I won’t be able to provide information that other people haven’t already but I have encountered one of these “aircraft”.
I own a small light sport airplane and was flying between UT and CA at 12.5k ft and saw one of these pass 1,000ft below me not far outside of Reno. ATC didn’t call it so presumably they didn’t see it on radar. It was exactly as described, small, shiny, cylindrical, no wings, and fast. If I could guess it was doing 500kts in the opposite direction. By the time I pulled out my phone to snap a picture it was gone. If it was a cruise missile it was flying over a populated area and not in restricted airspace or a MOA. Not sure what conclusions to draw other than these things are real and probably more common than people assume. It was not an airliner or private jet I’ve seen plenty of them.
tbh this seems like the perfect situation to test US air defences and radar technology.
Flying a long range unarmed stealth drone in lightly populated areas through the US would tell you a great deal about how observable the drone is to US radars. Flying dangerously through Air traffic controlled space also ensures that the military radars get pointed in your direction at some point or another.
For an unarmed small(ish) drone the risks of getting caught are likely minimal. Crash in an unpopulated area (plenty of those in the west coast), self-destruct at high altitude or simply acknowledge the spying incident and point to the SR-71/U-2 as precedent.
There is very little requirement on equipment to fly in the US, you don't even need a radio in the majority of the space (only when you approach towered airports and other busy / special areas). So we're far from requiring a camera :)
I saw one too when I was flying in/around the restricted airspace near Cape Cod / Camp Edwards in MA. I was flying at 5,500 ft. Surprised the heck out of me, until I realized it was probably just a drone.
> ATC didn’t call it so presumably they didn’t see it on radar.
Not a reasonable presumption. VFR aircraft are lowest priority, and traffic calls for VFRs are very much not guaranteed. If a controller has too much to do, you won’t get traffic calls. And just because the frequency is quiet, doesn’t mean the controller is twiddling their thumbs. They could be on the landline or briefing the next controller.
While this is true something at that closing rate and speed would have stood out like a sore thumb, it’s also probable alarms would have gone off. Source: I’ve been inside of a center facility and had the privilege of playing with a scope and asking questions.
It’s an educated guess from years of watching and avoiding other airplanes. The reason it drew my attention was the abnormal speed, then I focused in on it and realized it was a featureless cylinder.
Is it possible this thing is like a cigar with a propeller rotates around the cigar so that you don't actually see there being a propeller because it's rotating? And somehow computer control maintains level flight, or maybe it's multiple propellers around the axis of the cigar.
Alternate theory: Boeing wheels one of these things out to buzz commercial aircraft and airports every time they have some sort of mishap as a PR diversion.
In the off chance you pass one again, would you consider mounting go-pro's on your plane, or one of those fancier ones that gets 360 degrees some bush-plane youtubers are using? I don't have a link handy to the model of camera.
Oddly enough, people used to say the same thing about gorillas. They thought people were just confusing the natives with monkeys, or making up stories about monsters.
"Ernst Florens Chladni, was the first to publish (in 1794) the idea that meteorites might be rocks that originated not from Earth, but from space....The scientific community of the time responded with resistance and mockery." - Wikipedia
In this era, people can fake anything, as well as debunk anything. If someone doesn't want to believe something, no amount of video will be enough to convince that person.
That said, because they're very common, and that there are many stories about them across the history (and not just in recent times) and from many different sources, and that there's a lot of government documentation, and the fact that even Pentagon officially recognized that there's something going on, should be at least enough to steer you away from saying something is just 'bs'.
Reports of rare marine phenomenon such as rogue waves¹ were widely dismissed as “tall” (no pun intended) tales by sailors – and more recently – surfers. It wasn’t until the last few decades that photography and marine instruments provided empirical evidence for their existence.
I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss anecdotal reports of simalarly rare and hard-to-capture aeronautical pheonmenon.
A cylinder like.. a cylinder with flat ends? No aerodynamic control surfaces? Was it metal? Was it rotating along an axis? Did it make a sound? Was it 1 foot, 10 feet or 100 feet long? Did it leave a vapor trail? Your story sounds like bullshit.
Yes, re-entry can survive for the lower velocity orbits all the way to ground depending on debris material and orientation. Air density is 20% at 40k ft, so much more likely to make it that far.
The article really jumps to conclusions. This missile shaped and moving like a cruise missile in a part of the US where they test missiles, was probably... a test missile.
Especially given all of the hypersonic missile development going on right now.
I skimmed the original recording posted by the source to find where this happens (it's 1:13:03, you're welcome). The recording is from a scanner and I think either the user was actively tuning it or it was set to scan. You seem to be hearing more than one center simultaneously and things are getting cut off in odd ways.
The point is, the recording posted at the linked article is... really all of the context there is. You hear "Have any targets here? We just..." with the beginning of that sentence cut off. You never hear the pilot identify, presumably it was cut off, so I'm not even totally sure how the source identified which aircraft this was.
You also do not hear the response.
If the transmission was on 127.85 or 134.75 as the author suggests, it was either Borger Low or Amarillo High. They filed FL360 and for the type anyway it was probably Amarillo High, ZAB sector 97. Unfortunately atclive doesn't archive that sector or it seems even any near it. Any chance some other website does?
How come aircrafts are not equipped with color video for later visual confirmation? If a pilot claimed something, we can at least see what they are describing as well, and maybe more details that they didn't catch with video.
Also are commercial pilots not allowed to carry smartphones? Did the pilots not record outside the cockpit window with their phones?
Hearing of this UFO is pretty exciting, and it would be even more exciting to have actual photographs of it from official sources.
> Hearing of this UFO is pretty exciting, and it would be even more exciting to have actual photographs of it from official sources.
It would be, indeed.
There's probably a simple explanation for the fact that when the general public started carrying around high-quality camera equipment at all times, UFO/alien sightings went down and police brutality incidents started cropping up.
Looks like the peak for UFO sightings was 2014-2015 and sightings are still above year 2000 rates[1]. I'm not certain I trust this data, 1990 seems awfully low, maybe there is a bias in how the data is collected, but it's the best source I found.
Apparently it's difficult to quantify the number of police use of force complaints, in part, perhaps, because there are so many different jurisdictions and they collect data and report (or not) differently. I'd bet on use of force complaints declining though, I'd bet it is directly related to crime, which I expect has also gone down.
One explanation for the above is that it is as easy as ever to see a UFO without video evidence. "I forgot to film it! It was so fast! My phone wasn't working! etc". It's also possible to create fake photos, either with props or taking pictures of things that aren't immediately identifiable, or with photo editing software. The existence of phones probably makes police brutality a little less likely, on the other hand, if it does anything, because police know there is an increased chance their subject/victim will be recording them or that someone else will be (or that their bodycams are).
> How come aircrafts are not equipped with color video for later visual confirmation?
They are called reconnaissance aircraft, and open you up to all sorts of fun stuff like compliance with arms control treaties. Also as a general rule, airlines and even private pilots don't like to pay (in fuel) to carry things up in to the sky that they don't need on a regular basis.
> Also are commercial pilots not allowed to carry smartphones?
Pilots are trained to follow one general principal above all else: "Just fly the airplane." The concept is further expanded to "aviate navigate communicate administrate," if you are ever wondering what you should be doing at a given time. Screwing around with your phone is nowhere on the list unless you are on scheduled break time.
Tracking cameras on civilian passenger plane seems like a whole lot extra stuff for operator to maintain and service compared to the benefit of capturing an UFO pictures once every few months.
Because that would make a civillian passenger transport indistinguishable from a recon asset.
You know what happens to recon assets that frequent hostile airspace, don't you? There are legitimate reasons to not build functionality into something.
> I hate to say this but it looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing
Holy smokes, that would be quite alarming.
American Airlines confirms...the radio transmission was from one of their pilots. OK. It will be interesting to see how the 6-month pentagon directive goes.
(I personally have no opinion on this, as to weapon or sky dolphins or aliens)
One of my pet theories is that there is no big "coverup of the known" with UFOs. Instead it's a coverup of the unknown.
We humans have basically built up a pile of experiential-scientific debt, due to leftover 20th century "don't look into it, don't ask questions" psychology which was rampant in world militaries and governments.
If there's a UFO coverup, it's likely a natural human coverup due to leftover human evolutionary speedbumps like the delayed-frightened animal response.
One specific example:
“There’s no doubt it was something beyond anything we know or understand. […] I have concerns, but I don’t think we can do anything about it. I think this is beyond us. So: Quit worrying about it.” --Lt. Colonel Charles Halt, USAF, who actually experienced the Rendlesham Forest incident
(Can you imagine a military leader with similar psychology managing a department of UFO research?)
Another researcher's take:
“…not only is there a UFO coverup, but they [government / miltary] simply have no idea what they are. They really don’t.” --John Greenwald
IMO we should train our elected and appointed leadership to look into things--otherwise in many cases they will refuse to do so when their subjective leanings are calling the shots. This is basic, foundational strategy for contingencies...
Does it even have to be a secret aircraft? Unless the pilots have relevant qualification, it doesn't even necessarily look the way they described it, due to any number of physics factors.
That's why I said--I have no opinion as to what it is. Why leap to conclusions in either direction, which just gets subjective way too early?
If you're saying, "it's probably..." then that's your call, but being so subjective, the attractiveness of having reached an answer so fast could also prevent you from learning that it's something else. A.k.a blindspot.
>“There’s no doubt it was something beyond anything we know or understand. […] I have concerns, but I don’t think we can do anything about it. I think this is beyond us. So: Quit worrying about it.” --Lt. Colonel Charles Halt, USAF, who actually experienced the Rendlesham Forest incident
Col Halt is not a UFO researcher. He has other primary duties. David Fravor (the tic tac guy) does a good job on Lex Fridman's podcast of explaining why the folks that experience these things can't/don't/won't do anything about it. Basically it's somebody else's job. So don't blame them.
Not the OP, but sometimes I wonder whether some of these events are effects of testing by foreign militaries, and the DoD wants to hide knowledge of foreign military technology (because maybe they're trying to copy it).
My point is that A) coming to a conclusion as to what the object is may be way too early, and B) the coverup that urgently needs to be exploded and brought to a conclusion ASAP is the "don't look into things" approach to things we don't already know about.
Again: I personally have no opinion on this, as to weapon or sky dolphins or aliens.
Fwiw, the skies over Arizona were loaded with contrails today. Very unusual to see this kind of volume.
All of the aircraft appeared to be heading due west in the direction of Las Vegas (Nellis AFB) and southern Cal.
The last time I witnessed this degree of activity was in early 2020, one day after the drone strike on Iranian General Soleimani. The whole sky was a crisscross mesh of expanding vapor.
In these circumstances you can easily tell the difference between commercial and military aircraft simply by their speed. Military aircraft haul ass at all altitudes, without exception.
Ironic to me that this story appeared on HN today given what I've mentioned. I'm not surprised AA reported a UFO encounter two days ago either. Southwest US skies seem to have become very busy.
One contrail in particular took a sharp turn from the southeast and headed directly for Vegas. Its shape is what made me look up to discover everything else going on.
It has been very windy for many months, along with drought conditions, so the skies here have been clear. No monsoon to speak of either. I found it unusual given what seems to be the new "normal" of clear skies the past couple of years.
Readit News
I own a small light sport airplane and was flying between UT and CA at 12.5k ft and saw one of these pass 1,000ft below me not far outside of Reno. ATC didn’t call it so presumably they didn’t see it on radar. It was exactly as described, small, shiny, cylindrical, no wings, and fast. If I could guess it was doing 500kts in the opposite direction. By the time I pulled out my phone to snap a picture it was gone. If it was a cruise missile it was flying over a populated area and not in restricted airspace or a MOA. Not sure what conclusions to draw other than these things are real and probably more common than people assume. It was not an airliner or private jet I’ve seen plenty of them.
Flying a long range unarmed stealth drone in lightly populated areas through the US would tell you a great deal about how observable the drone is to US radars. Flying dangerously through Air traffic controlled space also ensures that the military radars get pointed in your direction at some point or another.
For an unarmed small(ish) drone the risks of getting caught are likely minimal. Crash in an unpopulated area (plenty of those in the west coast), self-destruct at high altitude or simply acknowledge the spying incident and point to the SR-71/U-2 as precedent.
Edit: Any resemblances to these?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSLACOmOyjs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n36KOqbwrMY
Not a reasonable presumption. VFR aircraft are lowest priority, and traffic calls for VFRs are very much not guaranteed. If a controller has too much to do, you won’t get traffic calls. And just because the frequency is quiet, doesn’t mean the controller is twiddling their thumbs. They could be on the landline or briefing the next controller.
When you say "small", can you give an estimate of it's length and diameter?
Are we talking small-plane-small, or welding-gas-cylinder-small?
Alternate theory: Boeing wheels one of these things out to buzz commercial aircraft and airports every time they have some sort of mishap as a PR diversion.
Color: Twilight.
Deleted Comment
(b) Completely impossible to get good video about them.
a & b => bs
https://listverse.com/2010/04/16/10-beasts-that-used-to-be-m...
"Ernst Florens Chladni, was the first to publish (in 1794) the idea that meteorites might be rocks that originated not from Earth, but from space....The scientific community of the time responded with resistance and mockery." - Wikipedia
That said, because they're very common, and that there are many stories about them across the history (and not just in recent times) and from many different sources, and that there's a lot of government documentation, and the fact that even Pentagon officially recognized that there's something going on, should be at least enough to steer you away from saying something is just 'bs'.
I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss anecdotal reports of simalarly rare and hard-to-capture aeronautical pheonmenon.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave
It seems to match up with https://aerospace.org/reentries/cz-11-rocket-body-id-46463
Vaguely Identified Flying Object
Especially given all of the hypersonic missile development going on right now.
The point is, the recording posted at the linked article is... really all of the context there is. You hear "Have any targets here? We just..." with the beginning of that sentence cut off. You never hear the pilot identify, presumably it was cut off, so I'm not even totally sure how the source identified which aircraft this was.
You also do not hear the response.
If the transmission was on 127.85 or 134.75 as the author suggests, it was either Borger Low or Amarillo High. They filed FL360 and for the type anyway it was probably Amarillo High, ZAB sector 97. Unfortunately atclive doesn't archive that sector or it seems even any near it. Any chance some other website does?
Also are commercial pilots not allowed to carry smartphones? Did the pilots not record outside the cockpit window with their phones?
Hearing of this UFO is pretty exciting, and it would be even more exciting to have actual photographs of it from official sources.
It would be, indeed.
There's probably a simple explanation for the fact that when the general public started carrying around high-quality camera equipment at all times, UFO/alien sightings went down and police brutality incidents started cropping up.
Apparently it's difficult to quantify the number of police use of force complaints, in part, perhaps, because there are so many different jurisdictions and they collect data and report (or not) differently. I'd bet on use of force complaints declining though, I'd bet it is directly related to crime, which I expect has also gone down.
One explanation for the above is that it is as easy as ever to see a UFO without video evidence. "I forgot to film it! It was so fast! My phone wasn't working! etc". It's also possible to create fake photos, either with props or taking pictures of things that aren't immediately identifiable, or with photo editing software. The existence of phones probably makes police brutality a little less likely, on the other hand, if it does anything, because police know there is an increased chance their subject/victim will be recording them or that someone else will be (or that their bodycams are).
1 - https://www.statista.com/chart/8452/ufo-sightings-are-at-rec...
They are called reconnaissance aircraft, and open you up to all sorts of fun stuff like compliance with arms control treaties. Also as a general rule, airlines and even private pilots don't like to pay (in fuel) to carry things up in to the sky that they don't need on a regular basis.
> Also are commercial pilots not allowed to carry smartphones?
Pilots are trained to follow one general principal above all else: "Just fly the airplane." The concept is further expanded to "aviate navigate communicate administrate," if you are ever wondering what you should be doing at a given time. Screwing around with your phone is nowhere on the list unless you are on scheduled break time.
Pilots can also operate a camera and many do record and share their travels on Youtube.
You know what happens to recon assets that frequent hostile airspace, don't you? There are legitimate reasons to not build functionality into something.
Holy smokes, that would be quite alarming.
American Airlines confirms...the radio transmission was from one of their pilots. OK. It will be interesting to see how the 6-month pentagon directive goes.
(I personally have no opinion on this, as to weapon or sky dolphins or aliens)
One of my pet theories is that there is no big "coverup of the known" with UFOs. Instead it's a coverup of the unknown.
We humans have basically built up a pile of experiential-scientific debt, due to leftover 20th century "don't look into it, don't ask questions" psychology which was rampant in world militaries and governments.
If there's a UFO coverup, it's likely a natural human coverup due to leftover human evolutionary speedbumps like the delayed-frightened animal response.
One specific example:
“There’s no doubt it was something beyond anything we know or understand. […] I have concerns, but I don’t think we can do anything about it. I think this is beyond us. So: Quit worrying about it.” --Lt. Colonel Charles Halt, USAF, who actually experienced the Rendlesham Forest incident
(Can you imagine a military leader with similar psychology managing a department of UFO research?)
Another researcher's take:
“…not only is there a UFO coverup, but they [government / miltary] simply have no idea what they are. They really don’t.” --John Greenwald
IMO we should train our elected and appointed leadership to look into things--otherwise in many cases they will refuse to do so when their subjective leanings are calling the shots. This is basic, foundational strategy for contingencies...
That's why I said--I have no opinion as to what it is. Why leap to conclusions in either direction, which just gets subjective way too early?
If you're saying, "it's probably..." then that's your call, but being so subjective, the attractiveness of having reached an answer so fast could also prevent you from learning that it's something else. A.k.a blindspot.
Col Halt is not a UFO researcher. He has other primary duties. David Fravor (the tic tac guy) does a good job on Lex Fridman's podcast of explaining why the folks that experience these things can't/don't/won't do anything about it. Basically it's somebody else's job. So don't blame them.
Again: I personally have no opinion on this, as to weapon or sky dolphins or aliens.
All of the aircraft appeared to be heading due west in the direction of Las Vegas (Nellis AFB) and southern Cal.
The last time I witnessed this degree of activity was in early 2020, one day after the drone strike on Iranian General Soleimani. The whole sky was a crisscross mesh of expanding vapor.
In these circumstances you can easily tell the difference between commercial and military aircraft simply by their speed. Military aircraft haul ass at all altitudes, without exception.
Ironic to me that this story appeared on HN today given what I've mentioned. I'm not surprised AA reported a UFO encounter two days ago either. Southwest US skies seem to have become very busy.
Those contrails do not indicate more aircraft. They indicate favorable conditions for the formation of contrails.
And I wouldn't call it "very" unusual. It happens about every month or so, and more often at this time of year.
It has been very windy for many months, along with drought conditions, so the skies here have been clear. No monsoon to speak of either. I found it unusual given what seems to be the new "normal" of clear skies the past couple of years.
Fighters can reach supersonic speeds in some circumstances but seldom do so outside of controlled exercise areas.
You can't reliability differentiate between civilian and military aircraft just by watching contrails from the ground.
It is not uncommon to be driving between Las Vegas and Phoenix and have jets from Luke AFB flying training missions overhead at low altitude.
A lot of helicopter training is done out here as well.