In a recent interview with Lex Fridman, pilot David Fravor was asked about how he judged the size and distance of unknown objects (in the context of some ideas I'd suggested around his account of an encounter with a UFO). His response was somewhat light on details.
(Note: an F/A-18 hornet is 56 feet long, not 40)
My (very loose) idea regarding Fravor's encounter with a featureless Tic-Tac shaped object is basically that it was a smaller object that was closer than he thought. The main reason for suggesting this is his account of how it perfectly "mirrored" his actions -as if it knew what he was going to do. When he went down, it came up. When he went around in a circle, it went round 180° opposite him. When he flew towards it, it flew towards him. At least that's how it SEEMED.
So the idea is that, at least in the "mirroring" portion of events, Fravor was approximately doubling the size and distance estimates. When he thought it was on the other side of a circle, it was actually in the middle. When he though he was flying towards something a mile away, it was already half a mile away, and so would seem to accelerate towards him.
Hence the question: "[is it] possible that you miscalculated the size and the distance of the thing and so on when you were flying around?"
Fravor's answer is no, because of his vast experience he's 99.9% sure he did not misidentify it. But he did not give many details as to HOW he estimated the size and distance. The only substantive thing was that it was "40 feet [long] ... about hornet size." But that's a somewhat circular explanation. To know it was "about hornet size" you would have to know how far away it was. On a simple level something 20 feet long that's 10,000 feet away from you will look the same as something that's 40 feet long and 20,000 feet away.
So I mentioned this in my reaction video. But in the comments someone took issue with this, saying:
I replied
And he responded:
I think we've agreed that stereo vision (using two eyes) is not going to help (certainly not with things more than 10,000 feet). If I look at a plane directly above me (at, say 30,000 feet), the edges look the same sharpness when it's at 30° above the horizon (so 60,000 feet away)
The clarity of details is not going to be measurably detectable for 10,000 - 20,000 feet.
"Complexity of reflections" makes no sense to me. So I'll await an example.
"Movement" is somewhat plausible. If you can move your head, you can get a sense of distance for nearby static objects relative to other static objects. But if the object is moving (and you don't know HOW it is moving) and you are also moving, then head motion is not likely to help with something 10-20,000 feet away.
An experiment would be great. But I don't have the means to do it at a sufficient scale. But it sounds like the type of things that people would have looked into before.
My (very loose) idea regarding Fravor's encounter with a featureless Tic-Tac shaped object is basically that it was a smaller object that was closer than he thought. The main reason for suggesting this is his account of how it perfectly "mirrored" his actions -as if it knew what he was going to do. When he went down, it came up. When he went around in a circle, it went round 180° opposite him. When he flew towards it, it flew towards him. At least that's how it SEEMED.
So the idea is that, at least in the "mirroring" portion of events, Fravor was approximately doubling the size and distance estimates. When he thought it was on the other side of a circle, it was actually in the middle. When he though he was flying towards something a mile away, it was already half a mile away, and so would seem to accelerate towards him.
Hence the question: "[is it] possible that you miscalculated the size and the distance of the thing and so on when you were flying around?"
Fravor's answer is no, because of his vast experience he's 99.9% sure he did not misidentify it. But he did not give many details as to HOW he estimated the size and distance. The only substantive thing was that it was "40 feet [long] ... about hornet size." But that's a somewhat circular explanation. To know it was "about hornet size" you would have to know how far away it was. On a simple level something 20 feet long that's 10,000 feet away from you will look the same as something that's 40 feet long and 20,000 feet away.
So I mentioned this in my reaction video. But in the comments someone took issue with this, saying:
The clarity of details is not going to be measurably detectable for 10,000 - 20,000 feet.
"Complexity of reflections" makes no sense to me. So I'll await an example.
"Movement" is somewhat plausible. If you can move your head, you can get a sense of distance for nearby static objects relative to other static objects. But if the object is moving (and you don't know HOW it is moving) and you are also moving, then head motion is not likely to help with something 10-20,000 feet away.
An experiment would be great. But I don't have the means to do it at a sufficient scale. But it sounds like the type of things that people would have looked into before.