Chilean officials can’t identify a strange IR signal seen by its Navy | Hacker News Reader

Chilean officials can’t identify a strange IR signal seen by its Navy

arstechnica.com

107 pointsastrodev56 comments

another analysis that suggests this might be airplanes. scroll to the comments, where they plug in GPS coordinates from the video into google early, and superimpose the location of various flights from public records.

https://www.metabunk.org/explanation-for-chilean-navy-ufo-vi...

The discussion is ongoing though. There are two possible candidate aircraft, but the distances and altitudes seem to be off.

Three, now, and people putting in coordinates on Google Earth get pretty good reconstruction of key shots in the video.

Of course, it's unsurprising that a government committee for investigating UFOs didn't bother to do any due diligence like actually checking publicly documented flight paths. You don't get continued funding if you undermine the purpose of the position. (The article reports their claim that there were no planes in the area to be seen, but there were in fact three.)

All this discussion about it being another aircraft ignores the fact that this was by all reports an experienced crew who must have seen plenty of airplanes at a distance before and know whether they would be looking at one. Conversely, if this were a green crew with little experience with the FLIR infrared equipment who wouldn't necessarily recognize another plane, why would the Chilean military consider this to be a mystery at all?

I happen to be a very experienced FLIR analyst, and I've looked at this video: all you can tell at this range and resolution is that there is a hot thing there moving at a constant speed. There really isn't much magic to analyzing these videos, they're either black or white hot and usually don't provide as much information as we would like to think they do.

> another analysis that suggests this might be airplanes

Then they'd have to be stealth airplanes and unwilling to communicate with the patrol. From the source [1] article:

Shortly thereafter, the pilot contacted two radar stations - one close by on the coast, and the other the main DGAC Control system (Ground Primary Radar) in Santiago - to report the unknown traffic. Neither station could detect it on radar, although both easily picked up the helicopter. (The object was well within the range of radar detection.) Air traffic controllers confirmed that no traffic, either civilian or military, had been reported in the area, and that no aircraft had been authorized to fly in the controlled air space where the object was located. The on-board radar was also unable to detect the object and the camera’s radar could not lock onto it.

The pilot tried several times to communicate with the UAP, using the multi-national, civilian bandwidth designed for this purpose. He received no reply.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/groundbreaking-ufo-video...

I would argue that just because nobody answered doesn't mean it wasn't an airplane. Maybe the guy was just eating a sandwich and didn't feel like picking up his radio. I'd also have a hard time believing Chile keeps perfect flight records. Occam's razor and all that.

Fine, what about the lack of radar signature - unable to be detected either from nearby ground-based installations, the helicopter's dedicated radar or the additional radar on the IR sensor cluster? I think that was the more interesting point. Also remember the helicopter was travelling at reasonably low speeds of 132 knots, or 152 mph yet if we're looking at the turbofan exhausts/afterburner we should expect object to reduce in size accordingly.

When you fly a plane, are you tuned into a whole bunch of different radio channels at all times?

yes

All the civilian aircraft I've seen have at most two channels. There's a primary frequency which you listen on while you're flying, and you can also keep a second frequency on standby in case you need to communicate with different authorities simultaneously as you follow your route.

You have to switch between frequencies in order to listen and communicate, and there's a toggle that allows you to do this. If you're not tuned to the correct frequency for the airspace you're in, then you're not going to hear any commands from the controllers for your airspace.

It's entirely possible that it was an international flight with a radio not tuned for the correct frequency for the airspace.

What kind of airplanes have you seen with radios that can listen on several frequencies at the same time? Are they large commercial craft?

> What kind of airplanes have you seen with radios that can listen on several frequencies at the same time? Are they large commercial craft?

Some early Junkers maybe?

It's not at all inconceivable someone is operating stealth aircraft in that region. Reagan was willing to share[1] with Britain stealth in '86, so perhaps 30 years later, it's easier to obtain and someone sold some to Chile or its neighbors. The US, Russia, and China all have it.

1. https://theaviationist.com/2017/01/02/in-1986-u-s-president-...

Hope that your downvoters can argue why they downvoted your comment.

A dirigible is more likely and would explain the contrail.

I posted this yesterday, but the article references the huffington post, so I figured I'd drop it here too: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_586d37bce4b014e7c72ee56b

When the object first comes on screen I initially thought "CH-47 making a left turn."[1] It looks like there's two little "nubs" on the front and back at the first zoom. Don't have any explanation for the discharge out the back, however.

[1] http://www.boeing.com/defense/ch-47-chinook/

I'm not an expert on fighter thermal signatures, but this sort of looks like the rear output of two engines followed by usage of the afterburners maybe?

http://i51.tinypic.com/20fs0pf.jpg

It may correspond to known aircraft configuration, or an unknown one, but it doesn't seem like there's anything anomalous about it...

This thing just hovers there, slowly moving.

Seeing noting in the visible spectrum is not anomalous?

Here my guess: - It appears stationary as it is travelling towards the camera and very far away. - It isn't apparent in the visible spectrum because of cloud/haze between it and the camera. - The plume appears as it passes through a layer of cloud and heats the moisture therein.

Absolutely. It's a twin engined something, and we're seeing the heat signature. May not even be an unusual aircraft.

How come no radar signature. Is that not unusual for aircraft, or are most aircraft radar absorbing?

Most civilian ATC radars are 'Secondary' radars which depend on cooperative transponders on all aircraft. If you turn your transponder off, the system doesn't work.

US ATC uses 'Primary' radars as backup for locating aircraft that don't have transponders or don't have them on. Militaries use Primary radars for most of their activities. Other articles don't provide distinction on what type of radar was used.

I've experienced this a few times driving near the airport. It's really mind blowing until the highway changes direction a bit and the illusion is ruined.

Seeing that blog post this is probably the case.

I think that's sound - and the "plumes" from the object would make sense as turbulence from its passage seen head-on.

I'd love to have a straightforward explanation to this mystery too, which was a few months before this was filmed, and has been an itch in my mind for the intervening years. http://www.pbase.com/flying_dutchman/pacific_eruption

Not hovering -- seems to be matching velocity at 130kas. (which is slow for a twin-engine fighter jet).

SR-71 ? Could explain the fact that it wasn't detected by radar. And the twin exhausts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird

That's a unique theory, especially considering the SR-71 is anything but stealthy.

And decommed.

And would stall well above 130 knots.

FWIW here's a story by a former SR-71 driver that makes it clear that the plane isn't capable of flying that slowly.

http://oppositelock.kinja.com/what-was-the-slowest-you-ever-...

It appears to be a lot longer then the one shown in the picture that you posted

The article says that the possibility that this was an object reentering the atmosphere was dismissed. Why? There is no sense of scale here. It could be something very fast and far away, like a bolide leaving a trail of debris.

Could it be some kind of IR reflection of the helicopter itself due to the structure of the clouds? It would seem logical if there was no radar signal, it was on a linear path with the helicopter and did not show on normal camera. Any opinions?

What would the plume be? Would the helicopter produce a dumbell-shaped heat signature?

I figure a reflection from other planes just further off, water vapor can do some tricks. however they claim the IR gives them a temperature

Right at the 0:46 mark (and again at 10 minutes) in the video you can see something that resembles a quad-copter with propellers on 4 sides of the flying object. Or am i just imagining things?

Definitely remarked that to myself as well, but the rotors look huge compared with the craft itself ... and extend above, below, left and right. Like a drone traveling sideways? Strange indeed.

The chilean Very Large Telescope has a laser system that creates a 'virtual guide star' -- presumably this isn't that.

They avoid looking low over the horizon.

A UFO releasing plumes of material in the atmosphere?

Just wait 'till the contrails community gets a whiff of this.

I think you actually mean "chemtrails". Contrails are perfectly unremarkable phenomena.

Dammit. Chemtrails. Thank you.

Is temperature the only determinant of intensity, or could this also depend on something like opacity, emissivity or reflectance? Could these be ordinary contrails?

I'd heavily recommend the metabunk thread linked by rahimiali. Reflection off a perfectly ordinary contrail is a likely explanation..

Yes - I have just finished reading it. QED.

Why did the article say it was a heat signature? I thought heat looked white to an IR sensor, and cold looked black.

EDIT: thank you to the informative replies below!

It could be set up as "black hot."

They usually invert it to have a better contrast against the background.

In fact the video shows the 'inverted' mode at some point. https://youtu.be/NkUTGpegZN0?t=363

> The significance of this sighting is that it was made by credible Navy officers, lasted nearly 10 minutes, and involved observation in both the visible and infrared portions of the spectrum.

Thanks, that's what all previous UFO disbelievers were crying about. I don't suggest any ET origin to be clear. If that footage is not faked (which doesn't seem to be case) it will going to be a hard puzzle to solve.

So, the Chilean Navy has some strange footage, probably corresponding to some other country's secret aircraft, and they... get it published on Ars Technica and invite the literally-schizophrenic "UFO" community to take a look at it?

My immediate thoughts exactly (minus the schizo ad hom).

Are militaries of the world so careless as to advertise their capabilities and equipments?

FLIR Thermografie Kamera FLIR SC8000 Quantendetektor: https://youtu.be/doQGWcHTCG8

Curious. FLIR demo video shows the (usual) color thermal imaging and the OP has grayscale output.

http://www.flir.com/assets/0/6618/6729/6733/6740//9e20a2b4-4...

If you don't have the resources as a country to investigate on your own, why not get an article published? I get the feeling information gathering in the internet / social media age is going to mess with the minds of a lot of people (and probably give some a bit of trouble).

Where does it say that they went to Ars Technica? They published a press release [1].

[1] http://www.cefaa.gob.cl/home/en-la-prensa/noticias/casoarmad...

I have a feeling that they know that this is a secret military spycraft, and this is a diplomatic way for them to thumb their noses at China, Russia, or the US and say "nanananabooboo, we see you!"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com