That wouldn't make any sense, though, because they've been detected by multiple different types of sensors and apparently very frequently. Unless someone were making these errors appear on purpose it wouldn't be reasonable to expect a software/hardware error.
My pet theory is that they are mylar balloons launched by russian submarines. The subs launch the balloons as radar targets to elicit a response from the navy. Then the subs gather intel on our radars, response time, order of battle, etc.
There is more than one incident. In one incident (2004 Nimitz FLIR1, west coast), the object is static and then initiates non-newtonian acceleration. In the next (GIMBAL, undated, east coast), the same behavior of static hovering with non-newtonian motion.
In another, your example (2015 GOFAST, west coast) a slightly different elongated object is cruising at Mach 0.5 at low altitude, close to the water.
The upper atmosphere is a mess of violent winds, so it wouldn't be out of the ordinary. Don't forget a weightless balloon is a lot more sensitive to turbulence than a multi-ton computer-stabilized fighter jet, and those winds can already drop a multi-hundred-ton 747 by tens of feet.
The Russian sub fleet is in dismal shape currently. And launching something like this would probably result in detection and tracking of the sub. Most of these videos were off the West Coast near San Diego, in a weapons training area, so that would be like poking the wasp nest with a stick.
People on HN tend to be skeptical to a fault. In this case, even the usual skeptics just say "we can't rush to conclusions."[0]
When the Navy released this footage and the story with a number of highly credible witnesses and recorded sensor video, I decided to be more open minded when there was such unexplainable evidence of things that I couldn't possibly dream up a terrestrial explanation for. My guess is that it was a machine operated by something from a different system, far more advanced than us, observing us from a distance similar to how we might observe the Sentinelese. I suspect some percentage of UFO reports that don't have such solid evidence are also valid and related.
Everyone on HN says "of course we're not alone in this vast universe!" but when confronted with possible evidence of them being here, monitoring us, it's a bit too much for their reality. Perhaps it's the feeling of loss of free will and self determinism that it implies.
Do you have any evidence to suggest that there isn’t a terrestrial explanation? You’ve gone straight from “I don’t know what this is” to “I think it’s something from another system monitoring us”.
That’s an astonishingly large leap to a very major conclusion. As such it requires a substantial amount of compelling evidence. Short low quality video is not that, so I assume you have either additional data about the events, or you are already in the “government hushing up aliens” group - in which case you aren’t actually being open minded, you’re simply anchoring to anything that supports your preexisting viewpoint.
Nothing particularly wrong with that - that’s human nature - but it’s important to recognize that what you’re demonstrating is not being open minded
I would have left a very similar comment a few years ago. As you said, it's human nature to hold on to beliefs, especially when those beliefs strongly define their worldview. Read the wiki link -- it isn't just a video, and the sensor that took it is ~$3mm a pop.
I could direct you to find some links describing how many other "potentially life-friendly" systems are thought to exist in the galaxy, let alone the observable universe, and then do some math on the odds of us being the most advanced. Once receptive to the idea of there likely being at least one more-advanced space-faring civilization in our galaxy, then what? Should we blindly bow down to alien overlords whenever we can't explain something? No, but we should certainly investigate it with an open mind when there is credibility (e.g. the most advanced military on Earth releases a WTF video and sailor/pilot testimony) and the null hypothesis ("we are alone and this phenomena is something we can explain with existing science.") can't be proven.
In my case, I have some family anecdata which is worthless to you, but which I had dismissed until this video came out along with a similar one from the Chilean Navy, and I decided I lean toward these being intelligent phenomena not from this system. I consider most of the examples in the following video to be on the credible side, and I'm fascinated by the implications of it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaSY2Zc0goQ
It saddens me that science-oriented folks would shut themselves out from something so interesting (and statistically probable by mainstream estimates), but again, just human nature.
The null hypothesis is not “we are alone”. Nor is it particularly relevant here.
We have a small object over a short period of time with an expensive sensor - which does not mean high quality: FLIR systems are expensive at low resolution.
The options are:
* it is a terrestrial object that we have never seen before
* it is a terrestrial object we have seen before, just not in this environment
* it is a monitoring device from another system
Instead of doing the sensible thing and saying what terrestrial things could this be and demonstrating it is not them, you have gone straight to “someone with lots of money couldn’t determine what it was, so it must be aliens”. You then go another step of evidenceless assertions: that it is here to “monitor” us. Let’s take a hypothetical position that you are correct on the first count, the object comes from an intelligent species outside of the system: what is your evidence it is sent to monitor us? Why not be a probe along the lines of the various interplanetary probes we’ve sent out? That is a one way video camera to see what’s there, with no significant advance knowledge.
> Instead of doing the sensible thing and saying what terrestrial things could this be and demonstrating it is not them
That was already done by the Navy before releasing this, not to mention many other skeptics. Do you have a new idea? I read some on another HN thread active on this topic. The most credible one seems like advanced EW jammers to produce a bogie on the atflir video, but it doesn't explain the visual sightings or simultaneous passive radar sightings with atflir readings. And to my knowledge, EW is used on lower frequencies where long distance radar typically operates; not sure if it even works on IR. If you've ever worked on defense projects, you may know they aren't exactly hotbeds of innovation these days, so while it is possible that they could have independently come up with a propulsion based on new physics and misdirected other branches of the government about it, that seems as unlikely to me as extraterrestrials do to you. Nonetheless, this being a domestic highly-classified craft is another option you can choose to believe.
As I already said, the monitoring part is just my guess -- and there were plenty of steps in between seeing this video and coming to that conclusion. The only thing I would try to persuade anyone of is that it wasn't made by humans. Which has pretty profound implications as it is. I do encourage you to do your own research (the two links I posted are a good place to start). Don't nitpick just so you can stick your head back in the sand (you're clearly aware of human nature, now fight it!). I'm no expert and I'm no more qualified to decipher the likely incomprehensible intentions of an advanced civilization than you are. However, I do try to be open minded and I'm fascinated by this, and compelled by the amount of evidence that already exists.
High intensity, collimated laser arrays and phased array transmitters that project EM energy at intersecting cross points to produce three-dimensional plasma shapes. The lasers and beams are invisible, and multiple platforms (satellite & submarine & stealth aircraft) participate in the creation and movement.
The beams focus on a programmed point to start the phenomenon, and then hand off to an operator to steer the cooperative system from a spotter's perch. In this case probably submarine.
As for who owns it? Not the Navy. A secret operation conducted either by The U.S. or Russia, or maybe China.
I have been seeing this organization pop up all over the place. Tom Delonge went on the JRE a year an a bit ago and talked about it. It is primarily an entertainment company, and they try to mix science and entertainment and UFO's together.
Personally I think it's all BS. Here's why:
They are giving out tokens to everyone as a form of stock. This creates an incentive for everyone to cohesively lie about UFO's being real. Read the list of board members. Some government officials are using this to retire if they can turn it into a money making enterprise.
In order to make money, they are pushing stories that seem credible. This story in particular is a big fish for them. They recruited the guy involved, made a documentary, and then tricked Congress into talking to someone so they could use it as publicity.
They also claim to have materials "that aren't from this earth", then they backtracked and said they are materials that have a chain of custody "as far back as 1990" that are only now beginning to be made on earth.
The while thing is a giant attempt to monetize conspiracy as entertainment by blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.
And they just might pull it off, there is a market, and they dont need much revenue to make it work.
ugh, these videos are as old as time but every few months since 2015 a new article comes out with a clickbait headline referencing the same thing. there are a few sources that have reported on this objectively (nbc sandiego isnt one), if you look.
That hypothesis and also video/optical/signal "lens flares" and other such technical glitch theories have been discussed widely.
The reason none of that holds up is because of the way advanced "sensor fusion" and direct observers with the naked eye have all agreed and converged on highly detailed accounts from multiple angles.
You might imagine that "sensor fusion" involves some centralized control plane that collects and controls the redistributed captures at a focal choke point, where maybe the NSA (or a foreign APT implant, or some such high tech evil-doer) could sneak in and spoof some deep fake concoction into the mix, but these are fault tolerant systems, including direct observations from boots on the ground in visual contact with the objects. You have personnel with ordinary binoculars. You have vehicles with weapons systems that expect jamming and hostile environments. Sensor fusion is one tool, and not the only tool in the kit.
They have ships with eyes in multiple spectrum bands, especially radio, microwave, IR and broad daylight. People looking at unfused radar, sending planes to a radar return, and then seeing and following the object by visual flight rules.
This isn't a situation where a single point of failure introduces doubt. In fact, it is the very opposite: multiple independent sources of high integrity, at least if you trust The U.S. Navy.
To some degree the sensor fusion actually helps the case for sensor malfunction. It would explain why it was detected by multiple "independent" systems if in fact those systems are not independent.
For a military, "identifying" a craft is less about saying what something is, and more about saying who something is. If you know that something is a jet, but you can't recognize the make of it well-enough to know whose embassy to complain to for it being in your airspace, then it's still "unidentified."
It's sort of like a criminal investigation. If you know that "a tall, Caucasian male" is responsible for the crime, that's not worth issuing a formal finding about, because you still haven't identified a suspect to pursue. You have some details, but not enough to "go on."
(Also, many things that aren't jets try to pretend to be jets in various ways, many jets try to pretend to not be jets in various ways, and many jets try to pretend to be other jets in various ways. If you just see "a jet", you can't be sure which of these cases is in play. Identification involves finding a non-repudiable signature—a tell that indicates a particular make of device, that cannot be faked by any other currently-known device. Sort of like a (well-made) virus signature.)
38 comments
[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 84.7 ms ] threadIn another, your example (2015 GOFAST, west coast) a slightly different elongated object is cruising at Mach 0.5 at low altitude, close to the water.
When the Navy released this footage and the story with a number of highly credible witnesses and recorded sensor video, I decided to be more open minded when there was such unexplainable evidence of things that I couldn't possibly dream up a terrestrial explanation for. My guess is that it was a machine operated by something from a different system, far more advanced than us, observing us from a distance similar to how we might observe the Sentinelese. I suspect some percentage of UFO reports that don't have such solid evidence are also valid and related.
Everyone on HN says "of course we're not alone in this vast universe!" but when confronted with possible evidence of them being here, monitoring us, it's a bit too much for their reality. Perhaps it's the feeling of loss of free will and self determinism that it implies.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nimitz_UFO_incident#Skepti...
That’s an astonishingly large leap to a very major conclusion. As such it requires a substantial amount of compelling evidence. Short low quality video is not that, so I assume you have either additional data about the events, or you are already in the “government hushing up aliens” group - in which case you aren’t actually being open minded, you’re simply anchoring to anything that supports your preexisting viewpoint.
Nothing particularly wrong with that - that’s human nature - but it’s important to recognize that what you’re demonstrating is not being open minded
I could direct you to find some links describing how many other "potentially life-friendly" systems are thought to exist in the galaxy, let alone the observable universe, and then do some math on the odds of us being the most advanced. Once receptive to the idea of there likely being at least one more-advanced space-faring civilization in our galaxy, then what? Should we blindly bow down to alien overlords whenever we can't explain something? No, but we should certainly investigate it with an open mind when there is credibility (e.g. the most advanced military on Earth releases a WTF video and sailor/pilot testimony) and the null hypothesis ("we are alone and this phenomena is something we can explain with existing science.") can't be proven.
In my case, I have some family anecdata which is worthless to you, but which I had dismissed until this video came out along with a similar one from the Chilean Navy, and I decided I lean toward these being intelligent phenomena not from this system. I consider most of the examples in the following video to be on the credible side, and I'm fascinated by the implications of it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaSY2Zc0goQ
It saddens me that science-oriented folks would shut themselves out from something so interesting (and statistically probable by mainstream estimates), but again, just human nature.
The null hypothesis is not “we are alone”. Nor is it particularly relevant here.
We have a small object over a short period of time with an expensive sensor - which does not mean high quality: FLIR systems are expensive at low resolution.
The options are:
* it is a terrestrial object that we have never seen before
* it is a terrestrial object we have seen before, just not in this environment
* it is a monitoring device from another system
Instead of doing the sensible thing and saying what terrestrial things could this be and demonstrating it is not them, you have gone straight to “someone with lots of money couldn’t determine what it was, so it must be aliens”. You then go another step of evidenceless assertions: that it is here to “monitor” us. Let’s take a hypothetical position that you are correct on the first count, the object comes from an intelligent species outside of the system: what is your evidence it is sent to monitor us? Why not be a probe along the lines of the various interplanetary probes we’ve sent out? That is a one way video camera to see what’s there, with no significant advance knowledge.
That was already done by the Navy before releasing this, not to mention many other skeptics. Do you have a new idea? I read some on another HN thread active on this topic. The most credible one seems like advanced EW jammers to produce a bogie on the atflir video, but it doesn't explain the visual sightings or simultaneous passive radar sightings with atflir readings. And to my knowledge, EW is used on lower frequencies where long distance radar typically operates; not sure if it even works on IR. If you've ever worked on defense projects, you may know they aren't exactly hotbeds of innovation these days, so while it is possible that they could have independently come up with a propulsion based on new physics and misdirected other branches of the government about it, that seems as unlikely to me as extraterrestrials do to you. Nonetheless, this being a domestic highly-classified craft is another option you can choose to believe.
As I already said, the monitoring part is just my guess -- and there were plenty of steps in between seeing this video and coming to that conclusion. The only thing I would try to persuade anyone of is that it wasn't made by humans. Which has pretty profound implications as it is. I do encourage you to do your own research (the two links I posted are a good place to start). Don't nitpick just so you can stick your head back in the sand (you're clearly aware of human nature, now fight it!). I'm no expert and I'm no more qualified to decipher the likely incomprehensible intentions of an advanced civilization than you are. However, I do try to be open minded and I'm fascinated by this, and compelled by the amount of evidence that already exists.
The beams focus on a programmed point to start the phenomenon, and then hand off to an operator to steer the cooperative system from a spotter's perch. In this case probably submarine.
As for who owns it? Not the Navy. A secret operation conducted either by The U.S. or Russia, or maybe China.
And it's ... The Blink-182 guy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n_3mnJfHzY
I can't believe these people are being given a platform. They weren't the first to come out with the videos, were they?
* And securities! [2]
[1] https://tothestars.media/collections/sekret-machines
[2] https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b5a458fe749405f83225...
Personally I think it's all BS. Here's why:
They are giving out tokens to everyone as a form of stock. This creates an incentive for everyone to cohesively lie about UFO's being real. Read the list of board members. Some government officials are using this to retire if they can turn it into a money making enterprise.
In order to make money, they are pushing stories that seem credible. This story in particular is a big fish for them. They recruited the guy involved, made a documentary, and then tricked Congress into talking to someone so they could use it as publicity.
They also claim to have materials "that aren't from this earth", then they backtracked and said they are materials that have a chain of custody "as far back as 1990" that are only now beginning to be made on earth.
The while thing is a giant attempt to monetize conspiracy as entertainment by blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.
And they just might pull it off, there is a market, and they dont need much revenue to make it work.
The reason none of that holds up is because of the way advanced "sensor fusion" and direct observers with the naked eye have all agreed and converged on highly detailed accounts from multiple angles.
You might imagine that "sensor fusion" involves some centralized control plane that collects and controls the redistributed captures at a focal choke point, where maybe the NSA (or a foreign APT implant, or some such high tech evil-doer) could sneak in and spoof some deep fake concoction into the mix, but these are fault tolerant systems, including direct observations from boots on the ground in visual contact with the objects. You have personnel with ordinary binoculars. You have vehicles with weapons systems that expect jamming and hostile environments. Sensor fusion is one tool, and not the only tool in the kit.
They have ships with eyes in multiple spectrum bands, especially radio, microwave, IR and broad daylight. People looking at unfused radar, sending planes to a radar return, and then seeing and following the object by visual flight rules.
This isn't a situation where a single point of failure introduces doubt. In fact, it is the very opposite: multiple independent sources of high integrity, at least if you trust The U.S. Navy.
https://youtu.be/PLyEO0jNt6M
Gimbal is a jet. The perceived rotation is an artifact of the camera rotating on a gimbal.
https://youtu.be/4X1PRDbtiF0
Nimitz is also a jet. It’s far away, and blurry.
https://youtu.be/s1oTg0kxzDs
It would be really cool if these were alien spaceships. They’re likely not.
It's sort of like a criminal investigation. If you know that "a tall, Caucasian male" is responsible for the crime, that's not worth issuing a formal finding about, because you still haven't identified a suspect to pursue. You have some details, but not enough to "go on."
(Also, many things that aren't jets try to pretend to be jets in various ways, many jets try to pretend to not be jets in various ways, and many jets try to pretend to be other jets in various ways. If you just see "a jet", you can't be sure which of these cases is in play. Identification involves finding a non-repudiable signature—a tell that indicates a particular make of device, that cannot be faked by any other currently-known device. Sort of like a (well-made) virus signature.)
Except that the article says:
> And while officials said they don't know what the objects are