Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

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Reading the linked Vice article

>"Based on pilot accounts, encounters with these UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) often involved complex flight patterns and advanced maneuvering, which demand extreme advances in quantum mechanics, nuclear science, electromagnetics, and thermodynamics.” - Walker

> Republican representative Mark Walker of North Carolina

This is laughably stupid. QM and nuclear science? Can we call out politicians for just throwing in words that they don't know what they mean? Seriously, I think we should call these people out. I'll even laugh at the extreme part.

My bet is that these things are just some test drones. They might have advanced materials and so you can't trust a lot of the data coming into the FLIR sensor. I don't think it would surprise anyone here that the people making the "most advanced sensors on the market" 1) have more advanced sensors being researched/tested 2) don't perform adversarial attacks on those sensors during testing. As for the visuals, well drones can pull Gs that pilots can't. So if we can't trust the sensor readings (speed and size) and we just see something zipping around, it shouldn't surprise anyone that a drone _could_ be the culprit.

As to the article, this is clearly misdirection. But that's part of warfare. https://youtu.be/qOTYgcdNrXE?t=1281

It seems like there is a historical pattern where people observe something they can't explain and then note that "it must mean X" maybe that is advances in something, or it's just magic, or aliens or whatever.... rather than "We just don't know enough to explain what we think we observed".

And often later we find explanations that fit within the confines of things we understand just fine.

"We just don't know enough to explain what we think we observed" -- this is literally what UFO means.

> what UFO means

Technically yes, but that ignores the fact that words mean more than their dictionary definition. Words simply mean what people think they mean. If you're going to tell me that when someone says UFO that "aliens" doesn't come to mind in some way or form, I'll call you a liar.

If you're going to call his use of those terms incorrect, can you explain a craft travelling supersonic without jets or rockets, leaving no emissions, utilizing no airfoils, consistent with our understanding of physics?

Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that your description actually describes an artificial object that has actually been observed -- what aspect of quantum mechanics explains it? Invoking QM as an explanation of something you can't explain is not a correct use of the term, unless it actually does provide an explanation, and the same goes for all the other terms.

An anti-gravity engine could be used to allow the use of quantum levitation to stabilize the craft in the earth’s magnetic field.

well, a meteor could fit your description.

but more generally, what he's saying is that the sensors are not infallible, especially when dealing with advanced materials.

I'm basically saying Occam's Razor here.

In my OP I did. I suggested that it is not the craft doing those maneuvers but in fact that the sensors malfunctioned. Adversarial attacks on tracking systems is a huge. There's an entire field around it, called "stealth". Stealth just means fooling things. Eyes, radar, tracking systems, whatever. I would call these things pretty stealthy.

As to actually meeting your given qualifications and assuming the sensors were right and told EXACTLY what you specify, no I can't. But I can't explain that even when including QM and nuclear tech (or rather what I can even fathom by stretching well into the realms of almost possible). Even things like EM drives or anti-gravity should leave other types of signatures. (Note: I do have a physics degree. I also studied exotic propulsion devices.)

I'm going with Occam's Razor here and guessing at advanced stealth tech or simply the system failing.

A meteorite? A projectile? A sensor ghost?

I don't know, the video didn't show me that the objects traveled at any speed -- that's from the pilots testimony, but maybe it appeared to move against the backdrop as they were banking around it. I would expect fighter pilots to be a good judge, but maybe you lose some sense of velocity when you're surprised by something you haven't seen before.

Separately, radar operators saw something they didn't understand. It could have been noise as they are now looking out for tiny drones and very small radar signatures, they have sensitivity turned way up. Sometimes you see things that aren't really there.

I'm honestly going weather balloons on this one.

> I don't know, the video didn't show me that the objects traveled at any speed

That’s because you’re watching a YouTube video that was filmed on a potato, instead of actually, y’know, being there.

Well my point is all the conjecture of this unexplained supersonic movement is all hearsay based off eye witnesses. I don't trust eye witnesses, maybe they saw something maybe they didn't, but I haven't seen anything that seems to hold any water.

I do get that. On the other hand, if you look at the believability hierarchy—while eye witnesses rank pretty low, drive-by internet commentators rank significantly lower still.

I'm reminded of Sesame Street's Grover rushing towards the camera saying "Near!", then running away and shouting "Far!". Unimaginable velocity and agility inferred by movements of an object perceived to be large and distant might be more easily explained by one much smaller and closer.

Even if it was literally a space craft from another world, nothing suggests the fields of nuclear or quantum science are necessary for a craft we know nothing about.

Well, it's obviously God visiting us. Anyone can come up with these untestable hypotheses. That's not useful by itself.

I've seen those videos. The objects were at 80,000 ft traveling at Sonic speeds as recorded by jets flying in the vicinity. The object also took a sudden left so fast that our radars could not lock in the position. All to say that it is ok to entertain that these are not identified by human technology and they may not be our drones.

Maybe they’re testing tech that tricks pilots and tracking systems into seeing things that aren’t there, or things that distract the sensors and pilots so the real craft can make a hasty escape.

What would be the point of such testing when we don't have the means to follow such targets?

Is it possible he’s just repeating something he read on a navy report? Genuine question.

I'm not sure why anyone in the Navy would say that to them, especially anyone with any type of engineering or science background. But if they did I'd be happy to shift the accountability, somewhat. Somewhat because politicians should also have BS meters, so holding their feet to the fire should also help tune this BS meter. Because let's be real, this is just absurd and should set off tons of BS meters.

> This is laughably stupid. QM and nuclear science?

I see nothing stupid with using quantum mechanics and nuclear science in this context.

> Can we call out politicians for just throwing in words that they don't know what they mean?

I'm sure they know what those words mean on a surface level. They don't really need to understand them beyond that point, it's not their job.

I do. When you say this is an "unidentified aerial phenomena" or an "unidentified flying objects," that means it's unidentified. As in: we do not know what we are looking at. You don't get to say, "well, we don't know what this is; therefore, it must be aliens." You say, "We don't know what this is. Until we have more information, there is no conclusion to make." Nothing more. Full stop. The end. And, certainly not technobabble.

It's hard for many to acept not knowing something. Or to make a joke from it: It uses propulsion we know to be impossible.

Yeah sure, but the fact remains that the government does know, has known, and continues to keep secret that these really are alien craft according to dozens of respected military whistleblowers who courageously came forward to break their NDA's and tell the truth on the subject.

If the government tried to keep this secret, they did a really piss poor job of it. Anyone spending any reasonable amount of time researching on the UFO phenomenon - admittedly a painful task as it tends to attract the worse kooks, I'm talking about somewhat legitimate authors and reports here - knows that there is something real happening there.

I doubt any explanation is as simple as "aliens from somewhere else" though, and I definitely don't think the "government" knows any more about what exactly it is that we do, but I also doubt it tries to keep it a secret deliberately.

Have any of them been prosecuted for breaking NDA? Is it possible that they were told to "break NDA" and "come clean" to obfuscate the truth?

Consider seeking mental health care, think about your life and if there are other signs that you need help.

>I see nothing stupid with using quantum mechanics and nuclear science in this context.

why don't you?

Nothing in any of the examples show anything remotely related to either fields.

It's a brash leap to judgement to presume that something unexplained is using phenomena that we're well aware of -- and it's a brash leap to presume that given a video of flight dynamics that one can understand the technological progression of history required to do so.

Example : If it was an alien, how do we know they didn't purchase the technology? How do we know that another race didn't gift them something beyond their comprehension?

If we're making big leaping judgements given small amounts of evidence, why not write an entire history and lore for these aliens that must exist, given that we saw an unidentified aircraft?

It's ridiculous to jump to such lengths when a much more reliable and proven answer to the question of unidentified aircraft is : 'Military experiment'.

> I see nothing stupid with using quantum mechanics and nuclear science in this context.

Why? Where would we even need QM or Nuke tech for these?

Metamaterials for tricking FLIR? That's the closest I can think and I'd call anyone out for calling that QM. We don't call carbon nanotubes quantum tech, because they're in the nano realm, which is FAR from the quantum regime. I'm not sure where else we could come even close. Quantum is sub atomic, we're really just at the birth of atomic tech right now too (It'd be fine to call some metameterials atomic tech). When we're talking quantum we're talking about things that require quantum effects; like teleportation. There's nothing here that is really demonstrating quantum effects.

Nukes? Where do we need them for this? Hot material is very heavy, and well... hot (radioactive). This isn't really good for stealth tech, since you have to provide a lot of extra shielding just so you don't fry the electronics, let alone hide the emissions in the radio, IR, X-ray, and gamma spectra. Then there's the fact that there's no current tech indicating that such a power source could be useful in this space. Unless you're thinking something other than a power source... which I can't think of any. For power sources there are a lot of other possible explanations that don't require generations of work (specifically in size, weight, and efficiency) to have been done in complete secret (because that's how advanced we're talking about if we want to use something nuclear here. Secret tech isn't ever even a generation ahead, though it is ahead). And I mean _generations_ of work. We're not even close.

If you're seeing something I'm not, I'm legitimately curious.

> I'm sure they know what those words mean on a surface level. They don't really need to understand them beyond that point, it's not their job.

I'd argue that the use cases more demonstrate that they know _the words_ but don't even know surface level meaning. I'm arguing that we should call people out for using buzzwords needlessly.

Note: I am fine with the uses of electromagnetics (I'll let that pass) and thermal-dynamics, even though I don't know why we would need to have extreme advancements in thermally efficient materials here. Not unless these things were hypersonic. These connections at least I can pass off as surface level knowledge, but QM and Nuke are just laughable.

> I see nothing stupid with using quantum mechanics and nuclear science in this context.

What if the gentleman had said, "Based on pilot accounts, encounters with these UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) often involved complex flight patterns and advanced maneuvering, which demand extreme advances in CPU architecture including instructions we've never seen before, database consistency guarantees, and whitespace significance" would you see the problem with such claims?

If he had simply said, "These appear to use technology in advance of anything known to mankind" that would have been enough. To posit specific mechanisms of physics of a phenomenon we know next to nothing about is silly.

> I'm sure they know what those words mean on a surface level.

I don't think he has any idea what they mean beyond "sciencey stuff."

Looking at an impossibly advanced aircraft and assuming it's based on "extreme advances in quantum mechanics and nuclear science" makes as much sense as saying it's based on "extreme advances in organic chemistry and software design." No one with any grasp of engineering would jump straight to these fields that are not, so far as we know, associated in any way with aerospace propulsion. He's just grabbing the coolest science buzzwords he knows to make himself sound serious and professional.

> They don't really need to understand them beyond that point

why not?

It's an UFO until it's a drone. (Joking)

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