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Has it been established whether the radar (in this configuration) is only detecting low-level objects (surface or near-surface), and if so what is the upper height it would register? It was suggested at #50 that the object seen at about 310 degrees might be showing as 'friendly air', but in...

I thought the 'sphere' object went down (or below the horizon) to the north west of the ship? According to various posts above, the ship itself was sailing almost due west, and the IR scope pointing either in almost the same direction or somewhat to the north of west, but not as far as due...

Anti-ship missiles like the French Exocet or the Chinese Silkworm often fly close to the surface precisely in order to avoid or delay detection by radar. In recent times small drones carrying an explosive device would also be a threat from terrorists, or even drug traffickers, as well as state...

If this release is unauthorised, I trust there will be some court-martials. Unlike most of the previous releases, this one is potentially useful to an adversary, especially if some of the radar signals are due to spoofing by hostile electronic warfare agents.

The range finder is said to have a maximum of 25 km +/- 5km, i.e. 20-30 km. The horizon viewed from the upper part of the ship would probably be somewhere within that bracket, depending on the exact location of the IR device.

How can something 'tumble into nonsensical angles' 'in a controlled manner'? Maybe there is a coherent interpretation of that, but I can't think of one. 'Tumbling' and 'nonsensical' imply randomness and unpredictability, but 'controlled' implies the opposite.

I did some similar calculations at #128 above. I assumed a cruising height for the plane of 33,000 feet and worked back from that. On that basis it would need to be about 250 miles away from the observer before it went over the horizon, and somewhere between 180 and 200 miles away at the start...

If there is a 'disturbance in the water', as claimed by pilots (Kurth, see #642 above, and possibly Fravor), biological causes need to be considered. I think feeding frenzies have previously been mentioned as a possibility. If the disturbed area is approximately circular, and '50 to 100 meters...

I'd choose the pilot, but ideally I'd like a neutral observer in the plane to provide a second opinion. But in any case I think it's the wrong question to ask. The problem is not that someone else is better qualified than the pilot to make a 'heat of the moment' assessment, but that no-one is...

I don't think he says that FLIR1 was taken by Fravor or Dietrich. What he says is that the video is inconsistent with the eye-witness accounts (by Fravor anyway.) Surely this is correct: FLIR1 doesn't resemble Fravor's account of the 'tic-tac' in any way. Yet Underwood, who did take the...

Various comments here and elsewhere have referred to pilots observing objects with the 'naked eye', or the 'Mark 1 eyeball'. But this is never strictly true. They will always be observing through the cockpit windscreen, and usually through a curved visor. They may also be wearing corrective...

You mean at #22? I'd forgotten that. It depends what Mick meant by 'in the area'.

I'd like to pursue the possibility that the object is just a commercial plane going over the horizon. I don't really have the technical knowledge to do this, but I hope others will take it further. I assume the object is a commercial airliner (scheduled or private) in level flight (i.e...

I think the stated range for the system of 25 km +/- 5 km relates only to the laser range-finder. At least, that's where the figure appears in the SAFIRE III Datasheet. The lack of a laser return might give us a minimum distance of 25 km for the object, assuming the range finder was working...

I see that while I was typing Mick West just pointed out that the images are taken from a ship, not a plane, but I think you are right that even from the ship a plane at 33,000 feet would have to be over 200 miles away before it went below the horizon. That's a lot further than the plane in...

I don't know about this case, but waves are often the residual effect of prevailing winds or storms many miles away. They may go against the local direction of winds.

In the SAFIRE video (at #81 above) the section from about 4:03 to 4:09 is interesting. I don't know what it is, but if white is 'hot' in this section, there seems to be a strong fluctuating heat source - maybe a brazier or a blazing torch. Its IR image is roughly circular, but it expands and...

Twitter user @5X5_News has drawn attention to Boundary Layer Pressurized Balloons (BLPBs) as a possible culprit in the USS Omaha case. This site gives a general description and a history of notable uses of BLPBs: https://www.lmd.polytechnique.fr/BAMED/HISTOIRE/BP_Techno.php In size and...

In my comment at #20 above I was forgetting that air is a poor radiator of heat, even if it is hot, so the air would not show up in IR as hot. Whereas the surface of a balloon at ambient air temperature would radiate heat better than the air itself, the exact amount depending on the material of...

Does anyone understand the temperature? The black IR image (if that's what it is) seems to imply a high temperature relative to the sky behind, like a jet engine. Balloons would be roughly at ambient air temperature, except for hot air balloons, of course, and even they are probably not very...