Wednesday, May 19, 2021

UFOs? It's Complicated

    Developing understandings about reported UFO phenomena requires more effort than clicking on a few links or watching the occasional news show that looks suspiciously like entertainment. It's not necessary that everyone gain such understandings, but it should be considered a minimal requirement for those who wish to have much more to say about UFO reports than they don't know their explanations. While the following circumstances certainly do not account for all cases, it should be more than apparent why a sincere and meaningful discussion should include consideration of such material.

Project Palladium was a mid 20th century multi-decade CIA operation that began by dropping aluminum strips from airplanes to confuse enemy radar. By the 1960's it evolved to include the ability to project "ghost aircraft" onto enemy radar with the appearance of any size, altitude, and flight pattern desired. According to CIA man Gene Poteat, every Palladium mission included a CIA team with its ghost aircraft system, an NSA team with communications intelligence and decryption equipment, and a military operational support team.

The teams were apparently subject to releasing "a timed series of balloon-borne metalized spheres of different sizes." The spheres were launched into the path of the ghost aircraft. In an example given by Poteat of an operation off the coast of Cuba, an American fighter plane was made to appear incoming from Key West. Cuban fighter planes were scrambled to intercept the perceived aircraft. On cue, a Navy submarine surfaced just long enough to release the balloons. The idea was for the ghost aircraft to alert Cuban defense systems, then Palladium personnel could eavesdrop on resulting communications in order to discern the sensitivity of the Soviet-made radar. This was done by discovering the smallest balloons detected. Suffice it to say plenty of confusion ensued for the Cubans as Poteat and his crew obtained the information they were after.  

In the event you're wondering what Poteat's team ultimately did with the ghost aircraft during the mission, they made it vanish. He reported they had no trouble keeping the phantom plane out of reach of those in pursuit. When a time came they were finished with the exercise and a Cuban pilot was preparing to fire on the target, they simply turned off the Palladium system and voila, a disappearing aircraft, gone without a trace.  


USS Nimitz

In its ongoing coverage of what has come to be known as the more current UAP situation, The War Zone reported on the evolution of such technology and the military applications. Enter NEMESIS, the Netted Emulation of Multi-Element Signature against Integrated Sensors. 

"When it comes to the U.S. Navy," Tyler Rogoway wrote, "it is using swarms of lower-end networked drones, submarines, ships, unmanned underwater vehicles, and more, to convince the enemy to think they are seeing ghost fleets and aerial armadas that aren't really there." 

Rogoway reports NEMESIS represents a quantum leap in electronic warfare. "Yet none of its components are all that exquisite," he continues, "it's just the networking of them together and being able to combine their effects cooperatively with highly agile computing and software that is. Swarming drones working together to decoy, jam, and distract the enemy? That is not a high-end capability. Unifying those effects with ships, other aircraft, submarines, and more in real-time to make multiple enemy sensors in disparate locations see the same thing? That is revolutionary."

It is also not necessarily a monopoly. Rogoway goes on to suggest adversaries may be applying similar technology during interactions with U.S. warships and military aircraft.   

He further suggests reported balloon-like objects and menacing drones may be designed to obtain valuable signals intelligence with low risk to reward returns. It is noted the locations of such reported incursions include the nation's most active military training corridors, what Rogoway refers to as "the most advanced air defense sensor and networking technology on planet earth all operating in one region." Targeting the areas seems a given, the means may be the primary issue. 

This might account for why, as many ask, American forces do not simply fire upon or confiscate such reported intrusive drones and UAP. Electronic silence might be more advisable if the stalkers are swallowing up information; the devices may be relatively inexpensive and expendable, are subject to have replacements come back anyway, and the less data collected about responses and communications, the better. Cuban forces would have been better strategically served to ignore Poteat's crew than allow him to record their resulting activities and the capabilities of their Soviet radar systems. 

Tim Binnall and I discussed the implications on a recent episode of Binnall of America. No matter how well any pilot may know their aircraft, they are at a decided disadvantage when interpreting any given encounter if they lack a thorough understanding of a project such as NEMESIS and how their instrumentation might respond to such targeted deception. Moreover, omitting such circumstances from discussion could be considered disingenuous while proclamations are made that reported craft cannot be manmade. We might similarly consider reported balloon-like objects may have more functions than readily apparent to many of us, as well as the fact occurrences described as happening nearly every day for two years could not very well be thought of as, by definition, extraordinary. 

 

Google Loon Balloon

Writer and researcher Adam Kehoe takes a look at what can be established about American-engineered high-tech balloons known to be aloft off the coasts of the U.S. in his recent submission to The War Zone. The balloons can be steered, remain in flight for long periods of time, and carry cutting-edge payloads. Some, Kehoe reports, can cruise as high as 92,000 feet. Certain types may stay in the air as long as 30 days.

For several years we were expecting UFO reports to go sideways as the diversity of airborne objects increased. That time is well upon us. There is a large variety of exotic devices and classified aircraft populating our skies. Adding to the complexity are cutting-edge technologies designed to limit and confuse abilities to monitor and accurately interpret those objects.

It's not necessary to gain a deep understanding of the subject matter to be interested in UFO reports. It is necessary, however, to include the material in the discussions if any further assertions are made than an explanation is not readily available.

16 comments:

  1. "I hate to burst your balloon, but...."

    -Jack Brewer

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  2. Tim Binnall and I discussed the implications on a recent episode of Binnall of America.

    I caught this podcast and I was struck by your dismay at the discord in the UFO community while at the same contributing to it. What do you expect when you all but call everyone who voted for Trump a racist? Much of the podcast was taken up by you and Binnall giving half the people in the country the big middle finger. If you're going to wear your politics on your sleeve like that discord will inevitably follow.

    You contrasted this discord to the lack thereof on the ghost tour you took. Maybe that's because they don't much worry about who voted for whom and judge people by their politics. Maybe there's a lesson there for the UFO community.

    All that said, I think you do great work and are one of the few sane and sober voices in the UFO community.

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    1. You want a discussion of secret government and military programs that's... apolitical? Anyone who's convinced you they've given you one really has you bent over the bedframe. They're telling you what you want to hear and you're gobbling it right up on cue.

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    2. You want a discussion of secret government and military programs that's... apolitical?

      Why, yes, I think that could be managed without implying that half the people in the country are racists. I'm not sure why you think that would be difficult.

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  3. Hi Jack,

    You can read more about Palladium here:

    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/stealth_%2520count.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjHrP6Kk9nwAhWZHc0KHWbaDbUQFjAAegQIBBAC&usg=AOvVaw21OSTmPffknipdoBKmjx3f

    The biggest snag with Palladium is that the dates don't work for the earlier radar cases. This, of course, doesn't preclude a similar and still unknown program from being responsible for the late 40s into the 50s. But, if said program existed, not even the declassified Palladium projects mention it.

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    1. Radar wasn't as sophisticated back then, but there were EW techniques available even in then. I don't know but perhaps radar was also inherently more glitchy back the. Certainly, it was less capable at filtering out noise. As radar has evolved, so have the countermeasures, hence the continuation of seeming anomalies and weird objects that are not always easily explained.

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  4. The article is interesting but conventional balloons and drones do not explain what is being observed and detected by the US Navy through advanced radar surveillance systems, we are talking about erratic movements, absurd sudden accelerations, incredible speeds recorded even with the support of data from satellite. The statement common to all navy UFO witnesses is: - These objects have capabilities and performance beyond what is possible with our technology. Remember this detail when trying to explain UFOS with balloons, electronic warfare or ordinary military drones.

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    1. Agree 100%. This article conveniently ignores all the reported characteristics. Of course that is necessary in order to "explain" these things as some sort of developments of US or its adversaries' technology.

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    2. Why would you trust a bunch of military propagandists burbling in unison? How gullible are you?

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    3. That's pretty weak. None of the video footage (at least what's been shown so far) shows anything demonstrably extraordinary. Pilot reports can be the result of confusion and disorientation exacerbated by false expectations of where a target is or how fast it's moving due to electronic warfare. Parallax can take care of the rest. As for radar, that's what the article is about.

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  5. The data from the aerial surveillance system, radar records, should be made available to the public and to researchers, so it will be evident what is the real aerodynamic performance of these UFOs, which will remove the exclusion of many hypotheses.

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  6. Then we get people like Goerge Knapp, Elizondo, etc. jumping on the band wagon, saying that the government has UFO/ET metals in storage, or, where ever!I knew this would happen! The UFO field s/just ignore those guys, in my opinion, they are phonies, talking and saying a lot, but with NO evidence to back up their claims!

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  7. Really doesn't explain what is happening. Not even close.

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    1. Yes, it does. And now you're both owned and triggered.

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    2. It potentially explains a huge amount of what's happening.

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