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themodelplumber

I wonder if this video release impacted the decision?

https://youtu.be/G9D8dzl4zGk

I remember when it came out it caused quite a stir.

Edit: Here's the Wikipedia page:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz_UFO_incident

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Haha, great video.

Lots of very serious intro text about video trail of custody, declassification. A one minute step by step overview of a "best in class" sensor UI. Finally, "the audio you're about to hear is highly trained US air Force pilots and weapons operating specialists trying to make sense of what they see."

"It's a fucking drone bro!"

From the very first time I saw this video, there is a moment with a very tell tale sign that it is some unexplained optical effect:

around 1m40s the object rotates simultaneously with camera rotation, twice, and at twice the angle of rotation the camera makes! now think of how if you rotate a mirror some angle alpha, then the reflected view rotates an angle of 2 alpha. So to me this is a tell tale sign of some optical effect. Do I have a complete explanation? No, but then again there is no complete specification of the observation: what is the sensor layout and optical setup like?

It's a raytheon ATFLIR[0]. The rotation precisely matches the point at which the 'up-down' tracking reaches it's upper stop and the body of the pod has to rotate. The concensus was that it's some internal reflection within the pod window.

[0] https://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/products/atflir

What "consensus"? I've read the Wikipedia article on the incident and found no information of any consensus of this sort. The objects in question were visually tracked by multiple aircraft, and were detected by multiple radar systems.

A lot of discussion from here:

https://www.metabunk.org/nyt-gimbal-video-of-u-s-navy-jet-en...

But there was also discussion on skeptics.com and skepticforum.com when it was news last year.

Also note that the organisation that released the videos is a known scammer who has been caught trying to monetize the UFO community many times.

They were dispatched to investigate it after it showed up on radar.

It could be but the incident is odd the object was tracked by a surface vessel and 2 F-18s were sent to investigate they’ve seen it but they had no optical sensors then the object spirited away at about 2400 mp/h and tracking was lost then another pair of F-18s was sent when the object has been reacquired this time with the FLIR pod form which part of the footage in the video is from.

While it can be a sensor malfunction or even a viral marketing campaign 4 naval aviators as well as multiple radar operators have made sensor and visual contact with it and they had no fucking clue what it was.

Is there any officially acknowledged evidence of the story (minus the IR footage)?

To me the probability of independent means of sighting with simultaneous obviously optical effect hallmarks is very low...

great observation. I think a likely explanation for a lot of these "sightings" is that they are simply artifacts in a complex sensor system!

The pilots could physically see it tho, the first pair didn’t had any EOS on board and could only track it visually and with their radar.

Let's think of all the cool UFO sightings we'll hear about once they start putting GANs in those sensors. Then the machine will be able to, quite literally, imagine things.

Was the video officially released by DoD?

Traditionally, when govt sources added to UFO sensations it has been stated to divert attention from something else.

Edit: Wasn't -> Was

That video is actually two separate events. The first video is called GIMBAL and the date and location weren't publicly released. The second video is called FLIR1 and starts when the information layout on the screen changes. Both were officially released by the Defense Department's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.

Yeah, personally, I would say it's pretty obvious that extraterrestrials, aliens, little green men, are visiting our planet and have been for some time now... not sure why this is so hard to accept but apparently there are a lot of people who would rather die in a fiery car crash than admit that the snake attached to their leg has in fact bitten them.

There's something to that POV. Out of curiosity I looked around for relevant podcasts and found a BBC World podcast [0] on the Rendlesham Forest Incident [1] in which a U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel brought along a geiger counter, a tape recorder, and several other people to check out a possible UFO in the forest.

The Colonel's final take is interesting, if a bit concerning for the more exploration-minded: "I don't think we can do anything about it. I think this is beyond us. So: Quit worrying about it."

Personally I'm interested in the benign-animalistic properties of these phenomena. The entities often seem to have at least some basic sensing capability (regarding e.g. 'noticing' aircraft in the vicinity) and their reported maneuvers are in line with what I would expect from a less-intelligent, but still instinctual, entity. I wonder if they would respond additionally to stimuli such as playful maneuvers by nearby aircraft, things like that. Way out there, but only an idea.

0. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3cswqmm

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendlesham_Forest_incident

> I wonder if they would respond additionally to stimuli such as playful maneuvers by nearby aircraft, things like that.

Maybe they're not aliens and we just have undiscovered sky dolphins.

If you accept extraterrestrial origin, then it seems a stretch to assume that they’re remotely controlled. It would make much more sense to have a quasi-intelligence control the device in many cases. Why use a probe or other closed-loop, deterministic system when you can use what amounts to the intelligence of a trained animal?

I’m not sure if this is serious not. The best evidence is of such embarrassing quality that it serves as a master class in human cognitive bias and logical fallacies.

It’s at the same level as the evidence for paranormal hauntings, parapsychology, and cryptozoology.

At least Bigfoot has a higher existential prior probability, since you don’t have to posit that an alien intelligence randomly stumbled upon Earth or was sufficiently close that it immediately ventured forth upon detecting our EM radiation.

What? Why is it "pretty obvious"? What causes you to jump to such conclusions? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this video can be explained by other, less extraordinary explanations

I don't think saying that there's evidence of extraterrestrials, but just that everyone seems to gawk/scoff at the possibility.

If it were as obvious as a snake attached to a leg, more people would believe it. The video linked above is not obviously of extraterrestrial origin; there are several plausible terrestrial explanations for it.

I don't know what the car is and what the snake is in this analogy. Or even the leg.

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