Were Fravor and co in the middle of a test of radar spoofing tech?

Hello people.

I recently became aware of this UFO/aliens story coming out from officials and big name media. First I was excited, because it all looks so believable, but after looking at the details I think that some mass delusion is going on. There are many hours of interviews with witnesses and whistleblowers and I'm too busy to go thru all this. I just wondered if anybody tried to construct an alternative explanation that, for example, radar jamming and spoofing tests were involved in these UFO encounters?

This article made me wonder if this is not indeed the case. All matches up - radar spoofing tech, submarine-released balloons to confuse enemy radars (erratic tic-tac shaped object over a big underwater craft?). The people interviewed for this article basically acknowledge between the lines such tests on unsuspecting military personnel are possible and for me it totally makes sense - this is the best way to gather data on its effects on the enemy or if the enemy used it against your own forces. We know the testimonies of technical personnel that the radars were showing non-sense for days, and some of the pilots said that their radars were jammed.

The other striking thing is that Fravor dismissed testimonies for NDA signing and confiscation of recorded data. If such things occurred, the argument for some tech being tested, radar related or not, becomes even stronger and I think Fravor realizes it. Especially interesting is that the people in the Hawkeye were made to sign NDAs and I'm ready to bet that they knew exactly what was going on. The hypothesis that the military tried to cover up alien encounter doesn't hold water, because they did no attempt to close the mouths of the direct witnesses and Chris Mellon said that there is no such thing as intentional cover up of UFOs (funny, if you sum up all the things UFO people believe in, you find that everything cancels out and the result is 0).

I think that the Nimitz encounter was all mass hysteria caused by undisclosed test being performed. The pilots believed their tech, their people, live in a country where UFOs are part of the pop culture and probably heard too many stories of pilots encountering UFOs. They were primed to star chasing alien invaders, while it was just balloons caught in the wind and a geese or two.

The only thing that I can't find a plausible explanation is the words coming from respectable people like Mellon, Rubio, Ratcliffe, Reid, but then Mellon acknowledges that he is an UFO buff since a kid, Reid was exposed to George Knapp and we know that not everybody agrees with them.

Other less probable but rational explanations are possible in the light of Rick Doty's doings. Nobody asked these whistleblowers to comment Doty and why we should believe them that they are not doing the same, or that they themselves are not victims of some internal cover up, but these theories are somewhat far-fetched.

I think that the coming report will disappoint many people and it will probably discuss the harassments of ships by some advanced drones (well, at least advanced to what one could find on Amazon, but probably not so advanced compared to what militaries may have) and that is all about it.

I would love to be wrong, but the evidence is so feeble and some of it, like the "pyramid UFO", looks like a joke (and yet all these whistleblowers buy it). Debacle is coming.

EDIT: Added relevant quotes from the article about radar spoofing.

T.D Barnes is introduced:
for T.D Barnes, a former Special Projects engineer at Area 51, this entire UFO story sounds very familiar.

In 1960, when the Soviet Union moved a Tall King radar system to Cuba, the CIA began covertly using PALLADIUM to trick Russian air-defense radars into thinking unidentified aircraft were flying towards and even into Cuban airspace.
“Using an electronics-laden C-97 [EC-97G], we could make Soviet radars believe they were tracking any number of aerial objects,” mused Barnes. “At one point, a Russian MiG-15 pilot even claimed he could see the target and had a lock on it.”
Note that the radar spoofing tech was mounted on C-97 airplane. Make you think about this E-2 Hawkeye, the rumors that the crew signed NDAs and radar data was confiscated. The modern next level of PALLADIUM is called NEMESIS and the article about it is linked in the quoted article.

S. Eugene “Gene” Poteat is introduced:
Described as one of the “Wizards of Langley,” Poteat is the man who founded and for 15-years ran PALLADIUM while working at the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology office.
Now in his late 80s, in a rare interview, Poteat said he wasn’t familiar with the recent Navy UFO encounters, yet admitted the events sounded “interesting.”
“To determine Russia's ability to detect small targets, we used submarine-launched balloon-based metallic spheres,” said Poteat. “The idea was for the early warning radar to track our electronic aircraft. Then for our submarine to surface and release the calibrated spheres up and into the path of the oncoming false aircraft.”
Back to Barnes:
T.D. Barnes believes the deployment of these new technologies to be key and thinks it’s likely the Navy’s “UFO encounters” involved simultaneously testing of ship’s air defense capabilities and the ability of new technologies to defeat them. “Testing and evaluating advanced technology, both domestic and our adversaries was much of what we did while I was with Special Projects at Area 51,” said Barnes.
“When we were testing the MiG-21 against our planes, we’d often use National Guard pilots, who were only told that they were on a classified mission against foreign-made technology on Nellis Gunnery Range. They knew nothing about it being a CIA, DIA, Navy, and Air Force Foreign Technology Division project out of Area 51,” said Barnes.
This quote indicates that the pilots may have had some information. The unquoted paragraph before that says that Barnes is bound by oaths and does not give a direct answer to the question whether is possible that the pilots were completely ignorant, but proceeds to give an example wit the MiGs where they were at least partly ignorant about the test.

Even with eyewitness accounts, and the Navy’s recent statements that these objects are truly “unidentified,” T.D. Barnes still feels fairly certain someone in Pentagon knows exactly what the Nimitz and Roosevelt Carrier Groups were dealing with. In Barnes’ opinion, the edited and shortened ATFLIR videos and pilot's demeanor suggests aviators were at least vaguely aware of what they were targeting. "The videos 'I've seen, the pilots were whooping it up. I think they knew," said Barnes, referring to the "Go Fast" and "Gimbal" videos. With the pilots who have spoken about the incidents, all deny having any knowledge of what were the mysterious objects they encountered.
Now that is interesting. He is trying to judge by their demeanor and that means that he saw videos like these before. Also feels certain that somebody in the Pantagon knows what happened, which also indicates that he has been thru this before.

Barnes told me he’s aware of many past UFO sightings in the Seattle and Southern California regions that were actually advanced aerospace tests by Boeing or Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks.
The article ends with Barnes and Poteat declining to comment on whether there are some oblong shaped platforms. Barnes says that while he worked at Area 51 saw many UFOs on the radar and never had a reason to think that they were aliens, nor pilots brought any accounts of such.
 
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I found NAVY documentation for that area that very very strongly suggests that they were subjected to radar spoofing. Or as it's said - Threat Radar Simulation used to train the fleets in that area for readiness and reaction response.. This is in relation to the weird radar tracks Kevin Day saw
I'll be writing a long post about it when I get all the info together.

That however, doesn't explain what the Tic Tac itself was. Although I'm heavily leaning towards it being something launched from the USS Louisville. For example radar spoofing balloon/drone or missile.
 
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Can you quote the most relevant bits from the article?
I added quotes. Seems that The War Zone journal spent much effort into debunking these Navy UFO encounters. Here are two more related articles, the second one very recent

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...are-encountering-be-airborne-radar-reflectors
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...he-u-s-and-the-pentagon-acts-like-theyre-ufos

To me all this makes much more sense. Aliens? That is a hyperspace jump to conclusions.

Still curious about what Rubio and Ratcliffe meant though.

EDIT: Sorry, I fixed the title of the thread and now the whole thread is back into "Awaiting approval".
 
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I found NAVY documentation for that area that very very strongly suggests that they were subjected to radar spoofing. Or as it's said - Threat Radar Simulation used to train the fleets in that area for readiness and reaction response.. This is in relation to the weird radar tracks Kevin Day saw
I'll be writing a long post about it when I get all the info together.

That however, doesn't explain what the Tic Tac itself was. Although I'm heavily leaning towards it being something launched from the USS Louisville. For example radar spoofing balloon/drone or missile.
From the quoted article sounds more like a submarine-launched balloon. This also explains Fravor's account of a big submerged vehicle under the tic-tac. Considering reflection and refraction of light it could have appeared to him like something else, especially if he wasn't informed about a submarine in the region (possibly because he was not supposed to know about the radar testing) and expected to see something unusual, as the sensors were indicating.
 
Now, of course, mistaking a submarine for an unidentified submergible object would mean that he fucked up badly, which kinda runs against his experience, or he was on crack. I don't want to go that far. But there are many extremely intelligent and educated people who believe in weirdest things and on few occasions I met some who were not just exaggerating stories but making them up out of thin air. This is why personal accounts are very weak proof and are hard to debunk - people become defensive. Fravor dismissing his colleagues testimonies of data confiscations and NDA signing also shows this (it was in the Popular Mechanics article I linked in my original post).
 
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The otherworldly aspects of the radar behavior Kevin Day claims to have seen (rapid altitude changes) almost sounds more like some sort of system startup, calibration, or test rather than a spoofing exercise. Wouldn't the spoofing itself be more effective if it provided returns that simulated known aircraft flight characteristics?

People always make the claim that it is considered unsafe to test systems on friendly targets unbeknownst to them, which makes sense, but it also seems plausible unintentional miscommunication was at play.
 
The otherworldly aspects of the radar behavior Kevin Day claims to have seen (rapid altitude changes) almost sounds more like some sort of system startup, calibration, or test rather than a spoofing exercise. Wouldn't the spoofing itself be more effective if it provided returns that simulated known aircraft flight characteristics?

People always make the claim that it is considered unsafe to test systems on friendly targets unbeknownst to them, which makes sense, but it also seems plausible unintentional miscommunication was at play.
The way TRS works is a little complicated. It's used to simulate all sorts of different threats on radar - multi radar threats at that.
That whole area was literally part of the area used for Radar threat simulation and other types of electronic simulation including cryptologic simulation. I found the doco on the installations they had and had been building up on since the late 80's. It also talks of the growing number of EW exersizes they were holding in that area every year that built to a cresendo in 2004. Either it was responsible, or it's the worlds biggest coincidence.

But I don't want to talk out of turn until I present the doco.
 
People always make the claim that it is considered unsafe to test systems on friendly targets unbeknownst to them, which makes sense, but it also seems plausible unintentional miscommunication was at play.
They were controlling the airspace and sent experienced pilots there. Or it could be some miscommunication, or somebody's "bright idea".

About the rapidly changing attributes of the targets I have no idea why that would be part of the test. Maybe it just didn't work perfectly or maybe the idea was to make the enemy thinks that the radars are malfunctioning.

But looking at the whole thing, the hypothesis that it was a radar test fits almost perfectly. Much better than aliens with radar jammers.
 
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They were controlling the airspace and sent experienced pilots there. Or it could be some miscommunication, or somebody's "bright idea".

About the rapidly changing attributes of the targets I have no idea why that would be part of the test. Maybe it just didn't work perfectly or maybe the idea was to make the enemy thinks that the radars are malfunctioning.

But looking at the whole thing, the hypothesis that it was a radar test fits almost perfectly. Much better than aliens with radar jammers.

The hypothesis (by Mick West) it was a glitch of the radar software fits even better. Easily explains the unphysical behaviour of the 'objects' and does not require an exercise where at least some of the partecipants were not informed (which is unprobable for, among others, the reason already evidenced by Alphadunk).
 
The hypothesis (by Mick West) it was a glitch of the radar software fits even better. Easily explains the unphysical behaviour of the 'objects' and does not require an exercise where at least some of the partecipants were not informed (which is unprobable for, among others, the reason already evidenced by Alphadunk).
This does not fit with the NDAs, if that rumor has a substance. Also, I was left with the impression that the people who confiscated the records were not tehcnicians at all.
 
This does not fit with the NDAs, if that rumor has a substance. Also, I was left with the impression that the people who confiscated the records were not tehcnicians at all.

The NDA story is murky at best:
In The Nimitz Encounters documentary, Hughes said a friend and aircrew member on one of the E-2 Hawkeye aircraft told him he had to sign an NDA about the incident. Since the E-2 planes would have been in Carrier Wing Nine’s Airborne-Early Warning Squadron VAW-117 (“The Wallbangers”), and not strike fighter squadron under Fravor’s command, the possibility exists that the E-2’s squadron commander could have issued an NDA to their crew without Fravor’s knowledge. However, Popular Mechanics has not verified what Hughes was told. None of the witnesses we spoke with claimed they had signed an NDA.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a29771548/navy-ufo-witnesses-tell-truth/

In any case, an NDA over a glitch in the Aegis radar would not be surprising, nor the acquisition of the data disks.
 
While you can absolutely explain the events on the Princeton with this, it really just does not explain the 3 pilots' report of the objects moving erratically with seemingly no acceleration (instantaneous change in velocity).

How erratically can a towed balloon move?

The other problem is: the witnesses describe this all happening on a still, perfect day. A balloon could perhaps move erratically in a storm, but there was no such heavy wind reported.
 
If it's not China/Russia/Whoever poking around at the margins, I wonder if it's Red Team vs. Blue Team war gaming?

As in "we've have some new submarine launched drone technology, let's test it out on the best Navy in the world -- ours. Let's gauge how commanders react to novel threats and see how fighter squadrons would approach this kind of stuff without telling them beforehand. Let's see how the technology does in a real world scenario -- in a body of water similar to the South China Sea or just off the coast of a massive urban area with Los Angeles as a stand-in for Taipei. Really simulate the fog of war -- commerical flight traffic, cargo ships, fishing ships, etc."
 
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If it's not China/Russia/Whoever poking around at the margins, I wonder if it's Red Team vs. Blue Team war gaming?

As in "we've have some new submarine launched drone technology, let's test it out on the best Navy in the world -- ours. Let's gauge how commanders react to novel threats and see how fighter squadrons would approach this kind of stuff without telling them beforehand. Let's see how the technology does in a real world scenario -- in a body of water similar to the South China Sea or just off the coast of a massive urban area with Los Angeles as a stand-in for Taipei. Really simulate the fog of war -- commerical flight traffic, cargo ships, fishing ships, etc."


Kevin Day was organising an air battle exercise, not sure if it took place though

Listen for about 30 seconds, already cued up:


Source: https://youtu.be/BgZKxNchWRI?t=227
 
People always make the claim that it is considered unsafe to test systems on friendly targets unbeknownst to them, which makes sense, but it also seems plausible unintentional miscommunication was at play.

I thought it was interesting that the fighter planes were sent to investigate the UAP unarmed. The Navy doesn't want another Iran Air Flight 655 right off the coast of California but at the same time they don't want another Pearl Harbor attack. If there was any real threat, wouldn't they go in prepared to shoot it down instead of gawking and laughing about it?

While you can absolutely explain the events on the Princeton with this, it really just does not explain the 3 pilots' report of the objects moving erratically with seemingly no acceleration (instantaneous change in velocity).

How erratically can a towed balloon move?

The other problem is: the witnesses describe this all happening on a still, perfect day. A balloon could perhaps move erratically in a storm, but there was no such heavy wind reported.

There's a term in military jargon that I forget but it has to do with an aspect of psychological warfare. It's called something like "perceived weirdness" although that's not exactly it. The idea is to make the Thing, whatever it is, intentional odd with the aim being to lock up an adversary's thought process and makes them second-guess themselves. Disney special effects designers call it Imagineering. Same basic idea is at play here, I think.

Check out this video of basically a toy helicopter. This video singlehandedly made me rethink everything I thought I knew about drones. I had no idea drones were manueverable like this. And this is a skilled amateur fooling around in a park. Imagine a military spec drone operated by a pro, with fancy computer assisted guidance.

Seeing something like this with LEDs zipping around the middle of the ocean would create plenty of perceived weirdness.

I thought it was telling that Dietrich, possibly paraphrasing Arthur C. Clarke, said if someone had shown her an iPhone prototype 20 years ago when everone was using monochrome Palm Pilots, she would have thought it was impossible. To my ears, she was implying this is could be black budget surveillance stuff, either ours or a foreign adversary, whoever it is.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=eLAYttPEjIE&lc=UgyB7_D477itPAk-D7Z4AaABAg
 
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"Another interesting aspect of this paper is that it mentions the USS Louisville (SSN-724), a Los Angeles class nuclear fast attack submarine that was also operating alongside the Nimitz. It makes note that the submarine didn't detect any unusual acoustic information or other anomalies during this whole event, even considering the churning water the craft seemed to cause.


USS Louisville SSN-724

The report makes the conclusion that the objects likely never went below the water's surface due to the submarine's lack of awareness that the event was even occurring. If it did submerge, it meant this object represented a 'highly advanced capability' that could evade the submarine's ultra-sensitive sonar and hydrophones."

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...ter-between-f-a-18s-and-ufo-off-baja-surfaces

Or these weren't objects at all. Could the "Tic Tac" have been a projection of some kind?
 
Could be semantics:

Another interesting aspect of this paper is that it mentions the USS Louisville (SSN-724), a Los Angeles class nuclear fast attack submarine that was also operating alongside the Nimitz. It makes note that the submarine didn't detect any unusual acoustic information or other anomalies during this whole event, even considering the churning water the craft seemed to cause.



Didn't detect anything unusual. But detecting an Ohio Class submarine, that they were told would be operating in the area outside of the battle group exercise, would also NOT be unusual. But that tidbit would only be in the classified report.

And that maybe that particular modified Ohio class sub was running tests on a some other version of this:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mCTVvh-zPE&t=21s




Cormorant was Lockheed Martin Skunkworks' concept for a submarine-launched unmanned air vehicle. The design was a response to the Defense Advanced Research Project (DARPA) Multi-purpose Unmanned Air Vehicle (MPUAV) program which began in 2003. Lockheed partnered with General Dynamics Electric Boat, Lockheed Martin Perry Technologies, and Teledyne Turbine Engine Company which received $7.1M in DARPA funding for a Phase 1 Risk Reduction demonstration.

The 19 foot long jet-powered stealthy UAV would be launched from the missile tube of the Navy's four converted ballistic missile submarines (SSGN), boosted into the air by rocket boosters, recovered into the water by parachute, then pulled back into the submarine with a remotely operated vehicle. A mock-up was tested for launch and recovery operations in the Hood Canal. Cormorant was cancelled in 2008.


Maybe, maybe not, who knows.
Your comment on projection and maybe cloaking could be a possibility...again who knows. But this Fravor sighting is about as good as it gets as far as genuine sightings.
 
Could well be. Check out what Digital Radio Frequency Memory can do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_radio_frequency_memory

"A DRFM system is designed to digitize an incoming RF input signal at a frequency and bandwidth necessary to adequately represent the signal, then reconstruct that RF signal when required. The most significant aspect of DRFM is that as a digital "duplicate" of the received signal, it is coherent with the source of the received signal. As opposed to analog 'memory loops', there is no signal degradation caused by continuously cycling the energy through a front-end amplifier which allows for greater range errors for reactive jamming and allows for predictive jamming. A DRFM system may modify the signal prior to retransmitting which can alter the signature of the false target; adjusting its apparent radar cross section, range, velocity, and angle. DRFMs present a significant obstacle for radar sensors."
 
Yes sir.
It is of my opinion, when I hear some to the To the Stars members and Jeremy Corbell talk about hypersonic crafts being tracked on radar, that it very well could be Electronic Warfare.

Fooling the enemy.
Then again it could be Russia or China doing it to us......
 
How do you spoof a FLIR? Is there a way to project a thermal image that will be detected and videoed with an IR system?
 
How do you spoof a FLIR? Is there a way to project a thermal image that will be detected and videoed with an IR system?
I think it's mostly (if not entirely) radar spoofing that is being suggested.

"Spoofing a FLIR" would basically be thermal countermeasures. A flare. Or laser-induced plasma.
 
I think it's mostly (if not entirely) radar spoofing that is being suggested.

"Spoofing a FLIR" would basically be thermal countermeasures. A flare. Or laser-induced plasma.
I asked FLIR spoofing question because the thread title mentioned "Fravor and co(mpany.)" As I recall Cmdr Fravor only visually saw the object, but one of his squadron mates later caught it on FLIR.

Spoofing an IR seeker head on an AAM with flares is very different than creating a false image that is detected and videoed on an a/c mounted IR targeting system. We know we can spoof radar with EW, and spoof the Mark 1 eyeball with holograms. What I can't figure out is how you'd project a thermal image to a specific point in the sky to allow a pilot/WSO to "see" a recognizable/identifiable shape on their display. I know EEs (and electrons) are devious, but how would they do that?

The explanations I've heard relative to the Navy UFO IR videos involved system malfunctions and/or operator error. Certainly both happen, but I wonder if we've developed a way to artificially create a false, defined IR image?
 
Dunno, but I am not sure I see why something they saw by eye would not also be possible to detect with ATFLIR, especially if "TV" mode was an option.
 
The explanations I've heard relative to the Navy UFO IR videos involved system malfunctions and/or operator error. Certainly both happen, but I wonder if we've developed a way to artificially create a false, defined IR image?

The existence, since 2014, of the classified NEMESIS program (mentioned earlier on this thread as the successor of PALLADIUM) addresses the need "to generate the appearance of a realistic naval force to multiple adversarial surveillance and targeting sensors simultaneously", using, amongst other things, "reconfigurable and modular EW payloads, distributed decoy and jammer swarms (DDJS), effective acoustic countermeasures (CM), and multiple input/multiple output sensor/CM (MIMO S/CM) for false force generation to both above and below water sensors". The generic term "sensors" seems to imply they're not merely experimenting radar spoofing through real or artificial objects appearing on, say, navigational radars.

Whether the NEMESIS program includes false IR image generation tests, I do not have the slightest clue, but I'm almost certain such a capability is under development across the world, owing to its great potential in tactical deception.

Anyway, "submarine-launched balloon-based metallic spheres" being used in deception tests already decades ago (as mentioned by Poteat who was cited in the OP) and the likes of the "Cormorant" MPUAV launched from the Ohio Class submarines in the early 2000s (as mentioned in @lougiants' post), complete with rocket boosters falling off the UAV after launch and burn-out, are guaranteed to create very strange IR imagery in addition to radar signatures for the unsuspecting test targets (e.g. Fravor and crew).
 
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The existence, since 2014, of the classified NEMESIS program (mentioned earlier on this thread as the successor of PALLADIUM) addresses the need "to generate the appearance of a realistic naval force to multiple adversarial surveillance and targeting sensors simultaneously", using, amongst other things, "reconfigurable and modular EW payloads, distributed decoy and jammer swarms (DDJS), effective acoustic countermeasures (CM), and multiple input/multiple output sensor/CM (MIMO S/CM) for false force generation to both above and below water sensors". The generic term "sensors" seems to imply they're not merely experimenting radar spoofing through real or artificial objects appearing on, say, navigational radars.

Whether the NEMESIS program includes false IR image generation tests, I do not have the slightest clue, but I'm almost certain such a capability is under development across the world, owing to its great potential in tactical deception.

Anyway, "submarine-launched balloon-based metallic spheres" being used in deception tests already decades ago (as mentioned by Poteat who was cited in the OP) and the likes of the "Cormorant" MPUAV launched from the Ohio Class submarines in the early 2000s (as mentioned in @lougiants' post), complete with rocket boosters falling off the UAV after launch and burn-out, are guaranteed to create very strange IR imagery in addition to radar signatures for the unsuspecting test targets (e.g. Fravor and crew).
Thanks. Yes, I'm familiar with NEMESIS, and agree the ability to generate false adversarial images across various sensor media would be a significant force multiplier. What I can't figure out is how to do that against IR systems. As I mentioned earlier, it would seem to me it would require the ability to project a well defined thermal image that would be identifiable as a specific threat. The concept makes sense, how to do it is what I can't comprehend.

The sub launched systems you mentioned I was not familiar with until reading about them here. Interesting technology, but I doubt either has the capability to create specific threats when viewed by IR systems. I also don't believe those systems could produce imagery that maneuvered in space, climbing and diving, etc. Falling boosters might create "very strange" imagery, but they can't climb.
 
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Plasma laser holograms (Aerial Burton) could do it at the level of detail in the Navy videos, but I doubt the energy output is sufficient. (Also, it wouldn't look dark visually.)

See https://www.metabunk.org/threads/plasma-laser-hologram-as-a-possible-ufo-sighting-explanation.11527/
Yeah, there's that "but is it practical?" qualifier that bites such concepts in the butt. Reminds me of the "Face of God" battlefield hologram rumors out of Desert Storm. Great psy-op idea, but I remember reading an article where it was explained creating that hologram would have required a huge mirror in orbit, multiple massive projectors, and prohibitive power sources. Other than that, though.....
 
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I asked FLIR spoofing question because the thread title mentioned "Fravor and co(mpany.)" As I recall Cmdr Fravor only visually saw the object, but one of his squadron mates later caught it on FLIR.
There were at least two persons who visually saw that object. Fravor and Dietrich.

But probably, there were four persons who saw that object. The two mentioned pilots, Dietrich and Fravor, and their two Weapon System officers (WSO) who were with them, and who keep being silent.
 
There were at least two persons who visually saw that object. Fravor and Dietrich.

But probably, there were four persons who saw that object. The two mentioned pilots, Dietrich and Fravor, and their two Weapon System officers (WSO) who were with them, and who keep being silent.
No, I meant Fravor didn't see it on radar. I know his wingman saw it visually as well.
 
Thanks. Yes, I'm familiar with NEMESIS, and agree the ability to generate false adversarial images across various sensor media would be a significant force multiplier. What I can't figure out is how to do that against IR systems. As I mentioned earlier, it would seem to me it would require the ability to project a well defined thermal image that would be identifiable as a specific threat. The concept makes sense, how to do it is what I can't comprehend.

The sub launched systems you mentioned I was not familiar with until reading about them here. Interesting technology, but I doubt either has the capability to create specific threats when viewed by IR systems. I also don't believe those systems could produce imagery that maneuvered in space, climbing and diving, etc. Falling boosters might create "very strange" imagery, but they can't climb.

Remember , NEMESIS involves real objects, ie drones
So through the event, the radar signals of a fleet of craft could have been false spoofed craft produced by the EW capabilites of the drones. "
And the objects seen visually could then have been the drones themselves.
Of course this is if it was something like NEMESIS - ie a predessor
 
Remember , NEMESIS involves real objects, ie drones
So through the event, the radar signals of a fleet of craft could have been false spoofed craft produced by the EW capabilites of the drones. "
And the objects seen visually could then have been the drones themselves.
Of course this is if it was something like NEMESIS - ie a predessor
That concept has existed going back to the 60s when the USAF introduced the "Quail decoy missile" (effectively a drone by today's standards) to be dropped from B-52s. The Quail didn't perform to the levels expected, but the idea of using a drone to spoof radar goes back to the Cold War.


Source: https://youtu.be/XOtbpnmfcqs
 
I am of the view that any explanation for the Nimitz encounter has to explain not just some of the characteristics but all of them. A test of new radar tech would not cause the pilots to visually see something....and bear in mind that more than one pilot claims to have seen whatever the object was.

The point being that this is surely how you rule stuff in or out of any hypothesis. One cannot just ignore factors that don't conveniently fit a particular theory. Of course there's always the possibility of the coinciding of two unrelated events, but then one has to weigh up the likelihood of that.
 
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