Eglin AFB UAP
- Thread starter Mick West
- Start date
I didn't know engage was exclusive to attacking in military context, I meant engage in the sense of simply interacting with or approaching one particular UAP over the other UAP, I apologize for the confusion.
I wonder if future UFO reenactments will be made with AI videos, just giving an AI the description of the event as a prompt and letting it run wild. There's already an AI image on reddit of what the object might have looked like.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1b8gj8o/is_this_what_eglin_afb_pilots_saw/
Duke
Senior Member.
As I explained, I think he approached the "one particular" UAP (UAP-1) because, if the summary is correct, it was the only one of the four he could see with the Mk.1 eyeball and therefore the one he would attempt to photograph.
So Gaetz's description doesn't really match this.
Calling something an "orb" in this context suggests some psychological priming to believe something is a physical alien artifact, the way people now post that "I got video of a tictac" with the implicit assumption that there are alien craft of a particular white oblong shape to capture videos of. Unlike, say, "I saw something that looked like a sphere/shiny ball/globe."
Which is why I tend to think you need experts in perception and psychology involved in these assessments as much as, say, physicists.
Rationalman
Member
It's standard in the Army as well.
Interesting 2019 case that has a visual resemblence:
http://www.beamsinvestigations.org/140504019UFOCaptureAlbuquerqueNewMexico.html
Although given this was 4th of July, I'd suspect something related to that, like a Chinese lantern with fireworks. Unlikely to be what the pilot saw.
http://www.beamsinvestigations.org/140504019UFOCaptureAlbuquerqueNewMexico.html
Article: 04-07-2019: UFO Sighting And Capture Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.
[Reported 28/07/2019]
Summary Falling black matte pod from the sky with jet exhaust then hovering and vanishing
Distance 101-500 Feet
Altitude Treetop
Duration 00:30:00
Features Other
Flight Path Hovering Then Path, Other
Shape Teardrop
Witness Description:
I was out watching fireworks in my backyard this 4th of July, when turned around to see a black object coming down from the sky at a quick pace..
When I saw it, I thought some kind of manned vehicle or a bomb was dropping from the sky; honestly I'm not sure exactly what I thought,
I was confused and just kept an eye on it.
the object was a dark matte black, very dull, but had some kind of field around it.
Although given this was 4th of July, I'd suspect something related to that, like a Chinese lantern with fireworks. Unlikely to be what the pilot saw.
Eburacum
Senior Member.
That's right. I am reminded of two different encounters with balloons, both very similar in characteristics; Scott Kelly flew past a UAP (reported by his back seat RIO) so he turned back to take another look and discovered it was a Bart Simpson balloon.
In the second incident, another pilot flying in the same area off the East Coast of the US saw and photographed a UAP, but did not turn back for another look; the photo has been identified as a Batman balloon, which was probably about the same size as the Bart Simpson UAP.
Perhaps the achievement of taking a photo was sufficient, and a go-round was not considered necessary.
Does this mean 30 minutes or 30 seconds? Because 30 minutes seems like a long time to only get that one blurry picture in 2019, but it also feels like a weird way to write 30 seconds.
I find it peculiar that the description also says
which could be interpreted as the "blurry air" in the drawing.
The object is described as matte black, which could be a grey color that looks black because it's dark. And if we take some artistic liberty, the drawing could be inaccurate and the orange light is actually further down at the bottom rather than at the middle to match the image.
At the same time, the colors and lights locations could actually be accurate (so one object is black with the light at the bottom and the other is grey-ish with the light at the middle) and there's just so many UFO stories/images that some of them are bound to be similar (for example, people finding clips like the Jellyfish after the Jellyfish video)
I've seen a lot of embellished stories about UFOs, so if it's 30 seconds I can see it being some kind of weird pyrotechnics that got exaggerated, but if it's 30 minutes I just don't believe an object making a rumbling noise was hovering on the street for so long and only one person managed to spot it while only getting a blurry picture out of it.
John J.
Senior Member.
The lack of checkable information is frustrating.
Maybe I'm at risk of digging my own rabbit hole, but I wonder if the sparseness of information in the released FOI summary, and the fact that some (possibly many) details remain classified (and the photo or whatever unreleased) tells a story in itself
(I realise that such little information being released doesn't necessarily mean that there's more information being withheld for anything other than prosaic reasons).
The pic based on the sketch with my interpretation of the sketcher's colour indications
...did make me think this might be the colours of a low-observables platform of some sort, maybe with a visible red nav light, or a surface or feature projecting towards the observer catching the sun, or even a bit of red/ orange livery denoting a prototype. (By "platform" I'm not excluding a balloon.) The description of the top having "segmented panels" brought to mind the angular fuselage panels of the F-117 (or, less glamorously, a radar reflector- -there's a thread about hypothetical aerial radar reflectors as UFO candidates here,
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/cube-in-a-sphere-ufos-seen-by-navy-pilots-radar-targets.10789/).
Yes, agreed.
Found this picture of a NASA balloon on a US Army webpage about near-future military uses of balloons, I guess at a pinch it could be described as having the appearance of gunmetal grey segmented panels, though it doesn't look anything like the sketch, and is much larger than "our" object's estimated size,
...from
"When the Balloon Goes Up: High-Altitude for Military Application", Lt. Col. Anthony Tingle, U.S. Army, in
Military Review, May-June 2019 here https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Jou...chives/May-June-2019/Tingle-High-Alt-Balloon/
(PDF attached below for anyone interested).
Lt. Col. Tingle
(or was in 2019).External Quote:
We get a bit more information from Congressman Gaetz.
The Black Vault website article that Mick linked to in the OP,
"Air Force Releases Details About 2023 UAP Sighting First Brought To Light By Congressman Matt Gaetz", John Greenewald,
06 March 2024 (link here)
...links in turn to "Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz at the 2023 Congressional Hearings on UAP", uploaded by YouTube contributor NewsNation c. September 2023. From approx 1 minute 13 seconds in:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHEWOj4EnE8&t=73s
Gaetz says,
Gaetz: " ...and sees a large floating, what I can only describe as an orb...":External Quote:
...as does the "floating" description.
Totally agree.
Gaetz: "One of the pilots goes to check..." So more than one aircraft.
When the investigating plane loses radar and FLIR, the other/ another aircraft isn't tasked with capturing the UAP on FLIR.
Gaetz: "...he had to manually take this image, um, from one of the lenses..."
...Gaetz doesn't clarify what system was used. Is it possible the pilot used his own camera or 'phone?
"...from one of the lenses" implies that it was an aircraft-mounted camera, but I'm not sure it rules out the above possibility.
Gaetz: "...it was not automatic, automated (uh) in collection..."
Is Gaetz saying that the photograph was not immediately available when the aircraft landed?
If the image was captured on a personal device, and submitted later by the one person who claimed to see the object, rather obvious questions arise. It would be a bit similar to the much earlier (1954) case of an airman, coincidentally also over the Gulf of Mexico, who photographed
UFO Photo: Project Blue Book #AF632255 (Parachutes?)
deirdre
Senior Member.
balloons tend to rotate a bit in air. if it was shaped like a weeble, possible the photo was of the backend but the pilot saw it before it rotated and saw visually from that angle it resembled the apollo spaceship.
i dont really see any reason to bring psychological priming into this. we dont know what the photo looks like.
itsthematrix
New Member
Interesting. I saw a scan of a newspaper or magazine clipping on x, it was dated Friday October 2 2009 from getreading.co.uk which shows 3 sketches that looks similar to these crafts. Was seen by a family of four. Couple of things that stuck out was their description "We looked up expecting to see a plane, instead we saw a huge round orange light", and then "The rotation of the disc seemed to be distorting the air, around it", so far we have 3 different sightings, all of which describe very weirdly similar features of the craft, but most of all, all describe some kind of fuzziness, blurriness or in this case distortion of the air around the craft. Am I allowed to post this? If not please delete. thanks.
Attachments
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John J.
Senior Member.
Um, I do agree with @jdog's post. UFO enthusiasts (and people who like to take flash-lit photos in dusty graveyards at night) often seem to use "orb" to describe unidentified round things / diffuse lights, but I don't think many people outside of those interest groups often describe round things as orbs or orb-shaped. Maybe some Christmas tree decorations (baubles)?
We don't have any indication that the claimed witness described what he saw as an orb.
You're right of course (deirdre) that we don't know what the photo shows, but I feel Congressman Gaetz' description of it as an "orb" puts it- maybe unintentionally- into a category of things described as orbs, namely a claimed "type" of UFO.
I guess substituting "...borrows jargon from those who believe..."
for "...suggests some psychological priming to believe..." conveys a similar meaning.
Ann K
Senior Member.
That, and the description of "some kind of field around it", sounds a lot like schlieren, the visual distortion you see from hot air mixing with cold air, such as seen above a candle flame. Either hot exhaust from an engine or the heat you'd get from a burning Chinese lantern would do that.
deirdre
Senior Member.
if i -a skeptic-was giving an interview about dustmites in ghost photos i've seen, i wouldn't say "i can only describe it as a blurred dust mite". i guess i could say a "light circle" but only because now im thinking of alternative descriptions i could give it. I wouldnt pause the interview to ponder "what word am i gonna use to describe this thing". I would just use whatever word the media has been using for years and a word readers would be able to visualize. But i realize, that is just me.
that doesnt mean i've undergone "some psychological priming to believe something is a physical
It's ok if you disagree though.
Ann K
Senior Member.
That's just you. In recent parlance, an ordinary circular object would be "a circle", or "a ball", or "a sphere", or maybe "a globe". The rather old-fashioned word "orb" is seldom used nowadays to refer to an everyday spherical object, but has been completely co-opted by the UFO believers to mean "round, but also mysterious or other-worldly" as if it has a defined entity instead of merely a particular shape, and its use screams "cultist" to anyone who has kept up with the language.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
Addendum: Ghost hunters and spirit-photographers us it as well.
John J.
Senior Member.
The newspaper, Get Reading, was a weekly freesheet published by the Reading Post
Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Post.External Quote:
As @itsthematrix points out, the colours of the reported sighting, and the claimed air disturbance, coincide with the 2023 Eglin pilot's account:
(Originally posted by @itsthematrix, thank you. From Get Reading 02 October 2009, by Laura Herbert.)
I think this might be coincidental though. As deirdre said,
While, like so many cases, it might never be possible to find a definite explanation for what the witness saw (we only have the mother's account) I think there are relevant questions to consider, and rather straightforward potential explanations.
It needs to be asked: Why did only this family see the UFOs?
The family was in Reading (pronounced "redding", not "reading") in southern England.
Reading is a town of approx. 173,000 people within a built-up area of over 330,000 people
(Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading,_Berkshire).
The family were visiting a fair off Richfield Avenue, and had parked up by the river at Caversham.
The river is the Thames; if the family had parked in Caversham they would have been on the north bank, a short walk across Caversham Bridge from Richfield Avenue.
They were probably within 800 m- 1 km ( 0.5- 0.62 miles) from Reading railway station, a very busy interchange.
It was Saturday August 15, between 20:30 and 21:00; the sun set at 20:22. This would be during the UK state school's summer holidays. As well as people visiting the fair, there would have been plenty of people out and about on a summer Friday evening.
But Mum didn't bring her sighting to the attention of other adults (as far as we know).
The witness said
External Quote:
(N.B., the blue carriageway marked M25 that runs from top to bottom of the picture near the right edge is the western edge of the London orbital motorway, the M25.)
...and
Heathrow Airport is 22miles/ 35.5 km west of Reading. It's pretty busy;External Quote:
Wikipedia, Heathrow Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathrow_AirportExternal Quote:
Maybe the witness could see normal passenger aircraft landing lights somehow distorted by cloud or mist, or even the sun (which had just set) glinting off aircraft as they ascended.
The witness said that the "discs" came from the direction of Heathrow, travelled at about aircraft speed and were where she might usually expect to see passenger jets. No-one else in a large-ish, busy town appears to have noticed anything unusual.
As well as being reasonably close to one of the busiest airports on Earth, there are a number of establishments/ companies etc. within 20 miles of Reading that might lead us to expect that airspace in that area is monitored quite closely
(this is my gift to conspiracy theorists
)Atomic Weapons Establishment Burghfield is just 3.98 miles (6.41 km) SW of Reading; it builds, maintains and dismantles the UK's nuclear warheads; Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston is approx. 9.35 miles (15 km) from Reading.
AWE website here, https://www.awe.co.uk/
Farnborough, home of defence research company Qinetiq and the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch is 14.72 miles (23.69 km) approximately SE of Reading, BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin also have a presence.
A substantial Army garrison is based in Aldershot, immediately to the south of Farnborough (16.88 miles, 27.17 km from Reading).
RAF High Wycombe (effectively the RAF's HQ) is 17.12 miles (27.55 km) to the NW.
It might be relevant that the witness had seen UFOs before:
To be honest, this nugget of information put me in mind of this post by @FatPhil,External Quote:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunking-humor.132/post-311667
The story about the Reading sighting was run in a local free newspaper, written up by the reporter responsible for the area of Reading where the witness lives (Caversham). The article had a footnote,
...I'm not sure that the reporter felt that this was a particularly serious story.External Quote:
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Ann K
Senior Member.
Sorry, I should have lumped "other pseudoscience believers" in with the UFO gang. They also mean the same thing, "round, but also mysterious or other-worldly".
Mendel
Senior Member.
Hot air balloons:
Imagine one of these, made from dark-ish fabric, with the burner going, at night.
Then compare:
Imagine one of these, made from dark-ish fabric, with the burner going, at night.
Then compare:
Mendel
Senior Member.
If the Caversham sighting really was a hot air balloon (supported by the idea that when they shut down the burner, it goes dark), it'd be another case of "it's definitely not X" when it is:
If you've seen these by day, they probably look different in the dark, and possibly from an unfamiliar angle.
If you've seen these by day, they probably look different in the dark, and possibly from an unfamiliar angle.
Eburacum
Senior Member.
Everything about the Caversham sighting screams chinese lanterns to me.
Orange light, then grey when the light goes out. I've seen chinese lanterns after the fire burns out - they look greyish or colourless in the ambient light from streetlights. Several objects following each other at intervals (presumably being lit or released one by one by a small party of people on the ground).
You can even see the paper segments with the light in the middle.
Orange light, then grey when the light goes out. I've seen chinese lanterns after the fire burns out - they look greyish or colourless in the ambient light from streetlights. Several objects following each other at intervals (presumably being lit or released one by one by a small party of people on the ground).
You can even see the paper segments with the light in the middle.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
"Something that resembled a UFO" is an interesting phrase...
John J.
Senior Member.
Well, (1) the Eglin pilot's 2023 Gulf of Mexico sighting, the subject of the thread.
(2) and (3) below, not subjects of the thread but raised because they might have similarities to what the pilot reported in 2023,
which depending on your point of view either gives us opportunities to understand what the pilot might have seen, or provide evidence that he was not alone in seeing an exotic grey thingy with an orange-red light or feature.
deirdre
Senior Member.
3 looks nothing like the OP report or Micks pic. I dont care, its not like Elgin can be analyzed really with such a lack of information..but wondering why we were discussing regular hot balloon looking ufos again.
thanks.
Mendel
Senior Member.
The resemblance is the orange glow at the lower end, and the behaviour; and the "blurry air" suggests an open flame (or other heat source).
Review https://www.metabunk.org/threads/big-balloons-that-are-not-round.12577/ to recall that hot air balloons don't necessarily look like hot air balloons.
Eburacum
Senior Member.
The other aspect is that the Elgin phenomena were sighted at 16,000 feet, too high for chinese lanterns, I think. Recreational hot air balloons rarely fly above 3000 feet, so they can probably be eliminated too.
But hobbyist balloons do sometimes fly this high, so maybe that option is still open.
But hobbyist balloons do sometimes fly this high, so maybe that option is still open.
At this point it seem that there ARE human built things that would look very much like what was observed. While at the same time it seems like a very unlikely place to actually see one of these things. Where you go from here would depend on what additional information is available. Photos maybe? Hot Air Balloon derby going on anywhere nearby at the time? What is the radar signature of a hot air balloon?
Unfortunately I have no answers here, only more questions.
Z.W. Wolf
Senior Member.
This "investigation" illustrates a basic lack of rigor which, just now is all too common. The proper way to conduct a UFO eyewitness interview was worked out in the '50's and was used by Project Blue Book investigators. It was also used by "pro-UFO" investigators for decades. For example, APRO, GSW, NICAP, CUFOS.
This technique was not used by NIDS investigator: 1995-2004.
See: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/bl...s-ufo-disclosure-enterprise.9155/#post-213742
In this investigation, we are getting:
-an estimated absolute size
-an estimated altitude above ground level
-an estimated speed
-a witness sketch of perceived shape without taking into account the apparent size of the object
All of which are being reported literally. What we are getting is what the eyewitness thinks, not what the eyewitness saw.
A serious minded investigator always asks for:
-apparent size
-degrees above the horizon
-apparent speed in terms of how much sky the object moved across
-a description of shape/sketch; always taking apparent size into consideration
A serious investigator will always take into account known optical illusions and common cause and effect errors made by witnesses.
This is an incompetent investigation of the most naïve kind. No effort has been made to use proven and well known techniques.
If this were a nighttime sighting, a likely candidate would be a bright star with chromatic scintillation. Witnesses will confidently draw detailed sketches of astronomical bodies. That's not a guess or an opinion. It's a well known fact based on empirical evidence gathered over decades.
I'm not saying that the object was a scintillating star. There's not enough data to say that. But I am pointing out the fatal lack of good data. And an unforgivable lack of good analysis. Why is this still happening decades after the the proper techniques were developed? Why are decades of research on eyewitness testimony being ignored?
There are three levels of incompetence:
Natural incompetence - The investigator is not very good at analytical thought.
Negligent incompetence - The investigator is not trying.
Aggressive incompetence - The investigator is deliberately doing a poor job.
Negligent incompetence may point to bias. Aggressive incompetence points to bias.
Why are the tried and true investigative techniques seemingly now lost knowledge? Or are the proper techniques being aggressively ignored?
There's an alternative. Perhaps the investigation was conducted properly but the person giving us a second hand report has stripped off the good data/analysis and is selectively reporting the eyewitness speculations.
This technique was not used by NIDS investigator: 1995-2004.
See: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/bl...s-ufo-disclosure-enterprise.9155/#post-213742
In this investigation, we are getting:
-an estimated absolute size
-an estimated altitude above ground level
-an estimated speed
-a witness sketch of perceived shape without taking into account the apparent size of the object
All of which are being reported literally. What we are getting is what the eyewitness thinks, not what the eyewitness saw.
A serious minded investigator always asks for:
-apparent size
-degrees above the horizon
-apparent speed in terms of how much sky the object moved across
-a description of shape/sketch; always taking apparent size into consideration
A serious investigator will always take into account known optical illusions and common cause and effect errors made by witnesses.
This is an incompetent investigation of the most naïve kind. No effort has been made to use proven and well known techniques.
If this were a nighttime sighting, a likely candidate would be a bright star with chromatic scintillation. Witnesses will confidently draw detailed sketches of astronomical bodies. That's not a guess or an opinion. It's a well known fact based on empirical evidence gathered over decades.
I'm not saying that the object was a scintillating star. There's not enough data to say that. But I am pointing out the fatal lack of good data. And an unforgivable lack of good analysis. Why is this still happening decades after the the proper techniques were developed? Why are decades of research on eyewitness testimony being ignored?
There are three levels of incompetence:
Natural incompetence - The investigator is not very good at analytical thought.
Negligent incompetence - The investigator is not trying.
Aggressive incompetence - The investigator is deliberately doing a poor job.
Negligent incompetence may point to bias. Aggressive incompetence points to bias.
Why are the tried and true investigative techniques seemingly now lost knowledge? Or are the proper techniques being aggressively ignored?
There's an alternative. Perhaps the investigation was conducted properly but the person giving us a second hand report has stripped off the good data/analysis and is selectively reporting the eyewitness speculations.
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JMartJr
Senior Member.
Found this, possibly of interest, at least indicates that they show up on radar. Link is to Weather Channel page with embedded video but with essentially no accompanying text, so difficult to quote in a "No Link" way."
https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/video/hot-air-balloons-captured-on-radar
deirdre
Senior Member.
there's no investigation at all. its just a summary written by god knows who.
to be honest, it reads like my notes when im listening or reading a ufo incident and taking notes. for ex: 'no air speed noted' didnt register to me as"it wasnt moving", i read it as "no air speed was noted anywhere in the report."
Z.W. Wolf
Senior Member.
That could be true. Someone took a report. The report was filed away. Which may point to a disinterested going-through-the-motions bureaucratic process. Later, incompetent people are passing along the eyewitness report as literally true in all detail.
Same thing applies though. Everything learned over decades is being ignored through natural, negligent or aggressive incompetence
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deirdre
Senior Member.
i'm waiting for Black Vault to see if he does a video as he has read more of these things. i'm curious about some of the exemptions listed and what they mean. Dont want to ponder here too much, as i figure he'll maybe tell us soon.
edit: just checked his twitter, he has the same questions as me..has been tracking it for 9 months and has gotten no answers. so... (it is frustrating when you cant google stuff and just find out!)
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The covering of a Chinese lantern should be illuminated from inside.
Paladinhgwt
New Member
I found this video which seems to fit the basic description of what was described in to op. Looks like a drone or balloon.
I don't know if this video is of the same object or three different objects as video lacks details.
The first clip kinda looks like what is mentioned in this post, however the second and third clip looks more like a balloon.
Video footage of a UFO, a motorized capsule hovering in the skies of Canada
I don't know if this video is of the same object or three different objects as video lacks details.
The first clip kinda looks like what is mentioned in this post, however the second and third clip looks more like a balloon.
Video footage of a UFO, a motorized capsule hovering in the skies of Canada
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AARO thinks it's a balloon
https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PD...ports/Case_Resolution_of_Eglin_UAP_2_508_.pdf
https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PD...ports/Case_Resolution_of_Eglin_UAP_2_508_.pdf
External Quote:
john.phil
Senior Member.
Object observed by the pilot (A - IR image; B - Electro-optical image):
Pilot's sketch for comparison:
I have enhanced the IR image a little bit to highlight the top section for better comparison with the sketch.
AAROS's proposed identification:
The balloon in question is similar to the ones offered by Airstar Balloons (https://www.airstar-light.com/) and Lunar Lighting (https://lunarlighting.com/):
Curiously, Airstar Balloons has a Tic-Tac lookalike:
Pilot's sketch for comparison:
I have enhanced the IR image a little bit to highlight the top section for better comparison with the sketch.
AAROS's proposed identification:
The balloon in question is similar to the ones offered by Airstar Balloons (https://www.airstar-light.com/) and Lunar Lighting (https://lunarlighting.com/):
Curiously, Airstar Balloons has a Tic-Tac lookalike:
Most of their "balloons" are inflatables kept rigid by the pressure of a small fan and have no lift; some have lights within helium-filled enclosures that do provide lift. In either case they need plug-in power.
This BTS video shows the use of a full-sphere balloon light for a sci-fi desert video shoot:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljLrg-yUaJw
john.phil
Senior Member.
The round balloon matching AARO's suggestion is filled with helium and tethered to the ground.
Source: https://www.airstar-light.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2022_Ellipse_Cutsheet.pdf
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