Someone’s digging through the radar data too and there could be more multi-source correlations.
So far it seems each of these are single source with two people in the plane seeing it? Or two pilots flying in tandem facing the same way and speed.
Regarding how many eyes have seen this. Take a read of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group report of the incident (PDF) which might answer some of your questions and raise others: https://media.lasvegasnow.com/nxsglobal/lasvegasnow/document...
Edit: adding a couple of excerpts from the report.
- "AAVs would descend "very rapidly" from approximately 60,000 feet down to approximately 50 feet in a matter of seconds. They would then hover or stay stationary on the radar for a short time and depart at high velocities and turn rates"
- "The AAV did take evasive actions upon intercept by the F/A-18 demonstrating an advanced acceleration (G), aerodynamic, and propulsion capability."
- "The Anomalous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) was no known aircraft or air vehicle currently in the inventory of the United States or any foreign nation."
- "The AAV exhibited advanced aerodynamic performance with no visible control surfaces and no visible means to generate lift."
So here's what this comes down to. Three possibilities in order of likelihood:
* A: Psyop fakery: doctored videos were released through official channels, trying to fool other countries we saw something unusual. But why? Who benefits from that? What does it show to others, that our own military is unaware of experimental technology?
* B: Another country has made a giant leap in technology, possibly physics resulting in aerial combat superiority and this should scare any military leader, because if it's real this means the U.S. is no longer the biggest sky predator.
* C: Nonterrestrial origin.
I don't think there are any other possibilities. Last two are a game changer. First one is just bizarre. The weirdest thing, again, is that these videos were released by the Pentagon. You can request copies yourself by filing a FOIA request with the following wording "seeking cockpit videos cleared for release to Louis Elizondo in the fall (September-October) of 2017."
Supposing that the videos are genuine, there is some serious, paradigm shifting tech on display here. It's my hope that this is being shown to the public so that the cat comes out of the bag and it forces the people sitting on the tech to come clean.
The military industrial complex is a deep and complicated network, who knows what kinds of complex power struggles happen under the noses of the general public.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz_UFO_incident#Skepti...
For something like the FLIR footage I'm similarly skeptical. Artifacts can appear there as well, and frankly if some unknown research group or ET is able to mask their presence in the visual spectrum, heat signatures ought to be easy, it's tech that already exists.
In some of these cases, your theory requires multiple systems (multiple human eyes, IR cameras, radar) to experience corresponding simultaneous glitches - sometimes aboard multiple craft, some of which are surface ships!
One of the incidents was picked up on radar both by the missile cruiser USS Princeton and (faintly) by an EC-2 Hawkeye radar plane. Those radar planes don't pull high G's, and last I checked the USS Princeton sure the heck doesn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz_UFO_incident#Encoun...
It's certainly seems more plausible than a phenomenal that no other commercial pilots, plane spotters, or even military pilots flying slower aircraft have reported like this
If true (big "if!") that would explain why only military pilots have reported these things.
There are simply too many ways to explain these things without the inconsistencies of attributing it to some secret research or ET type of thing. Believe if you want, but understand that there are more mundane explanations that fit more of the facts.
Perhaps it's an attempt to mislead adversaries into considering the US has exceptional new capabilities.
Look at some of the stuff Putin has been leaking suggesting new weapons capabilities. Having credible sightings of arguably top-secret experimental military aircraft doing the impossible can be an effective means toward the same end.
Now everyone's left questioning if these videos are real or fake, if these capabilities exist or don't, it's quite ambiguous and I think that's by design.
Psyop fakery: doctored videos were released through official
channels, trying to fool other countries we saw something
unusual. But why? Who benefits from that? What does it show to
others, that our own military is unaware of experimental technology?
1. Certainly, there may be information that can be gleaned from these videos regarding the capabilities of our own aircraft. And certainly, foreign powers are eager to figure out the exact capabilities of each others' aircraft and other weapons. Suppose the USAF has doctored these videos in such a way that give a slightly skewed impression of the F/A-18's capabilities. Either to have folks under- or over-estimate them.
While the Hornets and Super Hornets have been around for decades, they have been continually upgraded, and even leading our foes to under- or over-estimate them by a few percent either way could be meaningful. Could mean the difference in a dogfight, missile attack, whatever.
2. Seems like a good way to for somebody to convince somebody that somebody out there has a highly advanced drone that seems to be several generations ahead of what's currently buzzing around the skies in the world's conflict zones. Heck, maybe the USAF is trying to scare the US government into providing more money to combat real or theoretical advanced drones like these.
Again, I'm not espousing any of these possibilities. Just thinking of possible answers to the "who would benefit if this is a US misinformation campaign?" question.