Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: What's going on?

Ryan_Liam · April 28, 2020, 6:21pm

So the Pentagon has disclosed that three videos recorded by Navy pilots in 2004 and 2015 respectively are unknown craft performing aerodynamic manouvers that no existing aircraft, foreign or domestic, is capable of doing.

So what do you think is going on? Dr. J. Allen Hynek started out as a major skeptic, but towards the end of his time on Project Bluebook, was at least partial to the mystery of what was happening.

My own opinion is that I don’t know what to believe, but I find it highly interesting. I tend to go towards the Hynek approach to this, debunk but it is a mystery worth investigating.

rsat3acr · April 28, 2020, 6:31pm

Hard to think what is going on without seeing the videos.

CalMeacham · April 28, 2020, 6:37pm

A friend sent me this, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.

I’m a profound skeptic, myself. Especially after reading the books by Donald Menzel, Phillip Klass, and Robert Schaefer.

Regarding UFOs that the military takes an interest in, allow me to point out that they were interested mainly because of what our opponents were coming up with. Many of the UFOs reported over the former Soviet Union turned out to be military testing of devices. US Test flights of new aircraft and experiments (not to mention re-entering rocket stages) have demonstrably shown to have caused UFO reports, so my first suspicions when I hear about these is thast it’s really surveillance of possible Russian or Chinese military maneiuvers or testing.

“UFO”, after all, stands for “Unidentified Flying Object”, not “Alien Spacecraft.” A lot of the time, it turns out to be a very terrestrial object flying, albeit maybe not a “common, everyday” sort.

And, as Menzel pointed out in the 1950s, the name itself is misleading. Often the object isn’t flying, and may not even be an object. Sightings of planets and the moon have caused UFO reports. So have reports of intangibles like sundogs, ice crystal haloes, and rainbows.

Sicks_Ate · April 28, 2020, 6:39pm

I seem to recall this coming up here in the past when the videos were first unofficially released. One of the videos was explained away by an insect inside the camera.

TriPolar · April 28, 2020, 6:43pm

Videos can be see on this site.

Ryan_Liam · April 28, 2020, 6:44pm

Pentagon releases videos showing ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’ including infamous ‘Tic Tac’ clip

CNN: Secretive program tracked UFOs for 5 years

The Nimitz Encounters, dramatisation

Ryan_Liam · April 28, 2020, 6:46pm

Which one? Link?

GIGObuster · April 28, 2020, 6:48pm

The guys at Skeptical Inquirer did take a look and they were not impressed.

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2018/05/navy-pilots-2004-ufo-a-comedy-of-errors/

In any event, this brings us to the video in question, which shows an object’s rapid acceleration to the left and disappearance from the video screen. What we see on the video is probably a trick of optics, according to Major McGaha. He believes the sudden leftward-zooming of the object resulted from the camera having momentarily reached the limit of its panning ability, at which time the F-18 was banking. This created the onscreen illusion that the object suddenly shot away. As corroboration, McGaha notes that the angle of the object’s moving off the screen is correlated to the bank angle of the F-18. What was no longer viewed was presumed to have disappeared at a tremendous speed.

As it happened, this was Fravor’s “first military assignment as a pilot for the U.S. Navy’s F-18 Super Hornet.” It obviously rattled him. As he was stung by being made fun of on returning to the Nimitz, he “made detailed written notes of the incident” that he mailed to an aunt, noting, “Keep this because this is important stuff about some real X-Files shit” (“Pilot report” 2017). No one was going to tell him he could have been mistaken about his experience—which, after all, appears to have been a series of misunderstandings and misperceptions.

Conclusions

New York magazine summed up the retired Fravor’s current celebrity status:
It seems that To the Stars is trying to shroud Fravor’s account in a spooky fog of faux top secrecy. This is a dicey strategy given Fravor’s prominence in online UFO circles, and gives the impression that Elizondo’s company is repackaging timeworn tales from the internet as freshly revealed government X-files. And, by extension, (it) calls into question the Times’ wisdom in taking his claims about extraterrestrial encounters at face value. (Wise 2017)
To recap, we suggest that several things were going on during what was, after all, a training mission of the USS Nimitz carrier strike group. We believe the churning water Fravor first saw was caused by a submerging sub; that the sightings of a UFO above the water (variously reported)—which hovered, then came toward one pilot—could have been those of a reconnaissance drone; that there may have been confusion (then and later) over the object or objects caused by the admixture of visual sightings with infrared video viewing; and, finally, that one video image showing an object suddenly zooming off screen was likely caused by the plane’s banking while the camera was stopped at the end of its sweep.

If UFO proponents claim inconsistencies in our scenario, we shall point out confusion and incompleteness in the reports. Apparently not only had the incident not been considered serious enough to have warranted a debriefing of Fravor—let alone of the several other pilots and radar operator—but most of the carrier group’s personnel at the time regarded Fravor’s response as laughable. Major McGaha and I regard the entire incident not as evidence of an extraterrestrial encounter but as a comedy of errors involving the pilots.

Then, you though that J. Allen Hynek would not be on the menu? It is doubtful that he started as an skeptic.

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2013/01/the-secret-life-of-j-allen-hynek/

According to legend, the astronomer J. Allen Hynek was a skeptic before becoming an outspoken UFOlogist, but is the legend true? This article takes a look at Hynek’s unusual life and career.

It was a “road to Damascus” experience for the Mad Men era. In 1966, the respected astronomer J. Allen Hynek had gone—seemingly overnight—from a determined debunker to an ardent apostle of the UFO gospel. A longtime consultant to Project Blue Book noted for his skeptical stance toward UFOs, Hynek suddenly began telling anyone who would listen that the UFO phenomenon merited serious scientific scrutiny. The great director Stanley Kubrick was among the many who listened. In a 1968 Playboy interview promoting his science-fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick spoke approvingly of what he termed Hynek’s “belated but exemplary conversion” (Phillips 2001, 58).

In fact, the professor’s apparent transformation from skeptic to UFO proponent was not quite the conversion event that it appeared on the surface. Since his teens Hynek had been an enthusiastic though closeted student of the occult. The French-born Jacques Vallee, a computer scientist and UFO author, was one of the few persons who knew Hynek’s secret. Hynek once told Vallee that he had become an astronomer in order to discover “the very limitations of science, the places where it broke down, the phenomena it didn’t explain” (Vallee 1996, 232). Nonetheless, the scientist’s public U-turn gave a big boost to the UFO movement, lending it a measure of credibility, and made Hynek into a celebrity as the nation’s “foremost expert on flying saucers” (O’Toole 1966). For two decades people could point to Hynek and say, “He’s a trained scientist, an astronomer no less: if even he believes in this UFO stuff then there must be something to it.”

Sicks_Ate · April 28, 2020, 6:50pm

I don’t remember which of the 3, but I could see it as a possible explanation for any of them. Video in TriPolar’s link above.

Ryan_Liam · April 28, 2020, 6:53pm

I’ve timestamped where the pilot talks about tracking the object and goes through this

TriPolar · April 28, 2020, 6:56pm

These are not “…unknown craft performing aerodynamic manouvers that no existing aircraft, foreign or domestic, is capable of doing.”. What they are is totally unknown. Since no UFO has ever proven to be of alien origin there’s no point to assume we’ve found one here. If no existing aircraft, foreign or domestic, is capable of doing what is seen then they must not be aircraft. Most likely it’s not anything physical moving as fast as it seems in those videos.

Ryan_Liam · April 28, 2020, 7:02pm

I never said they were aircraft. However, you need a reference to provide context, since they were allegedly in the air at the time of recording, the reference to aircraft is apt.

GIGObuster · April 28, 2020, 7:12pm

A dismissal that is less impressive.

From the article already cited:

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2018/05/navy-pilots-2004-ufo-a-comedy-of-errors/

Either the first or second object in question, if seen only on a video screen, might well have been a drone or distant airplane. Even if it were too far away to be visible, its heat signature could have been viewed by infrared. Another possibility was given by Fravor himself. Interestingly, before the planes were sent to the site, the controller had made sure they were not weaponized. After the encounter, Fravor had “initially thought that perhaps this was an unannounced, classified missile test by a U.S. Navy submarine,” but he now concludes, “There is no way any aircraft or missile that I know of could conduct maneuvers like what we saw that day” (“Pilot report” 2017). Nevertheless, there is confusion over just what occurred. Fravor insists, “I know what I saw” (quoted in Finucane 2018), while just as surely admitting, “I have no idea what I saw” (quoted in Cooper et al. 2017b).

We have observed this many times: A person has mistaken perceptions, or he experiences something that seems unusual, and soon is insisting that he knows what he saw, ego becoming involved. In fact, he only knows what he thinks he saw, and that can change over time.

TriPolar · April 28, 2020, 7:15pm

You said they were craft, but then said they couldn’t be aircraft because aircraft couldn’t behave the way they did.

The pilot says the UFO isn’t being detected on radar and assumes it must be using stealth technology. Another reason that radars don’t detect things is because they’re not there.

Ryan_Liam · April 28, 2020, 7:30pm

My interpretation of that is Fravor knows what he saw was something unusual and not easily explained away by either error or malfunction or even a classified military exercise or project. He even mentioned about being teased when he was back on board and how the mood on the ship changed once they realised it wasn’t initially a joke.

What stands out is why have a closed Congressional meeting about something as minor as preventing hazards to air safety.

What??? In the link I provided he goes through in detail about the heat signature when they switched to infrared when tracking the object.

Ryan_Liam · April 28, 2020, 7:35pm

Craft isn’t the same as aircraft. But using them as a vantage point for describing them isn’t the same as saying they are.

But they were initially detected on radar.

Prior to the incident, in early November 2004, the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton, part of Carrier Strike Group 11, started recording intermittent radar tracks on an advanced AN/SPY-1B passive scanning phased array radar.[5][4] Thinking the brand new radar was malfunctioning, the Princeton sailors restarted and recalibrated the system but the tracks became sharper and clearer.[19] On or around 10 November, Navy Chief Petty Officer (NCO, E-7) Kevin Day, stationed on Princeton, noticed groups of five to 10 radar traces that were travelling southwards in a loose though fixed formation at 28,000 feet (8,500 m) in the immediate vicinity of Catalina and San Clemente islands.[19] He was startled by their slow speed of 100 knots (190 km/h; 120 mph) at such an altitude[19], but received confirmation of their presence from radar operators on other vessels.[citation needed] The returns continued showing up continuously for almost a week, with sailors observing something moving erratically in the distance through the ship’s magnified binoculars.[19]

TriPolar · April 28, 2020, 7:36pm

Because they might need to discuss the capabilities of foreign and domestic aircraft that need to be kept secret, along with information about our ability to detect and track aircraft, as well as any deficiencies these videos have uncovered.

Another reason is to cover up a secret international intergalactic alien conspiracy.

I’ll go with the first one.

Ryan_Liam · April 28, 2020, 7:40pm

I’d go with the first one however you would have though they would have disclosed a generalised account of something along those lines, they didn’t.

TriPolar · April 28, 2020, 7:46pm

Why would I think that? And why would I think they’d honestly state something was related to secret US technology?

How about constructing a narrative to follow here instead of pointing at random quotes. What do you think is going on and what evidence reinforces that belief that doesn’t have a simple alternate and more likely explanation?

Ryan_Liam · April 28, 2020, 7:59pm

I could ask the same question if it was something other than secret US technology.

What random quotes, you stated they didn’t track it on radar, I provided a citation showing that the fleet did, then you said that the closed hearing about pilot safety is important, and I provided a citation of how the safety was in relation to pilots encountering objects which were not US made or made by any foreign entity.

I think the UAP Fravor encountered was caught out by accident and so the tic tac UFO they tracked distracted the pilots from the larger object they witnessed it hovering around which was underwater. The mulitple pilot witnesses including radar tracking lends credence to that.