@DavidB66 mentioned on the Calvine Hoax Theory thread that he has the Fortean Times issue with Clark's story and will be reading it. I'm replying to him here on this thread as the article is about the overall photo and not just about it being hoaxed.
I imagine most of it is stuff available on Clark's blog and talked about here on the main Calvine photo thread. The interesting thing will be his conclusions and how he justifies them. He's already let on that he thinks it's a US black ops secret aircraft, like Aurora or the Black Manta.
I don't see how any of the conjecture about the hypothetical Aurora goes along with the story of the photo. Remember, in the story, the craft floats silently for a bit before zipping straight up and away. The Aurora was supposed to be a Super/Hyper sonic reconnaissance plane to replace the SR71. In all the speculation about it, it still "flies" like any other plane just really fast.
External Quote:
External Quote:
was a rumored mid-1980s American
reconnaissance aircraft. There is no substantial evidence that it was ever built or flown and it has been termed a
myth.
[1][2]
The
U.S. government has consistently denied such an aircraft was ever built. Aviation and space reference site
Aerospaceweb.org concluded, "The evidence supporting the Aurora is circumstantial or pure conjecture, there is little reason to contradict the government's position."
[1]
Former
Skunk Works director
Ben Rich confirmed that "Aurora" was simply a myth in
Skunk Works (1994), a book detailing his days as the director. Rich wrote that a colonel working in
the Pentagon arbitrarily assigned the name "Aurora" to the funding for the
B-2 bomber design competition and somehow the name was leaked to the media.
[3]
In 2006, veteran
black project watcher and aviation writer
Bill Sweetman said, "Does Aurora exist? Years of pursuit have led me to believe that, yes, Aurora is most likely in active development, spurred on by recent advances that have allowed technology to catch up with the ambition that launched the program a generation ago."
[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(aircraft)
A footnote from the above wiki article leads to this 2002 piece, originaly in
The Press and Journal Aberdeen, which mentions the use of Scotland and the North Sea as a test area for the Aurora, but aside from some reporters from newspapers and Janes, it's all from anonymous "experts":
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Experts claim experimental and prototype Aurora aircraft are using Scotland, the skies above the North Sea and the wilderness areas of far-Northern Europe as their testing ground.
Experts claim the Aurora has probably flown out of RAF Machrihanish airfield in Argyll while hi-tech tracking equipment at Benbecula, RAE West Freugh in Galloway and Fylingdales monitor its progress.
There have been reports of unidentified night-time aircraft noises from Machrihanish for a number of years.
But with the Kintyre base now downgraded to a care and maintenance position, experts are puzzled about the location of the Aurora's new European test base.
An interesting claim from this same article is that Aurora may include multiple craft:
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Based on more than 60 eye-witness reports there appears to be at least three distinct types of vehicle:
One is a "triangular-shaped quiet aircraft" observed with a fleet of Stealth fighters several times between 1989 and 1995. This may be a demonstrator or prototype of the much vaunted McDonnell Douglas A-12.
Another is a high speed aeroplane characterised by a very loud, deep rumbling roar, reminiscent of heavy-lift space rockets. In flight it makes a pulsing sound and leaves a segmented vapour trail.
The final contender is a high altitude jet that crosses the night sky at extremely high speed and at altitudes in excess of 50,000 feet. It is usually observed as single bright light but no engine noise or sonic boom is heard.
Observations are augmented by many reports of low-pitched, rumbling sonic booms.
Claims have surfaced that booms from Aurora test flights are responsible for sudden avalanches in Norway and an earthquake in the Netherlands as well as unexplained radar blips, eerie noises and isolated UFO sightings in Scotland.
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2002/04/27889.html
Note they all seem to make noise, to the point of causing avalanches and earthquakes. Except for the one at 50,000' that is just a silently bright light and sounds a lot like a satellite passing over. None of this, if at all real, sounds like the description of the Calvine craft.
Which brings us to the Black Manta. I did find this on Clark's blog under Part 5:
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A document from the MoD's defence intelligence UFO files,
released under the FOIA 2018, highlights a media report from November 1992 that claims 'the latest American "spy" aircraft, the Northrop TR 3A Black Manta [has been] operational during Desert Storm 'on reconnaissance missions for the F-117As' [Stealth fighters].
The report says only a selected number of congressmen are aware of its existence and 'according to a handful of individuals who have actually seen this "invisible" aircraft, its shape is a perfect triangle and is virtually noiseless, both, at low and high altitudes'.
https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/secret-files/the-calvine-ufo-photographs/
The hyperlink just takes one to Clark's article about the overall 2018 FOIA dump, nothing about the Manta or whatever media report is being referenced, although the idea of the TR3 helping F117s in Desert Storm seems to come from a Popular Mechanics article from 1991 linked to below.
Even on Wikipedia, the TR3 Black Manta is just a sub section of Black Triangle UFOs
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The
Northrop TR-3A Black Manta is a speculative
surveillance aircraft purported to belong to the
United States Air Force and to have been developed under a
black project. It was said to be a subsonic
stealth spy plane with a
flying wing design. It was alleged to have been used in the
Gulf War to provide
laser designation for
Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk bombers, for targeting to use with
laser-guided bombs. There is little evidence to support the TR-3's existence; however it is possible that black triangle UFO reports associated with Black Manta could be a
technology demonstrator for a potential new-generation tactical
reconnaissance aircraft, and/or that TR-3 refers to a Technical Refresh of an existing programme.
[19][20]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_triangle_(UFO)
Footnote 20 in the above article leads to this disscussion of the Manta:
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Many sources suggested the existence of a subsonic stealthy recconnaissance aircraft, which is reportedly designated the TR-3A, although its actual designation and mission remain unclear.
<1> Recently, it has been posited that the aircraft was designed to collect and transmit near-real-time digital photo information directly to F-117As for immediate tactical applications. The TR-3A reportedly has a range of more than 5,000 kilometers and the ability to operate at both low and high altitudes.
<2>
The aircraft has been reportedly observed flying with KC-135 aerial tankers, F- 117 stealth fighters and T-38 aircraft. Its engines are said to run more quietly than the muffled General Electric F-404 powerplants on the Stealth fighter, which may explain how an aircraft of this type could elude detection for some time. Because of their vantage point, ground observations were unable to determine whether any vertical control surfaces jut from the aircraft's back.
<3>
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Apart from press reports, there is essentially no open-source information supporting the existence of such an aircraft. Indeed, what evidence does exist would tend to support the contrary proposition, that there is no such program.
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During 1991 Lockheed made a major effort to convince the Congress to support a billion dollar program to build an additional 24 F-117A aircraft, and to purchase equipment that would enable the F-117A to perform reconnaissance missions.
The operational characteristics of the proposed reconnaissance version of the F- 117 are virtually identical to those that have been suggested for the TR-3A. Unavoidably, this episode raises questions about the plausibility of the existence of the TR-3A.
It is very difficult to understand how Lockheed could engage in a very public controversy involving the Air Force, and Sam Nunn, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, regarding production of a reconnaissance version of the F- 117A, if the company were already involved in the production of a virtually identical aircraft, the TR-3A.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/tr3a.htm
What I get from this, is a stealth aircraft. Not a silently hovering "anti-gravity craft". Assuming it even existed.
Much of the above article is lifted it would from this one in PM as this seems to be the major source for the TR3. Don't have time to read all of it at the moment, but this all strikes me as a lot of 25-30 old speculation which does not appeared to have advanced much in that time period. The best info we have on Aurora and Black Manta is kinda dated.
https://ayuba.fr/pdf/pope1991.pdf
EDIT: word usage