F-16s Pursue Unknown Craft Over Region

Washington Post ^ | Saturday, July 27, 2002 | Steve Vogel

[Pro Consul]

"It was this object, this light-blue object, traveling at a phenomenal rate of speed," Rogers said. "This Air Force jet was right behind it, chasing it, but the object was just leaving him in the dust. I told my neighbor, 'I think those jets are chasing a UFO.' "

Military officials confirm that two F-16 jets from Andrews Air Force Base were scrambled early yesterday after radar detected an unknown aircraft in area airspace. But they scoff at the idea that the jets were chasing a strange and speedy, blue unidentified flying object.

[FReepaholic]

>>...May interest you: Darker Shades of Blue: A Case Study of Failed Leadership, by Maj. Tony Kern, U.S.A.F. Regarding the crash of "Czar 52," a U.S.A.F. B-52H piloted by Lt. Col. "Bud" Holland, on June 24, 1994 at Fairchild A.F.B., Washington....<<

Thanks for posting this. I had been thinking about this event the other day but had not had a chance to do a Google search yet.

[Matchett-PI]

Newton's Laws, Upended - S.Adams, 08.12.02

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0812/128.html

"The Nazis, General Electric and Sperry-Rand all sought to harness antigravity. Next up: Boeing?

Author Nick Cook has all the qualifications of a hard-nosed reporter. For more than a decade he has worked as aviation editor at Jane's Defence Weekly, the respected (if mind-numbingly technical) trade journal for the defense industry. So why has he penned a book on a topic usually confined to pulp sci-fi--antigravity? In The Hunt for Zero Point (Broadway, $26), due out this month, he chronicles his quest to show that Newton's laws have been annulled. It's a dramatic, entertaining tale, with a clear lesson: Corporations, universities and governments never tire of throwing good money at bad science.

His story starts in 1992, when a photocopy of a 1956 news clipping is left mysteriously on his desk at Jane's. "The G-Engines Are Coming!" shouts its headline. There's an illustration of a football-shaped craft hovering above the ground. The text predicts a future of "weightless airliners and spaceships." More intriguing are the enthusiastic predictions from such esteemed figures of the day as George S. Trimble of Martin Aircraft and Lawrence D. Bell, founder of Bell Aircraft, who proclaims, "We're already working on nuclear fuels and equipment to cancel out gravity." Using the Jane's library, Cook learns that big American companies, including Sperry-Rand and General Electric, seriously pursued "electrogravitics [a.k.a. antigravity] research."

He scours the Internet and public archives, phones contacts in the defense industry. He talks to Evgeny Podkletnov, a Russian physicist who claims to have achieved antigravity effects in his lab. Cook even delves into a mystery dating from the last days of World War II, when Allied pilots reported seeing UFOs over Germany.

The Nazi angle takes Cook to Austria, where he visits the family of the late Viktor Schauberger, a forestry engineer and inventor who experimented with a machine called a Repulsine. According to Schauberger's copious notes, the Nazi-funded device generated such a powerful levitational force that it shot upward and smashed into a hangar ceiling. Cook admits he doesn't completely grasp the physics, writing, "The primary levitating force was due to ... a reaction between the air molecules in their newly excited state and the body of the machine itself."

Huh? And why would the normally skeptical Cook believe the unverified notes of a forestry engineer transplanted far beyond his ken? Because, says Cook, "People don't throw money at programs unless they think they work"--blithely ignoring humankind's propensity for taking daft things seriously. Case in point: cold fusion, as well as other screwball free-energy schemes funded by corporations or governments. University of Maryland physicist Robert L. Park has documented such projects in Voodoo Science (Oxford University Press, $15). Park, who read a prepublication copy of Zero Point, chuckles at some of Cook's conclusions. "In my book I discuss something I call a 'belief gene.' This guy Cook's got it. He's simply prepared to believe anything."

What about Cook's reporting? He describes, for example, antigravity projects now under way at NASA and at BAE Systems in the U.K. FORBES' phone calls to these organizations verified Cook's facts, though folks were awfully careful with their language. Ronald Evans, the physicist in charge at BAE, says, "We don't use the word [antigravity]. It would make us look like lunatics." Funding is small--$3.25 million for BAE's and NASA's work combined, over seven years--but the fact that money gets spent at all is testimony to the prevalence of the belief gene. The U.S. Congress keeps dollars flowing. Since 2000 it has allocated an additional $4.8 million for antigravity research. In a July issue of Jane's, Cook reports Boeing conducted experiments involving antigravity as recently as 1999 and remains intensely interested in further research. (Boeing confirms this, but, like BAE, disdains to use the a-word.)

Cook is an engaging writer, and he peppers his high-tech detective story with digressions both rich and entertaining. His book is a fun read. But it lacks a certain ... gravity."

Maybe "Cook" should be spelled, "KOOK". Or maybe he's just a KOOK baiter. :D

[Jedi Master Yoda]

When they retired the SR-71 many years ago, I figured they had something much better or they wouldn't have retired it.

I thought the SR-71 was retired because our spy satellites had become sufficiently advanced.

[Gunrunner2]

>>If you count every time you are port-scanned, you are cyber-attacked several times per day. That 250,000 times number is brown and smelly, as its provenance would suggest.<<

I assure you, the 250,000 does not include the average "port scan." it is a little more than that.

>>Mounting a serious 'sploit against a network that is even moderately well-protected with a firewall and a sysop that knows how to spot unusual stuff in the logs is not for amateurs.<<

Correct.

>>High quality attacks (i.e. more than a ping-flood) are very rare.<<

Absolutely, and you would be surprised (maybe not) from whence most attacks come from.

[crystalk]

Try nuforc.org

Late monthly reports given by the public, many investigated by nuforc, are at

http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/ndxevent.html

[RadioAstronomer]

bump for later read

[DentsRun]

P3s are great planes. I have 2000 hours in them. Though more often at night bouncing along at 500 feet 12 miles off the coast of North Vietnam (too low for SAM radar to lock on) looking for torpedo boats out to attack the Enterprise on Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin.

[spetznaz]

You might enjoy the following: It is known as the Switch Blade and is one of the experimental aircraft being developed by Northrop Grumman corporation. Basically it is a bomber, a highly maneuvrable fighter, and a mach-3 plane all wrapped up in one frame! It is officially known as the 'Bird of Prey,' and from its looks it seems to be quite potent. ).

Anyway here is the Switch Blade (by the way Vabthang ....happy i included at least one US experimental aircraft? I did not even include ONE Russian experimental plane ....everything here is pure US of A! Shocked? All for you. :D)

With its wings swept perpendicular to its body, the Switchblade can fly at lower speeds to drop bombs precisely on their targets.

With its wings swept farther forward, the aircraft becomes extremely maneuverable for aerial combat.

When the wings are swept fully forward, the trailing edge of the wing becomes the leading edge, and the Switchblade can dash away at speeds up to Mach 3.

Now the only question is whether it will ever come into being! Why? If people knew the number of amazing projects that have been killed due to political or financial reasons people would wretch up in disgust. For example the F-14(X) Advanced fighter (with renewed engines, advanced avionics and applied, what they call intelligent, STEALTH) was cut down because the SuperHornet (F-18 E/F) had to be produced, as well as the JSF. By the way 'intelligent stealth' is applying stealth to an aircraft without making it deficient in flying ability and maneuvrability. A good example is making a plane more like the F-22 (maneuvrable yet stealthy) instead of the F-117 (stealthy but definitely not a candidate for good handling).

If a Super Tomcat could be produced there would be no great need for a naval JSF, and definitely none for the F/A-18 E/F, thus the supertomcat had to go (as well as the normal TomCat since all the tools meant to produce it were destroyed). Same thing with the YF-23 BlackWidow (which 'lost' to the F-22 Raptor). Actually here is a portion of why it 'lost': The YF-23 from Northrop vs. the YF-22 from Lockheed Martin. The YF-23 should have won, and it is a better plane, in stealth and in speed. The only thing it was worse at was low-speed handling. That wasn't why it lost, though. It lost because, while Northrop's B-2 bomber was late and suffering cost overruns, Lockheed had developed the F-117 Stealth Fighter on time and under budget, which made the jugdes favor Lockheed.. I am personally not consered about the YF-23 since the F-22 is still a major kick-@$$ jet, thus i am not worried with that. What incenses me is the fact the F-14(X) Advanced was cancelled for the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet that according to many in Naval Aviation was 'a bastard step child of the airforce (YF-17) given to the navy due to political considerations.' (not my words

[FReepaholic]

>>...I thought the SR-71 was retired because our spy satellites had become sufficiently advanced...<<

Well, I thought that also. But, a man-piloted craft (whether on-board or remote) can attempt a mission at any time whereas with a satellite you're limited to the time that it makes a pass over the target.

[Gunrunner2]

Perhaps. One will never know.

[Momaw Nadon]

Here's the report of the incident from NUFORC:

Occurred : 7/26/2002 01:00 (Entered as : 07/26/02 1:00 AM)
Reported : 7/26/2002 10:31:28 AM 10:31
Posted : 7/26/2002
Location : WASHINGTON, DC
Shape : Circle

Military Jets scrambled and chased unknown flying object

Apprx. 1am July 26, Jets heard in the sky, and seen flying dispatched from Andrews A.f. B. some witnesses report seeing blue bright object flying in sky being chased by the Military Jets. Some witnesses called in to local radio station, radio station confirmed that Andrews AFB had scrambled some jets and reported at 12:00 pm that the calls came in from witness and that NORAD was investigating.

http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/S23912.html

[First_Salute]

Bump - R'318.

[First_Salute]

The video of the crash, was taken by U.S.A.F. Major William E. Blue (since retired), an Air Force navigator, who soon sold the event's footage to C.B.S.

While it appeared to me [from my memory of] the video, that the navigator ejected from the aircraft, somewhere on the Internet yesterday, I read that it was the Squadron Commander who had been in the co-pilot's seat, trying to get out of harm's way.

Unfortunately, his path was still in the way of the descending aircraft.

Major Kern's report does not mention the ejection attempt.

[Wm Bach]

Bump.

[First_Salute]

Unfortunately, now, there is some possibility.

We need not only a C.A.P. for visual confirmation, but also we need a "Sensitive" umbrella, looking for emissions of various forms.

[Gunrunner2]

Just a minor point of order: There is no "co-pilot" in a fighter. Normally, there is the pilot and there is the backseater (Weapon Systems Operator--WSO).

During the ejection sequence, normally the back-seater goes first, through an authomatic sequence to ensure a) the front and back seat do not collide, and b) the front seater does not go first thereby fry his WSO's widdle-brain when his rockets pass over the WSO.

If the SQ/CC was flying in the back seat, he was along for the ride, as the pilot in front does all the stick and rudder stuff. However, as I always briefed my WSO's--as pilot I had 51% of the vote when it came to flying but they had a veto (command ejection).

Cheers

[RJayneJ]

Thanks for the nomination! };^D)

[First_Salute]

The crash was a B-52H, code name: "Czar 52."

If I recall the video correctly, it did appear that a backseater, starboard side, ejected --- that was the hatch which popped (I could swear it was aft the co-pilot's hatch) and clearly, the trajectory of the ejecting crewmember can be followed briefly prior to the flames and debris of the crashing aircraft overtaking him. It seemed that the navigator had escaped briefly, but it may have been the co-pilot; I don't recall exactly and cannot quickly locate my copy of the tape.

[Gunrunner2]

My mistake.

I didn't read the thread you were responding to.
I assumed you were referring to the SU-27 crash.
Nevermind.
(BTW: Awful what happened, re Czar 52," just awful. Read the mishap report and the investigation. . .chilling.)