back to article Watch now the three UFO videos uncovered by Blink-182 star – and today officially released by the Pentagon

The US Department of Defense today officially released three short videos of "unidentified aerial phenomena" – aka unidentified flying objects – that it still apparently doesn't have an explanation for. The footage has already been widely circulated online, thanks to Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge: he is on a mission to …

  1. TheSkunkyMonk

    Awww specially the last one, why couldn't they release more of the video.

    1. DJV Silver badge

      Because then you'd see it and we they would have to kill you!

      (or do a MIB mind wipe at the very least!)

      1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

        Those MIB mind-wipes are an abuse of my

        And then she changed her mind again, and said she preferred the first one. "Get them both!" I said, trying to sound helpful, but just wanting to leave that damn shop already.

        1. Sir Runcible Spoon
          Alien

          optional?

          Thry could have given you a better memory than that :)

          1. Jamie Jones Silver badge
            Happy

            Re: optional?

            Even my imaginary life is sad!

    2. redpawn

      UFOs too useful to shutdown

      If they showed more video they wouldn't be UFOs, would they?

      1. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
        Alien

        Re: UFOs too useful to shutdown

        Damn! I have got to ground my bratty kids for joyriding in my saucer.

    3. TVU Silver badge

      "Awww specially the last one, why couldn't they release more of the video"

      I think the comments of the pilots are equally interesting in these and previous incidents. These objects appear to be under intelligent control whether that's from AI or living beings.

      The contentious bit is the origins of these objects. Are they advanced secret US drones and piloted aircraft (Aurora certainly exists because it was inadvertently outed by a weather satellite), are they extraterrestrial vessels drawn to this planet by the quite clearly artificial electromagnetic emissions (military radar, escaping broadcast signals etc) or is it a mixture of both sources?

      If these flying objects do not originate from this planet then they must originate from outside of this solar system because there is no other inhabitable planet in this solar system (poor old Mars effectively died during its early Noachian Period since it's only one-ninth the mass of Earth and that has severe negative consequences).

      1. Dom 3

        "Aurora certainly exists because it was inadvertently outed by a weather satellite" - link?

        1. TVU Silver badge

          "Aurora certainly exists because it was inadvertently outed by a weather satellite" - link?

          Right, go to Youtube, look for aviation journalist Nick Cook's 'UFOs The Secret Evidence' documentary, go straight to 1hour 38 mins and watch from there on - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKa9lGgSVJw

          It's also been covered by our very own The Register (please see https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/15/aurora/ ) and by the reputable Flight International magazine (please see https://www.flightglobal.com/video-existence-of-secret-aurora-hypersonic-sucessor-to-sr-71-blackbird-revealed-in-uk-defence-ministry-ufo-report/67937.article )

          Do I think that the USA has a highly capable, better performing successor to the now-retired Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird? Yes I do, not least because the USA has both the capability and the track record of successfully undertaking such black projects.

          1. Dom 3

            Thanks for the links. Shame that Nick Cook raises the "doughnuts on a rope" contrail. I've got my *own* photos of one of those. After taking the photos I checked on flightradar24 and found that the contrail corresponded *precisely* with the flightpath of a 747 that had just gone over. Another couple of minutes prodding the web produced this:

            https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2015/05/hybrid-contrails-with-crow-instability.html

            At which point I was done with *that*.

            Regarding the weather satellite photo (which doesn't actually explain how they calculated the speed) an aircraft travelling at those speeds would also have to be up at about 200,000 feet or something, unless built of unobtainium. But contrails form between 25K and 40K (source: Wikipedia). Seems unlikely (but not impossible) that they would form at 200K.

            The thing that really stands out about that "contrail" is that it is absolutely straight (bearing in mind curvature of earth - but it mirrors the state boundaries that are based on latitudes). In other words, a ballistic trajectory. So a meteor would seem a more plausible explanation. Would an aircraft - even unmanned - travel for *thousands* of miles without a course correction?

            The other stuff is essentially speculative. It would be extraordinary for this aircraft to be in operation for three *decades* without any concrete evidence coming to light. It would take hundreds, nay thousands of personnel to build and operate it. Yet nobody credible has come forward.

            Having said that, I had an airline pilot describe seeing a weird triangular aircraft to me. As he said, he was used to looking up at aircraft and identifying them. I can't ask him about it any more as he "shuffled off" about five years ago.

            And then there's the compelling argument that the US military wouldn't have given up the SR-71 unless they had a replacement.

            1. teknopaul

              "At which point I was done with *that*."

              Not sure I follow? Why does proving to yourself that such trails exist, prove that Aurora does not cause them? Surely this just proves that they are a real world phenomena. Making in more likely that Aurora could produce them, since they are not unique to Aurora.

              1. Dom 3

                It doesn't disprove the existence of Aurora. But it *does* mean that weird contrails cannot be used as evidence of its existence.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Sometime mid-late '96.

          I was working, for my sins, down in London, but had fallen into the routine of escaping from thee place every weekend I could, so, I'm sitting in the Traveller's Arms, having a pre-bus pint (to help me fall asleep on the bus back up the road) a fellow traveller sits down at my table.

          Long story short, he recognised me from Leuchars (I spent a lot of time around the base in the 80's, and I sort of stood out from the 'normal' crowd), and he'd been down in London for some sort of retraining course, we got into talking about shit in general, he then drops into the conversation 'heard anything about Aurora?', replied that I knew the name, he then laughs and says ' watch Machrihanish, why do you think the SEALs are there?' then relates an interesting story about one day at Leuchars, all the aircraft and RAF personnel were turfed out of one of the HAS, the area was then placed off-limits, a USian Starlifter shows up, crates and personnel were unloaded and taken to the HAS. In the early hours, field effectively locked down, something took off (no callsigns, no radio, in fact, no RAF personnel in Tower he said), came back before dawn, went back to the HAS, Starlifter comes back later in the day, crates and personnel were loaded and off it went.

          About a year or so later, it's a Saturday morning, about 7:00am, I've escaped London again for the weekend and had just got off the train at the nearest station to my home, and it's a really nice day (and they say it always rains here...), I hear a weird 'engine in trouble' type noise above, and at a couple of thousand feet above the Clyde there's something which look a hell of a lot like the drawings/models of the alleged F-19, but minus any obvious canards...and yes, it was heading in the general direction of Machrihanish..no camera with me, and my mobile at the time was a MicroTAC International 7500...

          (Oh, and after 40 years of amateur astronomy and general skywatching I've a number of UFO stories, some of them weird, doesn't mean I believe in Greys/LGM/Nordics etc. etc. there's a difference between knowing that the buggers(UFOs) exist as a classification and believing the bullshit about them..)

          1. SpeedFanatic

            Your quote:

            "About a year or so later, it's a Saturday morning, about 7:00am, I've escaped London again for the weekend and had just got off the train at the nearest station to my home, and it's a really nice day (and they say it always rains here...), I hear a weird 'engine in trouble' type noise above, and at a couple of thousand feet above the Clyde there's something which look a hell of a lot like the drawings/models of the alleged F-19, but minus any obvious canards...and yes, it was heading in the general direction of Machrihanish..no camera with me, and my mobile at the time was a MicroTAC International 7500..."

            What were dimensions of the aircraft in question?

            What do you mean by saying 'engine in trouble'? Could you describe a sound?

      2. Wellyboot Silver badge

        >>>no other inhabitable planet in this solar system<<< For us puny humans that's true.

        Venus could be quite hospitable to any vegitation that can survive a toasty 750K surface temp. and there's lots of life at far higher pressures in our oceans.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        If we're considering the existance of a massively advanced alien civilization, one capable of developing vehicles that are hypersonic, invisible to radar (except for when they're not invisble to radar), capable of becoming invisible to the human eye (except for when they are not invisible) and capable of tremendous acceleration, why would we assume they're not capable of hiding within our solar system?

        1. teknopaul

          What makes you say they are capable of hiding from light and radar given we see them on youtube and are being tracked.

          All These video say is that there are things out there traveling at hyper-sonic speeds, & that are not shaped like conventional aircraft (Not surprising given the speed they are traveling at)

          The fact that the US releases the footage shows that they did not make them and don't care if the truth gets out there, or that they did, and don't think knowledge of them affects their usefulness. Perhaps, like nuclear weapons, the existence of them is a threat.

          There also exists more groups on the planet with engine manufacturing capability than the US government. There are some pretty crazy rich Russians out there. Uncle Sam might be happy for their tech to be known about.

      4. Captain Boing
        Alien

        Nah, not 'avin' it. I think you have an "I want to believe" t-shirt. Just the way you are phrasing things tells me you are 90% of the way there if not 100%

        BTW, there are no other "solar systems". Sol is a proper noun - the name of our star. "Solar" means of or pertaining to; Sol. There is only one Solar system*... lots of other star systems but this basic mistake is a sort of litmus test for the pursuit of detail (and truth) instead of going with what suits one's

        tin-foil hat desires.

        Time and again I see these conspiracists and "UFOlogists" hang on to long-ago-debunked stuff and willfully re-present them as "proof" to anyone who will listen and hasn't been informed. That contrail for Aurora in the closing seconds of a 1.5 hour vid is awfully straight for something allegedly laid in a turbulent atmosphere over time... and where are the reference points for calculating the speed that was stated?

        Nothing personal, just a feeling I get reading your posts and looking at the type of links you been putting faith in.

        *https://www.quora.com/Is-the-term-Solar-System-correct-when-talking-about-other-systems

  2. Mark 85
    Alien

    Well, the logical explanation is -----------------------------------------------> <see icon>

    I go find my tin foil now and make a nice fedora.

    1. AdamWill

      They're gas leaks. Fast-moving, high altitude...gas leaks. Nothing to see here, citizens! Move along!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @AdamWill

        I'd take whatever both sides are saying as long as they can offer verifiable proof. So far it is an observation of an unidentifiable flying object displaying strange physical properties. Seeing is believing.

      2. Version 1.0 Silver badge

        Gas leaks? Aliens flying powered by farts, is it just a large bird that ate beans for lunch?

    2. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
      Alien

      Actually its just a bunch of puppets and paper mache models.

  3. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    It’s clearly proof that covid19 is caused by an alien species from outer space trying to infiltrate our minds with bat venom, emitted by 5G towers via chemtrails. Or is it vaccines?

  4. swm

    I was in an operational SAGE defence system around 1965 and we saw the actual correlated RADAR returns. There was a twinkling of returns around some mountains and I asked what they were. They said they were caused by atmospheric aberrations but they did look like something was there.

    In infrared optics there is something known as narcissism where a hot spot is generated internally in the optics.

    I don't know the imaging techniques used in the video clips but there might be a perfectly normal explanation. Or maybe not.

    I think that during WW2 there were several sightings of "foo fighters" for which I have heard no explanation.

    1. Klimt's Beast Would

      The key here would be "Did the pilots acutally see the objects with their own eyes?" The answer to that appears to be 'No.'

      There was an article a while back (can't find it obviously) that said it was a secret test on unsuspecting pilots of fancy Electronic Warfare equipment (IREWS?) designed to manipulate onboard sensors to make them see what they want.It's a fair bet that this is BAe America as they are now much hugher than Bae UK and do a lot of EW stuff too for the US military.

      I found this though:

      https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/fa9lxr/cmv_the_navy_tic_tc_and_gimbal_ufo_incidents/

  5. StargateSg7

    Oooooh Puleaaaaaze !!!!

    These "Tic Tac UFOs" have been seen since the 1980's and are LIKELY part of the "Flying Propane Tanks" programme started by President Roland Reagan in 1984 as part of SDI (Strategic Defence Initiative aka Star Wars) Black Budget research. In the old days, they used pulsed blasts of super-heated gas to move a cylinder in any direction. Usually it was highly volatile fuel such propane, natural gas, hydrazine, and even pellets of solid rocket fuel. Sometimes the results were spectacularly "Fail Army"-worthy as per certain videos I have!

    Nowadays, we have these fancy 5.185 THz multi-layered solid-metal waveguides and cavity resonators which can directly jet EM waves at high amplitude to move objects around in 3D-XYZ space. You could also modify a local EM field within the atmosphere to act as a local Dyson-vacuum to suck (i.e. pull) your craft into a specific direction on any 3D-axis.

    It took the development of portable acoustic-wave compression of liquid metal, simple water and/or plasmas to create portable power production devices (aka LMCO and General Fusion's small form-factor Sonofusion/Bubble Fusion-like power production systems) that ALLOWED aerospace craft to be able to have the huuuuuuuuuge amounts of onboard ENERGY required for Direct EM Jetting or EM field effects propulsion to become practical.

    These Tic Tac UFOs are EARTH-built being probably a U.S. NAVY programme with my guess from AUTEC (U.S. Navy equivalent to Area-51 near Puerto Rico) and/or various nearby-to Whidbey Island NAS research labs in Washington State.

    Meh!

    V

    1. Rich 11

      Oooooh Puleaaaaaze !!!!

      It is all now wonderfully clear.

      1. StargateSg7

        It's because I have an ACTUAL BACKGROUND IN FAST synthetic vision-based flight control and avionics software for breakthrough field effects propulsion systems! (Note: that "breakthrough" is now 30+ year old though!)

        Ergo, what the heck is that pretty black triangular thing sitting in a hangar at YVR and that JAFO-specific shiny blue "High Wings" patch on my flight jacket for?

        Meh!

        V

        1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

          Someone

          who can't even do capitalisation is involved in the production of avionics software. Well that explains the 737 MAX.

        2. Evil Auditor Silver badge

          Well, I have an actual background of quite an impressive cityscape. That doesn't make me an architect nor an urban planner though.

    2. Evil Auditor Silver badge

      And this is the moment when I realise that the comments by amanfromMars are, in fact, rather meaningful and sensible.

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "Nowadays, we have these fancy 5.185 THz multi-layered solid-metal waveguides and cavity resonators which can directly jet EM waves at high amplitude to move objects around in 3D-XYZ space. You could also modify a local EM field within the atmosphere to act as a local Dyson-vacuum to suck (i.e. pull) your craft into a specific direction on any 3D-axis"

      Riiiiight. So SciFi tractor and pressor beams, which have been demonstrated at a microscopic level relatively recently actually exists at the macro level and are a mature, if secret, technology in regular use by the US military and has, you infer, been in use for upwards of 30 years? So why are the US spending trillions on the apparently obsolete F-35?

      1. StargateSg7

        NEVER EVER MIX U.S. Pork Barrel Politics with Actual Technical Excellence!

        The F-35, while technically great as a general monolithic mixed battlespace management system, has much more to do with spreading pork barrel U.S. Military Industrial Complex (MIC) dollars around to multiple senators' home states rather than creating a singular centre of excellence to design a next generation fighter!

        PLUS .... LMCO and other contractors have separate research and development departments that LEGALLY CANNOT speak to each other under penalty of long prison terms due to one or more systems being ultra-secretive "Black Budget" SAP/CAP (Special Access Program/Compartmentalized Access Programs) with a need-to-know basis of operation and the others being public-facing "White Budget" systems.

        They're already working on Sixth Generation Fighters yet STILL there is more money going to the F-35 for the NEXT 50 YEARS because U.S. Senators happen to LIKE being re-elected year after year to their cushy six-figure jobs with PREMIUM fully-paid-for health care and pension plans!

        So the various PACs (Political Action Committees) funded by various manufacturers and local state legislature "friends" spend SERIOUS MONEY on lobbyists who KEEP the ears of the nearest senator close by, who then cries FOR MORE Pork Barrel Spending from Congress to ensure long-term employment IN THEIR HOME STATE!

        Sooooooo, the very public F-35 fiasco will play out for the next few decades while LMCO, Northrup, Boeing, Raytheon, etc keep getting funding for SUPER SECRET programs ranging from the high flyer "Green Lady" and "Spearfisher" hypersonic recon spy planes to bubble/sonofusion generators, to the successors to the "Flying Propane Tanks" program to the 1000 tonne lifter Stealth Blimp to field effects propulsion triangular space craft to enhanced supersoldiers with exoskeletons.

        2019's Black Budget was over 75 BILLION US Dollars which can buy a LOT of super-secret research and development work which NONE of you will see the results of for at least 50 years!

        Those Borane ZIP fuel and JP-7 high fliers have already been operating for 30 years and you STILL don't know about them! The F-117 C4ISR Companion Aircraft is STILL classified since it first started flying somewhere around 1982-to-1984! There are a LOT of programs YOU don't know about but which are wink-wink, nod-nod known in the aerospace world and have been flying or working since the 1980's!

        Did you know the USA first tested a backpack-sized plasma weapon on a deserted Oregon beach at 4:00 am in 1986 and newer versions in 1987 and 1988 in the same area at night? NO! You did NOT HEAR ABOUT THAT PUBLICLY but I'm telling you that NOW from sources that SAW the actual test !!! Imagine what they have today in 2020!

        So again, the F35 is a PORK BARREL SPENDING and JOBS CREATION programme while the more SECRETIVE work gets done under the $75 Billion "Black Budget" system!

        V

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Linking posts

          US Black R&D budget - 75 billion. HP Ink R&D Budget 1 Billion -presumably the US secret ink cartridges are AMAZZING!

    4. RuffianXion

      I'm not terribly well-versed in American political history so could you remind me, was Roland Reagan the President before or after Ronald?

      1. Rich 11

        That was Roland Rat. You're thinking of Ronald McDonald.

      2. Patched Out
        Black Helicopters

        Roland Reagan was the president - In StargateSg7's alternate reality!

        The black helicopter is for StargateSg7, because if what he said is true, he just revealed top secret information and they will be coming for him.

      3. Arthur the cat Silver badge
        Boffin

        was Roland Reagan the President before or after Ronald?

        They were both president of the US from 1981 to 1989. In different time streams, of course.

      4. StargateSg7

        Weird how the mind works ... I knew it was Ronald Reagan, but I spelled it as Roland and my mind read it as Ronald -- BUT that is probably from my preoccupation with Roland Synthesizers which I just happen to have in front of me aka an old one too! A JX-8P from the 1980's!!! It's STILL awesome by the way!

        Most of you here probably weren't even BORN when Ronald was President. I remember watching the speech LIVE ON TV IN West Berlin in 1987 when Ronald Reagan said "Mr. Gorbochev TEAR DOWN THIS WALL !!!!"

        V

    5. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Alien

      "General Fusion's small form-factor Sonofusion/Bubble Fusion-like power production systems"

      why spend zillions on Tokomak when we (allegedly) have *THESE* ??? And WHY are we using coal/oil/nuclear for electricity when we (allegedly) have *THESE* ???

      There is no doubt that some of these things may be *possible*, but claiming they're actually being used for secret aircraft would imply that "SOMEONE" "SOMEWHERE" is *LITERALLY* holding back progress!!! Fusion-like energy? The 'greenies' would LOVE to have that, or you'd think so, carbon footprints etc. and no nuclear fission waste. I'd like to have it because I'd expect cheap and plentiful electricity to come from such things.

      To deny ALL of society a power production technique that's "fusion-like" would be BEYOND irresponsible... [heading into elitist "deny the plebes" territory].

      (Somehow I think your sources are a *bit* inaccurate...)

      1. StargateSg7

        NOPE! I've been to general Fusion in Burnaby, BC --- It works! Not as well as LMCOs ...BUT ... it DOES work for the most part .... LMCOs Bubble Fusion system is a LOT SMALLER but it is also a LOT more complex to control !!!!

        General Fusion AND LMCOs both went "Black Budget" and their public face is significantly BEHIND the non-public front. I still have contacts who know the internals of both companies. General Fusion seems to be stalling right now (due to money and internal personnel issues!) and LMCOs version is already in stealth drone and manned submersibles and aersopace systems. The LMCO version in my opinion, while being MUCH MORE COMPLEX to control is the technically superior and smaller-form-factor system.

        The General Fusion Acoustic Wave Compression Heat Pump is really simple to make (even a high-schooler with a large 3D printer could do it!) BUT like I said earlier, almost the SAME internal corporate issues that happened at another Burnaby, BC company "Ballard Fuel Cells" is happening at General Fusion. Too Bad! It could have been a Multi-Hundred Billion Dollar Company if their egos didn't get in the way!

        --

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Very Short Clip

    Obviously to remove, "Fox 2 ..... Target destroyed."

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: Very Short Clip

      or my favorite - "In the words of my generation... UP! YOURS!!!" (ok that was from ID4 but still...)

      Seriously, though, UFOs have been around for centuries. Nowadays, however, many have been _OURS_. Things like stealth bomber and stealth fighter and Aurora may have been observed and mistaken for UFOs.

      Disclosing the UFO videos is a good step forward though.

      Not saying if _I_ was ever "taken for a ride" or had ever seen a REAL one in the spring of 1971 in the middle of a Silicon Valley city school near (what was then) Agnew's State Hospital (which now is an Oracle campus as I recall), or have had "missing time", or anything like that... yeah NOT saying this.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Very Short Clip

        Splash the Tic-Tac. I say again, splash the Tic-Tac.

  7. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
    Alien

    DMCA takedown

    You have no right to share pictures of the Mysterons Earthlings!

  8. Sanguma

    obvious, innit?

    They're tinfoil hats from the Factory where they churn out Men In Black ...

    You'll forget this, never fear ... just watch the little birdy ... there, didn't hurt a bit, did it?

  9. TheProf
    FAIL

    I Failed

    Anyone have footage of real aircraft being tracked by these systems?

    How am I supposed to know what 'unexplained' looks like when I don't know what 'real' is like?

    (Google search results in these videos.)

    1. TheProf

      Re: I Failed

      Someone explaining and a little maths thrown in.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLyEO0jNt6M&t=20s

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: I Failed

      "Anyone have footage of real aircraft being tracked by these systems?"

      I understand that footage from 'Top Gun' is pretty good at portraying it

      but yeah most military avionics displays should be classified.

      I don't think the military is out to prove the existence of UFOs. This is just the result of a 'Freedom of Information' request. I'd guess the requestors need to cough up the proof.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @bombastic bob - Re: I Failed

        In this new era of deep-fakes how can we tell these short movies are real or not ? Just asking. For the past few decades some people have been demanding to see this kind of evidence that would prove their point so now that we can, why not give them something they long wished for ?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I Failed

        Err, UFOs exist. What that UFO actually is the crux of the issue. If it is identified as a Structured Craft Unkown Origin (or whatever current term now is) i.e. likely transatmospheric craft of extraterrestrial origin, then it is no longer a UFO. Likewise if it is i.d.ed as a black budget 'friendly'. Problem being people who are qualified to make those calls are non too numerous [Hint: they also do not appear on lesser TV channel 'UFO' programmes labelled as 'UFO expert'.]

        There is whole bunch of rare, and poorly understood, atmospheric and geological related phenomena , and Venus, and drones, and airliners, that can also cause UFO reports. So UFOs persist.

        Despite the mind boggling distances and whacky energy budgets involved it has been a fairly open secret, for decades, in small sections of the aerospace community that 'they' are here. For decades! The science is currently beyond our ken [without help]. There are a whole host of good reasons why this not in the public domain. I would say 'Obviously', but only in respect of the public domain bit. Nice to speculate on, but pay your mortgage, survive COVID-19 and forget about it. Seriously - it is not yet relevant to your life.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cautiously raises hand...

    Look, I'm just telling this story, OK? In the late 90s I was flying from Cape Town to Heathrow on a BA flight. I woke up as we were flying over the Sahara somewhere, and just as the day was lightening, a time on long hauls I quite enjoy. The sun rose, and I looked down to the ground, and far below us and to the west, on a parallel course, was another aircraft, travelling roughly at our speed or maybe slower. It was easily visible as it reflected the bright orange light of the rising sun. But then I realised that something was odd - the sun had only just touched our aircraft, yet this thing far below was glowing orange. I watched for a few minutes, when suddenly it disappeared. Nothing visible but the lovely sights of the Sahara.

    I don't believe I was mistaken about the light or the angle of the sun, but who knows? It certainly was an odd experience. As I say, I'm just telling what I saw, definitely not making a claim, so please don't judge me too harshly, but seeing strange things while flying may be a pretty common occurrence.

    1. Dom 3

      Re: Cautiously raises hand...

      "seeing strange things while flying may be a pretty common occurrence."

      Yup. Illusions are all around. We have not evolved in the air but on the ground.

      Your perceptions are but a construct.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cautiously raises hand...

      An internal reflection from the outer window ?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cautiously raises hand...

        > An internal reflection from the outer window ?

        I really don't know. I know I thought of many plausible explanations at the time, and I'm sure there is one, but it was a very strange and apparently inexplicable experience. I'm not making any claims about it, just that that is what I experienced.

    3. Cynic_999

      Re: Cautiously raises hand...

      Could have been a few things. As a plausible possibility, a high aircraft will be illuminated by the Sun before dawn has broken on the surface of the Earth. It will then appear as a bright orange moving object in an otherwise dark sky.

      An abrupt change or inversion in air density at a certain altitude can act similar to a mirror and refract images of objects in the sky or over the horizon (common in deserts, and the cause of mirages). The bright object seen could therefore have been the reflection of the aircraft from such a layer, which to an observer on the aircraft would have the appearance of a low flying object that was flying the same course and speed. As the aircraft reached the edge of the layer of density inversion, the reflection would vanish.

      While flying, I once took avoiding action because an aircraft appeared to be heading head-on toward me. It was coming out of the side of a cloud I was heading toward, and it was surrounded by a large bright halo. I then realised that it was in fact either a reflection or shadow of my own aircraft in the side of the cloud, where the water droplets of the cloud refract light in a well-known phenomenon commonly called a "glory". Other pilots have seen a similar thing, but with the "other" aircraft surrounded by a circular rainbow.

  11. Cynic_999

    The videos remind me of what I've seen when a small insect has been crawling around on the lens of my video camera ...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    These were all quite adequately explained already

    It's a bit weird the US DoD doesn't know this, I guess they don't use the internet as a resource. Or more likely they just don't want to acknowledge any explanation for fear of either giving away tech secrets, or making their own personnel look like blabbering fools:

    Gimbal footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Btns91W5J8

    Go Fast footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLyEO0jNt6M

    Nimitz footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1oTg0kxzDs

    Case(s) closed.

  13. Captain Boing

    they all look a bit... mechanical in their movement... dead straight lines, rotation that stops precisely, not fluidity...

    I stopped believing video as evidence/proof (doubly so on yutoob) when I saw Keanu Reeves singing "Nuthin' compares 2u". Absolutely anything is fake-able in video.... and the "I want to believe" brigade has completely shat in their own nest by being only too keen to effectively lie to you in the hope of swinging you to their particular way of thinking (and being called out time and again with sadly no retardation on their bullshit).

    Why is video of this stuff always crap?

    *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4bN7heMFvY

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