Explained: The Navy UFO Videos

Whilst Fravor's 2004 wingman (Alex Dietrich) is interviewed anonymously and in silhouette in the TV series Unidentified, she's just given a full interview to 60 Minutes in the US. Snippets are available below and might be of interest. Granted, she's only another eyewitness, yadda, yadda, but she does seem to publicly corroborate Fravor's claims.

The 60 Minutes voiceover guy makes the claim that UAPs were tracked descending from 80,000 ft in less than a second. That's in excess of 54,000 mph if one assumes the speaker means 80,000ft to sea level. I'm not sure what people will make of that.

Anyway, links are here:


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

Additional video: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/navy-ufo-sighting-60-minutes-2021-05-16/

[Edited: I've just noticed that in the 2017 NYT article 2 Navy Airmen and an Object That 'Accelerated Like Nothing I've Ever Seen', Fravor's wingman (not his WSO) is listed as Lt. Cdr. Jim Slaight. I'm not sure where the discrepancy is arising between who Fravor was flying with.]

(Apologies if this is in the wrong place. I thought it was suitable because I understood the first of the 3 Navy videos to be of the "Tic-Tac" as captured by a Nimitz-based aircraft that went up after Fravor/Dietrich had landed (This is stated in the 60 Minutes video to be the case). If that's not the case, though, please would someone relocate this to a better location? Thanks)
 
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In regards to the rapid descent of radar targets, IIRC the target was never observed actually descending. There was a return at 80k feet, which was lost, and then a few seconds later another return either at sea level or fairly low altitude (we've heard both from different people).
 
Alphadunk said:
In regards to the rapid descent of radar targets, IIRC the target was never observed actually descending. There was a return at 80k feet, which was lost, and then a few seconds later another return either at sea level or fairly low altitude (we've heard both from different people).
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Sounds like operator error to me. IIRC, wasn't this around the time that a new radar system was being installed, or am I misremembering? It wouldn't surprise me if the operators were still coming to grips with the new system and weren't interpreting spurious returns correctly.
 
Alphadunk said:
In regards to the rapid descent of radar targets, IIRC the target was never observed actually descending. There was a return at 80k feet, which was lost, and then a few seconds later another return either at sea level or fairly low altitude (we've heard both from different people).
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Very interesting, I have no experience with radars but this looks possible (and it is consistent with the 'software glitch' idea: the echoes tricked the software which then produced the strange descending behaviour). Whatever the exact reason, we can anyway be pretty sure that the 'target' (if there ever was one to start with) was 'never observed actually descending'. As described, the descent was so outlandish and unphysical that we can safely rule it out it ever happened.
 
Alphadunk said:
In regards to the rapid descent of radar targets, IIRC the target was never observed actually descending. There was a return at 80k feet, which was lost, and then a few seconds later another return either at sea level or fairly low altitude (we've heard both from different people).
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This may be true of the initial radar targets (do you have a source?), but it is inconsistent with the public testimony of Kevin Day, the radar operator onboard the Princeton that day. In his Interview with filmmaker Dave Beaty, Kevin Day describes in regards to Fravor's target that "Spy (the Princeton's radar system) tracked it (David Fravor's tic tac) all the way down to the surface." Day also said he had "the highest track quality possible." He also replayed the radar data the next day to verify the previous day's data due to how strange it appeared.

You can find this on YouTube: Interview with Kevin Day, radar operator on the USS Princeton Tic Tac Incident (16:00 time stamp)

One of the primary innovations of the AN/SPY-1A/B system is its ability to maintain a live track instead of "pinging" a target sporadically as is the case with more antiquated systems.
 
Great thread. I'm in a discussion elsewhere where this information is really needed even though it's costing me a couple of cyber friends. They need to come down to earth, so to speak.
 
Woolery said:
This may be true of the initial radar targets (do you have a source?), but it is inconsistent with the public testimony of Kevin Day, the radar operator onboard the Princeton that day. In his Interview with filmmaker Dave Beaty, Kevin Day describes in regards to Fravor's target that "Spy (the Princeton's radar system) tracked it (David Fravor's tic tac) all the way down to the surface." Day also said he had "the highest track quality possible." He also replayed the radar data the next day to verify the previous day's data due to how strange it appeared.

You can find this on YouTube: Interview with Kevin Day, radar operator on the USS Princeton Tic Tac Incident (16:00 time stamp)

One of the primary innovations of the AN/SPY-1A/B system is its ability to maintain a live track instead of "pinging" a target sporadically as is the case with more antiquated systems.
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A video I found which meets your description is here: Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDoLsEQayYw

(Around 16m elapsed) KEVIN DAY: 'After we saw this object drop out of the sky like it did, um, and spy tracked it perfectly all the way down to the surface, it had highest track quality possible during this whole time, it was, um, quite shocking you know.'

(Around 27m elapsed) KEVIN DAY: 'The merge plot happens, um, the object that they were intercepting drops from 28 thousand feet down to about 50 feet off the ocean in what I found out the next day was 0.78 seconds.'

That speed works out at greater than 24,400 mph, assuming it's (a) true and (b) accurate, and accepting that it might be neither.
 
banditsat12oclock said:
A video I found which meets your description is here: Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDoLsEQayYw

(Around 16m elapsed) KEVIN DAY: 'After we saw this object drop out of the sky like it did, um, and spy tracked it perfectly all the way down to the surface, it had highest track quality possible during this whole time, it was, um, quite shocking you know.'

(Around 27m elapsed) KEVIN DAY: 'The merge plot happens, um, the object that they were intercepting drops from 28 thousand feet down to about 50 feet off the ocean in what I found out the next day was 0.78 seconds.'

That speed works out at greater than 24,400 mph, assuming it's (a) true and (b) accurate, and accepting that it might be neither.
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I wish I knew more about radar and possible anomalies that might occur during normal operation. Because the only way that they can claim it was dropping at that rate, is by using radar data. And we all know that single source data is somewhat problematic. So either there is more info or even visual confirmation they dropped that fast, or we have sketchy conclusions here.
 
banditsat12oclock said:
(Around 27m elapsed) KEVIN DAY: 'The merge plot happens, um, the object that they were intercepting drops from 28 thousand feet down to about 50 feet off the ocean in what I found out the next day was 0.78 seconds.'
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So, Day is claiming that he saw with his own eyes that the alleged object was tracked "perfectly all the way down to the surface, it had highest track quality possible during this whole time." And what was "this whole time?" 0.78 seconds. So my question is: what reason do we have to accept that Day is able to tell the difference between an actual object that is tracked "perfectly" over such a short time interval, and an illusory, spurious return that disappears suddenly and then reappears at a new altitude in that same amount of time? 0.78 seconds is a short enough time that the two possibilities would likely be indistinguishable, especially within the memory of a witness who has incentive (conscious or otherwise) to confabulate.
 
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Buckaroo said:
So, Day is claiming that he saw with his own eyes that the alleged object was tracked "perfectly all the way down to the surface, it had highest track quality possible during this whole time." And what was "this whole time?" 0.78 seconds. So my question is: what reason do we have to accept that Day is able to tell the difference between an actual object that is tracked "perfectly" over such a short time interval, and an illusory, spurious return that disappears suddenly and then reappears at a new altitude in that same amount of time? 0.78 seconds is a short enough time that the two possibilities would likely be indistinguishable, especially within the memory of a witness who has incentive (conscious or otherwise) to confabulate.
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I'm not sure I understand.

Kevin Day's recall of an exact time duration (.78 seconds), indicates it came directly from the AN/SPY radar system's recorded data (unless he was using a stopwatch, or had a freakish aptitude for estimating time). And I would assume the radar's recorded data also showed that the radar did not lose its track during that time. Meaning there were intermediate altitudes continuously tracked as the target descended.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume the AN/SPY (among the most advanced radar systems in the world) can track a target continuously over roughly a second and relay that data to its operator.

Day also mentions that he reviewed the data the next day when he could objectively analyze it outside the heat of the moment since the radar data had seemed so unusual. And he found his preliminary impressions were verified.
 
Ravi said:
I wish I knew more about radar and possible anomalies that might occur during normal operation. Because the only way that they can claim it was dropping at that rate, is by using radar data. And we all know that single source data is somewhat problematic. So either there is more info or even visual confirmation they dropped that fast, or we have sketchy conclusions here.
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Would it be fair to assume if one radar system in the carrier group picked up the object the radar systems on other vessels could also have picked up the return and corroborate the movement? The AN/SPY gets talked about quite a bit but the pilots have maintained they could also occasionally track the objects via radar and they would have been using something far less advanced, comparatively speaking, like the APG-79.

Multi-system corroboration would at least get us to the point of verifying that "something" was being returned and it wasn't just some type of malfunction on one system.
 
Woolery said:
Kevin Day's recall of an exact time duration (.78 seconds), indicates it came directly from the AN/SPY radar system's recorded data (unless he was using a stopwatch, or had a freakish aptitude for estimating time). And I would assume the radar's recorded data also showed that the radar did not lose its track during that time. Meaning there were intermediate altitudes continuously tracked as the target descended.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume the AN/SPY (among the most advanced radar systems in the world) can track a target continuously over roughly a second and relay that data to its operator.
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You're making several huge assumptions here that are unwarranted if based on Day's actual words. Unless and until he elaborates about precisely how this radar signal was acquired/viewed/stored/analyzed, backed by the availability of the actual records themselves, there's no reason to take his statements from 15 years after the fact at face value. It just sounds like confabulation to me.
 
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Buckaroo said:
You're making several huge assumptions here that are unwarranted if based on Day's actual words. Unless and until he elaborates about precisely how this radar signal was acquired/viewed/stored/analyzed, backed by the availability of the actual records themselves, there's no reason to take his statements at face value. It just sounds like confabulation to me.
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Is it a huge assumption to assume Day would've operated an advanced radar in a way in which advanced radars are typically operated?

if it is, perhaps we'd do best to ignore his testimony altogether. I could certainly advocate that.
 
Where are you getting your information on how these radars are operated? If you have any information it would be really useful.
 
Woolery said:
Is it a huge assumption to assume Day would've operated an advanced radar in a way in which advanced radars are typically operated?
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The huge assumption would be that what you think must be "typical operation" is ACTUALLY the typical operation, unless you are an expert in naval radar systems (which of course you could be - but we would need some evidence to confirm this.)

Woolery said:
if it is, perhaps we'd do best to ignore his testimony altogether. I could certainly advocate that.
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This is the wisest course of action. As I've said in other threads, what these guys are now saying about the 2004 event is just noise, in the absence of any other evidence.
 
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Woolery said:
if you're truly interested in understanding Mr. Day's testimony and what he's trying to describe, and not simply trying to prove his incompetence.
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I'm not doubting his competence. I'm doubting his recollection, and his capacity as an objective witness. And given what we know about human psychology, that doubt is well-founded.

(Also, If there's specific information in these links that bears on a point you're trying to make, please state what it is. A wall of links is hard to deal with)
 
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Buckaroo said:
The huge assumption would be that what you think must be "typical operation" is ACTUALLY the typical operation, unless you are an expert in naval radar systems (which of course you could be - but we would need some evidence to confirm this.)


This is the wisest course of action. As I've said in other threads, what these guys are now saying about the 2004 event is just noise, in the absence of any other evidence.
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I agree. In regards to UFOs, Metabunk is an incredible resource for those looking to find conventional explanations for photographs, video and other optical data. The explanations given are incredibly well researched and tested. As far as trying to provide conventional explanations for eyewitness accounts in the absence of other corroborating data, it inevitably disappoints.
 
Woolery said:
http://www.scienpress.com/Upload/JCM/Vol 4_1_11.pdf

http://www.scienpress.com/Upload/JCM/Vol 4_1_11.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/modern-radar

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SPY-1

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SPY-1

There are of course countless more, but these are some of the most illuminating and I imagine you can find more information if you're truly interested in understanding Mr. Day's testimony and what he's trying to describe, and not simply trying to prove his incompetence.

Those who say Day's testimony lacks technical detail should keep in mind much of how the Princeton's radar operates and the specifics of how it displays data is still classified.
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That's an awful lot of links to an awful lot of data. For those of us who are not knowledgeable about radar systems,but ar trying to understand what you are trying to tell us, could you possibly excerpt from all that the relevant bits. That would be in accordance with the link policy as well.

Requested with the understanding that it may result in a very long post as some things cannot be summarized briefly.
 
JMartJr said:
That's an awful lot of links to an awful lot of data. For those of us who are not knowledgeable about radar systems,but ar trying to understand what you are trying to tell us, could you possibly excerpt from all that the relevant bits. That would be in accordance with the link policy as well.

Requested with the understanding that it may result in a very long post as some things cannot be summarized briefly.
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I've deleted the post in question since in your estimation it does not meet posting guidelines. Are there any other posts in this thread that might also violate those guidelines? It might be instructional if you could call those out as well.
 
Woolery said:
On what are you basing this assumption?
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I'm basing it on the fact that 3/4 sec is a very short time in the context of human perception - a literal blink of an eye. The beginning and end points of both possibilities are the same. What happens in between the points would be very easy to miss or misinterpret in such a brief period of time. It's impossible to say whether Day's account of the incident is accurate, or whether it's a case of his brain filling in the momentary gaps of perception. What we do know is that no object instantaneously accelerated to 24,000 mph in the atmosphere for a time of 3/4 of a second and then came to an instaneous stop with no other visible or audible effects.
 
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If he's watching a replay of the data then it doesn't matter, I would be asking what is the rate of return on object of the RADAR, reading about plane radars they scan azimuth left to right and up and down (bars) in S patterns, depending on the mode this happens more/less quickly based on how much area they are asked to scan, I assume but don't know that the big radars are ships are composed of multiple arrays allowing fast tracking etc in all directions, but there still must be some limits.
 
Woolery said:
I've deleted the post in question since in your estimation it does not meet posting guidelines. Are there any other posts in this thread that might also violate those guidelines? It might be instructional if you could call those out as well.
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Instead of doing that, I wish you'd shared the information. I actually did want to know.
 
Buckaroo said:
Well, if you take the "eyewitness" accounts at face value, it had no effect whatsoever on the air around it.

Which is, of course, impossible.
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There were no eyewitness accounts of the 0.78 second period under discussion. Just Day's recollection of the radar data.
 
Buckaroo said:
Well, if you take the "eyewitness" accounts at face value, it had no effect whatsoever on the air around it.

Which is, of course, impossible.
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Can you please link to the "eyewitness" who saw the rapid descent of Day's radar target and said it had no effect whatsoever on the air around it?
 
Woolery said:
Can you please link to the "eyewitness" who saw the rapid descent of Day's radar target and said it had no effect whatsoever on the air around it?
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Day states there was no sonic boom at about 14:00 in the video embedded upthread. He emphasizes that a sonic boom would be expected for an object moving as he describes. Neither was there any IR detection of the frictional heat that would occur if an object was moving that fast through the atmosphere - or if there was, no one has presented it. So both of the effects that would occur if a real object behaved like Day claims were absent, or undetected.
 
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Buckaroo said:
Day states there was no sonic boom at about 14:00 in the video embedded upthread. He emphasizes that a sonic boom would be expected for an object moving as he describes. Neither was there any IR detection of the frictional heat that would occur if an object was moving that fast through the atmosphere - or if there was, no one has presented it. So both of the effects that would occur if a real object behaved like Day claims were absent, or undetected.
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Thanks. Much appreciated.

I am interested to hear your reasoning behind accepting Day's recollection of no sonic boom (though Day's ship was not at the merge plot, and he was operating a radar while listening to comms on a headset within a noisy ship), but rejecting Day's assertions in regards to the AN/SPY's capability to display and record the data he describes seeing both in real-time and during a subsequent review.

I know you've said that recollections are fallible (as anyone's would be), so it would help me to know how you determine which recollections you choose as trustworthy.
 
Woolery said:
I am interested to hear your reasoning behind accepting Day's recollection of no sonic boom (though Day's ship was not at the merge plot, and he was operating a radar while listening to comms on a headset within a noisy ship), but rejecting Day's assertions in regards to the AN/SPY's capability to display and record the data he describes seeing both in real-time and during a subsequent review.
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There's a big difference in evidentiary requirements between the neutral statement "I am unaware of a thing" and the positive assertion "a thing happened." There's little reason to doubt him when he says he didn't hear a sonic boom, and whether or not he heard it would have little bearing on whether there was a boom. Conversely, there is reason to doubt him when he says that the radar system that he was monitoring demonstrated that an object accelerated to 24,000 mph instantaneously in the atmosphere. Since no object with such qualities exists, it's not surprising that no one reported a sonic boom, so I see no reason to take a hard line with the statement that there wasn't one. But in any case, I did say if the witness's accounts were taken at face value, which I don't, so I'm not too concerned either way.
 
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Amber Robot said:
Makes you wonder what would happen to the air when an object going about Mach 30 passes through it...
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Indeed... especially high density air at sea level as opposed to the typical operational altitudes of hypersonic vehicles, e.g. 'The Space Shuttle and other re-entry vehicles pass though the hypersonic regime when entering the atmosphere (80 km/262,000 ft altitude) at Mach 20+ and decelerate during the dive.' (Source: https://www.japcc.org/hypersonic-vehicles/)

That said, former DNI John Ratcliffe, in his interview with Maria Bartiromo, alleges, '...we're talking about objects that have been seen by navy or air force pilots or have been picked up by satellite imagery that... exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.'

We have to assume, of course, that Ratcliffe's being (a) honest, (b) accurate, and (c) referring to objects travelling within the Earth's atmosphere, and getting that trifecta is probably a big ask.

That said, the answer to that barrier/boom conundrum, is, perhaps, Eric W. Davis's ''low-energy warp bubbles'', but 'tis all speculation from there on out, ad infinitum...
 
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banditsat12oclock said:
That said, former DNI John Ratcliffe, in his interview with Maria Bartiromo, alleges, '...we're talking about objects that have been seen by navy or air force pilots or have been picked up by satellite imagery that... exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.'
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Got a source link for that?
I'm curious to hear where they said the saw objects breaking the sound barrier without sonic boom, as seen in satellite images. Trying to get my head around that
 
Mick West said:
The vastly simpler answer is that it didn't happen, and the radar returns were wrong.
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Indeed, Mick. One could make the case, though, that simplicity doesn't necessarily equal veracity (lots of things are complicated or out of the ordinary yet totally real, for example), but I accept the point that simpler explanations are more likely.

Purely for clarity's sake, it would be nice to have an unbiased radar ''expert'' comment on the matter.
 
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@banditsat12oclock

Yeah, he is just re-spieling what others have said. The thing is , when other have spoken about object going faster than sound without a sonic boom, or going unbelievable speed. From what I have seen, they were always talking about radar data. A lot of time it's in training areas.

The thing is, a number of things can explain radar showing stuff like that. One thing for example, is that radar spoofing tech is a very real thing that has existed since almost when radar was created. Think about how many people have seen this on their radar scope and what they put it down to. Unfortunately , you can't always trust radar data. Especially in todays time where Electronic Warfare is at the frontline of modern day military capability
 
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banditsat12oclock said:
That said, the answer to that barrier/boom conundrum, is, perhaps, Eric W. Davis's ''low-energy warp bubbles'', but 'tis all speculation from there on out, ad infinitum...
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Davis could've just said the answer is "magic," and avoided the need to string together meaningless techno-babble from Star Trek. But I suppose it does sound sciencey...
 
Dropping from 80K to sea level, no sonic boom?

What this sounds like to me is Electronic Warfare / Electronic Countermeasures.
He stated they ended up seeing targets moving slowly south and in a group if I remember correctly.
Could be recon balloons, or balloons fitted with radar jamming equipment - one of the goals of EW, is to paint false targets on the enemies radar....and no doubt this was a false target and or information presented on the radar.
This was a relatively new radar system - and its possible it was unknown how this system would pick up the false returns from the balloon or drone that was being tracked. This may have been a electronic game being played here.

To Micks point and quote below:
The vastly simpler answer is that it didn't happen, and the radar returns were wrong.

Wrong because it was being spoofed by Electronic countermeasures painting a false target. That may be an explanation.
 
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