"GO FAST" Footage from Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy. Bird? Balloon?

[Z.W. Wolf]

Pelicanist!

I get it. Obscure reference.

 

[jarlrmai]

So the UFO fan read of this is AARO say than faster wind speed in all directions, no visible means of propulsion = UFO.

How are AARO so confident it is moving greater than wind speed?

Surely they only have approximate measurements for object relative speed (single digit angles at a long range) and wind speed at the altitude time and place, and 5mph is listed as one of the speeds, so it moving at wind speed is still in the range of possibilities and margins of error and should be mentioned?

They even mention these factors in their appendices

The aircraft's exact location and heading (compass direction) during the recording are unknown.

The sensor pod display shows most of these values as integers, limiting the fidelity of the initial calculations.1

Also no mention of the range and how it was measured.

 

[jarlrmai]

Additionally they provide this map this might be the approximate actual location as it is in the area near the Jacksonville naval air station the FA/18's operated from.

 

[TheCholla]

They mention that it may have moved at wind speed in the conclusion. But yeah in that case they should include it in their range of estimated intrinsic speed (have the lower bound at 0).

I don't think it's been thoroughly reviewed as there are typos and errors in the references.

 

[TheCholla]

Additionally they provide this map this might be the approximate actual location as it is in the area near the Jacksonville naval air station the FA/18's operated from.

View attachment 77118

I thought they may show us a more precise location at first, before I noticed the mention "Location and path lengths are notional and not to scale".

However they mention having a time and general location, from which they estimate wind ("approximately 101 kts" must be a typo because this is actually very precise).

I wonder if they had more data on time/location than the vague information we have. I imagine at the minimum they had access to the unredacted version of the range fouler report, which would possibly provide this more precisely.

From the wind speed they infer at 25,000 and 13,000ft, I think the evening of January 24th is the best match. The dates of January 20/21 that were provided by the Pentagon through FOIA simply don't match (see my previous posts showing wind at these dates). That would be consistent with the metadata and encoding dates of early January 25 UTC, the night following the flight.

 

[jarlrmai]

So there's absolutely no way they can produce detailed speeds like they've done here, I'm sorry but AARO is just poor.

The most logical thing is a balloon at wind speed, but they seemingly preclude it then mention it as a possibility, far more likely it's a balloon than a bird or a drone, given the probable RADAR return for range.

 

[MapperGuy]

So there's absolutely no way they can produce detailed speeds like they've done here, I'm sorry but AARO is just poor.

The most logical thing is a balloon at wind speed, but they seemingly preclude it then mention it as a possibility, far more likely it's a balloon than a bird or a drone, given the probable RADAR return for range.

They definitely should have shown error bars on their graphs. 2.5 mph above wind speed is, I would guess, well within the margin of error.

 

[Mendel]

So there's absolutely no way they can produce detailed speeds like they've done here, I'm sorry but AARO is just poor.

You can get these numbers from a metereological model such as earth.nullschool.net . They're approximate, as stated.

 

[Calter]

A common theme that I find when people complain about official government analyses of these UFO videos is that they generally work with pretty much the same data that was already public, which leads to them basically stating the same debunk that had already been going around for years. There's always an expectation that these analyses will involve AARO or NASA just bringing up secret/classified information from years ago that will finally shed more light into the situation.

But genuine question that perhaps someone more familiar with the military might know, how likely is that any of this information would have ever existed or even lasted several years?

As a relevant example, AARO mentions

The only data available to AARO from the "Go Fast" event were from a compressed Windows Media File (.wmv) [ref 4]. The recording's metadata does not contain the F/A-18's georeferenced position and heading, which are necessary to determine the UAP's absolute position and flight characteristics.

Which is honestly what I would personally expect from a weird video nearly a decade old recorded during training, but I also have no experience in data storing for militaries.

 

[Ann K]

So there's absolutely no way they can produce detailed speeds like they've done here, I'm sorry but AARO is just poor.

The most logical thing is a balloon at wind speed, but they seemingly preclude it then mention it as a possibility, far more likely it's a balloon than a bird or a drone, given the probable RADAR return for range.

Is it? If I were out at sea I'd expect to see birds far more often than balloons.

 

[FatPhil]

So there's absolutely no way they can produce detailed speeds like they've done here, I'm sorry but AARO is just poor.

The most logical thing is a balloon at wind speed, but they seemingly preclude it then mention it as a possibility, far more likely it's a balloon than a bird or a drone, given the probable RADAR return for range.

Is your complaint about the accuracy, or the precision? I agree that they should state their error bars more clearly, and why they are what they claim, but there's nothing intrinsically wrong with expected errors not just being in the final significant digit; in physics, they can sometimes cover every digit. There's no way round the issue - they're adding vectors with no way of knowing if they reinforce, are perpendicular, or cancel.

 

[jarlrmai]

They just run the numbers and make it seem like they are 100% accurate for wind speed, when they don't know the exact position of the jet and are going from historical weather data that's estimated and not calculated in the moment at that point in time.

It's almost like the SCU saying oh we took Kevin Days recollection of the radar screen and UFOs use a x terawatts of power, its taking bad numbers and making calculations that yes, make mathematical sense and presenting them as facts, but they need to do some detective work as well as maths.

They should talk to the pilots or look at the mission logs and work out the direction they were travelling in surely the mission, or if they cannot then they need to state that they tried that and could not ascertain it. But they are the only people that can attempt that. Why can these GIMBAL and Go Fast pilots not be talked to by AARO? They leave Graves to fill the narrative.

My understanding from Graves stuff is the they were on the way back from a training mission so maybe it's more likely to be them travelling back to Virginia beach and the Naval air station there?

They need to address how the range is calculated, is my whole issue with Go Fast analysis we don't know and might change the options for the object, they need to talk to experts on ATFLIR and FA/18 RADARs at the time with the specific models in use, they are the only people who care about this video with the full authorised access to talk to them and get the specs for the actual aircraft.

Is the range from RADAR? If not how is the range worked out? Would a bird or a drone be tracked by the radar to the level of being able to provide a range, if the range is not from radar where is it from, it's a key clue/question that helps solve the problem. It seems highly unlikely if it's a drone it's a non military drone at 13,000 feet out over the ocean back in 2014.

In the end by listing figures that indicate powered flight they seemingly preclude balloon leave open bird and drone as the options and each has issues given the other facts about the video (radar? range track, cold heat signature)

A more honest and less misleading approach would be to state you are unsure about aircraft direction but a wind blown object is within parameters.

 

[MonkeeSage]

As a relevant example, AARO mentions

The only data available to AARO from the "Go Fast" event were from a compressed Windows Media File (.wmv) [ref 4]. The recording's metadata does not contain the F/A-18's georeferenced position and heading, which are necessary to determine the UAP's absolute position and flight characteristics.

Which is honestly what I would personally expect from a weird video nearly a decade old recorded during training, but I also have no experience in data storing for militaries.

Per 50 U.S. Code § 3373(f)(1)(A) they should have access to any other relevant data, if such were to exist:

The Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the Secretary of Defense, shall ensure that each element of the intelligence community with data relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena makes such data available immediately to the Office.

Source: https://law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3373#f

So if more data about this case does exist someone would have to be breaking the law by withholding it from AARO.

Is the range from RADAR? If not how is the range worked out? Would a bird or a drone be tracked by the radar to the level of being able to provide a range, if the range is not from radar where is it from, it's a key clue/question that helps solve the problem. It seems highly unlikely if it's a drone it's a non military drone at 13,000 feet out over the ocean back in 2014.

Isn't that what they are specifying here? Page 6 of the report:

To estimate the UAP speed, the first step was to determine its location at two positions separated
by a known time period. For this, the range to the target must be known. From 4232 seconds
until the end of the video, the tracker acquired a target track on the UAP, enabling the range to
be reported. Within this portion AARO focused its analysis on a 13-second excerpt from the
footage between 4239 seconds ("t1") and 4252 seconds ("t2"). AARO selected this segment
because, between t1 and t2, the aircraft's bank angle, altitude, and airspeed remained nearly
constant. This simplified the estimation of the F/A-18 flight characteristics due to the reduced
number of variables. At t1, the F/A-18's range to the UAP was 4.0 NM and closed in range to
3.4 NM at t2

 

[jdog]

Per 50 U.S. Code § 3373(f)(1)(A) they should have access to any other relevant data, if such were to exist:

The Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the Secretary of Defense, shall ensure that each element of the intelligence community with data relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena makes such data available immediately to the Office.

Source: https://law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3373#f

So if more data about this case does exist someone would have to be breaking the law by withholding it from AARO.

"Withholding" data is one thing; not knowing you have relevant information from 2015 stashed in a pile of hard drives in some warehouse is another.

I do wonder what level of curiousity needs to be satisfied? How much time and government money is it worth trying to narrow down the low information zone on cases like this? (I do wonder what process lead to the creation of this WMV file and who named it.)

 

[MonkeeSage]

"Withholding" data is one thing; not knowing you have relevant information from 2015 stashed in a pile of hard drives in some warehouse is another.

That's a fair point. In some other cases, some of the people involved have claimed that hard drives or data collection devices were confiscated after the incident. I don't recall hearing that about this case, but I could be misremembering.

I do wonder what level of curiousity needs to be satisfied? How much time and government money is it worth trying to narrow down the low information zone on cases like this? (I do wonder what process lead to the creation of this WMV file and who named it.)

Just prior to resigning Lue Elizondo submitted a DD Form 1910 requesting three videos be cleared for release, which he titled as "GoFast"; "Gimble"; "FLIR". The same three videos that were given to Chris Mellon by Elizondo and then leaked to The New York Times in 2017.

https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/inside-the-pentagons-release-of-three-ufo-videos/

Elizondo talks about a secret share folder in Imminent, p. 214 "I also gave him access to our share folder on the OUSD(I) classified share drive." This may have been the only location where the video was stored.

The form describes them as ".mpg File (x3)" though, not .wmv, so the released video may have also been transcoded to WMV from the original. The AARO report doesn't make it clear if the released file was directly produced by the platform or had been subject to further processing.

p. 5

Video footage collected via military sensors, like the AN/ASQ, are not required to collect Full-Motion Video (FMV) or other Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) products. Therefore, it is not intended to support intelligence or other rigorous analysis. Thus, video footage from these platforms often contains compression artifacts or lacks the necessary metadata to conduct an exhaustive analysis.

Source: https://www.aaro.mil/Portals/136/PD...st_Case_Resolution_Card_Methodology_Final.pdf

 

[jarlrmai]

Isn't that what they are specifying here? Page 6 of the report:

No, it very much isn't that, what is needed is HOW did the jet's systems know the range the calculations are based on.

The answer would be very useful in determining what the object could be.

 

[jdog]

That's a fair point. In some other cases, some of the people involved have claimed that hard drives or data collection devices were confiscated after the incident. I don't recall hearing that about this case, but I could be misremembering.


Just prior to resigning Lue Elizondo submitted a DD Form 1910 requesting three videos be cleared for release, which he titled as "GoFast"; "Gimble"; "FLIR". The same three videos that were given to Chris Mellon by Elizondo and then leaked to The New York Times in 2017.

https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/inside-the-pentagons-release-of-three-ufo-videos/

Interesting, but I don't think it answers the question I meant to ask. There was some process by which the footage was extracted from the jet's systems for review; it sounds like the incident was flagged for some sort of review and analysis. (How much or how little military assessment was done is unknown; I see the AARO report on GoFAST says the video is all the data they have.)

So at some point someone trimmed the videos and gave them the file names they had at the time of release, but it doesn't necessarily sound like Elizondo was involved that far back in the process.

 

[jarlrmai]

Which is why the video names being related to the debunks is so telling.

GIMBAL - illusion caused by the gimbal system interacting with the derotation system.
Go Fast - appears to be going fast, but actually going slow.

It really feels like someone, somewhere at some time did some analysis on these 2 videos before they were leaked and came to similar conclusions as this forum and named the files appropriately.