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Comment by injb | Hacker News Reader

The more I hear about these the more I'm convinced that this guy[1] was on to something. It may be that someone has become really good at this and can now make distinct shapes instead of just a glowing orb.

[1] https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang...

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I miss Tom Mahood. I wonder if he's still around. Last update was on Sept 4, 2019.

He has a number of popular articles and stories about search and rescue. One that comes to mind is the search for missing Germans in Death Valley [0].

[0] https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...

+1 The Death Valley Germans case was how I found Tom's website. I still think about Bill Ewasko all the time. Hopefully he'll be found some day.

There's some neat info in these blog posts but the guy's writing is insufferably melodramatic, sarcastic, and self-referential. So, a blog, basically. I'm glad that craze is mostly over.

It isn't clear to me what specific observation he's trying to explain. The most important thing to know about bethe bloch is that everyone abuses it and applies it when it isn't really applicable. SRIM is intended for things like calculating penetration depth when implanting ions in materials (maybe a couple MeV energy at most). There will be oodles of physics in play at higher energies that aren't considered by SRIM, especially above pion production threshold near 140 MeV. I can also tell you that a 500 GeV proton beam will be moving nearly the speed of light and so will not look like a tictac or other recent observations. Also, making such a beam would require a huge stable facility, not portable at all. Making such beams is also outrageously energy innefficient. It typically isn't even thought about because it's so low.

You might need to follow some of the older links (e.g. [1]) but there's a very clear and specific statement of what he's explaining: this is what he claims Bob Lazar observed at the so-called Area 51 (Groom Lake). He claims Lazar knew exactly what it was but decided to show his friends and tell them it was UFOs. Now he is stuck with that lie because if he ever tells the truth, he could be prosecuted. That's the theory anyway - I'm not saying any of that is correct but it strikes me as by far the most plausible theory I've heard.

Applying this theory to the tic tac thingy was something I just thought of, not something the author of that website ever claimed (to my knowledge).

The problem I have with statements like "they're too big/expensive/non-portable for that" is that we already know that we're dealing with something that we can't explain. In other words: at least one of our beliefs about the state of some kind of technology is very wrong. One thing I keep hearing about these objects is that they move instantly, as if they have no mass. Well, then, they probably have no mass - that's the simplest explanation.

[1] https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang...

just because it hasn't been explained easily does not imply there's a problem with our beliefs about technology. for example, that they are objects at all is already an assumption that could be wrong. what do you make of this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7jcBGLIpus

The particle beam being applicable for radar spoofing seems like it potentially fit nicely with the hard to explain Nimitz carrier group sightings. Specifically the carrier group at the time being out to test it's fancy new integrated targeting and control systems, showing up on several different scopes at the same time with several different targets, and moving to the investigating squad of jets' rally point after being detected. Anecdotally supposedly retired f-117s are flying in a somewhat similar role with the carrier group still in order to test new sensors.[1]

The 76' Tehran UFO incident seems like it potentially fits as well. I'm no physicist but a F-4 flying too close to a mass of protons/plasma sure seems like it could cause failures.

[1]https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33593/f-117s-flew-dire...

That is an amazing UI.

Which aspect(s) of the UI do you find to be amazing? Asking for educational purposes.

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