What better way to gauge how well the tech is working than by crowdsourcing the sightings?
What's the range of a cell phone signal? The signals from the cell towers will be aimed parallel with the ground. There is going to be an inverse square relationship with the signal strength and distance. A stealth plane is also more likely to be up way high too. The more signals there, the more populous the area, the more likely that a plane would be even higher. How many signals are needed for a disturbance to be noticed/tracked?
Maybe if the stealth plane was 50,000ft or lower, but considering comercial traffic usually flies up to 39,000ft, and some private traffic at 45,000ft, you probably won't find stealth aircraft below 50,000ft.
F-117 service ceiling was 45,000 ft according to Wikipedia - B-2's is 50,000ft. Ironically, the B-2 has some design compromises to allow it to operate at low altitudes for penetrating strikes, as stealth wasn't quite as trusted when it was being designed - and low altitudes allow operating below the horizon from radar installations. (The B-21 renderings look like they've dropped those compromises - high altitude penetration only)
I'll agree that using cell phones to detect the presence of stealth aircraft is more than a little dubious, though.
A few years ago in a thread similar to this I discussed[0] and dissected[1] the book. My conclusion was that Cook is mistaken, but given incidents like this, and the fact he later uncovered a black UAV program, I always wonder.
I can easily believe there was a programme researching that. There's been research into all sorts of crackpot ideas, especially in wartime. The film The Men Who Stare at Goats was based on a true story of US military research, and there was WW2 research into death rays after all.
Mistaken, or failed research that was well secreted? It took 30 years for Bletchley Park to leak, despite involving thousands.
Cook now seems to be a defence consultant specialising in climate change.
Another one to add to my impossibly long reading list though. :)
>"Although no evidence of the veracity of Witkowski’s statements has been produced, they reached a wider audience when they were retold by British author Nick Cook, who added his own views to Witkowski’s statements in The Hunt for Zero Point.[4]"
The WW2 "Bell" experiment narrative was actually my largest complaint with Cook's book. While it makes for a fantastic story that's pretty much screenplay material, it's very unlikely to be true.
If this existed during WW2 it means it started development way before that. The implications that such level of technological advancement was available at that time, and is still under active funding and development today doesn't add up.
I tend to agree it doesn't fit, but one way of looking at it is, even if highly improbable: the fundamental physics breakthroughs were made back then, and ever since the craft have been updated with modern avionics and electronics suites.