Why all the UFO Reports Lately?

[Ted Striker]

Anyway, all this got me thinking about some of the old government programs to construct a nuclear powered aircraft, except from what I've read all of those projects were more in line with convention aircraft propulsion systems, and they all lost funding before ever putting something in the air. I need to do more reading, want to check if the time lines match up between these projects losing funding and some of Lazar's supposed work at the S-4 site..

Is this what you had in mind? That's the only us one I know about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_NB-36H

Going back to this for a minute, the reason the nuclear reactor powered aircraft idea was scrapped (aside from being monumentally stupid) is that it didn't have any performance advantage. Boeing was already building jets that could hand the NB-36 its ass.

[summit]

Nuclear propulsion research in aircraft was not halted with the NB-36. See the Tory II nuclear scramjet engine development (Project Pluto) for the SLAM or the reactor the Russians accidently blew in a test a year or two ago (killed some scientists).

There are several ways to propel aircraft with nuclear jet propulsion. Primarily you gotta figure if you are gonna do indirect cycle (eg NB-36) or direct cycle (SLAM, dirty).

The primary advantage of nuclear powered aircraft is unlimited range and loiter time while operating at max speed and without aerial refueling. The primary disadvantage is literally everything else (cost, shielding weight, expected contamination, maintenance, crash contamination, etc). The disadvantages outweigh the advantages.

Nuclear propulsion is most useful for military naval vessels and exoatmospheric rockets.

[Ted Striker]

Nuclear propulsion research in aircraft was not halted with the NB-36. See the Tory II nuclear scramjet engine development (Project Pluto) for the SLAM or the reactor the Russians accidently blew in a test a year or two ago (killed some scientists).

Lazy writing on my part. We're still talking stuff that the US essentially abandoned decades ago. I didn't know (or had forgotten) about the Russians still messing with it.

This was my point, expressed more concisely:

The disadvantages outweigh the advantages.

And I'd add, creates more problems than it solves.

[east or bust]

Going back to this for a minute, the reason the nuclear reactor powered aircraft idea was scrapped (aside from being monumentally stupid) is that it didn't have any performance advantage. Boeing was already building jets that could hand the NB-36 its ass.

You’re thinking along the lines of conventional propulsion methods, in which case you’re correct that it was a stupid idea. Several of the more recent sightings/encounters describe whatever these crafts are as operating on some other propulsion system that we as humans haven’t even scratched the surface of.

The only somewhat plausible explanation I’ve heard tossed around is that these vehicles are somehow utilizing their own produced gravitational waves to move. Lazar was saying this would take an extreme amount of power, basically an internal power plant. In his story he discusses an element not found on earth, element E115, that powered this vehicle he allegedly worked on. We were able to synthesize 115 in 2003, but only extremely unstable versions. Lazar claimed the vehicle was operating on a stable version..

This shit all sounds like sci-fi to me, and I’m in no way convinced of it, but there is some plausibility here. Hell, if you showed a modern age camera to someone 300 years ago what would their reaction be... Point is, just because all of this seems completely bat shit crazy in no way means it’s impossible.

[Dantheman]

The only somewhat plausible explanation I’ve heard tossed around is that these vehicles are somehow utilizing their own produced gravitational waves to move.

The problem with this hypothesis is that LIGO and the other gravitational wave observatories that are in operation are so sensitive that they'd detect the gravitational waves produced by such a propulsion system. Maybe their algorithms automatically ignore anything that doesn't have an apparent origin far away from Earth, but they're more than sensitive enough to detect them.

Personally I'm disinclined to believe anything Bob Lazar says. He claims the US government is/was in possession of nine extraterrestrial spacecraft. Personally, I think it's beyond implausible that even one spacecraft that is capable of interstellar travel would make it all the way to Earth only to crash and then be secretly scurried off by the US government, let alone nine of them. Then there's his false claims of holding degrees from MIT and Caltech. Lazar is pure kook IMO.

[ötzi]

It's more likely that it's people from the future than aliens. They could easily avoid detection since they'd know where we're gonna look before we did.

*since both time travel and faster-than-light travel are thought to be impossible, that's a tie. And people from the future wouldn't have to find us, they'd already be here. Finding anybody in a place as big as the universe would be quite a task.

[east or bust]

Lazar is pure kook IMO.

I don’t disagree. He’s had 30 years to perfect his story and as I’ve read elsewhere, has never really gone into more detail than someone could glean off of wikipedia. That was my main beef when he went on JRE - claimed he had a migraine and continually “lost his train of thought”, not to mention some of the stuff he was claiming just sounded ridiculous. Like it could have been straight out of a sci-if novel.

Where things almost start to make sense for me is the talk about having a compact “power plant” capable of emitting a strong magnetic field. Not sure of the specifics here, but it at least sounds possible to me, and it somewhat aligns with Fravor’s direct observation of how that craft, or whatever it was, was moving around.

I’d be interested to know what kind of magnitudes these systems (LIGO and Virgo) are able to detect. And how a small vehicle generating a magnetic field would stack up to the merging of two black holes (even though they are much, much, much farther away).

[Ted Striker]

... if you showed a modern age camera to someone 300 years ago what would their reaction be... Point is, just because all of this seems completely bat shit crazy in no way means it’s impossible.

Yeah, impossible is a big word. If you took someone from only 200 years ago up in something as mundane as a B-777 they'd be pretty amazed. If you took them up in an F-35 their head would explode.

[BCMtnHound]

Heh. And we are the now the gods of antiquity made real. Well, at least the titans of industry and society, most of us are less polished by tales of grandeur. To think of what we have accomplished in only 3000yrs of recorded history compared to geologic timelines. Even in the frame of genetically modern humans over 250k yrs we have attainted so much in so short of time. What we might accomplish in another few hundred years probably makes sci fi seem tame, if we don't blast ourselves into oblivion, or shit the proverbial bed in the process. And yet, with no one to tend our civilization's manifestations, it will disappear to dust in even shorter time than it took to create, with only amazing luck anything survives as fossil or other remnants for some future intelligence to ponder over.

[ötzi]

^^that would sound better between hits off a joint late at night around a campfire

[Dantheman]

I’d be interested to know what kind of magnitudes these systems (LIGO and Virgo) are able to detect. And how a small vehicle generating a magnetic field would stack up to the merging of two black holes (even though they are much, much, much farther away).

IIRC, the waves they can detect have amplitudes smaller than the diameter of most atoms.

[BCMtnHound]

^^that would sound better between hits off a joint late at night around a campfire

While I completely agree and would enjoy the opportunity, the fact that that is the most common forum for such awareness and pondering is exactly the tragedy ...

when reading that we have managed to create the ability to be aware and comprehend this:

IIRC, the waves they can detect have amplitudes smaller than the diameter of most atoms.

is so much more fantastic than searching the heavens for other life or conjuring visitors from a future time/dimension to prove the universe is a wonder, and we have a part in it's magnificence.

[abraham]

While I completely agree and would enjoy the opportunity, the fact that that is the most common forum for such awareness and pondering is exactly the tragedy ...

when reading that we have managed to create the ability to be aware and comprehend this:

is so much more fantastic than searching the heavens for other life or conjuring visitors from a future time/dimension to prove the universe is a wonder, and we have a part in it's magnificence.

From Wikipedia

Gravitational waves are constantly passing Earth; however, even the strongest have a minuscule effect and their sources are generally at a great distance. For example, the waves given off by the cataclysmic final merger of GW150914 reached Earth after travelling over a billion light-years, as a ripple in spacetime that changed the length of a 4 km LIGO arm by a thousandth of the width of a proton, proportionally equivalent to changing the distance to the nearest star outside the Solar System by one hair's width.[40] This tiny effect from even extreme gravitational waves makes them observable on Earth only with the most sophisticated detectors.

[Dantheman]

Hah, I was way way off. One thousandth of the width of a proton, that's just completely fucking insane.

[ötzi]

Is that small?

[stealurface831]

space shit be crazy.

[Yonder_River]

It's more likely that it's people from the future than aliens. They could easily avoid detection since they'd know where we're gonna look before we did.

*since both time travel and faster-than-light travel are thought to be impossible, that's a tie. And people from the future wouldn't have to find us, they'd already be here. Finding anybody in a place as big as the universe would be quite a task.

So are they coming back to fix climate change or something noble or just fuck with us?

[riser4]

To put us out of our misery?

[riser4]

^^that would sound better between hits off a joint late at night around a campfire

Amateur dilettante.

[ötzi]

So are they coming back to fix climate change or something noble or just fuck with us?

It's probably future teenagers fucking with us and laughing all the way home to the future.

[frorider]

So true story time…I’m a skeptic/scientist by nature and have found the calm debunking on metabunk etc to make sense to me. For example, it’s pretty common for us to eye roll hard when a prosecutor insists that police testimony is more credible since they are highly trained professionals; likewise, I chuckle when people assume visual recollections from an Air Force pilot are somehow bulletproof.

Anyway I was eating lunch outside yesterday at a Mexican restaurant & a guy at a nearby table says Hey there’s a UFO up above the Harvey’s Casino. Sure enough I saw a very round silvery object moving vertically at a high altitude. It alternated between highly visible and not visible at all, seemingly due to sunlight angle (ie not ‘disappearing’ per se). Watched it for a couple of mins before it wasn’t visible any longer. iPhone vid didn’t capture it….way too distant.

Doesn’t change my skepticism but it was fun thinking about possible explanations.

[ötzi]

I'm gonna go way out on a limb and guess weather balloon.

[Mazderati]

Balloon boy.

[muted reborn]

And there's this guy: https://interestingengineering.com/j...ught-on-camera

Hasn't been caught yet. He should dress up like a UFO before he takes flight IMO.

[Skidog]

And I'd add, creates more problems than it solves.

Ahh so this is why the govt loves the idea...its all clear now. Thank you.