UK UFO Sightings Declassified, Still No Intergalactic Relations 319
schwit1 is just one of the massive flood of readers (and publications) writing to tell us about the recently declassified UK Ministry of Defense account of a supposed UFO sighting. Included are nineteen sightings between 1986 and 1992, with the most notable being a sighting in 1991 with a US Air Force pilot's first-hand account. Not that this lends an air of credibility to anything, just more papers with more words. "Almost 200 such files will be made available by the MoD over the next four years. [...] UFO expert and journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, Dr David Clarke, said the documents would shed new light on relatively little-known sightings. He said some conspiracy theorists would already have decided that the release of the papers was a 'whitewash.' He added: 'Because the subject is bedevilled by charlatans and lunatics, it is career suicide to have your name associated with UFOs, which is a real pity. The National Archives are doing a fantastic job here. Everyone brings their own interpretation. Now you can look at the actual primary material — the stuff coming into the MoD every day — and make your own mind up.'"
Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Informative)
Well then, you will have to explain why you can see flying saucers on medieval paintings, or exactly what the belgian F-16 were chasing above their territory, and which went through the sound barrier over urban areas without producing any supersonic bang.
I have seen on television the videos of the F-16's radar when in pursuit of those. The commentary didn't mention any numbers, but as I recognized a familiar layout from my FALCON (ATARI ST) days, I did check the illuminated target speed indicator. It went from 400K to 700K in a matter of seconds.
It is publicly known the intruder lost the F-16 in pursuit behind like leaves in the wind.
Belgium is a small country and is maybe one of the few to have a fighter air force but no official, government-run public relation service in charge of explaining that everything people see is either a meteor or a piece of rocket burning on reentry.
Re:Cause & Effect (Score:2, Informative)
The Sumerians invented the first writing that we know of, not language. Language almost certainly came thousands of years earlier. Aside from that you're correct.
UFO != alien apacecraft (Score:5, Informative)
New Scientist (Score:3, Informative)
I'm from Earth, but I'm a cyborg. No, really, I am. You will be assimilated.
Anyway, back on topic. I just had New Scientest open, and they are running the same story [newscientist.com]:
The US has a good UFO detection system (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly, the US has had, for several decades, a system which can detect UFOs - GEODSS [fas.org], the Ground Based-Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance System. Each GEODSS site (there are three currently active, plus a mobile unit) has a pair of 40-inch telescopes. These were the first fully computerized telescopes, working since the 1980s. The telescopes scan the sky every night. They can detect moving bright objects as streaks, but there's more capability than that. They have a star atlas, and know what should be in each image, so anything that shouldn't be there is detected. If a known star is missing, that's interesting too; it may indicate a dark object. There are two telescopes, so for low-orbit objects, they can get parallax. Multiple sites can be coupled together to get parallax on more distant objects. They can even use one telescope with a laser to illuminate satellites while taking a picture with the other. This is how the USAF finds new satellites, near-earth asteroids, and nonmetallic space junk. The system was recnelty upgraded [mitre.org] to use CCD imagers (it used to be tube camera based) and to use better alignment algorithms, so it's now both more sensitive and more accurate.
This is all tied to NORAD in Colorado Springs. GEODSS knows what an incoming ICBM trajectory looks like, and if it ever sees one, NORAD gets notified, without any action from the GEODSS site operators.
GEODSS is a real, live, functional UFO detection system that's been running for decades. If anything big enough to be interesting was anywhere near the planet for more than a few hours, it would be noticed. Even the target didn't reflect radar or light, it could be detected because it would occasionally occult a star.
Re:UFO != alien apacecraft (Score:1, Informative)
UFO sightings in Scotland... (Score:5, Informative)
... seem to be centred around Bonnybridge. Now, without wanting to sound like a UFO skeptic (I'm not) I do find myself wondering if "strange lights in the east" might have something to do with the flare stacks at the oil refinery in Grangemouth, the very bright strobes on a nearby pair of *immense* electricity pylons (couple of hundred metres tall) and a very tall power station chimney with strobes. Couple all that up with a bit of low cloud and you get some very odd effects. I used to drive through this area every day - at night in the winter you got some really odd glare off the clouds.
Re:What UFO conspiracy theorists REALLY want (Score:3, Informative)
Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat! [tornatore.com]
Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:3, Informative)
It went from 400K to 700K in a matter of seconds.
700K isn't really that warm for a jet engine (~425 C), what's impressive is that it had been running so cool - 400K is only ~25 degrees above boiling! It is impressive that the Belgians incorporate that kind of data into their radar systems, though.
They probably just kicked on the afterburner.
I'm pretty sure they were referring to velocity, not temperature, since it was in reference to the "illuminated target speed indicator" and 300Km/s over 10 seconds is over 3,000 g.
Re:And before you U.S. UFO conspirists chime in... (Score:5, Informative)
Regarding medieval paintings, I think this [sprezzatura.it] is the kind of idiocy being referred to.
Comon UFOs in the 1950s (Score:3, Informative)
Where F-94s and F-86Ds.
The ADC would practice night intercepts on airliners. Those two aircraft where some of the first to have afterburners. The pilots would often light the burner and pull up. Then shut down the burner.
Strange light making unusual maneuvers then is gone...
Party balloons (Score:5, Informative)
I once saw something exactly like you describe and your pictures show. I got my telescope and saw an aluminum foil balloon. It was much smaller and nearer than it seemed before I recognized it. It's really funny, how something that seemed like a huge metallic spacecraft flying extremely fast miles away was suddenly diminished to a small child's toy floating at a hundred yards distance.
Re:Why don't we have more pictures of UFOs? (Score:4, Informative)
Cameras in phones, cameras in purses, cameras in trunks of cars, cameras in PDAs, the list goes on. Most of the cameras also shoot video.
I have a Motorola flip phone made in the past few years and its camera (1.6 megapixel) is complete crap. I've actually tried taking a picture of a low-flying airplane at dusk, and it's all a blur.
Have a look at this one [mcgonigle.us]. It's taken in broad daylight, a slow-moving target, nearly overhead, with an actual 5 megapixel camera. It's point-and-shoot, but was fully extended with its 5X optical zoom. It's really hard to get more than a few pixels out of an object flying only about 5000-7000 ft.
Yeah, if I had my SLR with a good long, big lens and good low-light film, or a $1000-ish DSLR, I could probably take some good pictures like you describe. Fortunately, Moore's Law should put those kinds of sensors in cell phones within a decade, then maybe we'll see something like you describe.
Re:Cause & Effect (Score:3, Informative)