Thoughts about Nimitz radar: tracking and smoothing

[Robert Webb]

After watching Mick West's interview with Kevin Day, who was on radar during the Nimitz event, I had some thoughts. Sorry if anyone has suggested this before.

Fravor's plane approached one of the UFOs on radar. The two then coincided on the display. Day says the UFO then travelled quickly to another point on the display, and eventually travelled quickly back to where it was.

I used to work on software to track markers on a face (motion capture for games). There are two things I can imagine might be happening here.

First, when the two objects on the radar coincide, the software will have trouble tracking both of them. It may find one, in this case Fravor's plane, but may look further out in an attempt to find the other one. Maybe it just failed to track both objects when they met, and found something else instead, presuming it to be the same object. From the user's perspective, the object would appear to jump to a new place. It may also be that once the objects separated on the display, the UFO tracking jumped back to where it started, now that it could be distinguished again. Not sure why it would jump back though if there was still something on the radar at the new location though. Maybe the radar can track up to a certain number of objects at once?

Second, do radars use any kind of smoothing? Hopefully someone can answer that. If they do smooth the tracking data, then it would explain why the object would appear to move quickly to the new location rather than jumping instantly. For example, a very simple way to smooth data would be to average out data over N frames, so if an objects suddenly jumps, it would instead appear to move rapidly over N frames, rather than instantly in 1 frame. Their smoothing may be more advanced, but probably still have similar results.

I don't suppose we know anything about the wind direction? Would be interesting to know whether the slowly moving objects were going the same way (but tricky because wind at different altitude may be going different directions).


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv9iKw_Q9xQ

 

[Mick West]

First, when the two objects on the radar coincide, the software will have trouble tracking both of them. It may find one, in this case Fravor's plane, but may look further out in an attempt to find the other one. Maybe it just failed to track both objects when they met, and found something else instead, presuming it to be the same object. From the user's perspective, the object would appear to jump to a new place. It may also be that once the objects separated on the display, the UFO tracking jumped back to where it started, now that it could be distinguished again. Not sure why it would jump back though if there was still something on the radar at the new location though. Maybe the radar can track up to a certain number of objects at once?

Something like that sounds plausible, however it's exactly the type of thing the military would not want revealed.

 

[Robert Webb]

Something like that sounds plausible, however it's exactly the type of thing the military would not want revealed.

You mean because it gives away secrets of how their system works? Or because admitting to such a simple error would make them look bad?

It's kind of the nature of all tracking systems like this. That sometimes tracked points jump, and that smoothing can sometimes misrepresent the data (and at other times improve it). No secret.

At least Day doesn't seem to have thought of this explanation and doesn't appear to be trying to hide anything like this.

 

[Mick West]

You mean because it gives away secrets of how their system works? Or because admitting to such a simple error would make them look bad?

Both.

 

[Harabeck]

Philip J Klass wrote an article in 1985 about UFOs and radar technology. His point was basically that improvements in software filtering and operator experience drastically reduced sightings of UFOs via radar. It's not super in depth or anything, but it does serve as a decent intro to the topic.

https://skepticalinquirer.org/1985/04/radar-ufos-where-have-they-gone/

 

[Mendel]

Philip J Klass wrote an article in 1985 about UFOs and radar technology. His point was basically that improvements in software filtering and operator experience drastically reduced sightings of UFOs via radar. It's not super in depth or anything, but it does serve as a decent intro to the topic.

https://skepticalinquirer.org/1985/04/radar-ufos-where-have-they-gone/

It's Metabunk policy that content from sources needs to be quoted alongside the link—too many conspiracy theorists would love to just drop a link to the page of their choice and leave the debunkers to do the work, I guess.

In this case, I'd excerpt the article like so:

 

[Domzh]

honestly I have troubles to understand how this could happen with a radar.

motion tracking is tracking a grouping of pixels i guess? i can see how during an optical track something like this could happen.

a radar on the other hand shoots energy and interprets the reflection afaik. the less sophisticated the tech is, the harder it is too focus the beam and make out different objects that are near together. they would be registered as a single one until they are far enough apart.

i believe its far more likely that the initial ping had no connection to the tic tac sighting.

iirc they spotted the uap several miles off of the original vectors.

 

[John_Sheldon]

You mean because it gives away secrets of how their system works? Or because admitting to such a simple error would make them look bad?

It's kind of the nature of all tracking systems like this. That sometimes tracked points jump, and that smoothing can sometimes misrepresent the data (and at other times improve it). No secret.

At least Day doesn't seem to have thought of this explanation and doesn't appear to be trying to hide anything like this.

Is there a good reason for this radar data to still be classified?

Believers are pretty confident in it, so confident they refer to it endlessly without never seeing it.
Consider Its nigh on twenty years old at this point, and we already know about the event, when it was, the location, the ship and the jets used for this training day is all in the public domain.
Surely with such a high defence budget the U.S is not still using 20year old radar equipment.

So why hasn't anyone been able to get it so far?

 

[Mendel]

So why hasn't anyone been able to get it so far?

You might ask John Greenewald of theblackvault.com, the master of UFO FOIA requests.

 

[jplaza]

So why hasn't anyone been able to get it so far?

Maybe they are not available anymore.

I have been asking for older documents to National Archives (NARA), and the response I got was:

According to the Navy Records Management Manual (SECNAV INSTR 5210.1), the only logs that are retained as permanent records are the deck logs of commissioned US naval vessels. All other logs included CIC, RADAR, Quartermaster, Engineer's Bell, division section and Flight logs are considered to be temporary and have been disposed of in accordance with their records disposition schedule.

You can browse the cited document (SECNAV INSTR 5210.1) and try to find the paragraph that may refer to the radar data or records you are interested in, and figure out if it is still available and where.

SSIC 3043
ELECTRONICS (RADAR) CASUALTIES
1. Official Files of Reports maintained by the Program Manager.
Destroy when 3 years old. (N1-NU-89-5)
2. Copies of Reports maintained by Field Activities and Offices.
Destroy when 1 year old. (N1-NU-89-5)

SSIC 3242
SIGNAL CHARACTERISTICS IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS
Publications/Instructions Listing the Signal Characteristics of Friendly and Hostile Radars and Other Electronic/Electromagnetic Equipment.
Destroy when cancelled or superseded. (N1-NU-89-5)

SSIC 3518
EXERCISE DATA COLLECTION RECORDS
1. Messages and Correspondence relevant to Collection of Exercise Data and Its Reconstruction and Analysis.
Transfer to WNRC when 4 years old. Destroy when 10 years old. (N1-NU-89-5)

(...)

(Sorry I 'm not going through all paragraphs, anyone interested gets the idea)

 

[Mendel]

And yet the videos have been retained and not deleted.

 

[jplaza]

According to a FOIA document that the Black Vault was able to get, emails about a briefing of what seems to be related to gimbal video

https://documents2.theblackvault.com/documents/navy/DON-NAVY-2022-001613.pdf

The staffers are generally disappointed that the Navy does not save any video of these encounters and the chain of custody is lacking

I'd say someone personally decided by his own account and risk to save a .mp4 version of it.

(edit: typo)

 

[John_Sheldon]

You might ask John Greenewald of theblackvault.com, the master of UFO FOIA requests.

I did a couple of days ago, he ignored my tweet

 

[Mendel]

I did a couple of days ago, he ignored my tweet

there's a contact form on his website

 

[FastIndy]

Is there a good reason for this radar data to still be classified?

Believers are pretty confident in it, so confident they refer to it endlessly without never seeing it.
Consider Its nigh on twenty years old at this point, and we already know about the event, when it was, the location, the ship and the jets used for this training day is all in the public domain.
Surely with such a high defence budget the U.S is not still using 20year old radar equipment.

So why hasn't anyone been able to get it so far?

The same radar is still used on the Princeton and plenty of other platforms. There are good reasons to keep it classified.