I don’t recall, but was it determined that the speed of the tic tac object on radar was considered to be “extraordinary?”
UFOs (UAPs): Explanations?
- Thread starter Magical Realist
- Start date
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
I believe there was an assumption that 'this blip at this time' and 'that blip at that time' were the same bogey. If they were, then one could deduce the speed. But there is some contention about whether it was the same bogey or two distinct bogeys.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
You want fast? Here's SpaceX video recorded from aboard a payload fairing from the recent ViaSat-3 mission, entering the Earth's atmosphere at Mach 15! Trailing a spectacular plume of incandescent plasma behind it. Aircraft could move this fast too, high-hypersonic velocity, if they could just somehow eliminate the air resistance problem.
I think that there have been hypothetical suggestions in the literature about how to maybe do that. But no evidence that it's ever been accomplished. (Of course if they did try it and it worked, it would be super-secret and 'If we told you, we'd have to kill you' classified, Area 51-style.)
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1653509582046769156
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
11,509 mph! I wonder if any passengers could ever survive such a speed.
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Speed is not the problem. You could travel (in an appropriately enclosed rocket, for instance) at half the speed of light, and there would be no survival problem. You'd float around in the rocket in zero gravity and wouldn't be able to tell the difference between moving at half the speed of light and being stationary (unless you looked out the window).
The real problem is acceleration.
Here on Earth, we are accustomed to experiencing an effective acceleration of 9.8 metres per second per second, which gives us our sense of "weight". This acceleration is called "1 g" (one gee) or "one gravity", because it is the Earth norm.
Rockets that launch astronauts into space might subject astronauts to accelerations of 5 to 8 gees, over a period of several minutes. During such periods, astronauts feel like they weigh 5 to 8 times as much as normal. This is why astronauts in rockets typically lie on couches, facing upwards as the rocket launches. (In a sitting position, the blood tends to drain towards the feet, and you can easily pass out.)
Human beings can't cope with much larger accelerations over significant periods of time, although for very short times our bodies can withstand quite large accelerations.
As an everyday example: falling from a plane without a parachute is not a problem until you hit the ground. The only force you feel during the fall is drag from the air hitting you in the face. The "g force" is less than or equal to your usual weight. But when you hit the ground you stop very suddenly. The acceleration as you hit the ground might be 10,000 gees, which is not survivable.*
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* Interestingly, there are a few recorded cases of people surviving falls from planes without parachutes, because their the fall was "broken" by something soft-ish, like fresh powdered snow. The acceleration they experienced on hitting the ground was therefore greatly reduced, compared to hitting "hard" ground.
Stunning clouds emerge over Austin sky as storm sweeps area
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6326621676112
Or a UFO convention
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6326621676112
Or a UFO convention
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Guys....
Every spaceship that has brought an astronaut back from orbit is travelling at at least 17,000 mph (and as much as 24,000 mph). That is the minimum orbital velocity of any spaceship returning to Earth. That's about Mach 25.
This is basic science.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
https://twitter.com/clipsthatgohard/status/1653370050240475136
The skydivers in black have parachutes. The guy in green and white has no parachute.
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Yazata
Valued Senior Member
The International Space Station appears motionless in many videos, astronauts float around outside in their spacesuits with little or no motion relative to the station. But in reality the ISS (and the astronauts) are zipping along at something like 17,000 mph relative to the Earth below.
That's something close to an example of what's called Galilean Relativity. It's called that because Galileo noted how a vehicle might be moving rapidly at a constant velocity, while inside the vehicle things might appear almost as if the vehicle was motionless if occupants couldn't see the scene passing by outside. We experience something approaching that ideal situation that every day in cars, ships and airplanes.
If you drop a object inside the vehicle, it falls down relative to the walls of the vehicle, not sideways at an angle. Although if somebody outside saw the object drop, they would see that it's moving right along at the same speed as the vehicle.
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Regarding the 2004 Tic Tac/USS Nimitz incident, we have the following information from an incident report
(https://www.explorescu.org/post/2004-uss-nimitz-strike-navy-group-incident-report) on it:
"Now let’s set aside speculation about the origin of those objects. What I find most valuable is what the available data say about their aerial performance, both speed and acceleration.
'These numbers are nonsensical to any known aircraft. … It is worth discussing that if the object(s) had been traveling at the speeds calculated then there should have been other characteristics observed that were not reported. There was never an indication of noise from the sound barrier being broken. Even more unusual is that the resulting friction from the speeds obtained in the atmosphere should have created an intense fireball and destructive shock-wave as the object moved through the sky. None of the four pilots that witnessed the object’s sudden acceleration reported any heating that would be expected at the speeds noted in … this paper. The only comment associated with heat came from one of the pilots who stated that the air around the object had a wavy appearance similar to what is seen on a road during a hot summer day.'
Indeed, the whole thing does seem nonsensical. But perhaps more sense could be made with more data, including the actual radar data, complete and original targeting video, and full communication logs — all of which might well exist. In the day after the event, “as reported by three witnesses interviewed by our team, the communication logs, the radar data, and other associated electronic information was removed from the USS Princeton and a copy of the video from the USS Nimitz.”---- https://www.aei.org/articles/why-co...me-more-positive-about-faster-human-progress/
(https://www.explorescu.org/post/2004-uss-nimitz-strike-navy-group-incident-report) on it:
"Now let’s set aside speculation about the origin of those objects. What I find most valuable is what the available data say about their aerial performance, both speed and acceleration.
- First, there’s testimony from two experienced Navy personnel who observed the radar tracks of the Tic-Tacs in real time, with objects dropping 60,000 feet in 0.78 seconds, with a starting and stopping velocity of zero.
Second, there’s testimony from two Navy pilots, one of whom said a Tic-Tac accelerated from stationary to “out of sight” within one second, while the other said it was “like a bullet shot from a rifle.”
Third, there are calculations based on object movement displayed on the FLIR video.
'These numbers are nonsensical to any known aircraft. … It is worth discussing that if the object(s) had been traveling at the speeds calculated then there should have been other characteristics observed that were not reported. There was never an indication of noise from the sound barrier being broken. Even more unusual is that the resulting friction from the speeds obtained in the atmosphere should have created an intense fireball and destructive shock-wave as the object moved through the sky. None of the four pilots that witnessed the object’s sudden acceleration reported any heating that would be expected at the speeds noted in … this paper. The only comment associated with heat came from one of the pilots who stated that the air around the object had a wavy appearance similar to what is seen on a road during a hot summer day.'
Indeed, the whole thing does seem nonsensical. But perhaps more sense could be made with more data, including the actual radar data, complete and original targeting video, and full communication logs — all of which might well exist. In the day after the event, “as reported by three witnesses interviewed by our team, the communication logs, the radar data, and other associated electronic information was removed from the USS Princeton and a copy of the video from the USS Nimitz.”---- https://www.aei.org/articles/why-co...me-more-positive-about-faster-human-progress/
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The radar operator who reported an object dropping 60000 feet in 0.78 would have seen one object disappear off the radar, in effect, and reappear 60000 feet lower, more or less in the blink of an eye. There is no way to know that this was one and the same radar trace, before and after than 0.78 second period. Certainly, the radar operator didn't have time to see the track going from above to below, taking in all the distances in between.
If one, or both of the "before" and "after" signals was spurious, the radar operator would reach the wrong conclusion about this.
The two Navy pilots are in the same position. Something taking less than one second to go "out of sight" is equivalent to "blink and its gone". Maybe they took their eyes off the thing for a second and then just failed to locate it again.
The FLIR video doesn't give the range to the object, so somebody here is assuming they either know how far away the object was or how big it was. If either assumption is incorrect, the speed calculation will give a nonsense result (same for derived acceleration).
... which suggests they are very likely just wrong.
This makes it even more likely that the reported speeds are just wrong.
Disregarding the black-ops conspiracy theories, the fact is that nobody has the radar logs. Therefore, it is difficult to know what the correct explanation is for the reported observations.
And so another UFO case dies for lack of good evidence.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
That's a lot of what ifs and maybes! I prefer to take the word of the trained and experienced Navy personnel who were there and actually witnessed the events over an armchair skeptic's dubious speculations. You have no idea what they saw or didn't see. You're just making shit up in order to dismiss the evidence as given, Shame on you James..
Hardly. A solid case with eyewitness accounts, radar, and FLIR video to back it all up.
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Yazata
Valued Senior Member
That's what I thought too.
Just throwing dismissive speculations out into conversation without making any attempt to produce evidence to support those speculations might be of some value, if we acknowledge the speculations are merely proposed hypotheses. But as such, they will require their own confirming evidence (however that works).
The "skeptics" dismissive speculations probably seem more plausible to them than the reports that they are rejecting, because they already believe in the nonexistence of the thing reported before the conversation even begins. It's "woo". So if something is assumed to not exist, then its prior probability would seem to be zero, simply by definition. Hence any speculation that one can toss out, even without any evidence, would appear to have a higher initial probability than zero.
Actually, none of us do. I'm reasonably persuaded that something very peculiar was physically present (but not 100% certain of that either.). As to what it was, none of us know.
All we have are the sighting reports, or whatever fragments of them can escape the barrier of excessive secrecy that the US military places around their activities. I would guess that the military and the AARO have the continuous radar recordings. So they should already know if a radar contact disappeared up at the edge of space, and another appeared at lower altitude, or whether a single contact traversed all the points in between.
It's well and fine to speculate that maybe the sighting reports are the result of errors or equipment malfunctions. But those speculations are themselves in need of confirming evidence that the hypothesized errors or equipment malfunctions did in fact occur. We can't just leap to the conclusion that they must have occurred, based only on our prior belief that the alternative we are attacking has zero probability of being true.
I would add that these radars are exceedingly important parts of a carrier battle group's air defense, so if they are prey to confusing contacts as proposed, that vulnerability would be very important for the Navy to know. So I would guess that it's already been thoroughly examined.
I think that I would say that I would judge the likelihood that some unknown something was physically present as reasonably good, but not entirely certain. The characteristics of that object (speed, maneuvering, appearance) are somewhat less certain. But as you say, those descriptions do have evidence to support them, eyewitness accounts, radar and video. The 'comedy of errors' hypotheses have nothing but speculation.
And I'm impressed by how well the eyewitness accounts, radar and video all cohere with each other. They all come together in a way that errors probably wouldn't. Radar detects something. It may be a false contact (but unlikely since the radars and their operators are very good). Aircraft are vectored to the point where the radar places the contact and pilots make a visual sighting of something at that "merge plot" location. That seems to me to lessen the likelihood of both visual or radar errors, since each is confirming each other. But the possibility remains that it was a false radar contact and the pilots let their imaginations get carried away (but unlikely since Fravor was one of the Navy's most senior instructor-pilots). The video capturing something lessens the likelihood of that.
Three physical modalities (radar, infrared video and the mark 1 eyeball), each prey to different kinds of errors but in this case all corroborating each other. That raises my estimation of the probability that something was there much higher than each modality would in isolation.
I'm very aware that others will disagree, and that's fine with me. I "celebrate diversity" of opinion. It's probably good that we don't all agree on everything, since that helps us finite and fallible humans explore the 'possibility-space' in which we find ourselves. All I can do is argue my case and give my reasons for why I form the conclusions that I do. (Which are works in progress in this instance.)
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
It's the horses versus unicorn thing.
No unicorns have ever been confirmed.
Someone says he saw a unicorn.
That is unlikely to be true. For various reasons, it is quite possible it was a horse.
You're asking us to produce evidence that it was a horse.
The evidence that it was more likely a horse is that horses are common, confirmed and all over the place and no one has ever actually confirmed a unicorn....
Wait, what am I doing? You're just setting up to fire off your strawmantra....
So, you're dismissed.
Prove it's not.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
I think that you just provided a nice illustration of my criticism of the "skeptics", Dave.
Unicorns presumably are things that both of us start out believing don't exist (or have such a low likelihood of existing that the possibility can be dismissed). And as you say, the existence of horses is "common, confirmed and all over the place". So (assuming that we are right about the relative likelihood of unicorns and horses) it does make sense to favor 'horse' explanations over 'unicorn' explanations. As I said, that's what I see the "skeptics" doing.
But in the 'UAP' case in question, the alternatives seem to be 'some extraordinary physical event whose explanation is unknown' versus 'a whole series of errors and equipment malfunctions that somehow combine to create the false impression of the reality of an extraordinary physical event'.
How do we determine and assign the relative prior probabilities of those alternatives in the UAP case?
I would argue that the likelihood of something new and unknown happening might be considerably higher than the likelihood of unicorns or other ostensibly nonexistent things, given humanity's limited and finite knowledge and understanding of the cosmos. (We are still in a position to be surprised and to discover new things.)
And the likelihood of a whole series of errors coming together in just such a way as they seem to falsely corroborate each other will arguably be significantly lower than the likelihood of the existence of horses.
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Excellent point! It's sort of a vicious circle. They don't believe in uaps because they claim there is no evidence, and then they claim there is no evidence because they don't believe in uaps. Hence the contradictory behavior of arguing meticulously against something they already don't believe in. Why argue so passionately against a unicorn? Seems like they are just trying to convince themselves.
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
As in "unidentified anomalous phenomena"? That's not my impression. Seems to me they only believe in UMP's---"unidentified mundane phenomena".
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Prior probability my prior probability of zero is based on physics
I am sure other life forms are out there
I find it extremely problematic they have overcome the constraints the Universe puts on interstellar travel
Have they done so and arrived at earth they now engage in what? The antics we are supposedly watching now????
Please I thought we had more intelligence that.. And for aliens who have overcome Interstellar travel we should attribute even more intelligence