Friend, foe or UFO ?

[Ron]

Since 2015, dozens of Navy F-18 fighter jets have encountered unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAPs) — once commonly referred to as UFOs — off the East Coast of the United States, some not far from the nation’s capital. Encounters have been reported by other military aircraft and civilian airliners elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad, too, including videos shot by airline passengers.

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/444422-friend-foe-or-unknown-force-flying-overhead-congress-should-find

Sure has been an uptick in UFO talk lately.

Any of the pilots here have any interesting stories?

[Devonai]

The probes are for your benefit.  Just exhale and relax.

[RoadKingLarry]

What these UAPs were and who was flying them — whether friends, foes or unknown forces — remains a mystery. Yet careful examination of the data inevitably leads to one possible, disturbing conclusion: A potential adversary of the United States has mastered technologies we do not yet understand to achieve capabilities we cannot yet match.

My money is that is it is no *expletive deleted*it high tech aircraft is that it's our stuff and the folks reporting it aren't cleared to know what it is.

[grampster]

Aliens.   

[BobR]

My money is that is it is no *expletive deleted*it high tech aircraft is that it's our stuff and the folks reporting it aren't cleared to know what it is.

Using extraterrestrial technology no doubt.

I never saw anything out of the ordinary in my flying days, lots of St Elmo's Fire, a lightning ball going the full length of the inside of the fuselage, Northern Lights, the radar altimeter dipping below 50 ft as we cleared the top of San Clemente Island one dark night (we were under control from San Diego), but never anything UFOish.

bob

[lee n. field]

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/444422-friend-foe-or-unknown-force-flying-overhead-congress-should-find

Sure has been an uptick in UFO talk lately.

Any of the pilots here have any interesting stories?

Waiting to hear from the pilots.

It's interesting from a bunch of different angles, and "real aliens from space" is way at the bottom of the list of possible explanations.

Meanwhile, the author of American Cosmic, UFOs, Religion, Technology is making the book tour rounds in conspiratainment, UFO and esoteric venues.  She's an academic (religious studies department head with a specialization in medieval Catholicism), but the stories she accumulates and passes on end up sounding like every other UFO story.

There's a lot of commonality to the stories.  "The real truth" is always just around the corner.   Where these things claim to be from (if it gets to that) is always  far enough out that we don't have good information (none claim to be from Mars or Venus like they might have in the early days).  And, if you listen long enough, the teller of the tale will say something that indicates that they don't know the science real well.

[Fly320s]

Any of the pilots here have any interesting stories?

Not me.  Never seen anything UFO like. 

My money is that is it is no *expletive deleted*it high tech aircraft is that it's our stuff and the folks reporting it aren't cleared to know what it is.

That is my bet as well.  Considering China just copies our tech and Russia can hardly build anything that works, I'm not worried about being technologically outclassed.

[bedlamite]

The only thing is out of the ordinary that I've seen is a donuts on a rope contrail in southern Utah a few years ago. Didn't know what it was, research since suggests a classified military craft.

[French G.]

Using extraterrestrial technology no doubt.

I never saw anything out of the ordinary in my flying days, lots of St Elmo's Fire, a lightning ball going the full length of the inside of the fuselage, Northern Lights, the radar altimeter dipping below 50 ft as we cleared the top of San Clemente Island one dark night (we were under control from San Diego), but never anything UFOish.

bob

The radalt apparently said 30 as our mighty UH-3H(ET) cleared the roof of the hangar whilst at full gallop. I had been QA and lead on a detachment to recover a not flown in two years helicopter out of an executive transport modification being done by contractors. Forty year old aircraft love to sit too. Finally got a good FCF and last thing was blade track. Turns out I got it within a half inch.
   So the place the work was being done also did all the spec ops army helos. And their test pilots would doe something dramatic when a bird was good. Like little bird barrel roll between two hangars dramatic.

So here comes my giant green beast. The pad was slightly lower than the hangar and the ground sloped away from the pad too. Thing pops over the trees, dips down out of sight for a second below the pad and is pulling full collective to clear the pad and the hangar. Would have been a fun ride, but there I was standing in the hangar door, figuring this was a good time to have faith in my mechanical abilities.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Just making sure the stupids are still planet bound.

[BobR]

The radalt apparently said 30 as our mighty UH-3H(ET) cleared the roof of the hangar whilst at full gallop. I had been QA and lead on a detachment to recover a not flown in two years helicopter out of an executive transport modification being done by contractors. Forty year old aircraft love to sit too. Finally got a good FCF and last thing was blade track. Turns out I got it within a half inch.
   So the place the work was being done also did all the spec ops army helos. And their test pilots would doe something dramatic when a bird was good. Like little bird barrel roll between two hangars dramatic.

So here comes my giant green beast. The pad was slightly lower than the hangar and the ground sloped away from the pad too. Thing pops over the trees, dips down out of sight for a second below the pad and is pulling full collective to clear the pad and the hangar. Would have been a fun ride, but there I was standing in the hangar door, figuring this was a good time to have faith in my mechanical abilities.

We were operating pretty low that night and it would have been nice had we known they vectored us over (through) the island. Good thing our Sensor 3 (Non Acoustic, radar ESM and FLIR) was paying attention to the FLIR that night because we were climbing at about a 45 degree angle to not become part of San Clemente as soon as he yelled pull up over the intercom. There were some pissed people in the front of the plane, the guys in back would have never known what they hit. :(

bob

bob

[Fly320s]

The only thing is out of the ordinary that I've seen is a donuts on a rope contrail in southern Utah a few years ago. Didn't know what it was, research since suggests a classified military craft.

I've seen the donuts on a rope contrails from commercial aircraft.  Doesn't happen often, though.

[MechAg94]

My money is that is it is no *expletive deleted*it high tech aircraft is that it's our stuff and the folks reporting it aren't cleared to know what it is.

I had a materials science professor at A&M (early 90's) who thought the Air Force had Mach 10 or more aircraft then, but they were so hard/expensive to build they were impossible to mass produce.  I don't know anything about that, but I am sure they have experimental aircraft better than current production stuff. 

I recall seeing an old discovery channel show about UFO sightings in the Soviet Union.  Apparently the Soviets thought it was harmless until they realized the US was getting intelligence from them on experimental aircraft the Soviets were testing.