What makes ufos fly

The objects may accelerate or change direction so quickly that no human pilot could survive the g-forces—they would be crushed. In the Nimitz incident, radar operators say they tracked one of the UFOs as it dropped from the sky at more than 30 times the speed of sound.

Black Aces squadron commander David Fravor, the Nimitz -based fighter pilot who was sent to intercept one of the objects, likened its rapid side-to-side movements, later captured on infrared video, to that of a ping-pong ball. Radar operators on the USS Princeton, part of the Nimitz carrier group, tracked the object accelerating from a standing position to traveling 60 miles in a minute—an astounding 3, miles an hour.

If an aircraft travels faster than the speed of sound, it typically leaves "signatures," like vapor trails and sonic booms. Many UFO accounts note the lack of such evidence. Even when objects are observed, getting a clear and detailed view of them—either through pilot sightings, radar or other means—remains difficult.

Witnesses generally only see the glow or haze around them. Russian submarines are as good or better at prowling U. Perhaps the Viktor Leonov was on the scene to help collect data generated when the provocative objects were spotted by befuddled U.

Cheap, expendable balloons could also explain the shape of some of the UAPs reported, as well as the glimpse of one seemingly dropping into the waves. Sub-launched spy balloons have been around since at least , when the CIA dabbled with the trick , but no comparable, modern balloon program is known to exist in the U. The U. The objects also had no visible exhaust, even when seen in infrared. Radar logs on the U. The radar returns recorded by military ships and warplanes should provide the most reliable data about what was in the air during these encounters, but the mystery only deepens when such data is considered.

There is an ongoing, invisible cat-and-mouse game between designers of U. In places like Syria, Taiwan, and Ukraine, military specialists, nicknamed crows, vie for dominance over the electromagnetic spectrum.

When radar operators receive returns showing things that are impossible—like extremely fast-moving objects and vanishing swarms of aircraft—electronic warfare is the first thing a crow considers. Such funhouse mirror tricks are useful for avoiding anti-aircraft weapons, which often initially rely on radar to track targets.

Spoofing sounds a lot like what happened in the Gimbal encounters, and the DNI report addresses the possibility. If the Russian spy ship in Cuba was part of an intelligence gathering operation using covert tools of electronic warfare, that would mean the Kremlin unveiled a potentially sensitive system that would be more valuable as a surprise during an actual conflict.

There are vast military ranges in Russia and China where sensitive systems can be tested without tipping their hand—just as there are within the United States. Meaney says a cardinal rule in electronic warfare is: The less shown, the better. Perhaps a combination of physical objects and electronic warfare is responsible for some of the UAP incidents, but no one seems to be able to put all the puzzle pieces together in a way that makes sense.

Last year, when the Pentagon initially confirmed the leaked UAP incidents were indeed encounters with unidentified objects, the witnesses involved in the sightings went from the fringe to the mainstream.

These are all legit. But in , Dietrich says, the personal and professional stigma of reporting UFOs cost the Navy an opportunity to get more answers. We knew we could intercept it in multiple ways. Why didn't we … redirect our attention and our assets and our sensors into that airspace and get more evidence? Since that encounter, discussions around unidentified flying objects at the Pentagon have completely changed.

New protocols encourage personnel to report sightings, and military leaders are taking these reports seriously. Dietrich retired from the Navy as a lieutenant commander in May , having taught as an ethics professor at the United States Naval Academy in Maryland for more than six years.

Just before retiring, she went on the record for the first time, identifying herself as a UAP witness. She wants to end the stigma of pilots reporting strange things in the sky, still disquieted by the fact that whatever she saw remains unexplained. Voorhis is seeking his own answers, planning on mounting sky-facing cameras on Catalina Island to search for the UAPs he encountered near there in All rights reserved. Science News. Officials from the nearby Roswell Army Air Force Base claimed the debris was simply wreckage from a crashed weather balloon.

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