"2:42 Check out the readout on the bottom right . One of the numbers is the target height above terrain - and after it's hit that goes down from 86 to 59 over about 6 seconds before the video cuts off. So after being hit the object isn't continuing on course, it's falling at an increasingly fast rate.
The video was sent to Rep. Eric Burlison with no chain of custody and no context, and it's a video taken of a screen which crops out 80% of the analytical data along the edges of the screen, but that's the MOST IMPORTANT PART which would tell us the distance, speed, size, range, angle and other critical information for interpreting the video. This could be drone to drone intercept footage from a training mission, we just don't know at this point."
Also note that the article's title contains an error - this is not "radar footage, it's IR camera footage. Before assuming this is even an "orb" at all, check out this video on how these cameras work: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs
I'm no expert but my most likely bet is someone cropped IR footage of a drone intercept and sent it without context or SME interpretation to a congressman.
HN is very conspiracy theory and misinformation infused. I have seen more flatearthers, antiwaxers and other kinds of crazy on HN than Facebook, Twitter and TikTok combined. It's probably people here are smart in one field and automatically think they are smart in others. Or it's just the heavy drug use.
> It's probably people here are smart in one field and automatically think they are smart in others. Or it's just the heavy drug use.
Or it could be as simple as motivated reasoning.
Someone I go to for hair grooming is a conspiracy nut. For _some reason_ they have been making odd comments about how they haven't seen as many chemtrails in the air since late January.
Interesting video and anlysis to learn how a gimbal camera tracks and records objects, but that doesn't really address any of the points as to what those objects (since there were several, observed first by radar operators before fighter jets were dispatched) may have been.
No, YOU can see that, but many cannot, including the radar operators in the first place, who scrambled fighter jets after they had already observed those objected doing crazy manoeuvres, like dropping 10,000 feet in 2 seconds and vice-versa.
Do you have a reliable source for this claim? I don't believe claims from pilots without corresponding evidence because I know a bunch of civilian and military pilots and many fall victim to the same logical fallacies, hearsay and poor memory that regular people do. Show me the data.
It's impossible to reach conclusions about the motion of the object solely by looking at the FLIR footage.
But that's irrelevant if you understand anything about the logistics here.
There are really only two possibilities here: either the object really was moving as claimed, or multiple retired military aviators are lying in unison.
As described by the aviators who've described things publicly (Fravor, Dietrich, Underwood, Slaight, Underwood), these encounters cannot possibly involve a gross misunderstanding about the motion of the object.
The UAP was initially spotted by the Princeton on radar. The fighters were initially 60 miles away from the object(s) and were directed on an intercept course by the Princeton, at which point they observed it via some combination of visual observation and/or FLIR. At this point we're talking about a minimum of four aviators (pilot+WSO aboard each fighter) and the radar operators on the Princeton and likely other ships as well. A second flight of at least one (but perhaps more likely two) F/A-18 were dispatched to later confirm. Brings the total to 6-8 aviators.
If the radar operators on the Princeton didn't have a precise understanding of the object's speed, location, and heading they would not have been able to direct the pilots to intercept the objects.
If the aviators had a gross misunderstanding of the UAP's motion they would have been out of visual and FLIR range found themselves quickly, so even an initial gross misunderstanding would have become quickly apparent.
The Alert Five aircraft does (the aircraft they scramble to intercept). It does get followed up by another aircraft a few minutes later, though.
> the F/A-18 is a two-seat aircraft so (if they are being truthful) that's a minimum of four pilots
It's has one or two seat versions. The second seat is not a pilot seat.
> In fact, I think radar is what allows the IR camera to follow the object's motion?
The camera can do it's own contrast based tracking or be slewed to follow another sensor such as radar, navigation data, or datalink from another aircraft.
Apologies, I edited for clarity so the wording from my post is all changed around. I probably managed to actually make it less clear as well. Been that kind of day.
> The Alert Five aircraft does (the aircraft they scramble to intercept).
> It does get followed up by another aircraft a few minutes later, though.
Thanks for the correction. It seems the initial encounter was with 2 aircraft diverted from the training exercise and the follow-up was indeed a single aircraft (during which the publically-available FLIR footage was recorded)
> It's has one or two seat versions. The second seat is not a pilot seat.
These were two-seaters. The WSO is also a pilot in common parlance (they have flight controls back there for emergencies) but not in Navy parlance (they are flight officers). I try to remember to use the more general term of "aviators" but sometimes I use it interchangeably with "pilot" which is not strictly correct.
Perhaps most relevantly, the WSO's training focuses even more on operating and comprehending the output of sensors (FLIR, radar, etc) than the pilot's training.
> The camera can do it's own contrast based tracking or be slewed
> to follow another sensor such as radar, navigation data, or
> datalink from another aircraft.
Yeah. So just to be clear, any "misconception" about the motion of the UAP(s) would involve misconceptions on the part of six aviators, one radar and its associated crew (the one on the Princeton) and possibly multiple additional radars (aboard the 3? Hornets that may or may not have been been directing the FLIR)
The most relevant thing, I think, is that there's no way the Princeton could have vectored the Hornets to a UAP ~60 miles away unless the Princeton's radar had an accurate reading of the UAP's speed and direction.
That's why (for that particular aspect of the story) it seems like there's no possible middle ground. They are not mistaken. They are either lying in a coordinated and consistent way (possible; it's the military) or they are telling the truth.
Mick West covers this issue. It was a illusion, as the stationary object appears to zoom past the confused pilot. In any case this is not a hellfire missle analysis.
If several fighter jet pilots, plus several radar operators on the ship, are all confused the same way looking at the same events, that's rather frightening.
debunked several times. The tic tac was four pilots with an illusion, chasing a paper bag or bird. Stationairy object. Its gimbal rotation. The camera is moving, the object is moving very slowly, the jet is moving very fast. Its a camera rotation test footage.
The puerto rico is two lanters from a wedding down the beach. Again the camera is moving jet speed fast while the objects are moving wind speed.
Brazil was just a drunk kid in the alley wit his body all twisted, there was never an alien
Lol yeah, the radar operators scrambled several fighter jets because they observed a paper bag floating, paper bags that went up and down 10,000 feets within seconds, and paper bags that the fighter jets couldn't follow to the end since the wind lift them up so quick.
And then (tic-tac), paper bag that went in and out of water without loss of speed or splash.
Thanks Sherlock.
It is deployed against slow moving air targets. Some variants are even radar guided.
This video, though, isn't remotely convincing. It looks like the hellfire deflects off a bog standard drone, yet doesn't detonate, which disassembles and the look-down video cuts before we see the actual consequences. The path of the object is basic inertia where a rolling object is falling to the ground but we're seeing top down so it's "maintaining course".
These UFO things are always sadly a lot of noise and astonishingly little substance. There are "kooks" -- people who have decompensated and no longer are rational -- in every large enough set, including the military. There are always terrible evidence like these videos, coupled with people giving their completely unsubstantiated crazy takes.
They are capable of hitting aerial targets as well. They have recently been deployed by the US Navy as a cheaper way to counter cheap aerial drones launched by Iranian proxies (~$100k Hellfire vs a ~$1m SM2).
Air to air missiles don't always explode in a fireball like in Hollywood movies. Often it's more like a shotgun blast that peppers the target with holes and relatively minor damage that then causes mechanical failure. The Dutch safety board's analysis video of the shootdown of MH17 has great animations and forensic photos.
Aren’t they supposed to explode just prior to contact? I.e. they aren’t flying hammers? So was this missile not armed or what happened, it’s difficult for me to see on mobile.
It's not that simple. Some are designed to fly alongside the target and send a shrapnel ring blasting out. But the ballistics are a complex problem and they can sometimes physically impact the target in certain intercept geometries. You also may not be able to distinguish a direct hit from a shrapnel blast kill in a recording of a FLIR display from a distance, since the shrapnel may not show up well in the IR spectrum + the display is much lower resolution than the camera. (e.g. if you take a photo with a high end camera, but look at the photo on the LCD on the back of the camera, you won't see all the detail captured by the system.) Anecdotally I've heard that pilots can see their targets in far better detail using the debriefing tools after the flight than they can with the cockpit displays.
> It's not that simple. Some are designed to fly alongside the target and send a shrapnel ring blasting out
Yes many air target missiles do just that but this is a hellfire, normally used for ground targets. So there is no flying alongside its intended targets, it's just a big boom warhead.
Because it's meant for ground targets I could imagine the detonator needs something really firm to hit in order to detonate though. A drone might not suffice in all circumstances
Hellfires have a selection of available warheads. The newest ones have multi-purpose warheads that have different selectable explosive patterns for different types of target. Even physically twisting the missile to get better hit probability on an air target:
This area of defense technology has been moving very quickly in the past few years, many assumptions the general public holds about military weapons and tactics are long obsolete.
The "U" stands for "unidentified". That's all. No need to be abusive
I'm sure if you could push that, you would. You probably push the elderly and children. You ought try pushing your intellect, for something other than money and ignorance.
PS: since a mod will see (and flag) this comment, please take a moment, if you have the necessary UI, to look at my downvote history. Almost every comment I make gets at least one downvote. I think I've made a friend or two here, but I don't requite. You guys enforce a lot of subtle things; is this encouraged?
This premise fails right at the start. Why would "they" lose their power when people know about aliens? All the reasons why the current batch of political leaders are in power remain valid if aliens exist, whether they're democratically elected or authoritarian despots.
Expand upon your thoughts to comment in good faith :) This isn't reddit
Why do you attribute either opaque or transparent behavior/comms on UFOs from the power structure, if there is nothing to be gained either way by said power structure?
IF there is any discourse to be had on UFOs, power structures hiding things etc. it would be on the topic of US DoD obfuscating Next generations Weapons testing for sake of operational security. This has been a formal USAF departments initiative since the 80s, and it's very transparent initiative.
an interesting youtube comment:
"2:42 Check out the readout on the bottom right . One of the numbers is the target height above terrain - and after it's hit that goes down from 86 to 59 over about 6 seconds before the video cuts off. So after being hit the object isn't continuing on course, it's falling at an increasingly fast rate. The video was sent to Rep. Eric Burlison with no chain of custody and no context, and it's a video taken of a screen which crops out 80% of the analytical data along the edges of the screen, but that's the MOST IMPORTANT PART which would tell us the distance, speed, size, range, angle and other critical information for interpreting the video. This could be drone to drone intercept footage from a training mission, we just don't know at this point."
Also note that the article's title contains an error - this is not "radar footage, it's IR camera footage. Before assuming this is even an "orb" at all, check out this video on how these cameras work: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qsEjV8DdSbs
I'm no expert but my most likely bet is someone cropped IR footage of a drone intercept and sent it without context or SME interpretation to a congressman.
Another UFO video with questionable provenance is debunked by application of a tiny amount of logic? I am truly shocked.
Seriously though why is this on HN?
To distract from obvious ailments of government?
I want to believe! We are not alone! Oh, and most importantly don't forget: Release the Epstein Files!
Trump was Epsteins Boss, dont lose focus.
HN is very conspiracy theory and misinformation infused. I have seen more flatearthers, antiwaxers and other kinds of crazy on HN than Facebook, Twitter and TikTok combined. It's probably people here are smart in one field and automatically think they are smart in others. Or it's just the heavy drug use.
> It's probably people here are smart in one field and automatically think they are smart in others. Or it's just the heavy drug use.
Or it could be as simple as motivated reasoning.
Someone I go to for hair grooming is a conspiracy nut. For _some reason_ they have been making odd comments about how they haven't seen as many chemtrails in the air since late January.
Gee, I wonder why.
If you have debunked the tic-tac footage or the Agaduilla one I am all ears.
Mick West made a convincing analysis several years ago: https://youtu.be/qsEjV8DdSbs
Interesting video and anlysis to learn how a gimbal camera tracks and records objects, but that doesn't really address any of the points as to what those objects (since there were several, observed first by radar operators before fighter jets were dispatched) may have been.
From the video and analysis, we can see the footage is consistent with a man-made aircraft such as an airplane or drone. So these seem likeliest.
Unfortunately we don't have any public radar data to evaluate - only hearsay which is very often unreliable.
No, YOU can see that, but many cannot, including the radar operators in the first place, who scrambled fighter jets after they had already observed those objected doing crazy manoeuvres, like dropping 10,000 feet in 2 seconds and vice-versa.
Do you have a reliable source for this claim? I don't believe claims from pilots without corresponding evidence because I know a bunch of civilian and military pilots and many fall victim to the same logical fallacies, hearsay and poor memory that regular people do. Show me the data.
It's impossible to reach conclusions about the motion of the object solely by looking at the FLIR footage.
But that's irrelevant if you understand anything about the logistics here.
There are really only two possibilities here: either the object really was moving as claimed, or multiple retired military aviators are lying in unison.
As described by the aviators who've described things publicly (Fravor, Dietrich, Underwood, Slaight, Underwood), these encounters cannot possibly involve a gross misunderstanding about the motion of the object.
The UAP was initially spotted by the Princeton on radar. The fighters were initially 60 miles away from the object(s) and were directed on an intercept course by the Princeton, at which point they observed it via some combination of visual observation and/or FLIR. At this point we're talking about a minimum of four aviators (pilot+WSO aboard each fighter) and the radar operators on the Princeton and likely other ships as well. A second flight of at least one (but perhaps more likely two) F/A-18 were dispatched to later confirm. Brings the total to 6-8 aviators.
If the radar operators on the Princeton didn't have a precise understanding of the object's speed, location, and heading they would not have been able to direct the pilots to intercept the objects.
If the aviators had a gross misunderstanding of the UAP's motion they would have been out of visual and FLIR range found themselves quickly, so even an initial gross misunderstanding would have become quickly apparent.
> Fighters don't fly alone
The Alert Five aircraft does (the aircraft they scramble to intercept). It does get followed up by another aircraft a few minutes later, though.
> the F/A-18 is a two-seat aircraft so (if they are being truthful) that's a minimum of four pilots
It's has one or two seat versions. The second seat is not a pilot seat.
> In fact, I think radar is what allows the IR camera to follow the object's motion?
The camera can do it's own contrast based tracking or be slewed to follow another sensor such as radar, navigation data, or datalink from another aircraft.
Apologies, I edited for clarity so the wording from my post is all changed around. I probably managed to actually make it less clear as well. Been that kind of day.
> The Alert Five aircraft does (the aircraft they scramble to intercept). > It does get followed up by another aircraft a few minutes later, though.
Thanks for the correction. It seems the initial encounter was with 2 aircraft diverted from the training exercise and the follow-up was indeed a single aircraft (during which the publically-available FLIR footage was recorded)
> It's has one or two seat versions. The second seat is not a pilot seat.
These were two-seaters. The WSO is also a pilot in common parlance (they have flight controls back there for emergencies) but not in Navy parlance (they are flight officers). I try to remember to use the more general term of "aviators" but sometimes I use it interchangeably with "pilot" which is not strictly correct.
Perhaps most relevantly, the WSO's training focuses even more on operating and comprehending the output of sensors (FLIR, radar, etc) than the pilot's training.
> The camera can do it's own contrast based tracking or be slewed > to follow another sensor such as radar, navigation data, or > datalink from another aircraft.
Yeah. So just to be clear, any "misconception" about the motion of the UAP(s) would involve misconceptions on the part of six aviators, one radar and its associated crew (the one on the Princeton) and possibly multiple additional radars (aboard the 3? Hornets that may or may not have been been directing the FLIR)
The most relevant thing, I think, is that there's no way the Princeton could have vectored the Hornets to a UAP ~60 miles away unless the Princeton's radar had an accurate reading of the UAP's speed and direction.
That's why (for that particular aspect of the story) it seems like there's no possible middle ground. They are not mistaken. They are either lying in a coordinated and consistent way (possible; it's the military) or they are telling the truth.
As for what the UAP was, I don't have an opinion.
Yes, their testimony under oath.
Mick West covers this issue. It was a illusion, as the stationary object appears to zoom past the confused pilot. In any case this is not a hellfire missle analysis.
If several fighter jet pilots, plus several radar operators on the ship, are all confused the same way looking at the same events, that's rather frightening.
Its an analysis of a different incident. Has no relevance to the hellfire missle incident.
That was NOT an analysis of this hellfire missle hitting a UAP.
Yea, the person above asked for a debunk of the older "tictac" video.
Mick has a new video up on this Hellfire video, though.
debunked several times. The tic tac was four pilots with an illusion, chasing a paper bag or bird. Stationairy object. Its gimbal rotation. The camera is moving, the object is moving very slowly, the jet is moving very fast. Its a camera rotation test footage.
The puerto rico is two lanters from a wedding down the beach. Again the camera is moving jet speed fast while the objects are moving wind speed.
Brazil was just a drunk kid in the alley wit his body all twisted, there was never an alien
Lol yeah, the radar operators scrambled several fighter jets because they observed a paper bag floating, paper bags that went up and down 10,000 feets within seconds, and paper bags that the fighter jets couldn't follow to the end since the wind lift them up so quick. And then (tic-tac), paper bag that went in and out of water without loss of speed or splash. Thanks Sherlock.
If that was a missile, there's a non zero chance it failed to blow which would explain the footage as well.
Or it's equipped with a warhead that is designed to kill drones with shrapnel rather than a fireball.
missle on missle, like an iron dome test
A Hellfire is an air to ground missile, why would they be shooting it at a UFO? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-114_Hellfire
It is deployed against slow moving air targets. Some variants are even radar guided.
This video, though, isn't remotely convincing. It looks like the hellfire deflects off a bog standard drone, yet doesn't detonate, which disassembles and the look-down video cuts before we see the actual consequences. The path of the object is basic inertia where a rolling object is falling to the ground but we're seeing top down so it's "maintaining course".
These UFO things are always sadly a lot of noise and astonishingly little substance. There are "kooks" -- people who have decompensated and no longer are rational -- in every large enough set, including the military. There are always terrible evidence like these videos, coupled with people giving their completely unsubstantiated crazy takes.
Hellfires are usable as air to air weapons against slow moving targets. Apaches have shot down slow flying aircraft with them.
https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/... "It can also be used as an air-to-air weapon against helicopters or slow-moving fixed-wing aircraft."
They are capable of hitting aerial targets as well. They have recently been deployed by the US Navy as a cheaper way to counter cheap aerial drones launched by Iranian proxies (~$100k Hellfire vs a ~$1m SM2).
https://www.twz.com/sea/littoral-combat-ship-can-now-rapidly...
They are Shot from a drones. This was shot by a drone.
Do you even read your own link? It says "usually shot from helicopters" right there.
X-files to distract from the E-files
Well played :D
Notice that they don’t ask the pilots who took the video to explain it. Sorry, but we can’t just assume the congressman knows what he’s talking about.
Pretty sure this isn't radar footage but IR.
Why would anybody shoot a missile at an unidentified object?
Shooting at Sufficiently Advanced Aliens also sounds like a bad idea...
could have been missle on missle test
Then it's not a UFO, is it?
"The footage was released during a congressional hearing on Tuesday about unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs.
It shows an MQ-9 Reaper drone tracking a glowing orb off the coast of Yemen before firing a Hellfire missile straight at it.
But instead of blowing the object to bits, the so-called “orb” appeared to shrug it off and keep flying.
The video was taken in October 2024, but has only just been released to the public. "
- https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/36642473/ufo-struck-by-us-mili...
Hearing: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4nzlSz3rJBc
> But instead of blowing the object to bits
Air to air missiles don't always explode in a fireball like in Hollywood movies. Often it's more like a shotgun blast that peppers the target with holes and relatively minor damage that then causes mechanical failure. The Dutch safety board's analysis video of the shootdown of MH17 has great animations and forensic photos.
Also if you look at the video, there's obvious debris coming of either the missile or the craft. Furthermore the craft does seem to be affected.
Aren’t they supposed to explode just prior to contact? I.e. they aren’t flying hammers? So was this missile not armed or what happened, it’s difficult for me to see on mobile.
The Hellfire AGM-114R-9X missiles have bladed bits that slice the target instead of blowing it up. (So, flying swords instead of flying hammers?)
After asking around some military friends suggested to me this could be a training exercise with an inert warhead.
It's not that simple. Some are designed to fly alongside the target and send a shrapnel ring blasting out. But the ballistics are a complex problem and they can sometimes physically impact the target in certain intercept geometries. You also may not be able to distinguish a direct hit from a shrapnel blast kill in a recording of a FLIR display from a distance, since the shrapnel may not show up well in the IR spectrum + the display is much lower resolution than the camera. (e.g. if you take a photo with a high end camera, but look at the photo on the LCD on the back of the camera, you won't see all the detail captured by the system.) Anecdotally I've heard that pilots can see their targets in far better detail using the debriefing tools after the flight than they can with the cockpit displays.
> It's not that simple. Some are designed to fly alongside the target and send a shrapnel ring blasting out
Yes many air target missiles do just that but this is a hellfire, normally used for ground targets. So there is no flying alongside its intended targets, it's just a big boom warhead.
Because it's meant for ground targets I could imagine the detonator needs something really firm to hit in order to detonate though. A drone might not suffice in all circumstances
Hellfires have a selection of available warheads. The newest ones have multi-purpose warheads that have different selectable explosive patterns for different types of target. Even physically twisting the missile to get better hit probability on an air target:
https://www.twz.com/usaf-testing-mutant-missiles-that-twist-...
This area of defense technology has been moving very quickly in the past few years, many assumptions the general public holds about military weapons and tactics are long obsolete.
Hmm cool but are these actually hanging under the wing of a drone or fighter yet? This all looks very experimental. Not daily bread & butter.
Yes, JAGM/Hellfire II/SPEAR are flying. The US military has started deploying weapons much more quickly as of late.
Congress has hearings about UFOs now?
What's next, flat earth hearings?
Dear bully,
The "U" stands for "unidentified". That's all. No need to be abusive
I'm sure if you could push that, you would. You probably push the elderly and children. You ought try pushing your intellect, for something other than money and ignorance.
PS: since a mod will see (and flag) this comment, please take a moment, if you have the necessary UI, to look at my downvote history. Almost every comment I make gets at least one downvote. I think I've made a friend or two here, but I don't requite. You guys enforce a lot of subtle things; is this encouraged?
it was a missle on missle test like iron dome.
[dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45188069
I see a video of a object being shot down, debree falling and cut to a earlier clip.
”Now its zoomed out”.
Looks like the usual dumb nonsense, enough to convince only the gullible.
Release the damn Epstein files!!!!
One upvote = one impeachment. Now please go back to reddit.
Ah, yes. Reddit, where mature discussion happens. /s
The video is obviously cut and framed to support these nonsense claims. Still, a crappy job.
Instead of adding to the discussion you are trolling.
How did you even manage to get negative karma here? You get a point for each of your hundreds of comments.
You must have some seriously fringe tech takes…
I believe this be an Iron Dome test. Missle on Missle.
Let me guess: The aliens are the Chinese?
I hope they bring back Elvis!
I'm back
And that he has the Epstein files, and releases them!
I hope he will write, sing, and dance a big beautiful love song about Trump's sexy secretive birthday letter to Epstein.
[dead]
They've known there's aliens for years, they just have to boil us like frogs so they don't lose their power when we "find out"
This premise fails right at the start. Why would "they" lose their power when people know about aliens? All the reasons why the current batch of political leaders are in power remain valid if aliens exist, whether they're democratically elected or authoritarian despots.
Well I'm sure not listening to them
Expand upon your thoughts to comment in good faith :) This isn't reddit
Why do you attribute either opaque or transparent behavior/comms on UFOs from the power structure, if there is nothing to be gained either way by said power structure?
IF there is any discourse to be had on UFOs, power structures hiding things etc. it would be on the topic of US DoD obfuscating Next generations Weapons testing for sake of operational security. This has been a formal USAF departments initiative since the 80s, and it's very transparent initiative.
In that case what does it matter if they release news of aliens or not?