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Big Black Delta Mystery Solved?
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Aug 05, 2002 05:14 PM
from the hindenburg-alecious dept.
from the hindenburg-alecious dept.
jonerik writes "According to this article from Space.com, hundreds of sightings of enormous arrowhead-shaped aircraft that have been logged since the 1980s just might have been solved. According to a new report by the National Institute for Discovery Science, the craft (referred to as Big Black Deltas, or BBDs) are massive black airships on the order of 600 feet long, 300 feet wide, and 40 feet tall, weighing on the order of 100 tons and capable of carrying huge loads over long distances. Since a 2001 NIDS study correlated sightings of large triangular or delta-shaped objects with Air Force Materiel Command and Air Mobility Command bases throughout the United States, it's assumed that the BBDs are DoD transport airships. Dr. L. Scott Miller, professor of Aerospace Engineering at Wichita State University, agrees with much of the NIDS report. 'I do think that a large airship, with a heavy lift and other mission objectives, has been built,' says Dr. Miller. 'Lockheed has shown a great deal of interest in airships for many years. The real question is whether the Department of Defense has committed to buy and use such machines.'"
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Re:Why would they classify airships? (Score:5, Insightful)
The United States did pull out it's forces, but the United Nations Mission (Pakistan, Qatar, Italy) remained.
The United States Embassy remained.
By the Day of the Rangers, the United States was already starting a draw-down in the region.
The Somalia people lost, the Clans lost, the United Nations lost, the United States lost soldiers, the Canadians broke up it's Para Regiment.
There were no winners in that conflict.
Re:It's about the upstream... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the congressional hearings are great. Support for overthrowing Saddam is already shaky. We either need to not do it, or to do it with the moral backing of the democratic process.
Attacking with surprise can save lives. On the other hand, staying out of Vietnam would have saved a whole lot of lives, too.
how about.... (Score:3, Funny)
Mystery Solved? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm so glad we have proof now!
Re:Mystery Solved? (Score:4, Funny)
Did you even read the Space.com article? They had a photograph [space.com] of one such "BBD".
Re:Mystery Solved? (Score:5, Funny)
Sure... Aliens aren't visiting us (Score:3, Funny)
Sure.
It's a trick!! (Score:5, Funny)
Why be so secretive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Among a range of NIDS observations, the group believes the BBDs are powered by electrokinetic/field drives, or airborne nuclear power units.
Oh, that's why. The DoD probably doesn't want to deal with the fallout (ha ha) from announcing to the public that they're putting nuclear material in airborne vessels.
Re:Why be so secretive? (Score:5, Funny)
Help (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Electrokinetic Drive? (Score:5, Funny)
"Elecrokinetic propulsion means that no propellers or jets are used."
Someone want to explain that one?
It's a form of buzzword propulsion.
Bullshit. I saw one. (Score:5, Interesting)
I was going to post this anonymously, but then decided it would just lessen my credibility.
I saw one of these in (of all places) Denton, Texas in 1992. I was going to the University of North Texas, and was hanging out at this friend of mine's house. We had stayed up all night talking politics and philosophy, and had gone out onto the balcony so I could smoke.
Her apartment was on the second floor, facing the pool, behind which was another two-storey apartment building. We hadn't been out there long when I noticed something moving just above the building opposite us. It was triangular in shape, with lights at each of the points. In appearance it was dark grey, and the lights at the points were just a tad brighter than the stars around the thing. It's orientation was almost completely vertical: imagine holding up a mostly-equilateral triangle in front of you and moving it from left to right, with the point facing right. It was moving very slowly, I would estimate at around 20 or 30 MPH.
I shouted out "Hey, what's that?" It took a short while for her to see it, but eventually she did. We watched it for a minute, chattering excitedly, before it slowly turned away from us and disappeared off to the west.
It didn't make a sound, and it was very big. It was unidentified, it was flying, and it was an object. Beyond that I make no claims. But if the DoD can build something like that, then I'm damned impressed.
No, I'm not bullshitting in some weak attempt to get karma. This really did happen to me.
Re:Bullshit. I saw one. (Score:4, Interesting)
What specifically about the thing that you saw is inconsistent with one of these things?
Mainly its orientation. It was flying on its side, not flat. Again, imagine taking a cardboard triangle and holding it up in front of you, with the point facing to the right. Now slowly turn the point of the cardboard triangle away from you: the triangle gets smaller, then flat. When it turned away from us, it was thin like the cardboard would be, but still vertical. Am I making any kind of sense? I don't feel like I'm describing this very well.
Plus it was very angular. I would expect a blimp to be more rounded.
Re:Bullshit. I saw one. (Score:4, Insightful)
The orientation of a blimp could change. It's lift is not defined by the direction it's facing.
Don't get me wrong, I don't necesarily believe your story *or* the one on space.com, but I don't see what your argument is. Your description sounds like it could easily be a... um... stealth blimp. How else is it going to remain airborne silently?
Re:Bullshit. I saw one. (Score:5, Interesting)
The eyes can play very funny tricks on you. I live under the flight path for Heathrow, and at night you see these huge diamond-shaped aircraft flying over. I look at one, I know it's a jet, I tell myself it's a jet, but I can clearly see the lines connecting the nose and tail with the wing tips, and the body is easily visible.
The brain's got this amazing pattern-recognition system as part of the visual processing. Unfortunately, when it doesn't know what something is, it tends to guess, and one of the algorithms it uses is to connect points with lines... and to fill in shapes... and the four beacons on the nose, wingtips and tail of a 747, seen at night, is perfect material for this.
Of course, I don't know exactly what you saw, I wasn't there. But I strongly suspect what it was was a jet, a lot further away than it looked, banking away from you (so making the tail beacon invisible). You didn't make any sound because passenger jets are pretty quiet and it was a long way away, and any noise that reached you was drowned in the traffic noise.
Sorry.
Re:Bullshit. I saw one. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, that's certainly a possibility. I agree with you on the pattern-recognition abilities of the brain. However, if it were a passenger jet:
It was flying on its side
It was flying at an altitude of less than 200 feet
It was flying slower than any passenger jet I have seen before
Again, I am probably wrong, and just got excited about my siting. But I live in a flight path for DFW airport, and I also know how passenger (and private) jets look at night. It didn't look anything like this.
Re:Bullshit. I saw one. (Score:5, Interesting)
> It was flying at an altitude of less than 200 feet
> It was flying slower than any passenger jet I have seen before
I can't speak to what you saw - I wasn't there. But how did you know its altitude?
Suppose an aircraft is flying at 2000 feet and normal airspeed.
Suppose an observer estimates (for whatever reason) that it's flying at 200 feet, when it's really at, say, 2000 feet.
Such an aircraft will appear to be flying extremely slowly (and quietly) if you think it's at 200 feet when it's really at 2000.
Your description of "flying on its side" indicates it may have been at an odd attitude relative to you - consistent with a previous poster's hypothesis that it was a jet banking away from you.
The mind does funny things when given insufficient information. My funniest one was when I was driving to an air show, and I swore I'd seen a Rafale or Eurofighter, which made me wonder (a) what the hell it was doing here, 'cuz there was nothing like it on the list of planes scheduled to show up, and (b) why it was so quiet at that altitude, as a nearby propeller was able to drown it out.
As it turned and overflew us, I realized it was one of those funky "build-it-yourself" kit experimental planes with an impeller ("pusher") design and a funky delta-wing configuration, and that's where the prop sound was coming from. A very slick homebuilt/kit plane, to be sure, but no EF2000. :-)
Re:Bullshit. I saw one. (Score:5, Funny)
An appointment has been made for a visit by many men in dark suits and black sunglasses to visit you and 'explain' to you what you 'really saw'.
Please contact truth@mib.gov to schedule a time that is acceptable for you. We will most likely disregard you request and just shove you into a black van during the day.
Once again, thank you for your coperation on this matter.
The Management,
-- Employee #82108302
Airship (Score:5, Funny)
This is ridiculous. (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I went to the website that this came from. Let me give those of you who bought this a clue: Any website which has "Consciousness Studies" on the front page is not anything close to reputable when it comes to speculating about objects flying in the air.
Perhaps I'm being a bit thick-headed and missed the sarcasm, but it sure seemed like this was honestly submitted, and this is nothing but a load of crap.
Hey man, don't bogart the consciousness (Score:5, Funny)
What about the radar return? (Score:5, Interesting)
But I did get an ad in the mail just the other day for my very own phased-array NEXRAD weather radar, quite suitable for rooftop mounting (well, an office building roof anyway). With stuff like that available to the public I think it would hard to keep something this big secret for long.
sPh
Re:What about the radar return? (Score:4, Funny)
You shoulda sent for the X-Ray specs, tho'. Those things are amazing.
--Blair
I've solved it.... (Score:5, Funny)
Sadly... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Heavy Lifting? (Score:4, Informative)
http://avia.russian.ee/vertigo/piasecki_helista
(Note the size of the helicopters bolted on the bottom, this thing was BIG.)
I saw a video of the crash once, it was a frightening example of what harmonic resonance can do to something. Totally fell apart.
Nonsense, they're really... (Score:5, Funny)
Support your local poet.
Does not compute. (Score:4, Interesting)
A 747-400 has a payload of over 120 tons with a range of over 4400 nautical miles. Why not just use 747s? (Although, if this airship has the advantages of stealth and being able to "land" just about anywhere, there might be some point.)
Somehow I don't buy it.
Re:Does not compute. (Score:5, Informative)
They're out there, waiting and invisible (Score:5, Funny)
The reason they haven't landed yet is because they find earth's atmosphere poisinous. The high humidity burns their skin the way hydrochloric acid burns human skin. They haven't developed the appropriate environmental suits yet because (despite being able to traval intersteller distances) they're not that smart, and don't know, for instance, how to turn door knobs. They're also confused about where to land, since all of their original crop sign navigation markers were soon replaced by the work of Disney executives and 30 year-old nerds who don't have girlfriends.
Patiwat Panurach
patiwat@sloan.mit.edu
Big Black Delta Mystery Solved? (Score:3, Funny)
One really shouldn't use the words 'Big' and 'Delta' in the same headline unless it is about Delta Burke. I had to read a little ways in before I realized I had the wrong image in my mind.
Oh, please (Score:5, Informative)
How did this get by the
I know it is an "argumentum ad hominem" but just do an AltaVista search and see all the people who link to the "National Institute of Discovery Science" and you will not find a bunch of references in serious scientific journals.
You will, however, get a reasonably comprehensive list of UFO whako sites. A small sample:
www.area51researchcenter.com
www.virtuallystra
www.ufofinland.net
www.ufowisconsin.com
www.aliendave.com
www.ore
ufounderground.net
www.ufowatch
www.truthseekeratroswell.com
www.stardri
www.intrudersfoundation.org
www.ufoinfo.c
www.ufoconspiracy.com
www.artbell.com
You be the judge
Why keep a transport airship secret? (Score:5, Interesting)
This kind of cargo airship would be very large, take a long time to get anywhere, and would probably fly much, much lower than a plane. Trying to keep its existence secret would be a substantial challenge to say the least.
So, given the non-secretness of the whole idea of a big cargo airship, the difficulty of keeping one secret if it existed, and the fact that the exact capabilities of a transport aircraft aren't generally the most important things to keep secret anyway, why bother?
I saw one.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I saw one of these as well.
It was in the late 70s, on Vandenburg AFB in California (the west coast missle base.)
It was going rather fast.
Eventually, when the Stealth Fighter was announced, I concluded that that was what I actually saw.
It was very fast, very quiet, and flying low- quite startling. It didn't get enough of a look to recognize it as an airplane (As the stealth is obviously an airplane when you see one stopped)...
but I didn't decide it was a spacecraft either.
Ahh, the days of getting up at 6 am and watching simultaneous dual-minutman launches.
Ground support? (Score:3, Interesting)
On a side line - how are the 'Aurora' rumours coming along? ('Aurora' is supposedly a deep black hypersonic reconnosance airplane, replacing the SR-71.)
The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed (Score:3, Informative)
The company has, over the years, been issued five US patents for their work, numbers (feel free to look them up) 4149688, 4896160, 5034751, 5931411, and 6179248.
McPhee is by no means a crackpot or a ufo "journalist", but rather a widely respected non-fiction author who has covered subjects from nuclear energy ("The Curve of Binding Energy") to oranges ("Oranges") and underground russian art ("The Ransom of Russian Art"). Although he is certainly not an expert in aerodynamics, he is not a biased party.
The Aereon ships, shaped something like a bright orange pumpkin seed (hence the title), were never any longer than 26 feet, and the 26-footer (a test, basically) required no helium to take off--but the notion was always that the larger, transport versions, would need some assistance from helium to lift off and travel. The goal of the shape is to combine the lift capabilities of a normal plane with the features of a blimp. It was always meant for transport.
A few urls:
http://www.johnmcphee.com/deltoid.htm
http://www.nidsci.org/news/illinois/aereon.html (from NIDS itself, commenting on the possibility of the vessel being an Aereon or an Aereon knockoff)
http://www.users.on.net/justin/docs/transport/a
http://www.aereoncorp.com/ Official Website of the Aereon corp, including a picture of the Aereon 26 in flight
http://www.pacpubserver.com/new/business/6-22-9
Mr. Smith [an Aereon employee] described Aereon's two most promising current projects. One is a rotor vector -- part helicopter, part helium balloon -- that is being designed to replace helicopters in aerial logging operations. The second is a version of Aereon 26 that the company is designing to carry radar. Called WASP -- wide aperture surveillance plane -- and capable of a making continuous 360 degrees sweeps of the sky, the deltoid-shaped craft would far exceed the effectiveness of current anti-missile detection aircraft, Mr. Smith said.
end quote. You'll note that the only current patent Aereon corp holds is for the WASP-style system)
I'm not saying I have any idea what these things people are seeing are, I'm just mentioning a possibility. Anyone still interested in this *kind* of vessel should definitely go read "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed" by McPhee.
-gleam
Several Points about This (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyhow, when the next secret aircraft is uncovered, and tied to a number of unsolved sightings, it would be nearly as significant as proof that it was aliens.
How secure would you feel knowing that there were military aircraft overhead, that no radar station was able to confirm? How would you feel knowing that the paranoid kook that you discounted was actually right? All the reports that have been discounted will no doubt give great insight, and reveal tell-tale signs of what the government does when attempting to cover-up a legit sighting.
And I'd like to end with some advice for you kooks that often photograph blury black blotches flying in the sky. Get the following:
1. An industrial stregenth spot-light.
2. A very hi-definition video camera, with good optical zoom
3. A laser range-finder
With that, you should be able to:
1. Light-up the craft.
OR
2. Instantly determine what is causing the optical illusion.
3. Get very detailed moving photos of the craft.
4. Get a definitive distance measurement, that will help when reviewing the tape(s).
5. Get credibility
You might discover classified military craft-in which case you can rub the video in the face of all the radar operators.
Hell, even if you discover that you aren't seeing craft, you just might end up with the most detailed film of some particular natural phenomenon. That's not such a bad runner-up prize.
#5 is most important. It was crappy photos that convinced the public of the lock-ness monster. The same such photos aren't going to convince anyone with half a brain.
In the worst case, with that setup, you WILL difinitively discover the real source of those sightings, and put your own mind at ease.
Heh, Aliens that can travel much faster than the speed of light, can instantly accelerate, and can stay hidden for a century, but they can't stay 'cloaked' at night, or in areas where there is not adaqute equipment to get a good record of them.