Nimitz Timeline Revisited

[fat_earther_]

Hello,


Source: https://youtu.be/BG4yxQm51JM?si=n-qxFpRPeejka4LG


I recently made a simple animation (top down, over head map) trying to get a better visualization of the Nimitz incident. I was wondering if Sitrec or some other model could be used to more accurately scale the geometry and timing of the events? There would need to be some adjustable sliders controlling some variables to account for the variances in testimony, general memory error, and overall assumptions required, but I think this should be able to help more accurately position the radar contacts at the time of Underwood's intercept for example.

Has anything like this been done already?

This was my first attempt at an animation. It is a little generic and I learned a lot, but I also realize someone here at metabunk could probably do a better/ more realistic job. We have quite a bit of information to work with from the BAASS report and all the interviews over the years to input into a model. One thing I have been doing is creating interview libraries, dumping every related youtube interview transcript into chatgpt and creating sort of a super data base to post questions to and pull timestamps out of interviews.

I really think this could shine some light on a lot of debated aspects of the event.

 

[Mick West]

I was wondering if Sitrec or some other model could be used to more accurately scale the geometry and timing of the events?

I could create a Nimitz scenario generator from the verbal accounts. This might be a good test for the AI integration I've been working on.

 

[fat_earther_]

I could create a Nimitz scenario generator from the verbal accounts. This might be a good test for the AI integration I've been working on.

Here is a list of assumptions I have gathered to start with. They are from a number of interviews that I don't have links for, but that's why I thought having some of the more debate-able "facts" of the case as adjustable variables.

*Nimitz: halfway between San Diego and Ensenada Mexico, about 65 miles off the coast

*Princeton positioned 5-10 miles from Nimitz (direction unknown)

*Radar contacts travel from east of Catalina Island south to 60 miles north of Guadalupe at 100 knots/ 28K ft

*Radar contacts pass east of Princeton, between Princeton and mainland

*Radar contacts in group of 5 -10, spacing 5 -10 miles

*Blue air CAP point: 40 miles south of Nimitz

*Red air CAP point: 100 miles south of Nimitz

*Kurth launched 1030, vectored to contact 30 minutes into flight (before Fravor) and saw whitewater

*Fravor and Dietrich vectored West 260°~270° towards closest contact shortly after take off.

*Intercept was 60 miles west of Blue CAP point.

*During intercept, One of the group of radar contacts flashed over to blue cap, then back to group

*Underwood sent to same contacts drifting south shortly after Fravor landed back at carrier (20 minutes to 45 minutes after Fravor landed)

*Underwood first had radar contacts 30 to 40 miles south of his aircraft.

*Fravor stated the average speed of jets flying around was ~300 knots

 

[Eburacum]

This is the strangest part to me

*During intercept, One of the group of radar contacts flashed over to blue cap, then back to group

*Underwood sent to same contacts drifting south shortly after Fravor landed back at carrier (20 minutes to 45 minutes after Fravor landed)

*Underwood first had radar contacts 30 to 40 miles south of his aircraft.

Underwood was sent to these contacts a fairly short time after the earlier events. When he got to the location there was nothing there, but he then found a radar contact 30 to 40 miles away. A contact which he never saw visually, but which appeared as a small oblong blob in the FLIR.

Why did he think this distant contact had anything to do with the earlier sightings?

 

[JMartJr]

If, as I suspect, some/all of the radar targets are spurious "angels," I am not sure what can be learned by recreating them on Sitrec or by other means I'm not opposed to the effort being made by any means -- but I'd caution all interested parties that a spurious radar contact at Point A, and another contact at Point B can look like some target object moved between those two points, when in fact no such thing happened.

 

[Ann K]

If, as I suspect, some/all of thee radar targets are spurious "angles," I am not sure what can be learned by recreating them on Sitrec or by other means I'm not opposed to the effort being made by any means -- but I'd caution all interested parties that a spurious radar contact at Point A, and another contact at Point B can look like some target object moved between those two points, when in fact no such thing happened.

Angular angels?

 

[JMartJr]

Angular angels?

Thanks, fixed!

 

[FDSaussure]

If, as I suspect, some/all of the radar targets are spurious "angels," I am not sure what can be learned by recreating them on Sitrec or by other means I'm not opposed to the effort being made by any means -- but I'd caution all interested parties that a spurious radar contact at Point A, and another contact at Point B can look like some target object moved between those two points, when in fact no such thing happened.

How do you reconcile the claim that these grouped radar contacts had been observed several days in a row with it being spurious "angels"? Has there been research on what spurious radar contacts look like for the systems involved?

 

[John J.]

How do you reconcile the claim that these grouped radar contacts had been observed several days in a row with it being spurious "angels"? Has there been research on what spurious radar contacts look like for the systems involved?

Supposition really, but maybe a software issue with digital filters, or some issue with integration of data across platforms, who knows.
A radar system with a problem might be prone to repeatedly giving dodgy returns because of the same underlying cause.

Radars do sometimes give false or ambiguous returns, and complex systems can sometimes fail or have sub-optimal performance.
Maybe that's why some radar logs were transferred to the mainland.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Angular angels?

FWIW, angels of the angles exist —in the Enochian system of magic:

"Further intricacies emerge within the Elemental Tablets, which are divided into four sub-quadrants or sub-angles. These contain the names of archangels and angels responsible for overseeing specific quarters of the world, effectively populating the universe, both seen and unseen, with intelligent spiritual beings."

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enochian_magic

 

[JMartJr]

How do you reconcile the claim that these grouped radar contacts had been observed several days in a row with it being spurious "angels"?

If conditions conducive to creating false targets were in the system or in the atmosphere or both, and were persistent over several days, why would false targets NOT persist over several days?

Has there been research on what spurious radar contacts look like for the systems involved?

Given that they are military systems, I would be surprised if such research was not done, and I'd be VERY surprised if it were released to the public.

 

[Eburacum]

They were also relatively new radar systems (brand new AN/SPY-1B passive radar according to Popular Mechanics), so it is likely that the bugs had not all been ironed out yet. Seeing spurious returns over a series of days on a brand new system is more likely than a recurring flight of UFOs.

Another factor is that the recurring (probably spurious) returns showed apparent objects descending from 80,000 feet to sea level in a second or so; this behaviour was not seen by any witness visually or recorded by the FLIR cameras.

 

[JMartJr]

Another factor is that the recurring (probably spurious) returns showed apparent objects descending from 80,000 feet to sea level in a second or so; this behaviour was not seen by any witness visually or recorded by the FLIR cameras.

Nor were the fairly noticeable effects this would have on the surrounding atmosphere noticed, apparently.

80,000 feet in 2 seconds would be about 54,500 mph -- for comparison:

The Chelyabinsk meteor ... was a superbolide that entered Earth's atmosphere over the southern Ural region in Russia on 15 February 2013 ... with a speed relative to Earth of about 19.2 km/s (68,980 km/h; 42,860 mph).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor

Here is what THAT did...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor

Here's what it looked like:

(I'd expect a spaceship might not leave the smoke trail, unless it was using some sort of ablative heat shield or something, it would not be shedding material like the meteor did. But the air compressed to plasma, the bright glowing bit, would be there because whatever high tech your UFO has, the air is just good old Air 1.0 and will do what air does when compressed by something moving through it at these speeds...)

Seems like this sort of thing would have made its way into the story...

 

[Harabeck]

Let's not forget that as discussed previously here (and elsewhere), San Clemente has a military facility focused on drone testing. It's not shocking to imagine drone or balloon flights originating from there.

 

[Eburacum]

I have wondered if some of these steeply-inclined spurious radar returns were caused by meteors arriving at the top of the atmosphere. Meteors can be routinely detected by radar, and this method is used by meteor enthusiasts. But very few meteors reach anywhere near sea level.

 

[NorCal Dave]

They were also relatively new radar systems (brand new AN/SPY-1B passive radar according to Popular Mechanics), so it is likely that the bugs had not all been ironed out yet. Seeing spurious returns over a series of days on a brand new system is more likely than a recurring flight of UFOs.

Kirkpatrick has pretty much said they were testing a new system. At a presentation, he talked about how the fusion engine/algorithm works, how it can create false hits and that DARPA was testing new equipment with the Nimitz (my bold):

(53:52)
So, a radar, most of you know how radars work, right? Sends pulse out, gets reflection, pulse comes back, collects it.

But you know today, there's a there's an algorithmic engine behind it. There's a fusion engine. There's AI driven things that that are accelerating how we take that data and turn it into information. What happens when a brand new radar waveform is tested and it goes against an object that's semi-transparent to the radar, maybe I get a missing pulse.

Maybe I get only one out of every five pulses, depending on what it is that it's reflecting off of. And when I see that, if you look at how the fusion engines then interpret that missing information, it tries to extrapolate to the next data point. And when it does that, you get really exciting things like, "Hey, that object accelerated from point-5 mach to two-and-a-half mach in you know, half a second".

But it's not until you pull the raw data out and you look at the the each individual pulse train in that pulse train you understand oh well it missed these datas and now if I go, and I simulate that in the fusion engine, I can recreate that effect. That happened a lot, and it really happens when you're testing new waveforms, like when DARPA tests new waveforms which happened on the Nimitz. It's very exciting

If true, it also helps explain the MiB story about secret people coming aboard and taking away radar recordings. They were testing stuff.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi0H_mkwTW0

 

[JMartJr]

If true, it also helps explain the MiB story about secret people coming aboard and taking away radar recordings. They were testing stuff.

I agree, it all hangs together nicely -- with the proviso that before it is really necessary to explain something, it needs to be established that it happened, which has not yet been established in this case, last I looked.

 

[RobertBillyBob]

I agree, it all hangs together nicely -- with the proviso that before it is really necessary to explain something, it needs to be established that it happened, which has not yet been established in this case, last I looked.

Tim Phillips confirmed that DARPA personal went to the Nimitz to retrieve data :

Source: https://youtu.be/wztninfsqu0?t=1766

We actually talked to this executive from DARPA. That was actually them. That was actually DARPA personnel that actually gone out there and some of them were wearing black jumpsuits and that's what the crew observed according to the testimony that we received.

 

[DaveG]

(I'd expect a spaceship might not leave the smoke trail, unless it was using some sort of ablative heat shield or something, it would not be shedding material like the meteor did. But the air compressed to plasma, the bright glowing bit, would be there because whatever high tech your UFO has, the air is just good old Air 1.0 and will do what air does when compressed by something moving through it at these speeds...)

Seems like this sort of thing would have made its way into the story...

If I may chime in, I'd like to share a sighting I had from 2017. At first, I saw what I assumed was an ordinary meteor descending at a steep angle before disappearing in a fraction of a second. A second or two later, I observed what appeared to be a shiny metallic object on what seemed to be the same trajectory. It looked as though it had transitioned from a steep descent into horizontal flight and was surrounded by what I can only describe as a vapor like envelope.

The portion of the observation described above lasted only about four or five seconds, and there was no sound. Whether the apparent envelope was caused by condensation, ionization, an optical effect, or something else, I have no way of knowing. it was simply part of what I observed. I thought it would be worth adding.

 

[kotare]

on Avi Loeb's medium page his latest entry posits that navy shenanigans may have been responsible, to quote Avi Loeb:

"Incidentally, not far from where the Nimitz encounter occurred, the Navy has developed and tested Laser-Induced Plasma Filaments that can be projected from an aircraft to draw a decoy shape in midair using steering mirrors, forming an aerial countermeasure meant to draw a heat-seeking missile away from the actual aircraft. This is an actual patented "System and method for laser-induced plasma for infrared homing missile countermeasure," posted here. This human-made technology existed in some form around the same era, is capable of forming a visible, three-dimensional-appearing glowing shape, and produces heat signatures. On its face, this is exactly the kind of capability that would be classified, tested near naval assets, and could plausibly get misidentified as UAP."


Source: https://avi-loeb.medium.com/were-the-nimitz-tic-tac-objects-megafilaments-of-laser-produced-plasmas-770d1b340fab


he goes into some very plausible looking math, that honestly went over my head, but on math at least i'm ready to take his word for it,
if you follow the link I recommend reading the comments, his flock were not impressed

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

If conditions conducive to creating false targets were in the system or in the atmosphere or both, and were persistent over several days, why would false targets NOT persist over several days?


Given that they are military systems, I would be surprised if such research was not done, and I'd be VERY surprised if it were released to the public.

I'd like to add that not only the data on this incident was not released to the public, it actually was removed or displaced even when AARO tried to look.
If they were testing stuff, that's maybe under a certain level of secrecy, I wouldn't be surprised if some "men in khaki" (that's what Vorhees mentioned to me on Twitter years ago) took some data off the ship. No aliens needed for sure.
If the data was only about radar glitches, wouldn't it be weird that they didn't keep a track in the archives?
It's pretty odd that the radar spurious signals were also coupled with eye sightings of "stuff", not impossible given the probable panic of the moment, but still. Hard to think exactly what the pilots saw and if it was connected to those signals at all.
But we know they had a signal, sent Fravor and Dietrich to look for the target and they got a visual contact with a "thing".
How do balloons usually show up on radar? If they were weather or classified loitering balloons equipped with radar reflectors, could they trick the Aegis system into tracking them as solid, anomalous targets before the pilots went for visual confirmation?

 

[John J.]

on Avi Loeb's medium page his latest entry posits that navy shenanigans may have been responsible

I would be cautious of Loeb's claim.

[Quoting Loeb] "Incidentally, not far from where the Nimitz encounter occurred, the Navy has developed and tested Laser-Induced Plasma Filaments that can be projected from an aircraft to draw a decoy shape in midair using steering mirrors..."

How would Loeb know this?
Loeb has made other claims, more closely associated with his professional field, that are unlikely to be correct.

[Quoting Loeb} "This is an actual patented "System and method for laser-induced plasma for infrared homing missile countermeasure," posted here."

As we've seen elsewhere, patents have been granted for things that are extremely unlikely to work. The US Navy has supported patent applications of this type, thread US Navy "UFO" patent by Salvatore Cezar Pais.

The "System and Method for Laser-Induced Plasma for Infrared Homing Missile Countermeasure" patent application was filed 06 June 2018,
this is within the timeframe of Salvatore Pais' bizarre USN-sponsored patent applications (August 2015 - August 2019), though the inventors are listed as Alexandru Hening, Ryan P. Lu and Ayax D. Ramirez
("System and Method for Laser-Induced Plasma for Infrared Homing Missile Countermeasure", patent US20200041236A1, https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200041236A1/).

The inventors have all submitted other interesting patents, as can be found from clicking on their names in the online US20200041236A1 document.
Hening has several related to laser-induced plasma filaments, Ramirez has a USN-supported patent "Systems and Methods for Navigation Using PULSARs" (19 December 2018, patent US20200200538A1, https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200200538A1.
This is basically a variant on stellar navigation. The position of the solar system is indicated on the Pioneer 10 and 11 plaques by symbols showing the "burst" frequencies of various pulsars and their directions relative to the sun.
Interestingly, although Ramirez knows "pulsar" is a portmanteau word (albeit giving a questionable etymology) he capitalises the word as "PULSAR" throughout, as if it's an acronym. Maybe he hasn't read much about pulsars.
Using pulsars as a practical means of terrestrial navigation seems very unlikely, though that is beyond the scope of this post.

The laser-induced plasma patent mentioned by Loeb includes statements like

With laser-induced plasma (LIP), it is possible to generate multiple wavelengths just by "tuning" the laser parameters. This method allows for an ultra-fast response time. Due to the fact that the effect is generated by the laser beam interaction with air, the time required to produce the flares is less than a millionth of a second.

(1) This confuses effect with cause;
(2) How the laser is tuned to generate multiple wavelengths isn't specified; nor is it explained why this is specific to "LIP".
(3) Why whatever method is used to alter the laser's wavelength allows for "an ultra-fast response time" isn't specified,
(4) There's no experimental or theoretical evidence given (as far as I can see) that demonstrates that an area of air can be made to fluoresce in "less than a millionth of a second", using the proposed means, to the extent that it would be visible from tens/ hundreds of metres.

The inventors rely on the Kerr effect to make air at a very specific distance from the laser become plasma and fluoresce; this would cause heating and density changes in the affected (and surrounding) air and the effect would presumably be transient; nevertheless the inventors believe this could be used to "draw" a three-dimensional image.
The inventors seem unaware of other possible applications of the ability to project holographic images in the air, over substantial distances, at a moment's notice. If they demonstrated that this patent worked, they could be very wealthy men.

Incidentally, technology to project large-ish holographic images in unprepared exterior settings doesn't exist yet..
(see "Holographic Displays 2026: Brutal Truth About Progress & Limits", techgenyz website, Sahil Rumba 12 January 2026 https://techgenyz.com/holographic-displays-progress-roadblocks/).

[Quoting Loeb] This human-made technology existed in some form around the same era, is capable of forming a visible, three-dimensional-appearing glowing shape, and produces heat signatures.

Avi Loeb is free to supply testable evidence -preferably footage- of any technology, anywhere in the world, that creates "three-dimensional-appearing" images of substantial size (e.g. metres/ yards in extent), some distance (at least tens of metres) from the source, in an unprepared exterior setting. In mid-air. I predict he will not do so.

It might be interesting that we have found more USN-sponsored patents for inventions that might not perform "as advertised", as per the Pais patents.

 

[kotare]

I would be cautious of Loeb's claim.

oh yes, entirely agree, apologies if i was unclear,
if i was forced at gunpoint to bet on it, my money would be on the new radar doing weird stuff theory