Just like the SR71 had a cover story during its development phase. "The wreckage was recovered in two days, and persons at the scene were identified and requested to sign secrecy agreements. A cover story for the press described the accident as occurring to a F-105, and it is still listed in this way on official records." - https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...
If the Navy had told the pilots, "You just experienced an advanced technology test. Nothing to worry about" then they would have undoubtedly kept their mouths shut and not talked to the media.
How are you going to keep the other pilots from figuring out they're test subjects?
Especially if any word about the experiment got out. Swearing another pilot to secrecy versus letting them think you're nuts for the rest of your lives, I think they're gonna pick door #1.
I guess what I'm saying is (whether real or fake) this could be a controlled leak for strategic benefit.
Because (1) need to know, and (2) fueling conspiracy theories to keep an appropriate background level helps when you want to dismiss actual conspiracy as a conspiracy theory, which the government periodically needs to do, and people can play their role in that best when they believe what they are saying.
That doesn't mean the laser pointer wielder is moving that fast.
The pilots claiming to have seen the large underwater craft and the tic-tac saw it visually only. The radar on their planes could not pick it up. They watched it for 5 mins and engaged it ( flew at it aggressively, they did not have active weapons). That is where they saw it acting erratically and stopping and starting as if you threw a ping pong ball inside an invisible box before “noticing” them, and mirroring their movements as fravor flew down in a large circle, before cutting across the circle at the tic-tac. It then flew past them as “incredible” speed.
That would be quite the laser pointer to make that scene.
I mean, what's more likely? A magic propulsion system ignoring known physics, or some component in the complex sensory system of the plane falling into oscillation?
Assuming those reports are credible, which I see no immediate reason to doubt, the most plausible explanation must include technology that is far more advanced than anything we have or can imagine having today or in the next few decades.
My current best theory is that pilots were seeing a reflection on the surface of water and got confused because FLIR had a possibly unrelated and buggy interaction between an internal reflection in optics and tracking software.
(As for the radar thing, I hear it being said that there was a radar that saw someting, but no concrete information is being presented.)
Now take it from the other way around. Say it's aliens, or supernatural beings. Then why on Earth would they behave in an exact way that makes the FLIR footage indistinguishable from a camera auto-tracking a reflection on its own optics? Why exactly this pattern?
Also, there are far more plausible scenarios than aliens or the supernatural that involve extremely advanced technology.
The evidence in this case is very weak. Someone saw something.
"must include technology that is far more advanced than anything we have"
Unless we get actual pieces of that "advanced technology", the most probable explanation is that the people got confused. The same way we all get confused about million other things; like miracles witnessed by thousands of people or cops chasing UFO that turned out to be Venus.
I will repeat - Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
That makes it look like you're trying to mislead/lie/coverup.
It's a good strategy to advertise new capabilities to adversaries and/or let them know you know about theirs or just to make them think rare atmospheric/sensor phenomena are scary new tech.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27185/f-35s-most-sinis...
1 = https://the-drive.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fs3-us-west-2.amazo...
As long as you don't exceed the max speed for the gear, no problem.
Taken to the next level, anything coated with something like Vantablack [1] “looks phtotoshopped” based on our previous visual experiences with everyday materials.
[1] https://www.bmwblog.com/2019/08/27/bmw-vbx6-vantablack-the-w...
Unfortunately I can’t find the video right now, but there was a video I watched where the guy broke down the GoFast video using the angles and speed displayed screen, and made a very convincing argument that it’s not actually moving fast, but appears to be going fast do to parallax. Instead it’s basically going wind speed — like a balloon.
Similarly, as someone linked to elsewhere in this discussion, the images showing up as glowing ovals don’t actually mean anything. Everything shows up as ovals in FLIR artifacts.
I’m thinking these are just the most mundane of mundane items, that are only bringing detected because of ironically increased sensor fidelity.
I think the press articles we see about this are part of a broader information war campaign trying to plant red herrings to confuse other nation state actors.
There's another possibility, too; he's human, and humans frequently make mistakes. Eyewitness reports are incredibly unreliable.
And, again, the military lying to uncleared civilians is hardly without precedent.
I'm not saying that happened, just that it is a possibility. Personally I think it's aliens.
US is so not used to that!