Claim that the Nimitz FLIR1 object could not be a plane because it would have been Identified

[jackfrostvc]

There was this un confirmed post on reddit a few weeks back. But he deleted his post recently. No one knows if he was on the level or not
He also made another post reply which I didn't grab, were he said he was airforce, and that they were also testing a new aircraft - and I think he said it was the F-22. Looking up his username, it did seem like he was airforce at the time.

 

[Max Phalange]

There was this un confirmed post on reddit a few weeks back. But he deleted his post recently. No one knows if he was on the level or not
He also made another post reply which I didn't grab, were he said he was airforce, and that they were also testing a new aircraft - and I think he said it was the F-22. Looking up his username, it did seem like he was airforce at the time.


View attachment 44270

Removeddit caught some but not all of his deleted responses. A couple of interesting comments, though it's all completely unsubstantiated, of course - https://archive.ph/eXvYP

dbar58 8 points 2 weeks ago
Was it clear on the radar?

fizzlehack (deleted by user) 3 points 2 weeks ago
No, it wasn't.

 

[DebunkMee]

This shows 3°R and +6° (Not 0° and -5°)

Well this is interesting...

You mean 4150? How could you determine that from that poor copy?

I guess they might have made the following mistake: they saw 5° and saw the object below the artificial horizon so assumed this was -5°? Underwoods inconsistent testimony might have also pushed them in the wrong direction.

Did the lack of reliable radar data force Underwood & his co-pilot to manually read the initial radar track files and manually point the ATFLIR themselves towards it, or did it orientate itself?

Also, do we have the entire video from the point where the ATFLIR starts tracking the object? Otherwise the positions could have changed from the start of the tracking to the start of the video we see, which would explain the inconsistency.

 

[FatPhil]

(Off topic, but - Matt Parker did a good video on the likelyhood of events with extremely low probabilities actually occuring
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ko3TdPy0TU
)

He did a closely-related followup very recently which also warns against misinterpretation of incredibly low odds:
"How did the 'impossible' Perfect Bridge Deal happen?" (minor cosmetic edit, I suck at BBcode)

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-b-QJZdVA


This time, the warning is that the stated odds usually contain implicit assumptions (mostly of some kind of "randomness") that doesn't hold true. Recent cases would include various (at least 3 completely different ones come to mind, not just cookie-cutter repeats of the same mistake) of the "election fraud" claims which have relied on incredible probabilities, several of which have had their own threads here on MB.

(I appreciate that this little subthread has deviated from the core claim of this thread, we're in the realms of learning the tools to help debunking, rather than doing any debunking.)

 

[gtoffo]

Did the lack of reliable radar data force Underwood & his co-pilot to manually read the initial radar track files and manually point the ATFLIR themselves towards it, or did it orientate itself?

Also, do we have the entire video from the point where the ATFLIR starts tracking the object? Otherwise the positions could have changed from the start of the tracking to the start of the video we see, which would explain the inconsistency.

According to the pilots they used the radar track to point ATFLIR but we have no way of determining that from the video for sure.

The video is almost certainly not the unedited original. This was probably cut and the original full length video is probably lost at this point.

The reason is tapes are usually left running once they are turned on and left running. So even if the video started when we see it at the very least it would have kept running for a long time afterwards.

It might not have shown anything though or maybe just Underwood trying to find the object again.

The fact Underwood could not "reacquire" the object either tells us how hard it is to manually slew ATFLIR precisely to an airborne target or that the target moved unpredictably and was lost.

 

[Mick West]

The reason is tapes are usually left running once they are turned on and left running. So even if the video started when we see it at the very least it would have kept running for a long time afterwards.

It might not have shown anything though or maybe just Underwood trying to find the object again.

The fact Underwood could not "reacquire" the object either tells us how hard it is to manually slew ATFLIR precisely to an airborne target or that the target moved unpredictably and was lost.

Underwood said there was nothing worth talking about on the rest of the video.

Although he probably has a different idea of what is interesting here. I'm really interested in how the target was acquired on video - i.e. how it first shows up. Then I'm also interested in what he did after it drifted off the left side.

 

[jackfrostvc]

@Mick West

In my opinion , if they are not forthcoming with the full video, IMO it could be that there is something to hide on the full video. Not saying there is, but it raises suspicions and with that, I'd certainly suggest getting the longer video via FOIA

 

[jackfrostvc]

Also, looks like the Wing woman that was with Fravor has come out to tell her story. She will be on 60 minutes

 

[jarlrmai]

According to the pilots they used the radar track to point ATFLIR but we have no way of determining that from the video for sure.

The video is almost certainly not the unedited original. This was probably cut and the original full length video is probably lost at this point.

The reason is tapes are usually left running once they are turned on and left running. So even if the video started when we see it at the very least it would have kept running for a long time afterwards.

It might not have shown anything though or maybe just Underwood trying to find the object again.

The fact Underwood could not "reacquire" the object either tells us how hard it is to manually slew ATFLIR precisely to an airborne target or that the target moved unpredictably and was lost.

They say they used the RADAR tracks to point the ATFLIR, the tracks they had were aging tracks ie they were picked up a while ago and since there was no new update the current position of the track was based on prediction from the last actual contact.

All we know from the video is that the ATFLIR was not pointing (slaved) at a RADAR track in the video, as stated before if it were SLAVE or L+S would be boxed. It could have been slaved just before the video, but this is never shown, hence why we'd like to see from before the video. It runs counter to what they say in the report though, they never mention it not being slaved but the video clearly shows it is not.

Underwood not being able to reacquire the target means the RADAR could not acquire it, nothing to do with the ATLFLIR which was happily tracking the object using it's optical tracking until it was zoomed and lens changed finally losing optical track right at the end of the video.

This is why the rest of the video is so important, there seems to be some implication that the object performs some sort of high speed acceleration, which Mick has already shown not to be the case, this means the object would still have been there, the ATLFIR could likely easily have been slewed to it manually or zoomed back out, it was not moving quickly.

 

[Lu Ann Lewellen]

Underwood claimed that it was him who coined the term in the first place. The others must have adopted it immediately.

The term "Tic Tac," I actually coined that. So, any time you heard the term, "It looked like a 'Tic Tac' out there in the sky," I was the one that kind of coined that.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/201...o-q-and-a-with-navy-pilot-chad-underwood.html

The problem is indeed that the usage of the term in both events suggests that the object in the video and the object in Fravor's encounter were identical, while there is no good indication that this is the case.

Agreed. Wasn't the radar image picked up some 60 miles away after whatever Fravor was seeing "disappeared"? How would they know it was the same thing?

 

[JFDee]

Agreed. Wasn't the radar image picked up some 60 miles away after whatever Fravor was seeing "disappeared"? How would they know it was the same thing?

That's where the major part of the incident hinges on - the interpretation by the newly upgraded radar system of the Princeton. As Kevin Day stated: "I don't see raw radar".

The interpretation and designation of targets is basically a software thing. New software can have flaws.

 

[DebunkMee]

I think the scenario could possibly go like this

1. A RADAR track is made, lost and ages, this track is at -5
2. The FLIR is pointed at this aging track in or later switched to wide angle mode when nothing showed in the narrow mode.
3. An object is seen in the wide angle the slave is cancelled and this object optically tracked, this object is at +5.
4. A mistake is made that the FLIR is pointing at the aging trace (-5 for 5) , RADAR targets at +5 are dismissed even though this is what the FLIR is pointed at.

Does anyone know what 0 ATA is in this case? It is referred too alongside the incorrect -5 FLIR angle. Is this possible some indication of the speed of the trace 0 ATA meaning still, ie hovering?

On this theory, what created the first radar track? According to the report it seemed like the radar used was the aircraft's own and not the Princeton. If the radar detected some unknown object (possibly the same one the Princeton was tracking), and then they made a mistake and pointed the FLIR at a friendly jet, it seems we're back where we started, with an unidentified object. The FLIR1 video hardly shows anything spectacular to begin with, so what is the theory really explaining away?

Are both the Princeton and the jets giving anomalous radar tracks?

 

[jarlrmai]

On this theory, what created the first radar track? According to the report it seemed like the radar used was the aircraft's own and not the Princeton. If the radar detected some unknown object (possibly the same one the Princeton was tracking), and then they made a mistake and pointed the FLIR at a friendly jet, it seems we're back where we started, with an unidentified object. The FLIR1 video hardly shows anything spectacular to begin with, so what is the theory really explaining away?

Are both the Princeton and the jets giving anomalous radar tracks?

It's trying to explain what is said in the written report with the video. Because the video does not match the written report as it stands so either the video is of a different event than the one described the report writer was mistaken on how events happened as per the video.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Does ATFLIR have automated aerial target seeking?

Can anyone clarify what type of F-18 we are talking about...I'm assuming F-18D as it appears to have been a two seater.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I'm lost here. Could you recap what your analysis of the event is?

1. An object is spotted on radar?
2. ATFLIR is pointed at it but is imprecise and hits something else (a friendly F-18?)
3. The radar malfunctions
4. The F-18 is extremely out of focus for some reason both on IR and TV mode
5. The pilots are confused and think it's a UFO

Is this what you are saying happened?

Why does there need to be a radar malfunction...There's a difference between a radar being able to detect the presence and general heading of an object (providing a minimal track, sufficient to bring ATFLIR into play) and locking the radar system onto an object (gathering sufficient data to generate a firing solution).

 

[Mobius]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTUX5tgU5xo


He sums up the argument as:

10:11

1) an F-18 would have been immediately identified as friendly by the IFF system. That's without question
2) an F 18 would be broadcasting its position to everybody on the data link, including underwoods.
3) an F 18 would have called out a buddy spike, if locked by friendly radar
4) an F 18 would not actively to him another f-18
5) a civilian aircraft definitely would not actively jam an F-18
6) FLIR was not a lucky catch. It was slaved to the radar.
7) everyone on the data link would have been able to see Underwood's aircraft and his prioritize target on there as a page.

This all hinges on one very important assumption, "6) FLIR was not a lucky catch. It was slaved to the radar." The problem I have with this is that the radar was not working - in that it was unable to lock onto the object, and was giving very inconsistent numbers for it. How then was it able to point the ATFLIR with 100% accuracy in the right direction, within 1% horizontally and vertically?

It it was an F-18, then obviously it would have been on the datalink. But the question that might invalidate all the other points is: was the return on Underwood's radar that he was trying to lock onto (and, it is claimed, designated as a target) the same thing that showed up on the ATFLIR. Because if it wasn't, then the other six points are moot.

The key argument in more depth:

8:15

West has suggested that Underwood just happened to catch the unidentified craft on is FLIR. Like he was just gluing it around and happen to find something that he couldn't identify on a screen. That's not how it works. And the way the system actually works is when you see something on the radar and you designate it as your primary target. All the other sensors will look at that point. So it's everything is kind of synced together. Again, listen to what Fravor saying about how the sensors work. When a point of interest is designated by the sensor, all sensors on the aircraft point to it. Note the ATFLIR in the video is in slave mode, he was slaved to the radar. This means that the FLIR was looking at the object because the radar was, even though Underwood couldn't get a lock that doesn't mean that can't be passively designated as a priority. This is what was done, forcing the FLIR being slaved to the radar to look at the contact. This is how Underwood captured it.

Now let's put all this together. Underwood sees an unidentified contact on his radar. He immediately would have cross references SA Page, he attempts to lock it up. It jams him again. This would have been viewable on everybody's SA page. There were no buddy spike calls. The IFF system on the F-18 team did not identify it as an F-18. Nobody on the datalink told him it was a friendly fighter. For the contact to be a friendly aircraft or civilian with a transponder. A catastrophic series of failures must have occurred at every single level from the mechanical to that dozens of humans on the data link and their systems? Understanding how the correlation of sensors work in conjunction with everyone on that data link as simply as impossible.

Again though, this all hinges on one very simple assumption, stated here as:

"This means that the FLIR was looking at the object because the radar was, even though Underwood couldn't get a lock that doesn't mean that can't be passively designated as a priority. "

And how does that work? The FLIR needs an instant handover of heading and vertical angle. If the radar is being actively jammed, then where are those two numbers coming from, and how is it known they are accurate?

Underwood stated (Corbell, 7:46)

What was different about this was, as soon as I took that lock, the tracks started doing all sorts of just little things that are not normal, the heading was erratic, it should be able to tell me your airspeed, and also your Mach numbers. So it should say like point eight Mach for example. So you know, 80% the speed of sound, it should say that it was jumping all over the place. It was like point 8.4 point 2.1 point nine and it's just, it's just like my radar can't hack it.

So we simultaneously have a radar that being jammed and giving all kinds of strange numbers, and you can't even get the airspeed, but is also able to hand over the exact position to the ATFLIR? It does not make sense.

Jamming reception isn't just from the RADAR. The ASPJ in conjunction with the ALR-67 series RWR work to resolve azimuth and elevation, plent to slave the FLIR to.
resolve

 

[Mobius]

Does ATFLIR have automated aerial target seeking?

Can anyone clarify what type of F-18 we are talking about...I'm assuming F-18D as it appears to have been a two seater.

Yes, the ATFLIR can be used in a FLIR TWS mode selected on the FLIR PNT AZ/EL sublevel. It can automatically search and correlate optical targets to MSI trackfiles as well as create them. When the MSI trackfile processing slots have all been taken, the FLIR TWS stores it's own uncorrelated trackfiles.

 

[Mobius]

Does ATFLIR have automated aerial target seeking?

Can anyone clarify what type of F-18 we are talking about...I'm assuming F-18D as it appears to have been a two seater.

Yes it's definitely a two seater, confirmed in the video image by the TDC priority diamond. In 2 seaters the diamond is split top and bottom to display which crew member has the TDC assigned to that format.

 

[KilliK]

if the tic-tac which Fravor saw, is white, then why it is shown black during tv mode, if this is supposedly the same object?

 

[jarlrmai]

if the tic-tac which Fravor saw, is white, then why it is shown black during tv mode, if this is supposedly the same object?

A good question that has been asked before, there are a lot of little discrepancies between the stories and the videos. This is but one. Maybe it's possible that something pure white looks dark under certain conditions and/or settings on the camera, it seems unlikely to me but maybe possible, without any one able to answer questions freely about ATFLIR we'll probably never know.

 

[DavidB66]

Maybe it's possible that something pure white looks dark under certain conditions

Even a white object will look dark against a background of open sky or light cloud, provided the object itself is not in direct sunlight. Without knowing more about the lighting conditions I don't think we can say that the object in the FLIR1 video is not white. Of course, the video doesn't show that it is white either. The only thing it has in common with descriptions of the Tic Tac is that it looks vaguely cylindrical, but at a distance so would almost any aircraft. When I've challenged 'believers' to say how it resembles the Tic Tac, the only response I've had was 'well, the highly trained pilots said it did'.

 

[JMartJr]

There is no reason to believe that the object in the Flir1 video is the same object the Fravor et al reported seeing.

 

[jackfrostvc]

This is in relation to the thread title: "Claim that the Nimitz FLIR1 object could not be a plane because it would have been Identified"

In a combat situation, does an aircraft ping it's location and what type of aircraft it is?

The reason I ask is that we know from Kevin Day and maybe others that they were planning tto do a Air to Air combat exercise.
If that was the case, would one side really be pinging their location and aircraft type?

 

[jarlrmai]

This is in relation to the thread title: "Claim that the Nimitz FLIR1 object could not be a plane because it would have been Identified"

In a combat situation, does an aircraft ping it's location and what type of aircraft it is?

The reason I ask is that we know from Kevin Day and maybe others that they were planning tto do a Air to Air combat exercise.
If that was the case, would one side really be pinging their location and aircraft type?

It depends, if they are a simulated adversary then probably they wouldn't if that was the parameters of the exercise.

Alphas assertions are all based on the normal track sharing and IFF systems that would normally be in place for friendly aircraft sharing the same airspace, but of course exercises are a thing, and there is evidence that there were exercises being conducted during these flights, like the recent Gimbal FOIA.

Of course the pilot testimony would be expected to have taken this into account, but we don't really have testimony first hand, we have second hand stories layered around events and the videos from a few people.

 

[KilliK]

There is no reason to believe that the object in the Flir1 video is the same object the Fravor et al reported seeing.

The pilots who saw the original higher quality video, claim it is the same object. So there is at least one reason.

 

[jarlrmai]

The pilots who saw the original higher quality video, claim it is the same object. So there is at least one reason.

There existing and them seeing a higher quality version are all claims, also can you source the claims for the Nimitz video?

 

[Murray]

The pilots who saw the original higher quality video, claim it is the same object. So there is at least one reason.

Yes...a reason to discount anything they say. How could they know it's the same object Fravor saw if they never saw the object Fravor saw?

 

[Deleted member 16321]

A good question that has been asked before, there are a lot of little discrepancies between the stories and the videos. This is but one. Maybe it's possible that something pure white looks dark under certain conditions and/or settings on the camera, it seems unlikely to me but maybe possible, without any one able to answer questions freely about ATFLIR we'll probably never know.

I wondered about this too. (Maybe there is a separate thread on this topic?) Here's three frames before the first switch to TV mode. (I think it's been noted that the middle one that says IR is actually TV mode but there's lag in the label overlay.)

There are 10 frames between the last IR frame with any visible object and the first TV mode with a grey/dark dot. I have no idea what's occurring during this change of mode but I wonder if there is possibly a kind of Checker Board Illusion [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion] here, where something light coloured appears dark or vice-versa? Maybe like the middle triangle of the letter A in the gif below.

 

[KilliK]

There existing and them seeing a higher quality version are all claims, also can you source the claims for the Nimitz video?

 

[FatPhil]

View attachment 51395

Pitot tubes are only millimeters in size, this claim sounds absurd as the optics wouldn't have the resolving power, and other more useful features would be seen before the pitots.

 

[jarlrmai]

She could have meant "giant pitot tubes" but this is the problem of all this testimony over twitter, there's just no proper "cross examination" of the claims.

But yeah if Underwood got close enough to see something the size of pitots then that's real close encounter, not Fravor/Dietrich. But I don't think he did.

 

[jarlrmai]

I wondered about this too. (Maybe there is a separate thread on this topic?) Here's three frames before the first switch to TV mode. (I think it's been noted that the middle one that says IR is actually TV mode but there's lag in the label overlay.)

There are 10 frames between the last IR frame with any visible object and the first TV mode with a grey/dark dot. I have no idea what's occurring during this change of mode but I wonder if there is possibly a kind of Checker Board Illusion [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion] here, where something light coloured appears dark or vice-versa? Maybe like the middle triangle of the letter A in the gif below.

View attachment 51009


View attachment 51010

Optical illusions don't work when you can measure the pixels in Photoshop.

 

[Mendel]

Pitot tubes are only millimeters in size, this claim sounds absurd as the optics wouldn't have the resolving power, and other more useful features would be seen before the pitots.

the only interpretation that makes sense is that this description refers to the shape of the appendages, not their size

if the size matched, she could have said straight out that she saw pitot tubes, but she used "look like". I know no other simple way to describe that shape.

 

[Deleted member 16321]

Optical illusions don't work when you can measure the pixels in Photoshop.

The checkerboard illusion works despite our being able to measure the hex code. As does the seeming illusion in the gif. The inner triangle appears different even though it is essentially the same hex code at the start and end of the timeline. The object in TV mode appears grey but could be white, the illumination surrounding it and the vignetting on the frame effect how it is perceived.

 

[jarlrmai]

The checkerboard illusion works despite our being able to measure the hex code. As does the seeming illusion in the gif. The inner triangle appears different even though it is essentially the same hex code at the start and end of the timeline. The object in TV mode appears grey but could be white, the illumination surrounding it and the vignetting on the frame effect how it is perceived.

It works on human vision, but if the pixels on the screen are an accurate representation, then measuring it with a tool in photoshop bypasses the faulty human vision system that makes the optical illusion a thing.

 

[Mendel]

It works on human vision, but if the pixels on the screen are an accurate representation, then measuring it with a tool in photoshop bypasses the faulty human vision system that makes the optical illusion a thing.

Unless there's auto-contrast/brightness somewhere in the loop.

 

[jarlrmai]

Unless there's auto-contrast/brightness somewhere in the loop.

Hence "if the pixels are accurate," I think we know less about the optical sensor for the ATFLIR than we know about it's IR capabilities. Probably even less reference material for that as well.

 

[KilliK]

Pitot tubes are only millimeters in size, this claim sounds absurd as the optics wouldn't have the resolving power, and other more useful features would be seen before the pitots.

exactly. which is why it's not an F18. because these extrusions are too big to be pitot tubes. they are something else, which happen to resemble pitot tubes, and the pilots who are more familiar with those, they described them as such.