'Fleet of UFOs' Followed US Aircraft, Navy Pilot Says (2019) | Hacker News Reader

'Fleet of UFOs' Followed US Aircraft, Navy Pilot Says (2019)

livescience.com

I'm very passionate about the UFO subject ("ufology" as some call it) and am happy that we're getting more "official" reports like this which leads to public awareness. I follow the subject pretty closely and 90% of it is all about book sales so it's annoying/pushes it back from being taken seriously in terms of science.

As far as I'm concerned this ^ and the Phoenix Lights are the most credible UFO sightings.

Personal note: I'll never forget the first time I saw a UFO and it was with my Dad! We couldn't believe it - my cheap Virgin Mobile flip phone camera was not capable of... well anything, unfortunate. I have seen 2 or 3 UFOs since then (one with an ex-partner so I wasn't just seeing things).

BTW, I'm you're typical "smart" logical programmer and don't just believe whatever I hear... I'm betting on more of these reports coming out and hope that science starts to factor into the subject.

🛸🛸🛸

I think the TPTB decided that a next pandemy may wipe the whole humanity off, and decided that it is the time to start giving out the information, piece by piece.

Thoughts on the roswell ufo incident?

I saw no compelling evidence of anything. Too long ago, too easy to cover up / make things up. That's just my .05 though.

(serious question) Was covering up 'Project Mogul' explanation not adequate?

What about the Tehran UFO incident?

Ah good one. I only wrote in the ones that are very obviously but...

- Kecksburg UFO incident - Chilean Navy UFO incident

Kecksburg is a stretch for most people, but I lived around there and heard first-hand reports. Not that that really matters.

Within aviation and specifically military aviation, "UFO" means exactly what it says on the tin, an object that is airborne (flying) but has not been identified to be a known craft type by radio signals or visual recognition.

That's all. It doesn't imply anything about what it is, only what it isn't, namely identified.

There are tons of these on radar, HF etc all the time.

Found this via "The Villager and the F-18" article:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23006595

These may not even be "flying" objects. My understanding is the US military has the capability to generate radar "ghosts" ie objects show up on your radar that do not exist. This, as you can imagine, would be advantageous in confusing enemy defenses ("look, the Americans, they're coming from the east", when in fact, they are flying in from another direction.

I am really skeptical that these are extra-terrestial in nature or that the US government does not know exactly what they are. Think of the national security implications if there were beings with technological capabilities far beyond ours hanging around our military installations. The government would freak out, and rightly so. The absence of this reaction is the most convincing evidence to me that the origin of these sightings is not a mystery.

They officially use the term 'aerial phenomena' instead of 'objects' for that very reason. I do see in some of the articles that the people in interviews sometimes use the older term, but officially they avoid calling them objects when they could be "reflections" etc.

For example, the rotating one that is making its rounds in the official release definitely moves in such a way that it is probably something firmly attached to something else and twisting kinda like a bolt or screw or even a lever does, and somehow ending up on the radar. That rotation it does is definitely not of the aerodynamic kind.

Always good to read the Bad UFOs take. https://badufos.blogspot.com/2019/05/its-tic-vs-tac-as-media...

I've been following this story since 2015 and the same incomplete story (only the most salacious parts, none of the context or criticism) keeps getting recycled by the media over and over and over

There isn't much more than the salacious bits is there?

There may be some substrate of psychology at work on the US Navy aircraft carriers. Those are amongst the biggest and baddest machines of death ever -- floating cities of death, powerful enough to act like kings of the world if invulnerable. There is reason to fear that carriers cannot successfully defend themselves against a large swarm of drones, and it is entirely possible that several other countries are doing serious R&D to thereby end the reign of the carriers as masters of the seas.

A drone is unlikely to be a threat to a carrier battle group. Drones are far too slow and munitions they carry are far too slow.

The only legitimate threats to carrier battle groups are supersonic Anti ship missiles (AShMs), such as the USSR P-800, the Brahmos 2, etc.

These come in low (under the CBGs radar horizon) and fast on final approach to ship and maneuver. They can be nuclear-tipped.

Right now the defense pattern is this:

* There is an AWACS plane off of the carrier providing over-the-horizon (OTH) radar coverage.

* Once it detects a missile, the info is data-linked to the AEGIS cruisers (carrier battle group / CBG) surrounding the carrier

* These fire anti-missile missiles (SM-6 and similar)

* If missiles get through, close range missiles, radar chaff is deployed, and CIWS miniguns spray the target (or chaff released by friendlies, and consequently the friendlies)

* As a last line of defense, the carrier itself has some CIWS

There has been no true demonstration of AshMs being stopped in any significant number.

> Drones are far too slow and munitions they carry are far too slow.

Quantity has a quality all its own.

> AEGIS cruisers (carrier battle group / CBG) surrounding the carrier

If you do not know how large or small the drones may be, you may have to protect against attacks from within that perimeter.

Regardless, for the point of view of the current discussion, the question is not whether you are correct, it is whether or not the Navy people have reasons to stay up at night worrying that you may not be 100% correct, worrying at least enough to lose a little of their rationality when dealing with a new situation that they are unable to explain. Skeptics say that extraordinary explanations require extraordinary evidence and that normally only normal things happen. But that kind of thinking may not prevail when one is trained to believe the multi-billion dollar radar no matter how odd the display appears and no matter how many layers of software and hardware between the antenna and the display must work together flawlessly to put that image on the screen. Particularly when your own life, thousands of others, and everything you are working for may be at stake.

Torpedoes?

Why not make a submersible sea drone that surfaces and fires middles?

Mirv warheads?

Modern states can deter carriers outside their useful range.

And there will always be a drone strategy deadly enough and far cheaper to take out capital surface ships.

And in a real war, our weapons are so expensive that just getting us to use them on anything is an economic victory

Carriers have always been relatively vulnerable. That's why they have picket ships and carrier groups. I'm not sure drones increase that. They might lower the barrier to entry for an attack. But considering the barrier is a small boat with a bomber a la USS Cole attack.

It'll be interesting to see if/how CIWS will be adapted.

A couple of things, there is not enough story here to get a clear picture. Namely did more than one pilot in the same flight capture these on RADAR and infrared and while the one pilot says he did not capture it on his helmet camera did any other pilots even see them with their own eyes?

If its just via sensors, even in the same flight, could it be some test program that just gets activated under the right conditions? Is there more story that goes into detail about how many pilots per flight saw them?

The articles when they first came out really blew me away. Initially I thought though that this might be an interesting reason that explained it.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28640/could-some-of-th...

This article, dated May 2019, seems to be discussing the same material as a New York Times article from around that time - previous discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20018535

Russia shows us hyper-sonic rockets

we should Russia UFOs

(2019)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com