Arizona "drone" circles helicopter and zips off over a mountain. 100mph speeds, 14k height ascent, visual testimony from pilots who ran out of gas.
- Thread starter analiennamed
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Eburacum
Senior Member.
That would be slightly east of south at that time of night, which means the 'object' they were supposedly chasing was now in a completely different part of the sky. The same part of the sky where Sirius was.
Up until this point they were chasing something slightly north of west and above them, which is where Mars was.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
(Edit to add: Eburacum beat me to it, bt I'll leave this up for the pictures...)
Interesting, reminds me of Phillip Klass's work on the Mansfield/Coyne Helicopter UFO case, which he concluded was a fireball meteor. One feature of the case was the intense green light reported, and Klass notes that the windows on top of the Huey helicopter involved in that case were tinted green...
https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/politics/klassasu.ufoExternal Quote:
Spot check of Hueys in Google images show this to be common if not universal:
View attachment ghows-DA-6b0419e1-a11e-6842-e053-0100007fe560-744c23ba.webp
Klass's treatment of THAT helicopter UFO case is in his book, "UFOs: The Public Deceived."
Eburacum
Senior Member.
The magnitude of Mars that night was +0.5, which is not particularly bright, but a little brighter than its average, and brighter than it is right now. Mars can get much brighter than that at opposition.
Heh; +0.5 is the same as the average brightness of Betelgeuse, which is, of course, just above Orion's belt. Mars and Betelgeuse would have looked very similar that night.
Heh; +0.5 is the same as the average brightness of Betelgeuse, which is, of course, just above Orion's belt. Mars and Betelgeuse would have looked very similar that night.
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john.phil
Senior Member.
"Air 2" TFO used Orion as a reference for that moment, and moments later he spotted a matching light at 9 o'clock:
[00:52:41.04 --> 00:52:50.04] (Air 2) - So, if you're a celestial geek, my partner is saying the middle star of Orion's belt is where he last had him.
[00:53:14.96 --> 00:53:24.28] (Air 2) - All right he got him back, our 9 o'clock, quarter and a half mile just below the cloud.
I'm getting 39 degrees altitude at ~23:22 MST, from Marana, 9 Feb 2021. "Air 2" was flying generally West at that time (257° to 270° heading). The TFO would need to be on the left seat to spot the light at 9 o'clock, which is the expected seat, as usually the pilot is on the right seat.
Close to the end of the chase, Mars was in front of them, yet the TFO spotted the light in the middle of Orion's belt and lost sight of it. Moments later, the TFO spotted the light between South and SSW.
john.phil
Senior Member.
"Air 2" was the TDP helicopter tail number N305PD, the windows are tinted blue.
"Troy 164" was the CBP helicopter, the tail number is not known. War Zone suggests it was N790AM. It doesn't look tinted green. The other A-star helicopters from the CBP look similar to N790AM.
john.phil
Senior Member.
Both helicopters were orbiting around. After the orbiting phase ended, "Air 2" turned to heading 290° (~WNW) and flew straight to Marana. They stated the drone was maintaining the same offset at 11 o'clock, roughly where Mars was.
Mars has the wrong colour, but "Air 2" window is tinted blue, which would make Mars blue, and the green LED would either be filtered out, or become a dim blue light. However, both the TFO and the pilot stated they could see a green positional light with their naked eyes. Thus, did they see green? Or did they infer it was green because of the report they received from the tower stating it was a green light, but all they could see was either a dim blue light, or blue light from another source? (Assuming they never opened the crew slider window).
In their report, "Air 2" crew never saw a blinking light. Thus, maybe they chased other light sources that would appear steady, making Mars a possible candidate in most of the leg between Tucson and Marana.
"Air 2" reached 11,000ft for the first time at ~23:11:27 MST, when they were chasing the light to Marana.
[00:42:01.84 --> 00:42:12.04] (Air 2) - Yeah, we've tripped up to 11 000. He's gone back up too, he's probably between 12 5 and 13, same offset though, same forward air speed.
[00:42:25.04 --> 00:42:30.24] (Troy 164) - How far offset do you think you were with him?
[00:42:29.04 --> 00:44:06.44] (Air 2) - Half mile, half mile our 11 o'clock, and up.
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john.phil
Senior Member.
Only the crew of "Troy 164" saw a quadcopter, both the observer and the pilot. The crew of "Air 2" never saw the shape of the drone, they claim they saw the green light, but that would only be possible if the crew window slider was opened, unless they didn't see green, but dim blue instead. "Air 2" also reported a positional light, instead of a blinking light reported by "Troy 164".
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FatPhil
Senior Member.
The thing so pointedly denied is so often the actual explanation. Which of course isn't evidence of anything, but if you need a first thing to investigate the denial is probably a good start.
Ann K
Senior Member.
If it were a yellowish light, might it not look green through a blue-tinted window?
john.phil
Senior Member.
It depends on the filter's blocking efficiency of unwanted wavelengths, the purity of the LED light, and the presence of environment light, which in the case of this report, it was night time.
- If the window only let's blue through, and the yellow LED gives off a small amount of blue light, it would show as dim blue;
- If the window only let's blue through, and the LED only produces yellow, then the light would be invisible;
- If the window let's a small amount of yellow, and the LED only produces yellow, it would show as dim yellow light;
- If the window let's a small amount of yellow, and the yellow LED gives off a small amount of blue, it would show as a shade of dim green light;
Eburacum
Senior Member.
Mars has a broad spectrum, and includes a lot of green and blue light in its reflectance. One interesting characteristic is that Mars doesn't blink or twinkle, whereas Betelgeuse and Sirius both do. From Arizona, Betelgeuse was almost directly above the middle star of Orion's Belt, so that might explain the TFO/observer's comment.
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john.phil
Senior Member.
The TFO never saw a blinking light, only the crew of "Troy 164" saw a blinking green light. The TFO comment was that the light was in the middle of the belt when it was lost, Betelgeuse is too far away from the belt and blinks. Right after Orion's belt, the TFO spotted a matching light at 9 o'clock (between South and SSW). If the TFO ever saw a blinking light, it could have been Sirius at that moment (on the other hand, "Air 2" crew mentioned there were low clouds where the light was "trying to hide" at 13,000ft to 14,000ft, thus Sirius might not have been perceived as blinking if it was partially obscured by the clouds).
Post #21 summarises what they saw:
TPD "Air 2" has blue tinted windows. CBP "Troy 164" was likely fitted with a light shade of black tint (see Post #48). "Air 2" is fitted with a crew sliding window on both sides, but it was winter (February), and at this moment they were above 10,000ft, travelling between 60 knots and 70 knots (70 mph to 80 mph). "Troy 164" had fixed windows (assuming it was N790AM).
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Eburacum
Senior Member.
Hmm. I'm not so sure. Betelgeuse was directly above Orion's Belt in a vertical direction, and high enough that the twinkling would have been a relatively minor effect. Betelgeuse is one of the widest stars in the sky, so it tends to display less twinkling than other stars. Seen from a helicopter the twinkling might have been insignificant.
I suspect that the 'object' seen near Orion's Belt may have been either Betelgeuse or Rigel.
analiennamed
New Member
so our best guess is that the helicopter pilots started by seeing a drone and then ended up chasing stars? i just cant stomach that several trained helicopter pilots with hours and hours of experience would confuse stars for an object zigging and zagging to evade them, accelerating, lifting and disappearing into clouds... that seems like a stretch, though i understand with out any additional data how that could be a best guess.
jarlrmai
Senior Member.
Trained pilots have crashed into the ground on calm days because they became disorientated, trained military crews of Aegis missile destroyers have shot down passenger aircraft because they made mistakes. Thomas Mantell chased a skyhook balloon to his death, these things happen they are well documented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_disorientation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantell_UFO_incident
john.phil
Senior Member.
As "Air 2" never saw an object, we can just say "light". Also, in the audio, "Air 2" pilot is more specific than "near", he said:
[00:52:41.04 -->00:52:50.04] So, if you're a celestial geek, my partner is saying the middle star of Orion's belt is where he last had him.
Within half a minute of saying that, the TFO spotted another matching light:
[00:53:14.96 --> 00:53:24.28] Alright, he's got him back, our 9 o'clock (S to SSW at that moment), a quarter to half a mile, just below the cloud base.
The 9 o'clock light could have been Sirius.
