2004 USS Nimitz Tic Tac UFO FLIR footage (FLIR1)

[Agent K]

The video before this one on the same youtube channel, the channel owner Jeremy Corbell interviews an alleged radar operator on Nimitz who claims he got to see a much more detailed video where he sees a flying saucer and several tic-tacs come down to dock with it...

18:40
Jeremy: We're talking about a flying saucer that was under the water and dozens of tic-tacs was dropping down from 80'000 feet to dock with it, that you got to see clear as day on footage...
Trevor: correct
Jeremy: ...that footage is probably never gonna get out but you saw it.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VWVzaww1eU&feature=youtu.be&t=18m40s

That doesn't agree with what Fravor describes and I wonder why he didn't ask Fravor about that? It should have been easy for him to confirm it if it was true, and it certainly would be interesting to hear his opinion about it and the alleged radar operator.

Maybe he interviewed Fravor before Trevor. But he could've at least asked Fravor about the "gun tape." Fravor was talking about the original uncompressed ATFLIR video. The one online is shrunk by half and compressed.

 

[Agent K]

Thanks for that, very interesting.

It seems that David is talking about the FLIR video of another jet, not his own recording.
But he also seems to suggest that there is either more footage or there is more detailed footage available than we currently have:

At 18:08 in the interview:
"When you look at the high-res video that – good luck finding it – but the original video that we had, so literally right of the jet recorders and putting on our monitors. So we're watching it on a 21 inch or 20 inch TV you can see in the TV mode, because they, the WSO, the back seater of the other airplane is going between IR (infrared mode) to EO which is electro-optical which is TV – black and white – when he goes into TV mode he's pretty zoomed in. You could see there's two little things that stick out of the bottom of it."

These may be the two bulges underneath the object visible in the last frames of the low-res FLIR1 TV-mode segment:

View attachment 33510

Right, the original uncompressed footage would've been sharper. The bulges could be the wing and tail. Fravor again incorrectly said that the object accelerated at the end of the video, when it was really just continuing to fly left and the tracker broke lock when the FOV switched.

 

[deirdre]

Fravor was talking about the original uncompressed ATFLIR video. The one online is shrunk by half and compressed.

is there a reason the government would have done that to the video? TTSA said the FLIR footage we have was released by the DOD. But either way, we can assume that our FLIR footage is the same footage Elizondo and Bigelow would have had available to study? Elizondo never said anything like "but this wasn't the version that was available during my Advanced Threat Program" investigations.

 

[Agent K]

is there a reason the government would have done that to the video? TTSA said the FLIR footage we have was released by the DOD. But either way, we can assume that our FLIR footage is the same footage Elizondo and Bigelow would have had available to study? Elizondo never said anything like "but this wasn't the version that was available during my Advanced Threat Program" investigations.

The video that was leaked in 2007 was a 352x264 .mp4 file, which had been shrunk from something like 640x480 and compressed to .mp4. TTSA uploaded a video to YouTube with annotations but even more compression. The original raw video would've been a large file in a format incompatible with common media players or YouTube. I'd assume that AATIP would've analyzed raw video if they had it.

 

[Robert Mcintyre]

When Fravor talks about the small L shaped appendages that does remind me of missiles, e.g.:

But everything else he says about the way it flew doesn't seem missile like.

 

[deirdre]

When Fravor talks about the small L shaped appendages that does remind me of missiles

I don't see L shaped appendages on those missiles. Besides he said both the L's were facing the same way.

I'm picturing his words more like

 

[Agent K]

I don't see L shaped appendages on those missiles. Besides he said both the L's were facing the same way.

I'm picturing his words more like
View attachment 33513

Old Tomahawks had the air inlet, but I don't think it's what the video shows.

 

[Kaen]

Maybe he interviewed Fravor before Trevor. But he could've at least asked Fravor about the "gun tape." Fravor was talking about the original uncompressed ATFLIR video. The one online is shrunk by half and compressed.

The online version is probably shorter than the one Fravor saw.
The trace on how the ATFLIR video entered the public domain in 2007 reveals the existence of a longer version of the FLIR1 video that 'has more UFO movement':

The existence of the Nimitz event is first revealed in 2007 on the ATS forum by 'thefinaltheory'
Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread265697/pg1#pid2924439

'cometa' enters the discussion and urges 'thefinaltheory' to bring the video to the public domain.
'cometa' signs his post with 'greetings from Germany'
Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread265697/pg4#pid2926073

'thefinaltheory' promises to deliver the videos, and starts a U2U with 'cometa' on the next page of the thread.
This is probably how the video ended up on a German server.

'thefinaltheory' pops up in another thread one day later, where he gives a link to the video:
http://www.vision-unlimited.de/extern/f4.mpg
(This link does not work anymore today, but still works on the wayback internet archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.vision-unlimited.de/extern/*)
Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread265835/pg1#pid2926921

Later, 'thefinaltheory' reveals the existence of a longer version that 'has more UFO movement etc.':

I have four versions of this video they all are the same for the most part. The "full version" is about twice the length of this and has more ufo movement etc. But for some reason I can't get it to play , it says codec error... though I am 100% positive my codecs are up to date, I even have a codec pack. The second video is the one you see now. The third and fourth appear to be the same video as the second but just a bit shorter.

Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread265835/pg3#pid2928447

Of course people ask him how he knows the content if he couldn't get it to play, and he answers:

I know the full video works because it worked on the ship when I played it back.

Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread265835/pg4#pid2929033

It may have been encrypted somehow.

 

[Kaen]

The second part of Jeremy Corbell's interview with David Fravor, with more info on the ATFLIR tape(s) and the alleged gun tape of David's F18:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoTlMpXkQO8


At 6:33:

JEREMY: it was said that you made an electronic copy of the gun tape from your F18.

DAVID: No, when the other guys came back with the video I copied those tapes and I put them in the safe. Where they ever ended up I do not know - I do not possess them, they were actually in a safe for safe keeping. Probably ... They obviously … I think someone found them because they weren't marked on, they just had a PCL paper on it that said 'for CO'. So whatever happened to them after that I don't know.

JEREMY: Is that normal protocol, to create copies of the tapes and ..

DAVID: It's not uncommon to copy things, and as the CO I actually had that ability to go copy this and just keep it in the safe. Which is what happened – it was all handled correctly. But yeah I tell you I copied them.

The tapes are actually classified so you just can't pull video off, which happened anyway. Which I mean obviously that's a whole other story that we're not going to get into. Because you can copy stuff and then you can declassify it by getting rid of a lot of the markings that is kind of a moot point because it's already out there.

 

[Agent K]

The second part of Jeremy Corbell's interview with David Fravor, with more info on the ATFLIR tape(s) and the alleged gun tape of David's F18

Fravor really spells it out at 7:57: "The only footage on video was the footage from the plane that you see on YouTube."

 

[itsthematrix]

Linda Moulton Howe Interviews CMDR David Fravor, FA/18

[at the 1 hour mark] they mention metabunk several times in the video


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxO4PXiEP4g

 

[Kaen]

Fravor really spells it out at 7:57: "The only footage on video was the footage from the plane that you see on YouTube."

His actual words are:

The only footage on video was the footage from the plane that took the … that you see on YouTube.

 

[Agent K]

His actual words are:

The only footage on video was the footage from the plane that took the … that you see on YouTube.

Right, so much for "Trevor" the supposed Nimitz radar operator who claimed to have watched a different video of a flying saucer.

 

[Kaen]

Right, so much for "Trevor" the supposed Nimitz radar operator who claimed to have watched a different video of a flying saucer.

Not so fast …

Both 'Trevor' and the person named 'thefinaltheory' on the ATS forum claim to have seen the video and both are certain they saw a 'classic disk' when they watched it:

Everybody says tic-tac, I don't remember that at all. Straight dome, with like a flat bottom. I looked just like a flying saucer.

Source: Trevor, at 13:33 in the Jeremy Corbell interview

It looked literally and I mean LITERALLY just like a disk, no stupid triangles or any gimmicky things like Independence Day or whatever. It looks exactly how the government wants you to NOT think it looks like. It's simply put, a disk.

Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread265697/pg1#pid2924439

Trevor and 'thefinaltheory' are different persons: Trevor was a radar operator and 'thefinaltheory' claims to have worked 'in the computer field' (source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread265697/pg1#pid2924439)

It is certainly possible that these two people are right, and more footage was recorded than released in the FLIR1 fragment.

After all, the WSO was still attempting to get more info on his/her screen at the end of this fragment by switching frantically between different modes, which caused the ATFLIR to lose its lock and the object drifting out of the FOV.

As you pointed out before, it would be easy for the WSO to subsequently slew the ATFLIR and obtain some more footage to get a positive identification.

However, if the Youtube fragment is the only part that Fravor is allowed to speak of, he must have a plausible explanation why the pursuit ended at the end of this fragment.
The object 'suddenly departing to the left' is such an explanation. It is the only way to give some credibility to the story that there is nothing more than the Youtube video and that the object had terrific performance, without giving away the existence of other stuff that was recorded but remains classified.

 

[deirdre]

It is certainly possible that these two people are right, and more footage was recorded than released in the FLIR1 fragment.

it's also possible 'final theory' made it up and later "trevor" read it and decided to get his own 15 minutes of fame. Believing stories from anonymous sources on the internet is really reaching. What if I told you that I was on the Princeton that day, I worked in the computer field and I could access top secret files. Would you believe me?

Fravor says there was no other footage. Very hard to believe if there was other footage, Fravor would never (and still) not be aware of it.

 

[Kaen]

Believing stories from anonymous sources on the internet is really reaching. What if I told you that I was on the Princeton that day, I worked in the computer field and I could access top secret files. Would you believe me?

Of course not, and nobody believed 'thefinaltheory' either back in 2007 (source: ATS thread starting at http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread265697/pg1#pid2924439)

But now we know he was the one who first supplied the FLIR1 footage, so that should give him some credibility.

it's also possible 'final theory' made it up and later "trevor" read it and decided to get his own 15 minutes of fame.

If 'Trevor' wanted fifteen minutes of fame he should have jumped on the tic-tac bandwagon and he shouldn't remain anonymous. Hardly anyone knows of the 2007 ATS forum discussions but almost everyone has heard of the tic-tac so why turn the tic-tac into a flying saucer? It only undermines his credibility.

Fravor says there was no other footage. Very hard to believe if there was other footage, Fravor would never (and still) not be aware of it.

I'm not saying Fravor was not aware of it.

In part 2 of his interview with Jeremy Corbell, at 7:22, he says:

The tapes are actually classified

So if there's more on the tapes than on the FLIR1 video he would not be allowed to speak about it.

Anonymous witnesses can reveal stuff that is classified, that is typically why they want to remain anonymous. Fravor cannot.

 

[Agent K]

Not so fast …

Both 'Trevor' and the person named 'thefinaltheory' on the ATS forum claim to have seen the video and both are certain they saw a 'classic disk' when they watched it:

Everybody says tic-tac, I don't remember that at all. Straight dome, with like a flat bottom. I looked just like a flying saucer.

Source: Trevor, at 13:33 in the Jeremy Corbell interview

It looked literally and I mean LITERALLY just like a disk, no stupid triangles or any gimmicky things like Independence Day or whatever. It looks exactly how the government wants you to NOT think it looks like. It's simply put, a disk.

Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread265697/pg1#pid2924439

'thefinaltheory' was obviously describing the FLIR1 video since he's the one who uploaded it. His breathless description of camera artifacts is amusing:

It's simply put, a disk... After about I say 10 seconds or so the UFO started to move. It moves in ways that we have never seen before, it spontaniously moved in a half circle upward and paused once again. Then it suddenly teleported about five times all over the pilots screen. The movement is instant and cannot be followed."

Cute interpretation of the FOV switches. And the object does look like a flat disk without the "dome" described by 'Trevor', who was describing something different.

Corbell: The footage you saw, you describe it very differently than what is out there about the events. What do you see on the screen?
Trevor: You can see that the F-18s are moving, and you see this object mimic the F-18s. This object had shot from, basically from the ocean. You can see that. That object made a couple different quick maneuvers, so if the F-18 banked left, it mocked the F-18s.

So 'Trevor' basically repeated Fravor's encounter, even though Fravor said there's no footage of it. Then, the interview really goes off the rails:

Corbell: It's sounding more and more like the footage you saw is not the footage that was released by the Department of Defense.
Trevor: Oh yeah, most definitely.
Corbell: We're talking about a flying saucer that was under the water, and dozens of tic-tacs were dropping down from 80 thousand feet to dock with it, that you got to see clear as day on footage.
Trevor: Correct

 

[deirdre]

I'm not saying Fravor was not aware of it.

i know. Fravor said it. You just supplied Fravors quote in post #452

 

[Robert Mcintyre]

From the latest interview I think I now understand what David Fravor says happened to the tape. He had it in a safe because it was classified (classified because it showed military tracking technology, i..e all the screen information). There was no investigation and no one asked for it. When his tour ended he couldn't take it with him as you can't take classified material into private hands. He assumes it was just overwritten by someone else on a later tour who found it in the safe.

 

[Kaen]

From the latest interview I think I now understand what David Fravor says happened to the tape. He had it in a safe because it was classified (classified because it showed military tracking technology, i..e all the screen information). There was no investigation and no one asked for it. When his tour ended he couldn't take it with him as you can't take classified material into private hands. He assumes it was just overwritten by someone else on a later tour who found it in the safe.

Sounds plausible, doesn't it? You find a tape in a safe and just assume it's a spare one that you can overwrite. After all, the safe must be the place where people keep their spare tapes.

Sounds just as plausible as the reaction of the US Navy to an unidentified object showing up on their radar in their own backyard that could not be intercepted and that jammed the F18 radars as they got close: Just take one minute of ATFLIR footage and don't even bother to slew the ATFLIR when it drifts out of your FOV. Then put the tape in a safe for someone to overwrite it later.

If this really was the Navy's response then either this was a known object or this was a severe case of cognitive dissonance.
The third option is that their response was a bit more elaborate than that, but remains classified.

 

[Landru]

Sounds plausible, doesn't it? You find a tape in a safe and just assume it's a spare one that you can overwrite. After all, the safe must be the place where people keep their spare tapes.

Sounds just as plausible as the reaction of the US Navy to an unidentified object showing up on their radar in their own backyard that could not be intercepted and that jammed the F18 radars as they got close: Just take one minute of ATFLIR footage and don't even bother to slew the ATFLIR when it drifts out of your FOV. Then put the tape in a safe for someone to overwrite it later.

If this really was the Navy's response then either this was a known object or this was a severe case of cognitive dissonance.
The third option is that their response was a bit more elaborate than that, but remains classified.

As someone who served in the Navy as an Intelligence Specialist on a carrier it is not unusual to place classified tapes in a safe and use them later causing them to be overwritten.

 

[Whitebeard]

Sounds plausible, doesn't it? You find a tape in a safe and just assume it's a spare one that you can overwrite. After all, the safe must be the place where people keep their spare tapes.

Not that implausable. When Elton John recorded his Helping Hands album the tapes were ready to go off to the mastering studio, then a YTS* trainee, under instructions to 'take those tapes to the de-mag' (meaning some spare tape reals) took Eltons new album and undid 5 month work with a flick of a switch. NEVER underestimate the human element in any situation.

(*Youth Training Scheme - a 1980's UK government program to provide paid on the job training for unemployed school leavers aged 16-19)

 

[Mick West]

As someone who served in the Navy as an Intelligence Specialist on a carrier it is not unusual to place classified tapes in a safe and use them later causing them to be overwritten.

"Classified" does not mean "keep forever", and the DoD says:
https://www.metabunk.org/attachments/p25_91-pdf.33617/

5-11
f. Video and audio magnetic tapes and video discs containing classified material may not be degaussed and
declassified. Classified tapes must either be reused at the same level of classification or destroyed when no longer
needed.

So they can reuse it.

Anyway, a bit of a moot point really.

 

[Kaen]

As someone who served in the Navy as an Intelligence Specialist on a carrier it is not unusual to place classified tapes in a safe and use them later causing them to be overwritten.

What is your opinion about the apparent lack of any adequate response to an event that could have developed into a second Pearl Harbor? After all, an enemy stealth sub could have been launching advanced torpedo drones into the Navy's most sophisticated ships in their own back yard.

At 14:25 in part 2 of Jeremy Corbell's interview with David Fravor, David says:

"And I know when I talked to Lu [Luis Elizondo] he said 'that was the most unique thing'. You know they have other sightings, they have other sensors that are tracking these things; no-one else has really chased or engaged with it like me that I know of."

[ text removed.. off topic, unclear, Link policy violation. ]

According to Fravor, nothing was done with it (I won't repeat his words here, but he is quite clear about it at 22:02).

To me that leaves only two possibilities: Cognitive dissonance or the top brass knew what the object was.
In the latter case this was not a UFO at all, which would explain the complete absence of any official report. The question is: Would they keep Fravor out of the loop, even to this date?

 

[Landru]

What is your opinion about the apparent lack of any adequate response to an event that could have developed into a second Pearl Harbor? After all, an enemy stealth sub could have been launching advanced torpedo drones into the Navy's most sophisticated ships in their own back yard.

What enemy? Whose stealth sub? These were work up cruises for USS Nimitz and the only blue water navy in the Pacific (Russia) doesn't send subs off the west coast to launch never before seen torpedo drones.

 

[Robert Mcintyre]

So here's another unresolved mystery to this whole thing. On the To the Stars Academy website they make this claim about the FLIR footage:

FLIR1 is the second of three US military videos of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) that has been through the official declassification review process of the United States government and approved for public release. It is the only official footage captured by a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet present at the 2004 Nimitz incident off the coast of San Diego. Like GIMBAL, this footage comes with crucial chain-of-custody (CoC) documentation because it is a product of US military sensors, which confirms it is original, unaltered, and not computer generated or artificially fabricated. While there have been leaked versions on the internet, the CoC establishes the authenticity and credibility that this version is the original footage taken from one of the most advanced sensor tracking devices in use.

Source: https://coi.tothestarsacademy.com/2004-nimitz-flir1-video

So if this is chain of custody footage how come it is not the high definition version that Cmr. Fravor talks about? In fact even a cursory comparison with the other two videos the GIMBAL and GO FAST ones shows how blurred the text is on this one.

 

[Agent K]

So here's another unresolved mystery to this whole thing. On the To the Stars Academy website they make this claim about the FLIR footage:

FLIR1 is the second of three US military videos of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) that has been through the official declassification review process of the United States government and approved for public release. It is the only official footage captured by a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet present at the 2004 Nimitz incident off the coast of San Diego. Like GIMBAL, this footage comes with crucial chain-of-custody (CoC) documentation because it is a product of US military sensors, which confirms it is original, unaltered, and not computer generated or artificially fabricated. While there have been leaked versions on the internet, the CoC establishes the authenticity and credibility that this version is the original footage taken from one of the most advanced sensor tracking devices in use.

Source: https://coi.tothestarsacademy.com/2004-nimitz-flir1-video

So if this is chain of custody footage how come it is not the high definition version that Cmr. Fravor talks about? In fact even a cursory comparison with the other two videos the GIMBAL and GO FAST ones shows how blurred the text is on this one.

So even TTSA says that FLIR1 "is the only official footage captured by a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet present at the 2004 Nimitz incident off the coast of San Diego."
I haven't seen any explicit statement that Fravor's young wingman Jim Slaight didn't record the UFO chase on his helmet-mounted camera, but it's implied by all the statements that FLIR1 was the only video of the incident.

 

[Kaen]

So even TTSA says that FLIR1 "is the only official footage captured by a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet present at the 2004 Nimitz incident off the coast of San Diego."
I haven't seen any explicit statement that Fravor's young wingman Jim Slaight didn't record the UFO chase on his helmet-mounted camera, but it's implied by all the statements that FLIR1 was the only video of the incident.

You're right, all sources seem to indicate that the ATFLIR footage was the only footage taken. But that doesn't mean that FLIR1 is the complete version of that footage.

FLIR1 was already leaked in 2007 via the ATS forum (see message #448), and the person who leaked this footage also stated that the ATFLIR footage was 'all the footage that was taken', but he added that the FLIR1 footage is about half the length of the full version, and that the full version 'has more UFO movement etc':

This was all the footage that was taken, (sort of) I have four versions of this video they all are the same for the most part. The "full version" is about twice the length of this and has more UFO movement etc. But for some reason I can't get it to play; it says codec error... though I am 100% positive my codecs are up to date, I even have a codec pack. The second video is the one you see now.

Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread265835/pg3#pid2928447

So it seems we're only getting half the video at half the resolution from TTSA, with zero evidence for their CoC claim.

I pointed out in my previous post that the US government does not mind to make reports of UFO encounters available on its websites. I included an example similar to the Nimitz incident to back up this claim, but it was deleted by a moderator. The Blue Book archives have been put online as well. No complicated CoC procedures involved. This case can be considered an exception to this rule, which to me indicates that it was some kind of military experiment, not a UFO.

Some of the frames in the FLIR1 video look a lot like a Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler seen from the front. The Prowler is an electronic warfare aircraft so it is certainly capable of jamming an F18 radar.

According to Wikipedia:

the EA-6B was the only dedicated electronic warfare plane available for missions by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Air Force until the fielding of the Navy's EA-18G Growler in 2009.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_EA-6B_Prowler

 

[Mick West]

Some of the frames in the FLIR1 video look a lot like a Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler seen from the front.

That seems like an extreme interpretation - how does it look more like that plane than any other plane? And how does the view from the front differ from the view from the rear?

 

[Kaen]

Yes, it's a bit of a stretch.

I searched for pictures of military aircraft with an inverse-T-shaped tail that rises above the fuselage and two air intakes close to each other below their nose. That is what I tend to see in the 'blurry blob' IR frames (just like AgentK tends to see an airplane in the 'blurry blob' TV frames).

The Prowler came up as a good candidate.

The reason I suggest it here is the fact that, according to Fravor - in his interviews with Jeremy Corbell - the UFO actively jammed the F18 radar system. The Prowler is equipped to do just that and it was still in service back in 2004.

 

[Kaen]

Hmmm… the dark area that I assumed to be air intakes seems to turn with the object (see frames below). It looks as if the object turns counter clockwise when seen from the top.

Not sure what it is exactly. The 'tail' that I think I'm seeing in the first frames could be a reflection/scatter.

Maybe not an airplane after all…

 

[Mick West]

The 'tail' that I think I'm seeing in the first frames could be a reflection/scatter.

Consider that as it gets larger there's LESS detail. That strongly suggests that the earlier detail is just scatter/glare/artifacts from a small light source.

 

[Agent K]

Hmmm… the dark area that I assumed to be air intakes seems to turn with the object (see frames below). It looks as if the object turns counter clockwise when seen from the top.

Not sure what it is exactly. The 'tail' that I think I'm seeing in the first frames could be a reflection/scatter.

Maybe not an airplane after all…

A lot of the gunk around the target gets cleaned up when the camera rotates after the TV mode, 48 seconds into the original .mp4 file. Looks like an airplane heading left to me.

 

[Kaen]

A lot of the gunk around the target gets cleaned up when the camera rotates after the TV mode, 48 seconds into the original .mp4 file. Looks like an airplane heading left to me.

Good idea to focus on the part of the video right after the optics is rotated and hence relatively free of thermal noise. Too bad the zoom is not yet applied there, though the zoom may add additional optical distortions as well.

Below are some frames from right after the rotation of the optics.

It doesn't look like an airplane to me.

There seems to be a horizontal darker line running through the middle of the object. This line is not visible in the 2.0 zoom engaged later in the video. It makes me think of the object's description given in the Fightersweep article:

In his debrief comments, Dave, his WSO and the two other crews stated the object had initially been hovering like a Harrier. They described it as uniformly white, about 46 feet long (roughly fighter-sized), having a discernible midline horizontal axis (like a fuselage) but having no visible windows, nacelles, wings or propulsion systems.

Source: https://fightersweep.com/1460/x-files-edition/

 

[Robert Mcintyre]

I don't see L shaped appendages on those missiles. Besides he said both the L's were facing the same way.

I'm picturing his words more like
View attachment 33513

Well one possible explanation is they witnessed a submarine launch a missile. It would explain the water disturbance, the appearance of hovering (as some sea launched missiles do get ejected into the air, pause then ignite a rocket), and the sudden acceleration and take-off out of his sight. His belief that he was somehow engaging with it in a manoeuvre could have just been anthropomorphic type misinterpretation perhaps in the same way as you can be convinced someone is looking at you when in fact they are looking at something behind you. The missile was just doing its launch sequence and he was flying around it. This explanation doesn't fit very well with his own account though. It would have to assert that he either did not register, recall or interpret what he saw very well (hence minor details like the appendages could be interesting clues as to what it actually was). But also this explanation doesn't fit well with all the supporting data that is being claimed about there being up to 100 radar hits over several days and so on.

I'm not sure what the purpose of your image was. I guess possibly you were being facetious.

 

[deirdre]

I'm not sure what the purpose of your image was. I guess possibly you were being facetious.

to show L shapes facing the same way.


Fravor says he engaged with this thing for quite a while, doesn't jive with a missile as far as I know.

""I would argue that it wasn't a weather balloon, it wasn't a flare it was an actual object we tracked for around five minutes."

 

[Mick West]

Well one possible explanation is they witnessed a submarine launch a missile. It would explain the water disturbance, the appearance of hovering (as some sea launched missiles do get ejected into the air, pause then ignite a rocket), and the sudden acceleration and take-off out of his sight. His belief that he was somehow engaging with it in a manoeuvre could have just been anthropomorphic type misinterpretation perhaps in the same way as you can be convinced someone is looking at you when in fact they are looking at something behind you. The missile was just doing its launch sequence and he was flying around it. This explanation doesn't fit very well with his own account though.

I don't don't see how that's within the realm of possibility. Missiles don't look like tic-tacs, they don't instantly vanish, they don't randomly get shot when there's fighter jets around, they don't hover for that long, they leave smoke trails, They have a bright spot from the rocket flames, they don't make the water "boil".

 

[Getoffthisplanet]

Flir1 is visually the most uninteresting of the 3 TTSA videos released thus far, so I've never really paid it much attention.

Noticed this today, though:



Internal lens reflections? Greasy fingerprints on the FLIR housing?

I highlighted just this section, but the artifacts aren't limited to these frames, similar artifacts are throughout most of the video.

 

[Christophe Isbert]

Hi Getoffthisplanet,

I think that I found a similar artifact in this image (don't remember where I got it though)...

Looks like Tv mode to me but I have no idea what generated such artifacts and I've asked a Flir technician about it but he has no clue either:

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Mick West]

Internal lens reflections?

That's what I assume it is. I see something similar in my IR converted Nikon P900.

(Inverted image)
It's centered here, but the light path in the ATFLIR is a lot more complicated.