NYT: GIMBAL Video of U.S. Navy Jet Encounter with Unknown Object

Is it the rotation that's the main point of contention? I know not every UFOologist is on the aliens camp, but let's face it the majority are, but is the rotation the only thing that's standing between aliens and not aliens?

You tell us, that's the issue really.

When it first came out that was the main claim it was rotating, the pilots were excitingly exclaiming it's rotating!

The full analysis of the video took a long time because it's very complex we essentially had to learn how the ATFLIR targeting pod worked, read the patent for the ATFLIR and piece things together with sim manuals, leaked Navy manuals etc. It's still going on with recreations, and simulations.

Things went a bit quiet on all the Navy videos for a bit Mick had videos up for a while that explained stuff mostly.

Then there was Chris Lehto and Ryan Graves, ex pilots with a slant towards the not of this Earth explanation. With Graves apparently having seen the whole video and or speaking to the actual pilots.

The video is the poster child for the recent UFO renaissance. It's the one shown on the TV news stories. But it's more like a prompt for all the stories where you just go around in circles from video to story and back again.
 
I also genuinely feel like the debate is being used to generate hype for TV shows it seems every time the debate starts up again on Twitter a new TV show comes out our is announced.
 
Is it the rotation that's the main point of contention? I know not every UFOologist is on the aliens camp, but let's face it the majority are, but is the rotation the only thing that's standing between aliens and not aliens?
I think the majority now just say it was an unidentified thing - and their focus is on the distance. Still some significant rotation holdouts though.
 
I think the majority now just say it was an unidentified thing - and their focus is on the distance. Still some significant rotation holdouts though.

I don't know about that. MarikVR keeps posting his vids of how he believes your wrong, and it gets posted on UFOs reddit.

Just to be clear , I think you are right and that it is glare.

But it would be nice to see you address the things he says, so others can see the counter points.
 
I don't know about that. MarikVR keeps posting his vids of how he believes your wrong, and it gets posted on UFOs reddit.

Just to be clear , I think you are right and that it is glare.

But it would be nice to see you address the things he says, so others can see the counter points.

Marik seems arguing in bad faith. It's just an endless cycle with him - he makes some sweeping claim, I rebut it, he makes another. And the people who believe his nonsense are unlikely to spend the time listening to me. They have picked their prefered answer already.
 
Marik seems arguing in bad faith. It's just an endless cycle with him - he makes some sweeping claim, I rebut it, he makes another. And the people who believe his nonsense are unlikely to spend the time listening to me. They have picked their prefered answer already.

Then you get stuff like this. Basically saying since it was a real object, then the theory it was glare is wrong. Seems people still dont understand the glare is about the rotation not that it wasnt a real object


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/tye2zn/gimbal_is_heading_towards_the_f18_so_it_cant_be/



BTW, looks like the Gimbal has made it to Ancient Aliens


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJakASQR1yk
 
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Is it the rotation that's the main point of contention? I know not every UFOologist is on the aliens camp, but let's face it the majority are, but is the rotation the only thing that's standing between aliens and not aliens?
For now. Once the rotation explanation starts to sink in, they'll move the goalposts somewhere else.
 
I know I won't be well received around here as I am on Marik's side. But I want to suggest that the observables are not the main points of contention.

Really what has tipped the scale for me, and others, is that the close trajectory described by the pilots is right there, in the lines of sight. This would be extraordinary coincidence that the glare from a distant plane, locked by mistake, matches the close trajectory they describe. To me it puts pilot error, locking on the wrong target, out of the equation. What is left is glitch in the instruments. Very unlikely, and hard to collect any evidence for this.

This is the main point that needs to be addressed imo, if you want to convince the "other side". Because all the observables become almost irrelevant, if the global situation that would have lead to such a blunder is not explained.
 
This would be extraordinary coincidence that the glare from a distant plane, locked by mistake, matches the close trajectory they describe.
Yes. And we don't have a lot of similar reports, which confirms it's a rare event that, in this case, happened.
If someone told you they won the lottery, would you disbelieve it because it's an "extraordinary coincidence"?
 
Is it the rotation that's the main point of contention? I know not every UFOologist is on the aliens camp, but let's face it the majority are, but is the rotation the only thing that's standing between aliens and not aliens?
the rotation because it "defies physics" and the saucer shape and "trained observers said they dont know what it was, they could easily identify every balloon and distant jet or drone on earth and could never be wrong".
 
Exactly what description are you referring to?
It must be this one below. But there's no scenario in which the Gimbal object could experience any mid-course trajectory change, or to noticeably start slowing down, let alone to suddenly stop and wait. One only has to look at the clouds to see that. The only compatible motion at close range is a smooth, steady slowing, followed by a smooth speeding-up — no actual stopping — which is not physically realistic in a real-world setting with gravity, drag, and wind.

Screen Shot 2022-04-08 at 1.24.21 PM.png
(https://thedebrief.org/devices-of-unknown-origin-part-ii-interlopers-over-the-atlantic-ryan-graves/)
 
On Twitter (May 24 2021), Graves said:

(1/6) As viewed from the Situation Awareness page, the GIMBAL object appeared to be ‘behind’ a wedge formation of 4-6 objects that were flying in a straight-line path for a period of time. From the appearance of their radar tracks, they appeared similar to my eye as the
(2/6) ‘cube in a sphere’ objects we’d see regularly. I say this as their Target Aspect indicator seemed a bit jittery- as if the radar had difficulty determining which way the vehicle was pointing even though they were proceeding in a straight line.
(3/6) Eventually, the wedge formation began a turn. The vehicles turned similar to an aircraft, where they had a radius of turn. This is in contrast to the GIMBAL object which reversed its direction with no turn. The turn of the wedge formation, if I remember correctly, was
(4/6) not a ‘clean’ formation turn. The vehicles seemed to break formation to a certain extent but reposition to their original formation as they rolled out on the opposite heading. The GIMBAL object was stationary (as seen in the video) as the turn was executed. Once the wedge
(5/6) formation completed the turn and was flowing in the opposite direction, the GIMBAL object rotated as seen in the video. After the video was cut, the GIMBAL began to flow behind the wedge formation.
(6/6) For the record, after seeing 100s of aircraft and countless other air and ground based objects through the FLIR, I have never seen anything like GIMBAL. I think it's clear the Aircrew in the video feel the same way.
Content from External Source
 
Source for Ryan Graves describing the slowdown/stop/reverse of direction : the article above, a clip from Unidentified, this talk for AIAA, some tweets, personal communication.


Source: https://youtu.be/8R34a9_sRKQ?t=1051



He's also said that he may not have realized that the object did not stop, but instead climb, as they saw the trajectory on the SA (from above). The vertical climb would have been seen as a stop on the SA.This is explained in Marik's video. The object clearly slows down and makes a vertical U-turn in the potential trajectories that are found within 10Nm range.
 
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On Twitter (May 24 2021), Graves said:

(1/6) As viewed from the Situation Awareness page, the GIMBAL object appeared to be ‘behind’ a wedge formation of 4-6 objects that were flying in a straight-line path for a period of time. From the appearance of their radar tracks, they appeared similar to my eye as the
(2/6) ‘cube in a sphere’ objects we’d see regularly. I say this as their Target Aspect indicator seemed a bit jittery- as if the radar had difficulty determining which way the vehicle was pointing even though they were proceeding in a straight line.
(3/6) Eventually, the wedge formation began a turn. The vehicles turned similar to an aircraft, where they had a radius of turn. This is in contrast to the GIMBAL object which reversed its direction with no turn. The turn of the wedge formation, if I remember correctly, was
(4/6) not a ‘clean’ formation turn. The vehicles seemed to break formation to a certain extent but reposition to their original formation as they rolled out on the opposite heading. The GIMBAL object was stationary (as seen in the video) as the turn was executed. Once the wedge
(5/6) formation completed the turn and was flowing in the opposite direction, the GIMBAL object rotated as seen in the video. After the video was cut, the GIMBAL began to flow behind the wedge formation.
(6/6) For the record, after seeing 100s of aircraft and countless other air and ground based objects through the FLIR, I have never seen anything like GIMBAL. I think it's clear the Aircrew in the video feel the same way.
Content from External Source
Our point is the following : that Ryan Graves would give a description like this, that matches so well the close-range potential trajectories, while the target was in fact a glare from a distant plane, would be an extraordinary coincidence.

Except if assuming pilots lying, or very bizarre technical glitch in the instruments. These are extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence to be pushed convincingly. That is I and Marik's opinion, that you may disagree with, but given the data, I don't think it is completely unjustified or built from bad faith.
 
The object clearly slows down and makes a vertical U-turn in the potential trajectories that are found within 10Nm range.

A curved trajectory is inevitable if you project a simple straight path onto a closer distance, when the cloud motion is matched. It's an artifact of the curved path of the jet.

It's not a U-Turn either, just a turn to the left. Presenting it as an U-Turn seems to be forced perspective.

Our point is the following : that Ryan Graves would give a description like this, that matches so well the close-range potential trajectories, while the target was in fact a glare from a distant plane, would be an extraordinary coincidence.

Except if assuming pilots lying, or very bizarre technical glitch in the instruments. These are extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence to be pushed convincingly. That is I and Marik's opinion, that you may disagree with, but given the data, I don't think it is completely unjustified or built from bad faith.
This seems nonsensical. The trajectories "match" only in the most hand-waving linguistic sense of "it turned around". There's no visible formation it is following. It does not come to a stop and wait. It does not proceed in the opposite direction

No lying or bizarre technical glitch is required. Simply a mistaking of how far away the thing on the ATFLIR was.
 
One cannot talk about "extraordinary coincidences" unless one is in possession of the data. For example, we are in possession of the data for the glare rotation and the data for the ATFLIR azimuth and elevation angles, which lets us calculate the expected roll angle. We find an extraordinary match, evinced by the fact that if you substitute the glare angle for the ATFLIR roll, the head remains always within 3 degrees or so of the target, which is very close to the 5 degrees cited in the Raytheon patent, and even closer to the number cited by that Raytheon engineer in those ill-fated tweets. That's an extraordinary coincidence. When you look between 15 and 20 seconds of video, notice that the airplane banks but the glare remains dead static, that's an extraordinary coincidence. It's on the basis of those coincidences (that surely have a minuscule if difficult to quantify precisely p value) that we can now be very confident in claiming that the rotation of the object is due to glare.

But if you're talking about Ryan Graves' description of the SA page... well, you're not looking at the SA page. You don't know when this stop-and-reverse movement happened, or even if it happened within the span of the video excerpt. You don't know if it coincides with any trajectory that has been mocked up (importantly: there are zero models that have "found" the distance to be 10 nautical miles). So there's no coincidence at all, extraordinary or otherwise, that can be confidently asserted with basis on any data we have available.

But say we assume that the trajectory Graves was describing is actually the one you get when you take lines of sight and artificially set their distance, that is, let's say we give you that coincidence. Now there's an even bigger coincidence to be contended with, namely, that the trajectory of the object looks exactly like that of an airplane-like object flying an airplane-like trajectory at constant altitude and speed, in just the direction required for the glare hypothesis to make sense for a jet, at a distance sufficient for the glare to cover most plausible candidates. That's an extraordinary coincidence. We don't know where the data in the SA came from, and the new FOIA'd documents don't say much other than a partially redacted sentence:

1649447743026.png

He took a ______ lock. A what lock? Radar doesn't fit:
1649448144338.png

What's the missing word? Passive? Datalink? How reliable is this tracking method? That's in addition to the existing question of whether or not the pilots were tracking the target they thought they were tracking (is it the L&S or isn't it?) In the dispute between a mysterious sensor fusion package taking data from some unknown source, that has been possibly misinterpreted, and the clear evidence that the object was traveling an ordinary path -- that extraordinary coincidence begins to suggest quite the opposite, that it was the information in the SA page that was wrong (or misinterpreted), not the trajectory as can be reconstructed from the ATFLIR lines of sight.
 
A curved trajectory is inevitable if you project a simple straight path onto a closer distance, when the cloud motion is matched. It's an artifact of the curved path of the jet.

It's not a U-Turn either, just a turn to the left. Presenting it as an U-Turn seems to be forced perspective.

Where does the left turn comes from? Edward's 10 Nm trajectory does not turn to the left. In my model, trajectories within 10Nm do not have to turn to the left to follow the lines of sight (and I pay attention to have a spherical layers of distant clouds to stay in the FOV).

This seems nonsensical. The trajectories "match" only in the most hand-waving linguistic sense of "it turned around". There's no visible formation it is following. It does not come to a stop and wait. It does not proceed in the opposite direction

No lying or bizarre technical glitch is required. Simply a mistaking of how far away the thing on the ATFLIR was.

Within 10Nm the lines of sight make a curve, so an object following them will have to reverse direction at some point.

Now this is like arguing to a wall, so go ahead and just discard all I said. I just wanted to correct that our position is not coming from bad faith, it's supported by the data and what Ryan Graves says from the event.
 
Now this is like arguing to a wall, so go ahead and just discard all I said. I just wanted to correct that our position is not coming from bad faith, it's supported by the data and what Ryan Graves says from the event.
When someone like Marik says things that are verifiably untrue and which he knows are verifiably untrue, such as that three independent models "found" the trajectory with the u turn (when those models were obtained by fixing the range by hand), going so far as to try to bolster that conclusion by saying one of those models was found by a debunker (when, in reality, by those standards Edward Current's model could just as well be said to have "found" a trajectory 5 billion light years away), it becomes very hard to see him as arguing in good faith. When he takes information from someone in confidence, and publicizes that information without authorization, it becomes very hard to see him as arguing in good faith. When he misrepresents the information provided by said someone, pretending that the person said something he didn't, and in fact tries to twist his words to support the polar opposite conclusion, it's very hard to see him as arguing in good faith.

Step one in having one's position viewed charitably, in my mind, is intellectual honestly.
 
I understood the coincidence to be that the pilots looked for Graves's 10nm object (which seems not have existed) and found the 30nm GIMBAL object instead (because a camera can't tell range). Coincidence? Sure, maybe even rare, but we also don't have a lot of these reports, so rare makes sense.
 
Where does the left turn comes from? Edward's 10 Nm trajectory does not turn to the left. In my model, trajectories within 10Nm do not have to turn to the left to follow the lines of sight (and I pay attention to have a spherical layers of distant clouds to stay in the FOV).

Your path here turns to the left.
2022-04-08_14-03-28.jpg


I don't have a sophisticated LOS traversing set of algorithms yet, but it's clear that your solution (which I think isn't a solution, as the clouds would go backwards) is just one of many. You can get it to curve either way with fairly small tweaks.

I'll be revisiting this next week.
 
In my model,
I've added your LOS to Sitrec.
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/
(PT1 is red, other colors the same)

In the bottom right graph, the green line is the speed of the cloud horizon. The thin red horizontal line is zero. For the clouds to keep going in the right direction, and slow down, it needs to look something like this:
2022-04-08_15-16-26.jpg

It's rather messy right now, but might help give some sense of how things change with a full 1031 point simulation. It's defaulting to the graphs, but you can change the Az and the Turn Rate in the UI.
Press V to show the video.

Side note, @Edward Current has 1029 frames, presumably because his source video is 30 fps. Mine is 29.97, same as the Navy version. Not a significant factor, just explaining the discrepancy
 
When someone like Marik says things that are verifiably untrue and which he knows are verifiably untrue, such as that three independent models "found" the trajectory with the u turn (when those models were obtained by fixing the range by hand), going so far as to try to bolster that conclusion by saying one of those models was found by a debunker (when, in reality, by those standards Edward Current's model could just as well be said to have "found" a trajectory 5 billion light years away), it becomes very hard to see him as arguing in good faith. When he takes information from someone in confidence, and publicizes that information without authorization, it becomes very hard to see him as arguing in good faith. When he misrepresents the information provided by said someone, pretending that the person said something he didn't, and in fact tries to twist his words to support the polar opposite conclusion, it's very hard to see him as arguing in good faith.

Step one in having one's position viewed charitably, in my mind, is intellectual honestly.
I don't understand this argument. You have the lines of sight, with all the potential trajectories that goes with it. You can plot any trajectory between these lines of sight, that will be more or less realistic. Yes it could start at 1Nm and ends 5 billions years away, but it's probably not the one. And yes at some point you have to trace the trajectory by hand between the lines of sight to try the various possibilities. This is also true with the 30Nm trajectory.

In my model, Eddie's model, and the 3rd one that Marik had access to, the object has to take a vertical U-turn trajectory within 10Nm, assuming the object does not turn a lot along the LoS. That it does not turn a lot is a fair assumption to make, otherwise you would see the object's size increase much more as it get very close to the F-18 (if it turns right), or see no change in size (if it turns left). Plus R. Graves does not mention the object was turning, only that it went straight and reversed direction.

In his thread, Eddie himself has mentioned that the close trajectories have to resemble a U-shaped path, and it is described in one segment of his video. That's all Marik says, and he notes this is a good match with the range and description of the trajectory given by the pilots. How is this untrue? He also mentions the 30Nm trajectory that Eddie finds, at the end of his video, so he's not saying this is the only solution from Eddie's model. He does not have the same interpretation of the results, but he is not lying about what Eddie finds. But this is something you can discuss directly with him.
 
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Your path here turns to the left.
2022-04-08_14-03-28.jpg

The left plot is seen from an angle to be able to see the vertical U-turn. On the right plot, the same path is seen from above, you can see it does not turn one way or the other. But like I said, it could turn a bit to the left or to the right, it would still have to make the vertical U-turn to follow the LoS.

I don't have a sophisticated LOS traversing set of algorithms yet, but it's clear that your solution (which I think isn't a solution, as the clouds would go backwards) is just one of many. You can get it to curve either way with fairly small tweaks.

I'll be revisiting this next week.

To me it's important that the solution makes sense with what Ryan Graves describe. So I favor these close trajectories over the other ones because the distant trajectories are irreconcilable with what he says. Again, assuming he's not lying or there was not a failure of the instruments.
 
Edward's 10 Nm trajectory does not turn to the left.
This is one thing that's driving me so crazy — which I keep repeating here and on Twitter but seems not to be landing — that I have to put it in bold:

I don't have one 10 NM trajectory. I have an uncountably infinite number of 10 NM trajectories.

Something they all have in common is they all accelerate to the F-18's left along some vector. Which means the object can travel along a straight line and reverse direction as seen from overhead, or it can turn continuously (but increasingly) to its left, and I suppose it will turn to its right if approaching fast.

Making generalizations about the situation based on just one scenario can easily lead to false conclusions. What we're talking about is not just an infinite number of points; it's an infinite number of points, from each of which emanate an infinite number of curves. It's more like a pile of spaghetti than a tray of peas. The spaghetti strand you fixate on is unlikely to be exactly correct. However, there is one unique strand of spaghetti, and that's a weird straight one in the middle. It's notable for being unique, which is why it has a name and why I talk about it. All of the others are just variations on their neighbors.

The nice thing about thinking about the entire group of solutions, rather than just one or two, is you spot opposing gradients, which lead to null lines (in my plots, null altitude change and null banking, or more generally null horizontal acceleration). In this case, those null lines led to something interesting. I never would have found the straight-and-level solution if I only looked at what happens at 10 NM.
 
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Side note, @Edward Current has 1029 frames, presumably because his source video is 30 fps. Mine is 29.97, same as the Navy version. Not a significant factor, just explaining the discrepancy
Actually I have 1027 frames. This is interesting, I don't know why it would be different. I downloaded from the .mil site, then created a reference version where the frame numbers count up on the left. That file is in 29.97 fps. My model outputs at 29.97 fps.

I did notice a few static frames at the beginning of the original download, and I disregarded them, treating them all as frame #1. I imagine you did, too.
 
Here is a slide of project NEMESIS from thedrive write up
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...e-capability-will-change-naval-combat-forever

1) Big drone with smaller drones.

2) From Budget document , NEMESIS was a classified program

3) The big drone is noted by thedrive as resembling and seems to be the Northdrop Gruman x-47b

4) The X-47B was being tested on the USS Roosevelt from the Aug 2014 video below

5) The USS Roosevelt was part of COMPTUEX a kind of wargame

6) NEMESIS was tested in a wargame , testing concluded Feb 23-26 2015

7) The NAVY NEMESIS developers are located on the east coast

8) The Gimbal event happened on the east coast during COMPTUEX

9) Elizondo got the videos under the description UAV/UAS and Balloons, his internal emails also mentioned drones

10) The WSO/Pilot in the Gimbal video literally says it's a drone

11) The Graves noted a fleet of objects were seen, big one trailing smaller ones

12) The X-47B was referred to by the huff post as the NAVY's "UFO" drone
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/20...ng-but-its-heading-to-a-museum_n_7084990.html




1649466596842.png

NEMESIS Developers (minus DARPA and the sub contractors like BAE and Northrop which also developed componenets)

1649467082428.png

Unclassified NAvy Budget doc showing NEMESIS was classified and tested in a wargame ending Feb 23-26

1649467161956.png


The X-47B on the Roosevelt



Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n56_H9KN7eI
 
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I did notice a few static frames at the beginning of the original download, and I disregarded them, and treated them all as frame #1. I imagine you did, too.

I have 1031 frames, but the last two are duplicates, so I maybe there's 1030 in the video. Looking at the EXIF with Invisor we get:

Frame rate29.970 (29970/1000) FPS
Nominal frame rate30.000 FPS
Frame count1033

And playing it in VLC, the first two are duplicated :(

The interlacing/glitchy lines on the object act well as a frame fingerprint. This is the first two frames frame (0 and 1).
2022-04-08_18-12-10.jpg
and the third (frame 2)
2022-04-08_18-15-27.jpg
The 1030+1 frames I use actually start on this second frame! Bah!
 
You have the lines of sight, with all the potential trajectories that goes with it. You can plot any trajectory between these lines of sight.
@Edward Current that's what I said, I never say there is a unique solution at 10Nm. I was talking about the example you provided as a Blender file. Mine is also an example of one trajectory out of infinity within 10Nm But generally, they need to make a U-turn, except if turning sharply along the LoS.
 
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That it does not turn a lot is a fair assumption to make, otherwise you would see the object's size increase much more as it get very close to the F-18 (if it turns right), or see no change in size (if it turns left).
As I don't think we are seeing the object, but rather glare masking the object, could somebody speak to whether this statement makes sense with glare -- in situations where the object gets closer, should the GLARE get larger, and vice-versa? Or might the glare stay about the same size in the video?
 
You can plot any trajectory between these lines of sight, that will be more or less realistic. Yes it could start at 1Nm and ends 5 billions years away, but it's probably not the one.
You don't have any way of discriminating between various general curved trajectories, so any one of them is just as good as any other. You could just as well look for trajectories 30, 60, 90 nmi away. They're all about as good or about as bad as each other. The point of mentioning a trajectory 1 billion light years away is that without adding extra information it's not even possible to rule out those.

The matter is different for trajectories with certain special characteristics (straight lines, constant speed level flight, etc). The vast majority of lines of sight will not correspond to any such trajectories. It's a very special thing when some trajectory like that is found. The same cannot be said from any arbitrary trajectory you trace out in 3d space. Those aren't "found", they're invented.
In his thread, Eddie himself has mentioned that the close trajectories have to resemble a U-shaped path, and it is described in one segment of his video. That's all Marik says
No, Marik says that 3 (three!) independent models "found" this trajectory, as if it was an inexorable conclusion of mathematics that this was the trajectory taken. That's a lie, plain and simple. The conclusion of the mathematics, insofar as one is possible at all, is that the object was in constant speed level flight 30 nautical miles away.
, and he notes this is a good match with the range and description of the trajectory given by the pilots. How is this untrue?
As I explained above, matching the range is meaningless because the range was set by hand, and for the trajectory really there's no "match" because we don't know what the actual trajectory was and the all we have is a vague informal description of it. It's not enough.

Marik also misrepresents the rotation of the object as "matching" this curved trajectory, which 1. it kinda really doesn't and 2. the sorta match we see is already explained by the fact that the apparent shape of the object, we now know with utmost confidence, is glare, and the pilots are trying to get behind the object to chase it. I might believe that this one is merely him being wrong, but I cannot believe the same of his trajectory fishing expeditions or of his heavily fictionalized account of statements given by a Raytheon engineer.
He also mentions the 30Nm trajectory that Eddie finds, at the end of his video, so he's not saying this is the only solution from Eddie's model.
He suggests it's two solutions. He does not properly convey the fact that there's an uncountable multitude of solutions (Edward Current's spaghetti analogy above is apt), each every bit as good as his preferred trajectory, but only one that is constant speed level flight. This is the only one that can be said to be a "finding" of the model.
He does not have the same interpretation of the results, but he is not lying about what Eddie finds.
As I explained in the previous, that's precisely one of the key things what he's lying about.
But this is something you can discuss directly with him.
Why would I do that?
 
As I don't think we are seeing the object, but rather glare masking the object, could somebody speak to whether this statement makes sense with glare -- in situations where the object gets closer, should the GLARE get larger, and vice-versa? Or might the glare stay about the same size in the video?
The size of a glare in an optical system is a convolution of the apparent shape of the light source with the response to a single point (often called the point-spread function or PSF). For example, if you point the system at a star (which is pretty much a point) you'll get a decent representation of the PSF. If you point the system at a source shaped like a circle with homogeneous brightness, you'll get something like the result of adding one copy of the star for each point in the circle.

So the size of a glare depends on two things: the angular size of the source, and the brightness of the source. For a source that emits light isotropically (like a star) it's pretty safe to conclude that the closer you are the larger the glare is. This is why Alpha Centauri, a yellow dwarf very similar to the sun, looks bigger than Betelgeuse which is a red giant. As far as your eyes are concerned both are pretty much points but Alpha Centauri is brighter and your subjective idea of its size is just the size of its glare.

Things become more complicated with directional sources, because you can have situations where the source appears smaller in absolute terms (because it's farther away) but the glare turns out bigger because it's pointing more directly at you, and conversely you can get close to it, the source appears smaller, but most of the flux points away from you and the glare looks smaller.
 
The conclusion of the mathematics, insofar as one is possible at all, is that the object was in constant speed level flight 30 nautical miles away.

This is complete nonsense, and completely the opposite of what we have discussed just above. There are, by design, an infinity of solutions, especially if you consider the mathematical solutions, and not the plausible ones, whatever that means.

As I explained in the previous, that's precisely one of the key things what he's lying about.
Lying is a strong accusation. Marik says that the trajectory described by the pilots (stop, reverse of direction, within 10Nm) is found in the models, which is true because it's a potential solution in the lines of sight (with the stop seen on the SA being the climbing portion of the vertical U-turn). You can consider it's a coincidence, we don't. But there is no lie here.

If the lines of sight were parallel, or divergent, the trajectory described by Ryan Graves would be dismissed, and we would not have this discussion. If this is a coincidence that it is in the LoS, I'm sorry that as a debunker you have to deal with that. The distant plane tracked by error could have flown in just a slight different direction, and you would have LoS that are inconsistent with what the pilots saw. But no luck, this is not the case.

As far as the robustness of the straight-leveled-steady 30Nm solution, I'll wait to see confirmation by Mick in his simulator, because it is very very fragile. 0.01 deg change in the elevation over 10sec makes your plane go from 250 to 350 knots. I've played enough with my geometrical model to realize that. Trying to reproduce the cloud motion is a clever method, but this does not mean it does not have its uncertainties. The clouds need to be exactly like in the video, in terms of slope, position in the FOV along the video, to have any confidence that your lines of sight are giving you the correct trajectory at 30Nm. The further you go, the more any error in the LoS makes a difference. A U-turn close trajectory as described by the pilots is less dependent on very small variations in the angles.
 
This is complete nonsense
No, it's not.
, and completely the opposite of what we have discussed just above. There are, by design, an infinity of solutions, especially if you consider the mathematical solutions, and not the plausible ones, whatever that means.
There are an infinite number of solutions. There is a unique solution corresponding to straight and level flight. The entire spaghetti of random trajectories collapses to a single one. Remember what I just said,
The conclusion of the mathematics, insofar as one is possible at all, is that the object was in constant speed level flight 30 nautical miles away.
It's fair to say that a trajectory satisfying these conditions of obvious interest is a conclusion of the analysis, because it's fair to add "... and we're looking for straight and level trajectories, if any exist" to the statement of the problem. That does not extend to any other random spaghetti, including but not limited to the one favored by Marik and yourself.

If you can defend some other set of conditions that are constraining enough to collapse the space of possible trajectories to a single one, and you find a trajectory like the one you defend, only then can you advance it as a conclusion of the analysis.
Lying is a strong accusation.
I know what the word means. I meant precisely what I said, if I didn't I would've used a different word. Marik knows exactly that the path he likes wasn't "found" by any mathematical models, but rather put in by hand, but he chooses to misrepresent them in this way. He knows what the Raytheon engineer said, but he pretended he said something else. If you have a better word I'm all ears, but honestly "lie" is the kindest description I have in my semantic repertoire.
If the lines of sight were parallel, or divergent, the trajectory described by Ryan Graves would be dismissed
The vaguer something is, the harder it is to disprove it. That's not a strength, it's a weakness.
I'm sorry that as a debunker you
I'm only a "debunker" in the sense that I want the truth. Shouldn't you also be a debunker in that sense? Shouldn't we all? Does anyone really want to believe in bunk? Wait, don't answer that.
As far as the robustness of the straight-leveled-steady 30Nm solution, I'll wait to see confirmation by Mick in his simulator, because it is very very fragile. 0.01 deg change in the elevation over 10sec makes your plane go from 250 to 350 knots.
You're thinking incorrectly about the robustness of the trajectory. If you hold the trajectory fixed and tweak the assumptions of the problem, the original trajectory will no longer be the straight and level solution. You have to find that other one or demonstrate one doesn't exist. The fact that a straight and level trajectory was found without too much trouble (beyond, of course, lots of elbow grease) goes counter to this idea of a carefully cherry picked fragile trajectory you're advancing. For problems like this, a small change in the input of the problem results in a small change in the answer. You're seeing a big change because you're not looking at the answer, you're looking at something else.
The clouds need to be exactly like in the video, in terms of slope, position in the FOV along the video, to have any confidence that your lines of sight are giving you the correct trajectory at 30Nm.
Edward Current addressed these uncertainties in his analysis when he considered several different cloud movement and height scenarios. You can shift things around and the answer shifts around, with the overall conclusion remaining solid.
A U-turn close trajectory as described by the pilots is less dependent on very small variations in the angles.
As I said above, that's a weakness, not a strength.
 
Lying is a strong accusation. Marik
Marik is a liar and a shameless one at that. Consider these images posted in a Twitter thread:

FPWu5cyVgAInSjE.jpegFPWu5cxVEAcvg0C.jpeg

• He claims that my model is "based on cloud motion only," a lie. As detailed in the accompanying video, my model is based on all of the data on the screen, including the bank angle for roll, but not for turn rate.
• He claims that my model "does not explain the object rising above the clouds," a lie. The object does not rise above the clouds, and the onscreen appearance of it doing so is a function of the speed and distance of the straight-and-level scenario, the distance and curvature of the clouds, the altitude difference, etc., which is explained geometrically by the model. The model also shows that scenarios more distant and fast-receding counterintuitively have to descend in order to appear to rise above the clouds from the F-18's perspective. Unfortunately, like "Does this look like a gravity-driven collapse to you?" this nuanced situation is easily manipulated to seem unbelievable and fraudulent by appealing to a child-like intuition. Durr, see object go up? That mean object go up! No explainy!
• He claims that "geometrical reconstructions" on the other hand use "direct data," a lie. My model is of course a geometrical reconstruction, and attempting to derive the F-18's flight path from the bank angles is about as far from "direct data" as you can get. Marik (or someone else) asked me, "What about deriving the flight path from the clouds, do you call that direct data?" and I replied NO! If "direct data" is a thing, about the only direct data in the video are the numerals, and even those are fouled slightly by being updated only 5 times per second. The cloud motion needs to be interpreted to create a flight path, and the bank angle needs to be interpreted to create a flight path. At this point however, there's no question that one of those methods is far more "direct" (less uncertain, of higher frame-resolution, and more reproducible) than the other.
 
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At this point however, there's no question that one of those methods is far more "direct" (less uncertain, of higher frame-resolution, and more reproducible) than the other.
You mean because the clouds update 29.97 times per second and the HUD data only 5 times per second? That 30 fps is better than 5 fps?
 
You mean because the clouds update 29.97 times per second and the HUD data only 5 times per second? That 30 fps is better than 5 fps?
Hmmm, no, what I said about frame resolution might be wrong. I guess what I was trying to say is that the clouds move every frame, so it's possible to measure their movement to within just a frame or two, whereas the bank angle is continuously and slowly changing. But unlike the numerals, it too changes every frame. Not my best moment.
 
So I did some digging around and found something to fill in a gap I had with the full symbology of what the ATFLIR was showing.

At around 2 seconds into the gimbal video the text ADV-M4 OK appears on the FLIR display above the speed indicators

1628342079944.png

What does this mean I did some digging into the manual ADV is an advisory and M4 related to Mode 4 for the IFF system

Page 538 of

https://www.metabunk.org/attachment...nnell-douglas-fighter-a1-f18ac-nfm-pdf.44932/

Says

"If the transponder is replying to valid mode 4 interrogations, the M4 OK advisory is displayed on the left DDI."

"The option 4 selection is used for enabling/ disabling the secure mode"

So I think this either means the transponder was on and in secure mode or was actively responding, it's hard to tell.
So I posted this in this thread almost a year ago, now I see this on Reddit.


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/vo0n5h/found_this_on_twitter_not_sure_if_it_has_been/


The source is an apparent conversation with Taylor at an SCU conference.. so no idea if its real or not.
 
Article:
Newly revealed UAP Task Force Chief Scientist Dr Travis Taylor believes the Gimbal incident may show evidence that the craft communicated that it was friendly.

[...] the ID Friend or Foe unit on board the aircraft appeared to have elicited a response from the UAP in the affirmative, ie that it's friendly.
At around 2 seconds into the gimbal video the text ADV-M4 OK appears on the FLIR display above the speed indicators

1628342079944.png

What does this mean I did some digging into the manual ADV is an advisory and M4 related to Mode 4 for the IFF system

Page 538 of

https://www.metabunk.org/attachment...nnell-douglas-fighter-a1-f18ac-nfm-pdf.44932/

Says

"If the transponder is replying to valid mode 4 interrogations, the M4 OK advisory is displayed on the left DDI."

"The option 4 selection is used for enabling/ disabling the secure mode"
Article:
Identification, friend or foe (IFF) is an identification system designed for command and control. It uses a transponder that listens for an interrogation signal and then sends a response that identifies the broadcaster. IFF systems usually use radar frequencies, but other electromagnetic frequencies, radio or infrared, may be used.[1] It enables military and civilian air traffic control interrogation systems to identify aircraft, vehicles or forces as friendly and to determine their bearing and range from the interrogator.

Mode 4 – military only; provides a 3-pulse reply, delay is based on the encrypted challenge.


How does this work?

Usually, a (secondary) ground radar sends out a pulse and the transponder replies with a code that is then displayed on the radar screen. For example, civilian aviation uses mode 3, which is a 4-digit octal number that any pilot can freely set on their transponder; setting it e.g. to 7600 would tell the radar operators your radio is not working. Usually pilots get assigned this number ("squawk") by ATC so the traffic controllers can track them on their radar screens. (This system has largely been superseded by ADS-B.)

For military applications, this isn't secure enough: once the enemy detects the "passcode", they could simply set their transponder the same and masquerade as friendly aircraft. That's why mode 4 is a cryptographic puzzle: the radar station sends a random challenge number, then the aircraft transponder calculates a response number using a secret key and sends that back (encoded as delay time), and then the radar station checks that it's correct. Because the enemy doesn't know the secret key, they can't send the correct response; and because the challenge is different every time, they can't just copy someone else's response to another challenge because it wouldn't match.

So what happens with this system is that a radar station sends a signal to the aircraft, and the aircraft responds.

There is absolutely no reason to assume that the mode 4 signal in GIMBAL was sent from the UAP; it probably originated from a NAVY radar somewhere in range.

There is no way for a UAP to identify as "friendly" on mode 4 IFF unless they have cracked the crypto. If extraterrestrials can do this, they can contact us some other way.

And anyway, the HUD message means "the transponder is replying to valid mode 4 interrogations", i.e. some radar is interrogating the Navy aircraft, and it is responding. The idea that the Navy aircraft is interrogating the UAP on the ATFLIR display is misguided, because the aircraft is not doing the interrogating. (Presumably you'd need to be flying an AWACS to be able to do that?)

As a "professional" UAP analyst, Taylor (again) shows an embarrassing lack of technical understanding for a "chief scientist".
 
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