a reflection. That is exactly how the UFO appears.
I would be much more inclined to believe this is something strange if the entire area weren't made up of mountains which have peaks that look exactly like the object in this photograph, but alas...I am a man of logic. I would be willing to bet this is nothing more than an illusion and the most interesting thing is the atmospheric conditions that made this photo possible.
My razor for filtering out any UFO/UAP photo is simply: unless I have physically seen the UFO in question, any attempt by others to persuade me they're real or operated by intelligences orders of magnitude higher than ours, is invalid. You can't audit these people's claims short of being physically with them when the photo was taken. For all I know, someone put a piece of cheese on the lens and then passed it off as a UFO.
That said, I did witness something strange about a year ago when I looked up at the sky randomly. This object was darting really fast at quite a height. I dismissed it as a drone, but I didn't know drones could operate at such a height, and it done acute turns without slowing down, something drones can't do, no matter how many videos of drones turning acutely at speed you show me, because an object has to slow down before it does that. It's basic physics.
Anyway, it was good to see, since I was physically present, so at least I can say these things could possibly fit the narrative of 'aliens' or 'watchers' who are doing recon on our planet.
Similar observation a few years ago in the sea sky: some ligh moving very high, with a strange flying pattern (like a very fast bee), for 20 minutes, above my head, then disapearing. No apparent light beam, support for light reflection, animal presence or mechanical vehicule. Clear weather conditions.
It was, to my eyes, an object that was flying and that I couldn't identify. So UFO applies.
The problem is not seing those.
The problem is making interpretations out of those.
Humans often prefer to create explanations than say they just don't know.
Centuries ago, somebody spot lightning and said it was Thor. We are mocking them now, but we are doing the same.
I think a better way to phrase this is - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Being present myself is a good litmus test, but humans are pretty unreliable. Having multiple corroborated credible sources would be much better. E.G. multiple radars detecting an object approaching, many videos from different view points, governments (who have access to better data sources) scrambling interceptors, defcon level rising, etc..
> and it done acute turns without slowing down, something drones can't do, no matter how many videos of drones turning acutely at speed you show me, because an object has to slow down before it does that.
What you saw probably wasn’t an expert flying a small RC helicopter, but those can do things that I believe would appear to some people as being almost impossible. It’s not rare to see seemingly genuine online comments on these sorts of videos claiming they must be fake or sped up.
I also saw what you described once in southern Oregon right along the California border, but it was in 1996 and I was a kid. None of the adults around believed I saw an object moving like that and were convinced I had noticed a satellite.
Satellites don’t turn at acute angles without losing momentum. They didn’t believe me.
There are so many security cameras and smartphone users that we are flooded with videos of everyday and not so everyday experiences: funny pets and kids, surprising weather events, accidents, crimes, etc. Why are there no better videos of UFOs. We have great videos of people, birds, cars, and tornados, but the videos of UFOs are always grainy, blurry, and out of focus.
I have been asking this very same question for the last few years. The quality and amount of video evidence should be increasing as the number of cameras in everyday life are increasing (literally exponentially) but doesn’t seem to be.
To me it underscores an already healthy skepticism towards the subject.
Not because it worked, more because it really didn't (and they thought it would); it makes me feel like it was (very) loosely based on something else (something only seen).
I'd be very interested to see what would happen if you incorporated some very fast very heavy gyros inside of a disc.
The thing that doesn't make much sense to me is the variety of shapes these things come in. Saucer, triangle, tic tac, pyramid, cube, etc. The triangles are probably just military, but where does that leave this other stuff? The military has had supersonic drones for a long time so that could explain many other sightings. The thing about aliens is it's exciting. The thing that makes me wary is that even if the military declassified hypersonic saucer drones people would just call it a psyop.
The Boeing Bird of Prey (first flight, 1996) has about that cross section in a bank. The Pegasus X-47A [1](first flight, 2003) looks almost exactly like that in a bank - diamond shaped with a dark engine bell at the rear. But it first flew a few years after that photo. I wonder if there was a UK prototype of that era which didn't get publicized.
The XB-47A led to the XB-47B, an armed semi-autonomous stealth attack aircraft demonstrator. Not quite as diamond-shaped, it was considered a success. It's not clear if a production version was built. One was definitely designed.
After the Have Blue "hopeless diamond", the original stealth-first aircraft, there was a lot of work in the diamond-shaped aircraft space. It's not too surprising to see a photo of one.
I wonder if it's possible this was an optical illusion. Seeing optical illusions where oil tankers are hovering in mid-air has changed my perception of what people could see and how it could be misinterpreted. [1] I'm not a physicist but it almost looks like the photo could be a mountain and it's reflection somehow projected up into the sky similar to how the oil tanker is projected in the sky.
Stargazing and watching satellites in a very dark skies place, I noticed that some satellites zigzaged about, moving at right angles. I explain this by saccades of my eyes and the brain trying to work out the pattern based on a black featureless background.
Would make sense for the brain to estimate it as "flying bug" with erratic flight than very smoothly straight flying mechanical thing.
Very plausible explanation, but fwiw the 'zigzag' behavior you're describing is also described by people out in places where they have high end night vision goggles and nothing to do all night but stare at the sky.
If you ever find yourself tempted to look down on or judge someone for getting roped up in a cult or simply spewing some dogma that you find ridiculous, please consider that UFOs (and a bunch of other conspiracy theories) are just religion for atheists.
Humans have a deep need, a very egotistical need in some ways, to feel like there's a bigger plan, that they're part of something and even that they're in possession with some secret knowledge the masses aren't.
It's not too dissimilar to those who jump on the trend of the latest fringe FTL technology idea. Warp drives, wormholes, space folding, whatever. Part of this comes from a genuine desire for some Star Trek or Star Wars future of visiting other stars without taking a lifetime to get there. But part of it is also some people realize that if the speed of light is a cosmic speed limit (my personal belief) then the idea of alien visitors and UFOs becomes truly ridiculous.
There are religions for atheists, such as Satanism.
UFOlogy is not a religion, and certainly neither are "UFO".
Unidentified Flying Objects could hardly be considered a religion. That's like saying a car is a religion to a gearhead.
Furthermore, insinuating that people who are into UFO are atheist and UFO are their religion is asinine. Many are atheist, but the majority I know are "spiritual", in pagan religions etc.
Additionally there are UFO religions, such as Scientology. There is also the Starseed movement.
That was my first thought as well (island and reflection) and was looking through the comments to see if any others posted. The plane could just be a shadow itself
Now that there are a billion cel phones out there with high resolution video capability, I guess we ought to see some pretty amazing new UFO videos. Or not?
If I was to break down what it was, kind of decision tree style, I'd guess it's
- Hoax 50%
- Non-Hoax 50%
- Optical Illusion 80%
- Unidentified/Secret Military Tech 19%
- Other 1% (a generous 1%, probably fairer to be 0.000000001%)
- ET 33%
- Future human 33%
- Interdimensional 33%
- Other (though manifestation, spiritual/religious, trickster) 1%
That’s totally an aircraft banked towards the camera. Turn the image 90deg and it looks like a testbed a/c that Boeing had that looked like something out of Batman. Brown from above makes sense as it would help to hide it from foreign satellites.
Hmm. Could this actually be the peak of one of those distant mountains or hills peaking through low blankets of fog and clouds? The jet could be flying closer to the ground than it appears. Or it could be a bird.
I'm wondering about that too. The object looks remarkably similar to some photos of the Cairngorms I've seen, but I don't know if there's a way for the geography and atmospheric conditions to create such an illusion in this case.
Context -- You can build a "ufo" (ion wind lifter) yourself, many have[1]. The power to weight ratio is roughly equal to that of a helicopter, so it's not trivial, but it could in theory be scaled up to large enough to move battle tanks around on. You'd end up with a large dark craft that glows a bit around the edges.
That's old physics, who knows what's been done since then.
> The Calvine UFO photograph is in my opinion the best image of an unidentified flying object ever taken.
And yet the no evidence for this is presented in the entire article. Government cover-up/friction is not evidence of authenticity.
The person making the extraordinary claim is obligated to bring the extraordinary evidence. There is none, so the author is resorting to spinning conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, quite typical of UFO "research."
[+] [-] sudden_dystopia|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spaceman_2020|3 years ago|reply
Surely these black ops operations couldn’t have had a bigger budget than the F-35 (if they did, you’d ask how did they source the funds?). And if they didn’t, how were they able to get these experimental aircraft to fly better and faster than the trillion dollar F-35 jets - decades ago? And if they were, why are we not funding these hypersonic gravity defying jets instead of an evolutionary upgrade to 4th gen fighter planes.
[+] [-] subsubzero|3 years ago|reply
If the US had possession of such technology in a black project we would see some of the technology "bleed" into other projects, notably the air force and drone technology. And right now nothing the US possesses has those capabilities.
An alternate theory is that this is ruse by the US or another foreign govt. projecting images into the sky and moving them like a person using a laser pointer does across a wall. I don't know of any technology that can project an image into the sky like that, and then there is the radar signatures seen on some of these things.
[+] [-] colechristensen|3 years ago|reply
I would believe exactly the opposite. Things like "flying saucers" were attempts at secret advanced aircraft which worked, but not particularly well, and never really went on to be anything more than experimental aircraft. Leaks happened from time to time to prod adversaries to worry and try to develop competing technology to waste their time and resources.
The F117 looks pretty alien, that one worked though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk
There are probably a handful of other examples, aircraft that were tried but never made to work very well, work on new principles of design that haven't been figured out yet, and are still on the drawing board with various attempts to make them work ongoing.
[+] [-] YeBanKo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fullsend|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Simon_O_Rourke|3 years ago|reply
If it's ours, great, let's keep a tight lid on it until we need it. If it's not, let's discretely find out what it was. Period.
[+] [-] IAmGraydon|3 years ago|reply
Have a look at this mirage image, taken in Namibia: https://i.imgur.com/D21xgfy.jpg
Mirages often feature a mirror image of the object, as if it's sitting in a body of water with a reflection. That is exactly how the UFO appears.
I would be much more inclined to believe this is something strange if the entire area weren't made up of mountains which have peaks that look exactly like the object in this photograph, but alas...I am a man of logic. I would be willing to bet this is nothing more than an illusion and the most interesting thing is the atmospheric conditions that made this photo possible.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] elevaet|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shsbdncudx|3 years ago|reply
Either way, your explanation is more likely than aliens, agree.
[+] [-] night-rider|3 years ago|reply
That said, I did witness something strange about a year ago when I looked up at the sky randomly. This object was darting really fast at quite a height. I dismissed it as a drone, but I didn't know drones could operate at such a height, and it done acute turns without slowing down, something drones can't do, no matter how many videos of drones turning acutely at speed you show me, because an object has to slow down before it does that. It's basic physics.
Anyway, it was good to see, since I was physically present, so at least I can say these things could possibly fit the narrative of 'aliens' or 'watchers' who are doing recon on our planet.
[+] [-] BiteCode_dev|3 years ago|reply
It was, to my eyes, an object that was flying and that I couldn't identify. So UFO applies.
The problem is not seing those.
The problem is making interpretations out of those.
Humans often prefer to create explanations than say they just don't know.
Centuries ago, somebody spot lightning and said it was Thor. We are mocking them now, but we are doing the same.
[+] [-] TrainedMonkey|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] withinboredom|3 years ago|reply
Mandatory must-read: Backyard Starship. The writing isn't the best in the world, but the premise and story is pretty darn good.
[+] [-] tshaddox|3 years ago|reply
What you saw probably wasn’t an expert flying a small RC helicopter, but those can do things that I believe would appear to some people as being almost impossible. It’s not rare to see seemingly genuine online comments on these sorts of videos claiming they must be fake or sped up.
https://youtu.be/KmPchrGW1TQ
https://youtu.be/XlyxmqfTLxk
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] libertine|3 years ago|reply
At least from a couple onward.
[+] [-] amerine|3 years ago|reply
Satellites don’t turn at acute angles without losing momentum. They didn’t believe me.
[+] [-] hammyhavoc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dieselgate|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BLKNSLVR|3 years ago|reply
Or a faulty stench coil.
[+] [-] todd8|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kcplate|3 years ago|reply
To me it underscores an already healthy skepticism towards the subject.
[+] [-] yarg|3 years ago|reply
Not because it worked, more because it really didn't (and they thought it would); it makes me feel like it was (very) loosely based on something else (something only seen).
I'd be very interested to see what would happen if you incorporated some very fast very heavy gyros inside of a disc.
[+] [-] Flankk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|3 years ago|reply
The XB-47A led to the XB-47B, an armed semi-autonomous stealth attack aircraft demonstrator. Not quite as diamond-shaped, it was considered a success. It's not clear if a production version was built. One was definitely designed.
After the Have Blue "hopeless diamond", the original stealth-first aircraft, there was a lot of work in the diamond-shaped aircraft space. It's not too surprising to see a photo of one.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGDYwP--I4s
[+] [-] jeremycw|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-56286719
[+] [-] thinkingemote|3 years ago|reply
Would make sense for the brain to estimate it as "flying bug" with erratic flight than very smoothly straight flying mechanical thing.
[+] [-] jcims|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmyeet|3 years ago|reply
Humans have a deep need, a very egotistical need in some ways, to feel like there's a bigger plan, that they're part of something and even that they're in possession with some secret knowledge the masses aren't.
It's not too dissimilar to those who jump on the trend of the latest fringe FTL technology idea. Warp drives, wormholes, space folding, whatever. Part of this comes from a genuine desire for some Star Trek or Star Wars future of visiting other stars without taking a lifetime to get there. But part of it is also some people realize that if the speed of light is a cosmic speed limit (my personal belief) then the idea of alien visitors and UFOs becomes truly ridiculous.
[+] [-] booleandilemma|3 years ago|reply
Please don't psychoanalyze me for telling you this :)
[+] [-] w4ffl35|3 years ago|reply
There are religions for atheists, such as Satanism.
UFOlogy is not a religion, and certainly neither are "UFO". Unidentified Flying Objects could hardly be considered a religion. That's like saying a car is a religion to a gearhead.
Furthermore, insinuating that people who are into UFO are atheist and UFO are their religion is asinine. Many are atheist, but the majority I know are "spiritual", in pagan religions etc.
Additionally there are UFO religions, such as Scientology. There is also the Starseed movement.
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|3 years ago|reply
For some reason Calvine isn't notable for WPedia - but it does have a little on this story. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_sightings_in_the_United_Ki...] and links to this article in Scotsman: [https://www.scotsman.com/news/close-encounters-pitlochry-kin...]
[+] [-] miniwark|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dieselgate|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kwertyoowiyop|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kostic|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Simon_O_Rourke|3 years ago|reply
- Hoax 50%
- Non-Hoax 50%
[+] [-] h2odragon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] huron|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saaaaaam|3 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Bird_of_Prey
[+] [-] mezcaliente|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tgflynn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikewarot|3 years ago|reply
That's old physics, who knows what's been done since then.
[+] [-] yuan43|3 years ago|reply
And yet the no evidence for this is presented in the entire article. Government cover-up/friction is not evidence of authenticity.
The person making the extraordinary claim is obligated to bring the extraordinary evidence. There is none, so the author is resorting to spinning conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, quite typical of UFO "research."
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]