Fravor's Hypersonic UFO observation. Parallax Illusion? Comparing Accounts

Itsme said:
Their general flight pattern is erratic or jerky, resembling the flight of hummingbirds, that dart hither and yon, hover temporarily, suddenly change altitude, and then zoom out of sight with astonishing swiftness.
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honestly that sounds like survivor bias

if a flying object does not appear to move strangely, it is much less likely to be reported
which is why many unidentified reported objects appear to move strangely

unfortunately that means you have now learned something about the reporters and nothing about the flying objects
 
Itsme said:
Or you can try to eliminate this "memory noise" by searching for common patterns among eye witness testimony instead of trying to dissect a single one.
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Even memory noise elimination process has serious limitations, as shown in psychologist Chris French's review study on false memories in which he reviewed studies on four types of cases of false memories.

Article:
This article will focus on the reliability of accounts of anomalous events from individuals who are sincere in presenting those accounts.

. . .

(1) Cases where a normal episode is generally agreed to have taken place, but eyewitnesses disagree over details of what happened. (2) Cases where an apparently paranormal episode is generally agreed to have taken place, but eyewitnesses disagree over details of what happened. (3) Cases where there is a doubt as to whether a sincerely remembered normal episode ever took place at all. (4) Cases where a sincerely 'remembered' episode can be shown never to have taken place, but is entirely the product of an experimental procedure of one kind or another.


Under the first category of cases French reviews some of the relevant research conducted as regards multiple eyewitnesses who have discussed the event with each other as well as multiple witnesses having independently witnessed and reported the same event:

External Quote:
Understandably, investigators often have more faith in an eyewitness account if it appears to be supported by an account of the same incident from another eyewitness. However, it is very likely to be the case that witnesses will have discussed the incident amongst themselves before ever being formally interviewed by investigators. In the light of findings from research on conformity, we might expect that witnesses will influence each other's reports to a greater or lesser extent. Recent experimental work (e.g., Gabbert et al., in press, submitted) has shown that this is indeed the case. In a sense, such research on misinformation effects provides a link between that dealing mainly with naturally arising memory distortions for witnessed events and that dealing primarily with false memories for events that never actually took place at all.

. . .

For example, even under perfect viewing conditions, our memories of what we saw may be highly influenced by our view of what we think we must have seen. French and Richards (1993) showed participants an ordinary clock face with Roman numerals under perfect viewing conditions for an extended period. Participants were asked to draw the clock face from memory. They tended to represent the four as 'IV' in line with their general expectations of Roman numerals. In fact, however, the four on clocks and watches is almost always represented as 'IIII'. Most people are quite surprised when this is first pointed out to them, as they reflect upon the literally thousands of occasions they must have looked at clocks and watches without noticing this oddity. Even thousands of exposures to a simple stimulus under perfect viewing conditions may not be enough to lead to accurate recall.

Studies have typically involved assessing the recall of eyewitnesses for staged events, either using live action or video presentation. When we are able to assess witness reports against some form of objective record, it becomes clear that both perception and memory are constructive processes, influenced not only by input from the senses ('bottom-up' influences) but by our own knowledge, belief and expectations about the world ('top-down' influences).

French also reviewed research demonstrating that 'flashbulb memories' are prone to error:

External Quote:
Another relevant example is provided by so-called 'flashbulb memories' (Brown & Kulik, 1977). It was once believed that certain highly emotional events could lead to memories that were highly vivid and accurate. Classic examples include people's highly confident reports of where they were, whom they were with and what they were doing when they learned of some dramatic news story, such the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Subsequent research in which participants were questioned soon after such dramatic events, and then again after a long delay, has shown that even flashbulb memories can often be inaccurate, no matter how confidently they are described (see, e.g., Neisser & Harsch, 1993, pp. 9–31, for a study of flashbulb memories of the Challenger disaster).
 
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Mendel said:
honestly that sounds like survivor bias

if a flying object does not appear to move strangely, it is much less likely to be reported
which is why many unidentified reported objects appear to move strangely

unfortunately that means you have now learned something about the reporters and nothing about the flying objects
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That's a bold claim. Can you tell me what it says about the reporters, so we can check your claim with the data?
 
Itsme said:
That's a bold claim. Can you tell me what it says about the reporters, so we can check your claim with the data?
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It's common sense...I was walking home yesterday when a jet-black 'spheroid' passed silently overhead. I didn't report it to the RAF, because it moved in a straight line accross the sky, in exactly the way bin-bags do on a breezy day.

I did have my phone in my hand but it was moving too quickly accross the visible section of sky (I was between buildings and I am useless with my phone) so I missed the shot.

While I was hopeful of capturing the image to post hereabouts, I had no expectation that it represented 'first contact' or even a 'black-project'...Just a bin-bag, seen out of context.
 
Sgt.Squarehead said:
It's common sense...I was walking home yesterday when a jet-black 'spheroid' passed silently overhead. I didn't report it to the RAF, because it moved in a straight line accross the sky, in exactly the way bin-bags do on a breezy day.

I did have my phone in my hand but it was moving too quickly accross the visible section of sky (I was between buildings and I am useless with my phone) so I missed the shot.

While I was hopeful of capturing the image to post hereabouts, I had no expectation that it represented 'first contact' or even a 'black-project'...Just a bin-bag, seen out of context.
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?? That makes as much sense as saying "I had covid, it was just like the common cold so all these stories about people hospitalised because of it must be either based on misdiagnosis or the nocebo effect". But I assume you already realize that yourself, which implies you're dodging the question.
 
TBH I have no idea of what you are saying there...But it sounds like you are suggesting that I should report to the RAF something that I very strongly suspected to be a wind-carried plastic bag, on the off-chance that it might be ET...How does that help the cause of UFO research?
 
  1. Has any interview with Fravor's WSO been published anywhere?
  2. Is the "discernible midline horizontal axis" part of the tic tac description just language from the I-Team? Never seen that repeated by Fravor, Alex or Slaight, so is it wrong?
 
TopBunk said:
  1. Has any interview with Fravor's WSO been published anywhere?
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AFAIK, he hasn't talked publicly about this anywhere. The Executive Report seems to contain some written statements by him (LT something, referred with he/his).

TopBunk said:
  1. Is the "discernible midline horizontal axis" part of the tic tac description just language from the I-Team? Never seen that repeated by Fravor, Alex or Slaight, so is it wrong?
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Those are Fravor's words from the same Executive Report. If you mean that by I-Team, they just published that document. It originates from AATIP/BAASS.

I just tried to ask about that statement from Dietrich today:

Source: https://twitter.com/ParabunkBlog/status/1416840703162859521


She liked my question. So in effort to provide you all the information I have gained about that, I liked your questions.
 
Fravors WSO has a high up role in the NAVY and is still with them.
So until he resigns , I don't think we will hear from him.

Same with the pilot from Chad Underwoods jet, she is still in the NAVY from memory
 
Some more from Alex today about what she saw

1626682592251.png
 
Parabunk said:
She liked my question. So in effort to provide you all the information I have gained about that, I liked your questions.
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She also 'liked' a tweet of mine, addressed to her. Then, while I was still basking in contentment, she also liked a tweet by someone else which violently disagreed with mine. I guess she has her account automated with a default setting to 'like' all tweets addressed to her. I'm not sure how you can do that (I don't think it's an 'official' Twitter option), because it would never occur to me to do it! Apart from anything else, you would run the risk of 'liking' racist or libellous tweets, which could let you in for a whole world of pain.
 
Has anyone got any theory for the 'heat wave' effect that Jim Slaight reported seeing "around the entire surfaces" of the object? It's interesting to me as it implies it must've been fairly pronounced in order for Slaight to see it depending on how close the Dietrich/Slaight F-18 was from the object. But then it's not something Fravor has ever mentioned [unless someone knows different]. I asked Alex Dietrich about it on Twitter and she said that although she didn't see the 'wavy' effect herself it was something that was brought up by others after the encounter took place, presumably back on the Nimitz. [IMO, Slaight's account, if true, makes the parallax 'balloon' theory extremely unlikely to be correct.]
 
DavidB66 said:
I guess she has her account automated with a default setting to 'like' all tweets addressed to her.
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i often like comments on MB, just to indicate that i read them and acknowledge the feedback i got. if someone answers me, it seems rude to just ignore them.
 
jackfrostvc said:
Some more from Alex today about what she saw

View attachment 46012
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I never really understood where the "ping pong" movement Fravor described was supposed to happen, but my impression was that it was somewhere near the beginning,

External Quote:
"When helicopters move side to side, they kinda slow, and then they pick up speed going the other way," he said. "This was extremely abrupt, like a ping-pong ball, bouncing off a wall. It would hit and go the other way."
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...-like-a-ping-pong-ball-former-navy-pilot-says

So it seems to have ping ponged when moving north to south, east to west over the white water. After this is the portion of the encounter Fravor described as "relatively benign", where he gently descended as the object gently ascended, after which it 'shot off like a bullet from the barrel of a gun' as he cut across the circle. This "linear then funky chicken dance" account is not consistent with that.

Whether the explanation is a balloon or missile or whatever, it seems definitive that parallax illusions affected the observations of some or all of the pilots.
 
markus said:
I never really understood where the "ping pong" movement Fravor described was supposed to happen, but my impression was that it was somewhere near the beginning,

External Quote:
"When helicopters move side to side, they kinda slow, and then they pick up speed going the other way," he said. "This was extremely abrupt, like a ping-pong ball, bouncing off a wall. It would hit and go the other way."
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...-like-a-ping-pong-ball-former-navy-pilot-says

So it seems to have ping ponged when moving north to south, east to west over the white water. After this is the portion of the encounter Fravor described as "relatively benign", where he gently descended as the object gently ascended, after which it 'shot off like a bullet from the barrel of a gun' as he cut across the circle. This "linear then funky chicken dance" account is not consistent with that.

Whether the explanation is a balloon or missile or whatever, it seems definitive that parallax illusions affected the observations of some or all of the pilots.
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According to Fravor's accounts, the ping pong movement is right at the beginning of the visual. It marks the start of his 5 minute visual engagement, which then proceeds to include a slow 300 knot circular descent.

During that descent, the Tic Tac stops moving back and forth, and begins to "mirror" him, flying on the opposite side of the circle.

At some point (apparently 4 minutes and 50 seconds into the visual contact) Fravor drops his nose and cuts the circle to intercept the Tic Tac in what both he and Dietrich have called an "aggressive maneuver."

Dietrich said in her interview with Mick her 10 second visual was Fravor's 10 second aggressive engagement. She said she was "confident" of this.

Dietrich is saying essentially the opposite as Fravor about the timing of the Tic Tac's erratic movement: She saw the object moving over the whitewater in a line at a very fast speed first... and then said the object started to make movements that did make sense.

Fravor is saying the visual started with erratic movements... and then the Tic Tac began "flying" in a circular path before disappearing.
 
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Both seem to agree on the trajectory of Fravor's jet. Is 10 seconds long enough to perform the maneuver they've both described?

IIRC Fravor says his flight maneuver was in reaction to the churning water and he only noticed the tic-tac bouncing around after he started descending.
 
Alphadunk said:
Both seem to agree on the trajectory of Fravor's jet.
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Not at all. Dietrich describes Fravor turning and swooping down to engage aggressively right as she starts her visual. She says that took 10 seconds, which corresponds with her entire visual.

There is no long, slow, 5 minute, 300 knot descent in Dietrich's account.

Alphadunk said:
IIRC Fravor says his flight maneuver was in reaction to the churning water and he only noticed the tic-tac bouncing around after he started descending.
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Fravor specifically says he's "going in" to investigate the Tic Tac. Dietrich, in radio contact with Fravor, says she will "stay up high." This is quick in Dietrich's account.

There are now intractable problems with the timelines.

No one sees anything until after "merge plot" is called. Dietrich sees the object going fast and in a straight line over the water disturbance. Fravor sees the object moving back and forth, north & south, east & west over the water disturbance.

Fravor says they all saw it for 5 minutes. Dietrich says she saw if for 8-10 seconds.
 
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Theferäl said:
Has anyone got any theory for the 'heat wave' effect that Jim Slaight reported seeing "around the entire surfaces" of the object? It's interesting to me as it implies it must've been fairly pronounced in order for Slaight to see it depending on how close the Dietrich/Slaight F-18 was from the object. But then it's not something Fravor has ever mentioned [unless someone knows different]. I asked Alex Dietrich about it on Twitter and she said that although she didn't see the 'wavy' effect herself it was something that was brought up by others after the encounter took place, presumably back on the Nimitz. [IMO, Slaight's account, if true, makes the parallax 'balloon' theory extremely unlikely to be correct.]
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I haven't followed this story closely, but I noticed someone on Twitter yesterday referring to Slaight's 'statement' as something new. I hadn't seen it before, and on first reading the main question that occurred to me was 'how could Slaight possibly observe all this detail?' If I understand the set-up correctly, Slaight was in the WSO seat behind the pilot (Dietrich). Their plane was initially cruising at between 10,000 and 20,000 feet, accompanying Fravor. Then Fravor descended (either fast or gradually, depending on the account) to take a closer look at the mystery object, while Dietrich and Slaight stayed at a higher level, and observed the encounter between Fravor and the object. (I think Dietrich herself has said they 'stayed up high'.) If this is correct, they were never in a position to get a close up view of the object. If they stayed above 10,000 feet, they would probably have been at least 2 miles away at all times From that distance, how much detail could anyone see with the naked eye, even the legendary eyesight of a Top Gun pilot? At 2 miles, a linear object of 40 feet would only span a visual angle of about 0.2 of a degree. Moreover, in level flight wouldn't the WSO have a rather restricted field of view? In the 'Batman balloon' photos, taken by the WSO in a similar plane, the WSO didn't have a view of much below and in front of the plane. But maybe Slaight had a better view if the plane banked and turned.
As for the statement that there was 'no noise or sound' from the object, what would you expect to hear from that distance in the cockpit of a jet plane, and probably wearing earphones?
 
DavidB66 said:
At 2 miles, a linear object of 40 feet would only span a visual angle of about 0.2 of a degree. Moreover, in level flight wouldn't the WSO have a rather restricted field of view?
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I think you've made valid points. I just wanted to add that Dietrich has stated her plane was banked so their field of view was presumably clear to facilitate having eyes physically on Fravor and his mysterious prey.
 
While collecting examples of parachute flare 'UFO' sightings, I stumbled upon a short interview with a helicopter pilot which rang a bell because there were parallels with Fravor's account.

Here is the transcript of the snippet:

External Quote:
Ricotta: So every time somebody called in a UFO, they send us up to, go up find out what it was or chase it down

Narrator: Tom Ricotta is a pilot and formerly of the [San Diego] Sheriff Department's aerial recon team

[...]

Narrator: Ricotta remembers his favourite UFO call:

Ricotta: Every time we got close it shot away, and [we] couldn't figure it out, we couldn't bring up the 3 1/2 million candlepower light to shine on it 'cause it was outclimbing us.
Finally I got above it and shine the light down on it and [it] turned out it was a balloon with a candle in it, and every time I got close the water (?) rotor wash had blown it away [chuckle]



Source: https://youtu.be/VDs4b_eiqJE?t=59
 
I wanted to take another look at the so-called Executive Report on the 'tic tac', which is often referred to in this thread, but when I tried my bookmarked link all I got was a 'website expired' notice:

https://thevault.tothestarsacademy.com/tictacreport/tag/AAV

I dare say the report is still available from some other source, but on a quick search I didn't find one. If anyone knows a live link I would be grateful, and this time I will copy the thing for future reference!
 
DavidB66 said:
I wanted to take another look at the so-called Executive Report on the 'tic tac', which is often referred to in this thread, but when I tried my bookmarked link all I got was a 'website expired' notice:

https://thevault.tothestarsacademy.com/tictacreport/tag/AAV

I dare say the report is still available from some other source, but on a quick search I didn't find one. If anyone knows a live link I would be grateful, and this time I will copy the thing for future reference!
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https://web.archive.org/web/2019092...lt.tothestarsacademy.com/tictacreport/tag/AAV
 
Mendel said:
f you know the URL, simply use that with the Wayback Machine.
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Thanks, I'll remember that. I use the Internet Archive a lot for out-of-copyright books, but for some reason I had never used the Wayback Machine. When I tried it this time, it gave the prompt to 'enter URL or key words', and as I didn't have a URL ready I entered some keywords like 'nimitz ufo executive report', which didn't give any useful results. In fact, if I had used that phrase in Google I would probably have noticed this, which also gives a full text of the report:

https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/20743466-nimitz-unredacted/?embed=1&responsive=1&title=1
 
ventsyv said:
Don't know if anyone has seen this: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...are-encountering-be-airborne-radar-reflectors

This might explain the weird radar signatures and might even explain what Fravor saw by the water ( a sub that was releasing a balloon).
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You sir are very close to the answer for this anomaly. It's actually a hologram. This has been in use by the military since at least the 90's.

And before I get any reflex naysaying, just think about it for a minute and try to imagine any detail of this story that a hologram wouldn't explain.
 
Granite said:
try to imagine any detail of this story that a hologram wouldn't explain.
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the detail that the UAP appeared out on the sea, away from any projection surface, and away from any projector to utilize the surface that does not exist, can't be explained by the hologram idea.
 
Granite said:
You sir are very close to the answer for this anomaly. It's actually a hologram. This has been in use by the military since at least the 90's.

And before I get any reflex naysaying, just think about it for a minute and try to imagine any detail of this story that a hologram wouldn't explain.
Click to expand...

Holograms do not exist in open air. Sorry.
 
Granite said:
You sir are very close to the answer for this anomaly. It's actually a hologram. This has been in use by the military since at least the 90's.

And before I get any reflex naysaying, just think about it for a minute and try to imagine any detail of this story that a hologram wouldn't explain.
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A 'hologram', broadly conceived as some sort of 3d projection, can only add light, it cannot subtract it. So one of the key observations -- that the object appeared to have a white shell or candy coating -- seems difficult to explain with this model.
Ravi said:
Holograms do not exist in open air. Sorry.
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Well, yes, but there exist technologies which can project light at a distance. One example is to use lasers to ionize air, another is to use a proton beam (the Bragg peak would make nearly all protons crash at a controllable distance in the air, likely resulting in a glowing plasma ball, possibly stretched into a tic-tac depending on how close to monochromatic the beam is). The problem with the laser theory is that AFAICT it'd be very short-ranged, and the problem with the proton beam is it requires a fairly bulky particle accelerator, something at least comparable to a medical LINAC. That said, while there is documented precedent for tests of military applications of particle accelerators as part of the SDI, such as some rocket-launched neutral particle beams meant to shoot down ICBMs, I don't think there's any actual evidence of proton beams being used to generate spoofed targets. I'd be very interested to see it if it exists.

As above, a problem with both theories is what you get in the end is a glowing ball thing, not a white candy-coated solid-looking object. And, of course, while these ideas don't violate the laws of physics, which renders them more likely than the advanced propulsion hypothesis, they're still pretty exotic as far as these things go, and don't really seem to offer any explanatory advantage over simpler theories together with the assumption of a (completely understandable) observational error by the witnesses.
 
@markus

Indeed these accelerated particle beams are interesting!
I was just triggered by the pure definition of a hologram, meaning it is "(re)creating wavefronts by optical interference using a laser", which is dissimilar to projection, obviously.
 
Ravi said:
Holograms do not exist in open air. Sorry.
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Word usage alas evolves in ways that can muddy communication. I think ever since /Star Wars: A New Hope/, probably before, "hologram" has come to also mean anything with a 3D appearance, and not the Nobel-Prize-winning sciency thing that uses a solid substrate and interference therein. And because more people watch sci-fi than hang around in physics labs, the dominant use of the term seems to be now "spooky 3D image in open air", with no explanatory mechanism offered or demanded, and basically lacking any proof of exisistence in the real world. So I'd replace your rebuttal with "what physical mechanism do you propose for such a hologram - what is the emitter within the image of the energy seen, what is the source of that energy, and how are the parts that emit energy differentiated from the parts that do not?". Alas, you'll probably lose half your audience with that line.
 
Another way to approach, "what physical mechanism do you propose for such a hologram - what is the emitter within the image of the energy seen, what is the source of that energy, and how are the parts that emit energy differentiated from the parts that do not?" might be just to say "Can you explain how that works in this case? Because if you can't explain how it works, it seems lkike you are just saying "hologram" in place of saying "and then magic happens," and that is not really a useful answer." Might lose fewer of your audience if you invite your opponent to start talking techno-speak rather than going there yourself. You can always come back to asking about emitters and energy sources if they DO decide to try and bluff their way through a technical explanation, to pin them down.
 
Yup, good point, try your one first, and if they attempt to answer it without resorting to magic, mine are starting points where you can drill down. I never claimed to offer good advice - in fact, most of what I gibber should come with a health warning. Definitely not to be used in enclosed spaces or around pets or children!
 
I found this quote from Ryan Graves about estimating size in the sky:

KR: How big was it?

RG: It's very difficult to describe how big things are in the air, because there's very little reference, right? You can look up at a cloud and be like, oh, that little puffer is gonna, you know, that plane right there is gonna fly through that tiny puffy cloud or behind it, and then it flies front of it. You realize that cloud is like forty miles long. It's extremely difficult. You know, he threw some numbers out like twenty, thirty feet, but it's hard to say with any accuracy how big it actually was.
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Source: https://www.ufojoe.net/graves-transcript/

Context: He was asked about the size of the sphere with the cube

Fravor himself said in his interview with Lex Fridman that the navy teaches you to not trust your eyes and you need to rely on sensors.

However, when challenged about a possible misidentification of characteristics of an unknown object, he was handling it in a very narcissistic kinda way, acting as if thats not an option because hes so highly trained (paraphrasing).

Meanwhile RG states you can misjudge a 40 mile long cloud for "a tiny puffer".

I believe its safe to assume that the reported size of the tic tac is highly uncertain, which increases the feasibility of a parallax hypothesis.

having different perceptions of size and distance could drastically increase the perceived magnitude of the erratic ping pong maneuvers as well.
 
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What is the flight time for an Fa-18 ?
I know it might range based on the possibility of fuel pods or whatever, but it would be good to know the min and max flight times for FA-18
 
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