Angular Size and Shape Analysis of FLIR1 with Sitrec

TheCholla

Active Member
If your goal is to debunk TTSA, cool. But I think it's more interesting to figure what may be on the video.

It can hardly be a plane, you can just have a look at Sitrec FLIR1 and see how a plane needs to either lose more than 1000ft altitude, or speed up considerably. This is because the lines of sight spread apart and to retain constant speed the plane needs to descent.

Angular size of the object is also problematic given how close a F-18 would need to be to match what's on the vid.

1654806436574.png

This video is far from being debunked if you're interested in identifying the object. The plane hypothesis doesn't add up.

it is not an F18. it never was.
This.
 
Debunking doesn't involve identifying the object it involves showing that the claims made are not true.

I don't understand the your infographic, what is it's point? It estimates if the object were an F/18 it would be 12Nm away, but I am not sure what that conclusion is about, clearly if that video is showing an F/18 at 12nm then it was not identifiable on ATFLIR? Seems circular?
 
My calculation is that to have this angular size in TV mode, a F-18 seen under 25° tail angle (as needed to follow the lines of sight) would be at 12Nm. This is very close to not see any F-18 features for more than 1 min, under different angles in IR/TV modes, and different zooms.

The plane theory for FLIR1 supposed we are looking at a distant plane, I don't think 12Nm is distant at all, we should see it's a plane at that distance. Note that distance is consistent with Underwood's estimate by the way (10-15Nm).

Now if you find me a pilot that tells us that they could not recognize a plane at 12Nm in ATFLIR, while tracking it for one minute, I'm all ears.
 
Debunking doesn't involve identifying the object it involves showing that the claims made are not true.
That's fine if one doesn't make repeating claims that the video shows nothing interesting. A fair assessment would be "it does not zip off at incredible speed", rather than saying it's mundane an probably a plane. There is no clear evidence for that, as much as there isn't for zipping off at incredible speed.
 
But zipping off at incredible speed was the interesting thing it supposedly did. It doesn't do that. It pretty much ceases to be interesting... or at least, it ceases to be inexplicable and so to require extrairdinary explanations. It flys along at a more or less steady speed. Planes do that. Space whoozits might do that as well, or transdimensionaloids or whatever. But we know planes exist
 
See my message above, be clear what you've debunked then. Saying it's a plane when it does not fit the data is both lazy and misleading.
 
Show us which plane fits the data then. Airliner? Losing 1500ft altitude? Is it landing to San Diego or Tijuana airport? What distance to not see exhaust?

Calling them debunked when 10% of it is explained is too easy, sorry.
 
My calculation is that to have this angular size in TV mode, a F-18 seen under 25° tail angle (as needed to follow the lines of sight) would be at 12Nm. This is very close to not see any F-18 features for more than 1 min, under different angles in IR/TV modes, and different zooms.

The plane theory for FLIR1 supposed we are looking at a distant plane, I don't think 12Nm is distant at all, we should see it's a plane at that distance. Note that distance is consistent with Underwood's estimate by the way (10-15Nm).

Now if you find me a pilot that tells us that they could not recognize a plane at 12Nm in ATFLIR, while tracking it for one minute, I'm all ears.

But it's circular, you essentially say if this is a fighter jet sized plane on ATFLIR it's 12NM away then say if it were 12NM you could see it was a plane.. but that doesn't follow it's a non sequitur.

You'd need to have known footage of a fighter plane at 12NM on ATFLIR to show that, or a good optical/IR simulation, and we don't have that.

If this is a plane at 12NM on ATLFLIR this is what it looks like and it is not recognisably any specific plane. But then again there's not really any reason to say it can't be a plane that I can see, its not outside of the possible shape of a distant plane, a vague blob of pixels longer than it is tall and it's not doing anything other than flying along, maybe descending.
 
"6-8 nmi is a reasonable range to conduct a rendezvous after takeoff." Ryan Graves on Twitter

And you tell me ATFLIR in 2004 was useless to identify a plane at 12Nm? Showing only a blurry blob? Interesting how the standards for evidence vary wildly around here.
 
"6-8 nmi is a reasonable range to conduct a rendezvous after takeoff." Ryan Graves on Twitter

And you tell me ATFLIR in 2004 was useless to identify a plane at 12Nm? Showing only a blurry blob? Interesting how the standards for evidence vary wildly around here.
The ATFLIR has to rely on the laws of physics, if at maximum zoom it can only represent a fighter plane in a few pixels at 12NM then yes its unlikely you will be able to be able to tell the type of plane from the ATFLIR image alone, appealing to your internal idea of what it "should" be able to do is not evidence.
 
I'm all for relying on the laws of physics. An airliner is about 4 times larger than a F-18, so to have that angular size when seen from 25° tail angle in TV mode, it needs to be at ~40-50Nm. With 5° elevation angle the airliner ends up flying at 60000 ft. There is no easy way around these numbers.
 
I'm all for relying on the laws of physics. An airliner is about 4 times larger than a F-18, so to have that angular size when seen from 25° tail angle in TV mode, it needs to be at ~40-50Nm. With 5° elevation angle the airliner ends up flying at 60000 ft. There is no easy way around these numbers.
So now it's an airliner? Why not a smaller aircraft?
 
I'm all for relying on the laws of physics. An airliner is about 4 times larger than a F-18, so to have that angular size when seen from 25° tail angle in TV mode, it needs to be at ~40-50Nm. With 5° elevation angle the airliner ends up flying at 60000 ft. There is no easy way around these numbers.
Actually, the linear dimensions of the most common airliners (Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families; length is about 35 m) are only twice bigger than those of a F-18 (17 m). This halves your estimate of altitude to 30,000 ft, that is, a typical cruising altitude.
 
Actually, the linear dimensions of the most common airliners (Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families; length is about 35 m) are only twice bigger than those of a F-18 (17 m). This halves your estimate of altitude to 30,000 ft, that is, a typical cruising altitude.
This size would put the plane at a distance of 25Nm. 3800 ft loss in altitude, or continuous acceleration to catch up with the lines of sight. And still no any airliner features at 25Nm, when seen from the rear and side.

I'm surprised not more people are taking the time to use the great simulators that Mick has spent so much time to develop. Are you afraid of what you may find in there?

EDIT : 3800ft loss in altitude is for a target airspeed of 320 Knots. It's more like 5500 ft altitude loss for a standard rate of turn of 3deg/s, 180 Knots).
 
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This size would put the plane at a distance of 25Nm. 3800 ft loss in altitude, or continuous acceleration to catch up with the lines of sight. And still no any airliner features at 25Nm, when seen from the rear and side.

I'm surprised not more people are taking the time to use the great simulators that Mick has spent so much time to develop. Are you afraid of what you may find in there?

EDIT : 3800ft loss in altitude is for a target airspeed of 320 Knots. It's more like 5500 ft altitude loss for a standard rate of turn of 3deg/s, 180 Knots).
Personally, I have little interest in the UAP threads here. But being a keen plane spotter, I know a lot about different aircraft types. There is a great variety of biz jets, the sizes of which range from the size of a fighter jet to that of a medium airliner.
 
The idea is that from the angular size on the vid, a distance can be retrieved for a certain plane's size. From that you can test how a trajectory will look on Sitrec.

Spoiler : not good. Either it's too close to claim that a plane would not be recognizable in ATFLIR, or things get weird at larger distances : substantial loss of altitude and/or acceleration in a turn, and/or unrealistically high flight altitude.

But of course nobody here seems to care, and it'll be claimed everywhere the video has been explained. Go figure.
 
Either it's too close to claim that a plane would not be recognizable in ATFLIR
So maybe the first step is to try and determine what size/type of aircraft is recognizable, or not, in a 2004 ATFLIR system right? Maybe a small Cessna is just a blob of pixels 12-20NM or maybe an F18 is. Be nice to hear from some other Navy pilots out there.

Preferrable not Lehto and Graves. Right now they may have a vested interest in keeping things "mysterious". Lehto has been speaking at things like The UAP Society UAP Disclosure Symposium and Graves was the keynote speaker at SCUs event 2022 SCU Anomalous Aerospace Phenomena Conference:

Also among the presenters at this year’s SCU event will be Ryan Graves, a former F-18 pilot and Lieutenant who commanded the squadron that observed and filmed unusual aerial objects along the US eastern seaboard.

“Mr. Graves was also recently appointed to being the Chair for the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) UAP Community of Interest,” Hoffman also emphasized. “This prestigious scientific organization represents a huge shift towards scientists from around the world engaging the [UAP] subject seriously.”
Content from External Source
earthmysterynews.ca/2022/04/22/scientific-conference-on-anomalous-aerospace-phenomena-to-convene-this-summer/#:~:text=The%20Scientific%20Coalition%20for%20UAP%20Studies%2C%20an%20invitation-only,Huntsville%2C%20Alabama%2C%20with%20attendance%20open%20to%20the%20public.

Remember SCU and their take on The Auguadilla footage:
www.metabunk.org/threads/aguadilla-infrared-footage-of-ufos-probably-hot-air-wedding-lanterns.8952/

Lehto at the UAP conference:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYfpEMuHITU
 
I'm stuck at home with Covid, have a little bit of time to spend with this.

Remember the initial hypothesis on this forum was that FLIR1 shows a distant plane flying away, like the Chilean UFO. By distant, it was suggested >50Nm.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/2004-uss-nimitz-tic-tac-ufo-flir-footage-flir1.9190/

We know this is impossible because with an elevation angle of 5-6º, that would put the plane way too high (especially if you account for Earth curvature in your calculation).

It's been hypothezised FLIR1 could show another fighter jet. Let's try to put a Hornet-size plane, 56ft, in Mick's simulator. I use a FOV of 0.35º to compare the sim and vid. In a previous post I've been using half of this for TV mode, following a remark by Fravor that TV mode allows for twice the zoom. But reading at the old FLIR1 thread (a lot of stuff in there), it seems that the FOV may be the same between NAR TV mode and NAR2 IR, i.e. 0.35º. I guess Fravor meant the FOV is just doubled between TV and IR, so MFOV TV is the equivalent of NAR IR, NAR TV the equivalent of NAR2 IR. Comparison of apparent size in NAR TV and NAR2 IR modes check out :
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/2004-uss-nimitz-tic-tac-ufo-flir-footage-flir1.9190/post-217405

The object spans about 10% of the 0.35º FOV in TV mode, a significant angular size right off the bat. If we try to put a F-18 in there, with some low or moderate tail angle because it cannot be a plane simply flying from left to right perpendicular to Underwood's F-18, we need to put the F-18 at ~5-6Nm to get a match in size.

F18.JPG
You'll agree this is awfully close to not see it's a fighter jet. Also the tail angle stays small all along, as the object at that distance would need to fly in a fairly straight line (if it was turning Underwood would close on it and we would see a bigger change in Az angle, and reduction in apparent size).

I think we can confidently rule out a fighter jet here.

Another hypothesis has been a small airliner, or business jet. Especially because of this segment of the video, when we see protrusions that may suggest wings.

1655241666537.png

In this configuration the plane is seen from mid-side, with a significant tail angle. I didn't get anywhere with a 100-150ft target size, and it would be at <10Nm range. Not easy to find a configuration that fits that tail angle and angular size. It works for a big airliner, 250ft, at about 18Nm.

This configuration shows a 2500ft loss in altitude though. But in the sim the elevation angle is fixed to 5º, while it increases to 6º in the video. I guess that would compensate for it, at least partly, but I haven't made the calculation. Increasing speed of the object (here 300 Knots) decreases the loss of altitude, but tail angle decreases.

Airliner.JPG

I don't think a big airliner at 18Nm is convincing either. Seems quite close not to recognize and/or ID a 250ft airliner. Underwood catches it in the middle of a turn, well that can happen. But no airliner exhaust features in IR, especially when seen from the rear at the beginning, is very suspicious to say the least.

Revisiting the main FLIR1 thread I realized all this had been pointed out back in 2018 by user igoddard. With less tools available at the time. He did some really great analyses that got mostly ignored. Not surprised.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/2004-uss-nimitz-tic-tac-ufo-flir-footage-flir1.9190/post-217905

So let me throw a challenge here : can one of you find a plausible configuration for a plane in Mick's sim?
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?sit=flir1

Because apart from a plane, I don't see which mundane explanation would fit the object we see in FLIR1.

I tend to agree with this post from 2018:

1655243311013.png
EDIT: added link to Mick's FLIR1 simulator
 
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You seem to be running together your take on the Flir1 vid with a post from Fin which, if I read it correctly, is not
(or not eholly) describing that incident but the earlier Fravor et al "Tic Tac" sighting (particularly with descriptions of the object flying low over the water, which is not shown in the Flir1 vid.) Am I misreading?

Also, best wishes for a speedy recovery. Covid can be a bear, hope you at least get a Gentle Ben type bear! :)
 
You seem to be running together your take on the Flir1 vid with a post from Fin which, if I read it correctly, is not
(or not eholly) describing that incident but the earlier Fravor et al "Tic Tac" sighting (particularly with descriptions of the object flying low over the water, which is not shown in the Flir1 vid.) Am I misreading?

Also, best wishes for a speedy recovery. Covid can be a bear, hope you at least get a Gentle Ben type bear! :)
Thanks! Mostly ok after a bad fever yesterday.

Indeed the post by Fin refers to the Fravor/Dietrich's encounter, but also the video in the first two points and conclusion.
 
Thanks for clarifying. I think it is important to keep those two events distinct. There has been a great deal of confusion in reporting conflating the two (and indeed confusing Go Fast and Gimbal with the reported sighting by Fravor et al.)
 
In this configuration the plane is seen from mid-side, with a significant tail angle. I didn't get anywhere with a 100-150ft target size, and it would be at <10Nm range. Not easy to find a configuration that fits that tail angle and angular size. It works for a big airliner, 250ft, at about 18Nm.

This configuration shows a 2500ft loss in altitude though. But in the sim the elevation angle is fixed to 5º, while it increases to 6º in the video. I guess that would compensate for it, at least partly, but I haven't made the calculation. Increasing speed of the object (here 300 Knots) decreases the loss of altitude, but tail angle decreases.

I've not looked at FLIR1 for a while, as I've been having too much fun putting stuff like terrain in. It did actually have an el change, but it was not showing as I was rounding down (so 5.8 shows as 5) instead of to the nearest (so 5.8 shows as 6)

I've added tweakable el values, and adjusted the display in the latest.

I don't think a loss in altitude is a big deal, as airlines often change altitude (and military planes in training probably much more so).
 
Thanks Mick for adding the el values. One thing I noticed is that x-axis for the graphs of tail angle, speed and apparent size stop at frame ~1000 (like Gimbal), instead of ~2300 like the other graphs. Not sure if the x-axis is incorrect, or if the graphs stop at frame ~1000. Not a big deal but just mentioning it in case you want to fix it.

Like I say a fighter would be too close to not see any details. Angular size in TV mode really constrain this, 5-6Nm.
The object spans ~10% the FOV, simple math can estimate its size at a given distance : tan(0.35*0.1)*dist*6076.12(for Nm to feet). Even if you consider it's seen completely from the side, which is obviously not the case, that puts a 56ft F-18 at max 15Nm. With 25º tail angle, 6Nm. That's consistent with what I find in the sim.

Mick's sim helps greatly in refining the possibilities, because for a given target size, we can check which combination of object speed/start distance gives an apparent size that is consistent with the video in TV mode, without too sharp of a turn or big change in altitude. Didn't find any with a small airliner size, ~ 120ft. 18Nm with a big airliner (250ft) can match it, but the overall shape and also the FLIR does not seem consistent with how you would see a big plane from that close. How could we not see any clear exhaust at that close range, when tracked for >1min with changes in tail angle? And of course for this scenario you need a plane without transponder and a Navy pilot, Underwood, incapable to recognize a airliner in front of his nose at less than 20Nm.

To me it's just confirmation because I've been convinced it's not a plane for a long time. I think the FLIR only shows sun reflection on the object, which explains how different are the shapes between TV and IR modes. A hypothesis that was proposed here in 2018 by igoddard, to me that makes a lot of sense.

Now if others want to give it a try, I'll be interested to see what you propose.
 
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