Ravi
Senior Member.
Great provenance!
UAP Hearing New Video - Yemen Orb
- Thread starter Mick West
- Start date
Before Loeb (who doesn't seem to have any relevant background), there was an Air Force guy on /r/ufos who was arguing for that the target looked like a drone to him.
But most of the /r/airforce comments were on the order of "obvious balloon."
John J.
Senior Member.
In weapons testing (as opposed to training) more can be learnt where the maximum number of variables can be controlled.
If the video is of a trial to see if an MQ-9 can shoot down a balloon, I don't see an obvious reason why that trial should be conducted in potentially hostile airspace.
There is no evidence for this that I'm aware of. Inserting forces personnel into a hostile nation*, or an area where there are hostile inhabitants, is always risky. The risks involved in inserting a balloon release team into Yemen for trials purposes would have to be weighed against the benefits to be gained. We already know Hellfire AGM might have a limited air-to-air capability against slow-moving targets, e.g. rotorcraft.
*Not all of Yemen is controlled by the Houthis, but most of the Red Sea coast is. It might be safer to conduct trials from areas controlled by the Saudi-backed Government of Yemen or the UAE-backed Southern Transition Council/ Hadrami Elite Forces, which between them control the Indian Ocean coast, but what would be the point?
John J.
Senior Member.
In the video, the mystery object appears to have a black border, e.g. at 12 seconds in:
The border, not constant, is roughly an ellipse most of the time. It changes in shape post-impact.
For a brief period around the 3-4 second mark, the scene seems to brighten- or perhaps the object is briefly above a warmer background- and the border is lost.
I'm wondering if the border isn't the periphery of the object, its shape, as might be seen by a hypothetical human observer in the MQ-9's position, but the result of processing-added contrast, perhaps to help the MQ-9 operators, in more optimal conditions, to visually identify what they are looking at.
Perhaps it accentuates a relatively discrete area warmer than its surroundings, but the "true" edges here are poorly resolved (much like how a visible bright light on an aircraft might make identifying that aircraft with visual spectrum optics challenging).
I think it's unlikely that there would be a real, approximately lenticular/ globular/ Tic-Tac-y warm flying object with a much cooler, narrow edge or sides, and that that narrow cool rim would always be "visible" around the warm bulk of the object despite its relative motion vis-à-vis the MQ-9.
Maybe the brief loss of border at 3-4 seconds, when the scene brightens, is due to a loss of sufficient temperature difference between the object and its backdrop to allow processing to "draw" a border.
If the footage is taken off the coast of Yemen (and that hasn't been established), more particularly the Red Sea coast, my tentative theory might be a fairly conventional prop- or microturbojet-powered drone of Houthi origin, taken down by a pair of MQ-9s (or an MQ-9 and another "friendly" platform) that were in the area. The Hellfire AGM (if that's what it was) didn't detonate, but sometimes missiles don't detonate, even after hard impacts.
There are warm items of debris, maybe the edges of which were also have been "drawn" by processing-added contrast (because why are there cool features only on their edges as seen from the MQ-9?)
The border, not constant, is roughly an ellipse most of the time. It changes in shape post-impact.
For a brief period around the 3-4 second mark, the scene seems to brighten- or perhaps the object is briefly above a warmer background- and the border is lost.
I'm wondering if the border isn't the periphery of the object, its shape, as might be seen by a hypothetical human observer in the MQ-9's position, but the result of processing-added contrast, perhaps to help the MQ-9 operators, in more optimal conditions, to visually identify what they are looking at.
Perhaps it accentuates a relatively discrete area warmer than its surroundings, but the "true" edges here are poorly resolved (much like how a visible bright light on an aircraft might make identifying that aircraft with visual spectrum optics challenging).
I think it's unlikely that there would be a real, approximately lenticular/ globular/ Tic-Tac-y warm flying object with a much cooler, narrow edge or sides, and that that narrow cool rim would always be "visible" around the warm bulk of the object despite its relative motion vis-à-vis the MQ-9.
Maybe the brief loss of border at 3-4 seconds, when the scene brightens, is due to a loss of sufficient temperature difference between the object and its backdrop to allow processing to "draw" a border.
If the footage is taken off the coast of Yemen (and that hasn't been established), more particularly the Red Sea coast, my tentative theory might be a fairly conventional prop- or microturbojet-powered drone of Houthi origin, taken down by a pair of MQ-9s (or an MQ-9 and another "friendly" platform) that were in the area. The Hellfire AGM (if that's what it was) didn't detonate, but sometimes missiles don't detonate, even after hard impacts.
There are warm items of debris, maybe the edges of which were also have been "drawn" by processing-added contrast (because why are there cool features only on their edges as seen from the MQ-9?)
(As above, I think it could be filmed off Yemen, but perhaps not as part of a planned test).That's pretty much what the /r/airforce chatter said. This is the view mode you use when you're discriminating a target so you can track it and hit it, and that there's also at least one optical mode to get a sense of what things look like, and that they can be combined if the operator desires.
So if the excuse for not leaking the optical recording is that it's classified, well, so is this. If this was the only video put in the secret UAP archive, why wasn't the full record?
MonkeeSage
Senior Member.
boguesuser
Active Member
Kyle Ferriter
Senior Member.
This is a long one.
Marik has made several claims in recent tweets:
(1) The smaller pieces cannot be debris because in the clip of the 2023 Chinese Spy balloon after it popped, the larger piece fell faster than the smaller pieces, so we should expect to see that here.
(2) A balloon should experience "catastrophic deflation" at 12k ft.
(3) A supersonic missile would shred a mylar balloon to pieces.
Let's start with (1).
The Chinese spy balloon was known to be carrying a large payload of surveillance equipment. I'm seeing differing estimates but they all seem to be at least several hundred pounds, which would make anything attached to it fall much faster. I think whether we should expect to see any large piece of a balloon fall faster than any small pieces is debatable, because it depends what those small pieces are (pieces of plastic or metal that were attached? or flimsy pieces of rubber/film that made up the balloon itself?). Specifics like mass, shape, and drag coefficient will affect how fast they accelerate down.
But say all the debris post-impact were pieces of rubber/film/plastic which made up the balloon itself. In this case maybe we should expect a much larger piece of a deflated balloon to fall faster than smaller pieces.
I think the initial impact is around frame 592, and the large object goes out of frame around frame 747. The video then switches to a wider field of view briefly, before switching again to a much wider field of view (unclear if this all one continuous recording, but I would guess either yes, or that at least the first two fields of view are a continuous shot and that any time delay between the those and the last video segment with the much wider field of view, is probably pretty short). 592 to 747 is 156 frames, which at 30fps is 5.2 seconds.
5.2 seconds is not a lot of time to observe gravity have accelerated material from a balloon, which probably does not accelerate very quickly to begin with due to low mass density and high drag. But I do think even still, the larger object actually does go down in frame more than the smaller objects do. And assuming that after impact that the debris all quickly stabilizes to a roughly 0 lateral windspeed, this could imply that the larger object is indeed falling faster than the smaller pieces.
Here's a gif of every 6 frames from 602 to 746, also slowed down 2x. I think the additional discreteness helps me see the distance between them growing.
(magick -delay 40 -loop 0 frames/frame_*{602..746..6}.png frames-602-746-6.gif)
Frames 608, 674, 740:
Now to (2).
Marik is assuming that if it was a balloon, that we should be able to see more deflation. The shape of the larger object should have shrunk much more. He cites the Chinese spy balloon. Which again had a very heavy payload, and was a high altitude balloon made of very thin material, which may have been stretched. I am seeing conflicting speculation on the material of the Chinese balloon, because AFAIK there was never exact information released from DoD. It could have been a stretched latex balloon or it could have been a thin polyester film (not stretched) which I think is more typical for super high altitude balloons (e.g. Aerostar Thunderhead balloons and Project Loon balloons). But the Chinese balloon does not look transparent like those non-stretched film balloons do, it looks opaque, like white latex, and smoothly round and fully tensioned, which suggests to me that if it was a stretchy material, that it was stretched when it was popped. If so, then after popping, it would rapidly shrink in size.
I think in this thread we have shown a few suggestions that the black borders drawn on these objects are not particularly reliable, but even still, over the 5 seconds of video post-impact the shape of the black edged large shape does change. If the material of the balloon was more of a static sheet/textile material, not stretched latex, and there was not a massive payload under it as in the Chinese spy balloon example, then I would not expect to see the large piece rapidly collapse into a vertical column of shredded material being pulled down, as in the Chinese spy balloon example. It would be more of a large loose sheet of plastic film tumbling around.
During the 2023 Chinese spy balloon incident many outlets picked up an older story from 1998 where Air Forces had difficulty shooting down a high altitude balloon because the holes they were punching did not deflate it fast enough.
From Sky News:
I don't think we know how fast the missile was going. Maybe someone could do some 3D analysis or geometry math to get some ranges of plausible numbers by assuming the object has 0 airspeed before it is hit.
Also, the Chinese spy balloon was exploded by a frag warhead on a sidewinder missile. The missile in this video did not explode. We already do not know the material this balloon was made out of, but the non-explosion also makes the effects of the missile's impact on the balloon even harder to compare 1:1.
Marik has made several claims in recent tweets:
(1) The smaller pieces cannot be debris because in the clip of the 2023 Chinese Spy balloon after it popped, the larger piece fell faster than the smaller pieces, so we should expect to see that here.
(2) A balloon should experience "catastrophic deflation" at 12k ft.
(3) A supersonic missile would shred a mylar balloon to pieces.
Let's start with (1).
The Chinese spy balloon was known to be carrying a large payload of surveillance equipment. I'm seeing differing estimates but they all seem to be at least several hundred pounds, which would make anything attached to it fall much faster. I think whether we should expect to see any large piece of a balloon fall faster than any small pieces is debatable, because it depends what those small pieces are (pieces of plastic or metal that were attached? or flimsy pieces of rubber/film that made up the balloon itself?). Specifics like mass, shape, and drag coefficient will affect how fast they accelerate down.
But say all the debris post-impact were pieces of rubber/film/plastic which made up the balloon itself. In this case maybe we should expect a much larger piece of a deflated balloon to fall faster than smaller pieces.
I think the initial impact is around frame 592, and the large object goes out of frame around frame 747. The video then switches to a wider field of view briefly, before switching again to a much wider field of view (unclear if this all one continuous recording, but I would guess either yes, or that at least the first two fields of view are a continuous shot and that any time delay between the those and the last video segment with the much wider field of view, is probably pretty short). 592 to 747 is 156 frames, which at 30fps is 5.2 seconds.
5.2 seconds is not a lot of time to observe gravity have accelerated material from a balloon, which probably does not accelerate very quickly to begin with due to low mass density and high drag. But I do think even still, the larger object actually does go down in frame more than the smaller objects do. And assuming that after impact that the debris all quickly stabilizes to a roughly 0 lateral windspeed, this could imply that the larger object is indeed falling faster than the smaller pieces.
Here's a gif of every 6 frames from 602 to 746, also slowed down 2x. I think the additional discreteness helps me see the distance between them growing.
(magick -delay 40 -loop 0 frames/frame_*{602..746..6}.png frames-602-746-6.gif)
Frames 608, 674, 740:
Now to (2).
Marik is assuming that if it was a balloon, that we should be able to see more deflation. The shape of the larger object should have shrunk much more. He cites the Chinese spy balloon. Which again had a very heavy payload, and was a high altitude balloon made of very thin material, which may have been stretched. I am seeing conflicting speculation on the material of the Chinese balloon, because AFAIK there was never exact information released from DoD. It could have been a stretched latex balloon or it could have been a thin polyester film (not stretched) which I think is more typical for super high altitude balloons (e.g. Aerostar Thunderhead balloons and Project Loon balloons). But the Chinese balloon does not look transparent like those non-stretched film balloons do, it looks opaque, like white latex, and smoothly round and fully tensioned, which suggests to me that if it was a stretchy material, that it was stretched when it was popped. If so, then after popping, it would rapidly shrink in size.
I think in this thread we have shown a few suggestions that the black borders drawn on these objects are not particularly reliable, but even still, over the 5 seconds of video post-impact the shape of the black edged large shape does change. If the material of the balloon was more of a static sheet/textile material, not stretched latex, and there was not a massive payload under it as in the Chinese spy balloon example, then I would not expect to see the large piece rapidly collapse into a vertical column of shredded material being pulled down, as in the Chinese spy balloon example. It would be more of a large loose sheet of plastic film tumbling around.
During the 2023 Chinese spy balloon incident many outlets picked up an older story from 1998 where Air Forces had difficulty shooting down a high altitude balloon because the holes they were punching did not deflate it fast enough.
From Sky News:
Now to (3).External Quote:
I don't think we know how fast the missile was going. Maybe someone could do some 3D analysis or geometry math to get some ranges of plausible numbers by assuming the object has 0 airspeed before it is hit.
Also, the Chinese spy balloon was exploded by a frag warhead on a sidewinder missile. The missile in this video did not explode. We already do not know the material this balloon was made out of, but the non-explosion also makes the effects of the missile's impact on the balloon even harder to compare 1:1.
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Kyle Ferriter
Senior Member.
I missed these other tweets. It looks like he is basing his assertion that any balloon, regardless of material or payload or pressure differential or surface tension, at 12k ft, would rapidly collapse when pierced by a missile, on a conversation with ChatGPT. This seems like just grasping for things to try to prematurely rule out a balloon. He is not considering non-stretched/not-highly-pressurized balloons. I think the existence of low-pressure or zero-pressure differential balloons contradicts this conclusion.
Additionally to possibly shrinking in size due to un-stretching, the Chinese spy balloon was hit with a frag warhead explosion (also involving fire), which could have resulted in much more shredding happening, leaving the large piece remaining post-impact as being a smaller percentage of the original balloon material.
Additionally to possibly shrinking in size due to un-stretching, the Chinese spy balloon was hit with a frag warhead explosion (also involving fire), which could have resulted in much more shredding happening, leaving the large piece remaining post-impact as being a smaller percentage of the original balloon material.
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Parallax is indeed the ufologist's best friend. If we freeze the background that appears to be swishing by, we're left with something like this:
I'm not saying the "object" is completely stationary—it could, of course, be drifting gently in the wind—but you get my point. Apparently, ufologists showing videos to Congress know just as little about parallax as the people on TikTok posting clips of airplanes "flying backwards.
I'm not saying the "object" is completely stationary—it could, of course, be drifting gently in the wind—but you get my point. Apparently, ufologists showing videos to Congress know just as little about parallax as the people on TikTok posting clips of airplanes "flying backwards.
Mendel
Senior Member.
The missile's path is not straight.
Is this because the missile gets deflected by the impact, and manoeuvers back on track? Or is it because the camera tracking speed changed relative to the missile, i.e. instead of the missile moving up, the camera was moving down?
(Apologies if that has already been answered.)
It appears to curve both before and after collision in an S-shape.
Ravi
Senior Member.
Well, isn't that the whole purpose of a guided system? A few microseconds after hit, it becomes a dud.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
He also pointed out that, in contrast with Avi Loebs Samad drone hypothesis, the wings of such a craft would be clearly visible to the camera used. So the contrast of opinions is quite interesting. They can't both be right.
https://x.com/MvonRen/status/ 1966316588451443156 [remove URL space to view]
Also here's a stack of all the frames showing the apparent S-shaped path of the missile.
owntheissue
Member
Hellfire 2's can reacquire targets after losing laser lock using a "digital autopilot".
Cant remember who said it (likely the SME video from earlier) but it was suggested the fuse on some missiles (dependent upon config) is triggered by the change of speed caused by impact with a solid object.
If this was a balloon and the fuse wasn't triggered - any post laser designation loss movement (by the missile) - could be a result of target re-acquisition/digital autopilot activity.
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One thing to remember is that we're looking down from ~24,000 feet at an angle at a target that's at ~12,000 feet (based on the graphic overlay) and the missile is (probably) flying downward from our left after being launched from another Reaper at about the same altitude, so it's apparently adjusting up at the last second to hit the target and then continuing downward.
Ann K
Senior Member.
I freely admit I'm having trouble thinking of this in 3-D space, but if the missile is swooping down from a higher altitude, and the video is taken from a position that is moving, could parallax be causing the appearance of the curved track?
AverageChris
New Member
Hey Mick. The MQ-9 isn't an air-to-air platform and the Hellfire generally isn't used in that manner as it is a air-to-surface munition, but there have been documented times that when a threat or a target presents itself and may be invading an air space, MQ-9's have deployed Hellfires in an air-to-AOR fashion. That's what happened here. The Houthis in this region were using drones and balloons many different ways. Especially attacking ships in the Red Sea
This is a good point, and I think you're right. The missile traveling in an S-shape doesn't really make sense to me. Hellfire missiles typically follow a guided but mostly direct or slightly arced path, and this target would be relatively easy to hit (assuming it's a slow-moving balloon) without the need for any dramatic adjustments. But considering this was filmed from a moving drone with a gimbaled camera, the S-shape being an illusion makes perfect sense. If that's the case, then these two effects (parallax and camera movement) are working together to make an otherwise unremarkable video look spectacular.
Mendel
Senior Member.
Yes.
In fact, the "J-Hook" theory for GIMBAL describes a parallax artifact that mirrors the curve the observer aircraft was flying horizontally.
Any observer motion that deviates from a straight line creates a non-straight parallax path. If you look outside through your window, fixing on the window corner, and then wobble around a bit on your chair, you'll see the window corner move along with your head.
But then the 'balloon' would be affected just the same when it's at the same distance.
Camera rotation could be causing it; even camera rotation caused by observer drone circling the target.
And of course regular camera motion (tilt/pan) affects the apparent missile path as well. If the balloon fragments start accelerating down, and the camera follows it down, then that tilt causes everything else to appear to move up.
Do we actually know that the drone filming isn't the same drone firing the missile? I'm not sure if it matters much, but shouldn't the main hypothesis be that it's both firing and filming? At first glance, it might look like the missile is coming in from the left at a horizontal level, but as already mentioned in previous posts, it's most likely coming in from above at a steep angle. I found a video of an Apache firing a Hellfire missile during an exercise in Japan. In the slow-motion, zoomed-in version, it really looks like the missile is coming from a different angle, but it's actually being fired from the same helicopter that's filming.
Some people seem to think we "should" see the tail of the missile traveling all the way from the shooter to the target, but that's just not how it works. I guess it doesn't matter too much, but it does suggest that the people making claims about the background of the video (read Burlison and his anonymous informant) don't really know what they're talking about. Even the Yemen story shouldn't be taken at face value without evidence.
Some people seem to think we "should" see the tail of the missile traveling all the way from the shooter to the target, but that's just not how it works. I guess it doesn't matter too much, but it does suggest that the people making claims about the background of the video (read Burlison and his anonymous informant) don't really know what they're talking about. Even the Yemen story shouldn't be taken at face value without evidence.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
On that point, are we sure it is over ocean? I recall the mostly-forgotten-now second shot associated with the TMZ Jellyfish video from Iraq (Thread here: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/jellyfish-ufo-from-tmzs-ufo-revolution.13304/) was initially claimed to have been shot over water, but turned out to be over desert with scrub and possible dunes simulating waves.
(See this video of the earlier Jellyfish part 2 video, the relevant bit starts at about 52 seconds: https://www.metabunk.org/data/video/64/64302-371e49eb085def553d25a43477c56b04.mp4)
Giddierone
Senior Member.
It's no surprise that Knapp and Corbell are trying to make a big thing out of the apparent imperviousness of the object to the missile. UFO folklore has other cases such as the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter where alleged aliens beings were claimed to be impervious to gunfire as if they were some kind of supernatural entity.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000008166257/kabul-drone-strike-video.html
There's at least one other example where footage can be seen of two drones working together where one fires a Hellfire missile at a target August 29, 2021, strike in Kabul, Afghanistan. (it killed civilians, not military targets)
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000008166257/kabul-drone-strike-video.html
boguesuser
Active Member
Got a timestamp for the strike?
JMartJr
Senior Member.
That does sort of clash with the "shot down UFO recovered by the military" meme, though...
John J.
Senior Member.
Johnny alien's a tricky sort of cove, and will use all his inhuman guile to avoid capture. But confronted by men with nerves of steel who have the finest technology that our boffins can provide at their fingertips, it's no wonder that the intruder often comes off second best.
(
)
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Giddierone
Senior Member.
and the "we found shards of material from a UFO crash site that can't be damaged" claims.
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Yeah, it's classic UFO lore 101. I just don't get it in the case of this video, though, since it doesn't fit the usual narrative. An object getting hit and brought down from the sky with debris flying out of it isn't exactly the typical "impervious-to-human-weapons" story. I guess it all comes down to the missile not exploding.
Sure, it's definitely possible that the missile was fired from another drone, but I don't see any reason why it has to be. To me, it feels more like someone watched the video, didn't fully understand what it shows, and then concluded that the missile must be coming in from the left—hence the supposed need for another drone. It would be extremely interesting to know what the anonymous source actually claimed, and what was later embroidered by the disclosure gang before the video was released.
Another thing I've been thinking about: normally, when Hellfire missiles are fired from either a drone or a helicopter, we see some kind of "flash" in the recording. It's obvious in the post I made showing an Apache helicopter.
In this video, the drone is at a slant distance of about 22,500 feet when locking onto the target. A Hellfire missile is said to travel at about Mach 1.3, which means it would take roughly 15 seconds to cover that distance. Interestingly, almost exactly 15 seconds before the missile hits its target, we can spot some flashes. They're not as obvious as in the Apache clip, but I still think they're there
In this video, the drone is at a slant distance of about 22,500 feet when locking onto the target. A Hellfire missile is said to travel at about Mach 1.3, which means it would take roughly 15 seconds to cover that distance. Interestingly, almost exactly 15 seconds before the missile hits its target, we can spot some flashes. They're not as obvious as in the Apache clip, but I still think they're there
It's supposedly not the same drone that is firing the missile as the one filming it so not sure why there would need to be a flash.
MyMatesBrainwashed
Senior Member
What's lacking here is proof that it was a UAP at the time of the event.
It's one thing producing a video that it's hard to identify things in (due to the quality and sensor type) and claim UAP. It's another to suggest that with all the other data available at the time it was a UAP and a missile was fired at it.
I don't think you can provide the worst possible footage to identify something by and claim the thing WAS unidentified (i.e. unidentifiable). You would want the best footage available to prove that.
It's one thing producing a video that it's hard to identify things in (due to the quality and sensor type) and claim UAP. It's another to suggest that with all the other data available at the time it was a UAP and a missile was fired at it.
I don't think you can provide the worst possible footage to identify something by and claim the thing WAS unidentified (i.e. unidentifiable). You would want the best footage available to prove that.
Ravi
Senior Member.
In my opinion it can mean only two things: 1) there are a lot of interesting videos showing clear-cut incredible behaviour, but they are "being hidden from us" or 2) there is a lot of video out there that show not so much incredible behaviour, but are being sold as "extraordinary", because taken out of context etc.
Rationally, it can only mean (2).
This is the LIZ - ie the videos are of such poor quality that 1) we cant tell what it is and 2) we cant tell what's going on, therefore some people will say it is anomalous and it cant be proven that it is not aliens. It is equivalent to the God of the Gaps fallacy. If God is in the gaps, then the LIZ is where aliens live.
jarlrmai
Senior Member.
The problem here for me is this isn't just another video where the object is in the LIZ and a pilot doesn't know what it is, someone made a decision to fire a missile at this thing, surely that is documented somewhere and they had some idea of what they were shooting at and why.
Because either the military is firing missiles at things they don't know what they are or they had a good idea what this was.
It's certainly classified info, but AARO would have access to those records and once the video hit the PD then an official characterisation by AARO should be forthcoming right?
And for me the wider meta conversation is who is leaking all these videos to Knapp/Corbell and why does it seem nothing is being done about it?
Because either the military is firing missiles at things they don't know what they are or they had a good idea what this was.
It's certainly classified info, but AARO would have access to those records and once the video hit the PD then an official characterisation by AARO should be forthcoming right?
And for me the wider meta conversation is who is leaking all these videos to Knapp/Corbell and why does it seem nothing is being done about it?
I think what I meant was - this is in the LIZ for us, ie those who are viewing the video as shared by Burlison. And this is a common position from both UFO-Fans and skeptics alike. The data to identify UFOs is available but restricted or hidden from us mere mortals. I don't doubt that the operators who recorded this video and fired the missile knew what it was - but was it a trials target, a Houthi drone, or an alien spaceship?
Ordinary things also live in the the LIZ.
And hopefully report to the general public
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