My guess is it's the US military projecting. They've almost certainly got covert flying vehicles cruising around so naturally they'd want to know about any sightings of their own craft, or an enemy doing the same thing in the airspace.<p>What better way to gauge how well the tech is working than by crowdsourcing the sightings?
Friendly reminder: UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object, <i>not</i> Suspected Alien Aircraft From Another Planet.<p>Asking "why the hell" the DOD would be interested in <i>Unidentified</i> phenomenon in its territory goes well beyond sensationalism and straight into stupidity.
Having dealt with some of these systems, let me tell you up front, its entirely possible it's nothing. I've seen tracks like those suggested in the article pass directly overhead support vessels during maneuvers, and theres nothing there. It can happen a few times a day or even hour, and just means your sensor fusion is a bit janky.<p>tfa:
"This, in turn, provides very high fidelity 'tracks' of targets thanks to telemetry from various sensors operating at different bands and looking at the same target from different aspects and at different ranges."<p>My take from last article:
Let me tell you: fast tracks moving at insane speeds with sometimes-faint signatures are the norm. a perfectly calm sea, esp near shore, can create 100s or a 1000 spurious tracks if automated tools are trusted. The incorrect association of signatures to hypothesized contacts can produce "jumps" in their location, altitude that makes it look like inhuman maneuverability.<p>Second, the proliferation of small aircraft does bias operators (and algorithms) to assume a real contact from small signatures, esp at low altitudes where noise is greatest.<p>In a well integrated, multi-vehilce sensor network, a small false positive rate for each individual recognition and classication module produces enough bullshit to trick automated trackers into labelling targets. If we cant assume common sense filtering like "aircraft cant go from hover to mach 3 in one sweep", then the possible associations of sensor data to hypotheses is astronomical, and bullshit propegates.<p>Its a mess when you integrate so many sensors and systems and try to make sense of the resulting noise.
My favorite conspiracy theory (emphasis on theory, this is pure speculation) is they're Chinese drones.<p>The logic basically goes that 3M accidentally created a force field[1] in a factory[2], factories are mostly in China now, so if "running a factory" leads to antigravity tech, China would be the ones to develop it.<p>As much as "I want to believe", if it's true they're not American, it's quite possible they're not <i>alien</i>, just foreign.<p>I've noticed a weird kind of racism in some folks who talk about China: they simultaneously think they'll conquer the world and that they can't invent technology on their own.<p>It's certainly interesting logic to conclude "If it's not American, it must be alien".<p>[1] <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-physics-of-plastic-sheets-and-their-invisible-force-fields/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/story/the-physics-of-plastic-sheets-an...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/e-wall.html" rel="nofollow">http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/e-wall.html</a>
Here is Skeptical Inquirer article about 'Tic Tac' incident.<p><a href="https://skepticalinquirer.org/2018/05/navy_pilots_2004_ufo_a_comedy_of_errors/" rel="nofollow">https://skepticalinquirer.org/2018/05/navy_pilots_2004_ufo_a...</a>
Isn't this most likely just a response to the surge of drones over the last half decade?<p>I imagine UFO sightings have proportionally increased and thus the number of ad-hoc reported sightings within the Navy finally crossed the threshold.<p>It could even be a foreign government or spy agency doing amateur reconnaissance with new tech.<p>As the article states,<p>> The lack of a structured procedure and classification system, and the nebulous fear of being stigmatized by reporting things like UFOs [is] something that has long plagued the military and private sectors alike<p>There is also the nebulous fear of people overreacting whenever you finally decide to implement these common-sense policies. You <i>must</i> be hiding something, even if you were ironically just trying to be more transparent.<p>I don't mean to sound like a denier. The released IR footage from the same observation period [0] is incredible and, if real, proves that high-G maneuvers without exhaust or aerofoils exist and we are still lacking some very fundamental understanding about the nature of gravity.<p>I also found the article to be well thought-out and that it covered most of the most obvious answers without trying to paint a particular picture. I'll have to pay more attention to Rogoway.<p>Speculating on the shape of the aircraft, would the round tic-tac shape provide the least average air resistance in every direction provided an aerofoil is not needed for flight?<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9D8dzl4zGk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9D8dzl4zGk</a>
They are just preparing the public for the shit tons of satallites and drones there are about to be everywhere watching us. "Oh good its not a UFO it is the UberMcDonald's Delivery Drone Mothership."
I have a lot of biases in my vision. Optical illusions are clearly one example of exploiting those biases.<p>I suspect there are a lot of biases in processing return signals from radar, an expectation of motion like things actually move.<p>So, if i had the resources of a nation, and some idea of how radar actually works, i could build a device that actually made a steady turn from, say west to north, look like something else.<p>I know very little about how radar works in the nitty gritty details, but i know a little bit about how our eyes are fooled by optical illusions. dynamically changing color, and maybe some little helper parts that fly away and change color or produce smoke would really mess with my eyes.
it's weird how fireworks always fly right toward you no matter where you stand, right?<p>Extending that to radar and infrared seems totally reasonable. Also, my eyes have a lot of evolution both adding biases, and ensuring those biases don't mess up very often.<p>Automated systems don't even have 80 years of engineering effort to accurately represent what's happening.
Applying Occam's Razor:<p>It's an elaborate disinformation campaign to persuade foreign adversaries to spend money on threats that don't exist. Inflatable tanks and planes of WWII taken to the modern era, long-con fakery facilitated and amplified by social media. NORAD could also vector a large white, odd-shaped aircraft with much separation from commercial traffic with their transponder switched off to seem like that rogue UFO. Throw in some CGI deepfakes to bolster the story. Testimonials about radar tracks with outlandish claims of impossible acceleration sans <i>verifiable</i> evidence to reinforce other-worldly mystique.<p>Santa Claus isn't real and neither are purported robotic ETs reccying Earth's flora and fauna for an invasion.
Since this is recirculating in the public consciousness, I'm going to repeat my pet theory: they're automated Von Neumann probes that have been in the solar system (and probably ~all star systems in the galaxy) for longer than humanity has existed, and are performing reconnaissance now that there are signs of intelligent life on the planet.<p>I like this theory because it obviates large problems with other theories, ie crossing interstellar distances just to visit us (they were already here), the lack of observed Von Neumann probes when they should be common (now they've been observed), the idea that some earthly nation has managed to develop technology so far beyond all others and keep it secret (nope), etc.
Several civilian aircraft reported UFOs over Ireland a few months ago - here’s an ATC recording: <a href="https://youtu.be/pv7x4dRye3U?t=300" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/pv7x4dRye3U?t=300</a>
why does this article keep returning anew on hacker news?<p>The military wants people to feel no stigma for reporting observations they fail to explain on their own? Good, no problem with that, it is their duty to watch out for such contingencies. And they probably don't see it as their duty to explain and share footage of each and every incident, and the internal conclusions, ... because they don't want others to know their level of alertness, the resolution and sensitivity of their systems, ...<p>Why is thedrive.com so intent on portraying such events as "unexplainable" by a collection of humans? They are re-creating the stigma by conflating UFO's with the seemingly impossible.<p>I.e. even if it is "just a sensor malfunction" or "just an optical effect", it is important to the military that the human operators report these deficiencies up the chain of command: if accidental situations can fool the systems and operators (UFO sightings) into seeing things that don't exist, or misinterpreting things that do exist, then obviously:<p>1. such hallucinations could be artificially induced (think chaff, camouflage, ...) and hence it is important to take note of spontaneously arising confusing observations<p>2. such hallucinations increase the noise floor and distract from potential true invasions of air space: if you can address and learn from UFO sightings to improve sensor systems, then a true violation of air space requires less work to detect than if it is hiding in a stack of illusory UFO reports
They may be US drones. If some stealth technology needs to be field tested, flying around a carrier group on a training mission is a good way to do it.<p>Something like the XQ-58A Valkyrie combat drone or the BQM-167A target drone. Those are unclassified and have performance beyond what most manned aircraft can do. There are probably others that are still classified.
> is that there is no real way to distinctly classify something like a UFO or USO in such a way that it gets reported and an investigation occurs on an official level within the military.<p>This is what is all about. A UFO is probably not an alien, it is probably a human mistake, an innocent flyer (weather balloon, etc), or a non-expected craft (civilian, enemy, etc). If the military doesnt know about them, isnt trying to figure out which, and isnt improving its ability to determine which, then it is ignoring data and allowing intel and intel training to lapse.<p>In other situations it might pay off well to have those skills, practices, and policies established.<p>It's not mysterious, it's not exciting, it's just just military paying attention where it is boring yet useful to pay attention.
The last time this got a lot of publicity in the 80s, it was cover for tomahawk missile testing.<p>The other possibility is some nut job in the administration has a pet project.
I have seen UFO-s twice.<p>First time in early 1990ies, second time it was about 10 years ago.<p>First sight looked like a formation of lights that moved in sync across the night sky in a straight line. The formation was long, like a long rectangle or long cylinder made of stars. Not too many stars, maybe a hundred. Moving slowly straight in the direction of it's length. I could not tell how far it was, so I can't really judge for the size of it, but it was "flying" higher than the peak of the nearby mountain (which is 1km high and about 10km away), and the lenght was comparable to 1/2 of the south-west ridge of that mountain which itself is aprox. 5-6km long. So the UFO would have to be at least 1km long if it was closer, but it could be many km long if it was further. My family members saw it, as we were on the balcony at home and had clear unobstructed view. I might exagerate about the size of it, but I really did saw it. It could be easily recorded if someone had a videocamera, but we did not. We always had a photo camera at that period but nobody thought about the possibility of taking a picture. We could have tried if we had film, but I don't remember why we did not try. We didn't even talk about the possibility. When you see something like it, it does not occur to you that you might need proof and that nobody will believe. But I don't care, since I saw what I saw. Of course there can be millions of explanations what it was, but there weren't any gived and nobody else mentioned seeing it when we asked around the next day. It could have easily been a formation of airplanes.<p>The other sight, was when I was by the nearby river with my partner, who did not see the UFO. It was a regular summer night, and something flew across the sky, at extreme velocity, just like a meteorite does. But suddenly right before going out of sight, it changed direction nearly 90 degrees and continued with the same high velocity. It all happened in a blink of an eye, of course it would be very hard to have it recorded.<p>The point of my stories is that you don't always have a chance to make a recording when you see something strange.
It is a tactic within itself to report on your own operations as "something unidentified that moves in ways we don't understand" just in case it is seen by the naked eye.
Bad UFOs also covers this ongoing story from a skeptical perspective.<p><a href="https://badufos.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">https://badufos.blogspot.com/</a>
So, what if the US Airforce.. or CIA.. have technology that can bugger around with the cockpits and instruments of US Navy fighters? Or arbitrary other aircraft cockpits.<p>Now, they don't want to say that they have this, but they want other people (like the Russians and Chinese and French) to know that they do have it.<p>Or at least to make them think that they would like them to think that they have it.<p>Would you see films like this?
I'm not really one for compilation videos, but I stumbled across this one when looking for info on the tic tac incident and it's pretty interesting - 4 Most Compelling Videos Of UFOs: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7pgMfzTEZc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7pgMfzTEZc</a>
this is probably military needing new legal framework to operate according to now that china plans to land and stay on the moon, India has tested satellite shooting weapons and russia has been investing in its 'space force'
I'm surprised the article doesn't reference the recent Bob Lazar documentary which deals with this alleged tech from a first-hand perspective (Bob was a whistleblower in a lab that worked on a kind of gravity drive, according to him.)<p>It's quite well-produced, and it's probably the only UFO-related film I consider worth watching: <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/bob-lazar-area-51-flying-saucers/id1441638753" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/bob-lazar-area-51-flying-s...</a>
I find it funny that people still believe that any alien object reaching us (just remember the engineering work necessary to do that and how many hundreds of years if not more we are away from reaching distant planets or galaxies) could be observed in the visual range or even with any kind of technology we have. And if they do, then it is on purpose. What purpose is that? Doesn't earth look tasty to them? It's much more likely that these are some military prototypes or spy equipment, unmanned drones, etc. or just pure imagination.
This article seems to imply it must be a craft of some kind, but I'm not convinced natural phenomena can be ruled out. As an example, ball lightning is still not particularly well understood and behaves in rather peculiar seeming ways. The speed that this 'object' moved at makes much more sense if it's entirely electromagnetic in nature.
I think this class of UFO (the floating tic tac) is the result of secret rail gun testing projects, with novel inertial guidance packages inside them. Hence the lack of any obvious propulsion. They’re a new kind of guided ballistic penetrator, maybe with aerogel exteriors, and steerable internals.
"Someone or something has crossed the technological Rubicon and has obtained what some would call the Holy Grail of aerospace engineering."<p>Hyperbole much?
"Let me underline this again for you, the Nimitz encounter with the Tic Tac proved that exotic technology that is widely thought of as the domain of science fiction actually exists. It is real."<p>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A blurry video and some eyewitness reports are not extraordinary evidence. Humans lie all the time, but very rarely discover new physics.
If these incidents were aliens, I would expect a lot more reactions from the military, politic, and financial markets. All reactions seem muted.<p>Secondly, why would aliens reveal themselves in such a way? Either land on the White House lawn or stay out of sight. This 50 year UFO appearances, with some but not really a lot of witnesses, don't make sense for me.
Check out this documentary Sirius:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C_-HLD21hA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C_-HLD21hA</a>
So, take this for what it's worth. I have known a few individuals who have been involved in various areas of the military. One was an aircraft engineer working on black projects. One was in COMSEC. One was a nuclear engineer.<p>One of them walked into the wrong hanger once and was face-to-face with a disc type something-or-other that he was not supposed to see, and was basically told "You didn't see that, and don't ever say you did."<p>One told of several incidents, and one in particular that was rather startling, tracking objects across North America that were going at seemingly impossible speeds and changing vectors in ways that would tear any convention craft apart. They were picked up on multiple instrument arrays across the country.<p>One was working on advanced propulsion, real science fiction type stuff, but was moved to other projects when he started asking the wrong questions. I'm being deliberately obtuse here.<p>There are reliable individuals. They aren't crazy, and they aren't conspiracy nuts.<p>I am convinced that these things are not anomalies, and that they are terrestrial in origin. All but one of my afore-mentioned friends disagree with me. They think they are alien, but this is only their opinion. None of them had any "inside" knowledge that the military is aware of alien craft. But when you are an engineer, and know what's physically possible given our current level of technology and materials science, I suppose I cannot fault them for jumping to that conclusion.<p>The thing is, calling it "alien" doesn't solve that particular difficulty. If you assume that the things are real, then what they are doing <i>is</i> physically possible. And if it is physically possible, then it is theoretically possible for us to do it. So applying occam's razor, you don't need to invoke aliens. It is far more likely that someone figured it out, especially someones with multi-billion dollar black budgets working over decades with the brightest minds on the planet.