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Big Black Delta Mystery Solved?
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.'"
Why would the DoD classify information on some large airships to such a great extent?
No one will ever know. (Nelson from the Simpsons)
Stupid sexy Flanders.
"Elecrokinetic propulsion means that no propellers or jets are used."
Someone want to explain that one?
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.
Great you got an airship now all you need is a guy named Cid to fly it and some dudes with swords.
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.
Come on, give it up, that's
Consciousness studies are usually conducted with what I would term "consciouness aids". In the Timothy Leary sense. This could explain almost everything else this website reports on.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Okay, some quick calculations, based on the estimated volume and mass, gives me a net payload of way less than 100 tons. (More like about 40 tons unless I messed up the math. - Figure a volume of about 36 million cu ft, the density is about 25 grams/cu ft, for a net lift of 10 gms/cu ft (air weighing about 35 gm/cu ft), or 36 metric tons.
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.
-- Alastair
I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Reading this article in light of the book review at Salon.com today, about supposedly hidden anti-gravity technology the US took from the Nazis after WWII. http://www.salon.com/books/review/2002/08/05/zero_ gravity/index.html
They don't give the book a lot of credence, but the fact that it was written by an editor at Jane's Defense makes it a little more plausible. The author says that some of that technology, if it exists, is actually being used in the B-2 bombers. It would, don't chya think, make sense to put two and two together and come up with a big-ass blimp that is powered by some obscure technology to keep it afloat.
Makes sense to me.
Who cares if you've just seen Bell Biv DeVoe?
Thanks!
The deputy administrator of NIDs is a regular interviewee on the art bell show/circus. You be the judge... :)
The airships don't come and go - they're out there constantly. They're just invisible, both to optical and radar wavelengths. The ships are actually filled with tall, thin, vicious aliens who want to exploit earth's natural resources and kidnap earth's children.
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?"
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.
...for some extremely arrowhead-ish shaped spacecraft awhile back? It was supposed to be part of their design for the post-shuttle spacecraft. I think this was in Popular Mechanics (or maybe Discover, the two blur together in my mind) some time before the Pathfinder mission. It was called the X10, or something. Then NASA got its budget eviscerated and that project was dropped.
If what this article says is true, then this would bring an interesting hypothetical angle to that: namely, that the arrowhead-y aircraft were in some way using a body design or other technology that was to be recommissioned from existing military hardware (i.e., these big black ships).
Then again it's probably just a coincidence.. anyone remember this thing i'm talking about?
-- super ugly ultraman
Geezus, next week there's going to be an article about super-spies being developed from our children and our convicts.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
At disclosure project there are several videos that talk about anti-gravity drives and 0-point energy systems that could take you "off the grid" permanently. Supposedly, much of the money that was funnelled into the "Star Wars" project actually found its way into the engineering and creation of these types of secret devices and weapon systems.
/.'s, but Disclosure Project has really changed my mind. The book has testimony from over a hundred government personnel from DIA, DoD, ONI, Army, Navy & Air Force, testifying that not only do UFO's exist but the technology has been used by a shadow government since the late 1940's. I have also read in other places that this structure is connected with several large complexes inhabitted by Nazis in Argentia and Antartica. Now before you accuse me of going off the deep-end, check out the well-documented account of an Admiral Byrd who lead an expedition of a dozen ships from S.A. to Antartica in 1947. Also, note the rash of cattle mutilations and UFO sightings in Argentia right now (rense.com).
g ma/enigmapa rt1.htm -- The Arctic Enigma
I know UFO's and space aliens are a stretch to the scientifically-minded
Perhaps try reading or viewing some evidence before casting it all aside like a latter-day Carl Sagan.
Just because YOU haven't seen it, personally or on the tele, doesn't mean it doesn't exist (or something like that).
further reading and subjects:
Branton's dulce book
Disclosure Project
rense.com
"foo fighters"
Project Paperclip
http://www.violations.dabsol.co.uk/eni
Was wondering how George W. was planning on getting the GI's over to Iraq for the upcoming invasion... Now I guess we all know.
They are government crafts. Just because they dont make a sound and can move fast doesnt change the fact that its just an spycraft.
Ive seen the flying black triangles before too, I havent seen a flying saucer, that would be diffrent. But a flying triangle? Thats likely one of our crafts. How does it work or fly? I dont know, but we have the technology.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Above the terminal I'm using here at the Santa Cruz University there's a poster:
"Visualization Research at UCSC"
showing some nice 3D graphics. Picture #3 is "Subsonic flow over a Delta Wing aircraft [...] Simulation by NASA Ames Research Center." The plane looks exactly like a medieval arrow point.
The planes may be secret, but we know very well how air flows around them!
Rogue States(TM), d'ya want a copy? $4.99 apiece!
Big Black Ships? mysterious humming drive systems?
/. editors.
n ge.net
www.ufodisclosure.comg onuforeview.comd og.comv e.orgo m
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
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Imagine the use of this as a weapon? From 50,000 feet up in the air, drop a football stadium equivilant bombs onto an unsuspecting city, effectively *leveling* it.
The Gulf War's active phase lasted from Jan 17th to Feb 28th 1991. Other after actions happened up to Feb 2-3rd 1991.
h tm t m
An example of a short modern war might be better illustrated in Grenada or Panama.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/urgent_fury.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/just_cause.h
With the build up to Desert Storm, the Gulf War goes from August 2nd 1990 to Feb 28th 1991.
"I'm so glad I'm not a delta."
--Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World"
"Hey guys, you'll never guess what they think we're building this time!"
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
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?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Perfect ingredients for a misidentification. You say it was grey, on its side. I doubt very much you could see enough detail to tell it was on its side. An airliner banking would present a nice planform.
Grey? At night? Colors are notoriously hard to see at night.
200 feet? Depth perception at night is hard, and 200 feet is getting near the limit in daylight for binocular stereo depth perception. Most depth perception is based on the perceived size of a known object; for instance, cars on a highway, or airliners in the sky. It could easily have been thousands of feet away and you wouldn't be able to tell since you didn't know what the object was and thus what it's absolute size was.
Ditto for slow. Anything far away would have a slow angular velocity, and based on your perception of it being only 200 feet away, of course it looked slow. The biggest airliners are twice the size of small ones. Big military cargo planes are many times the size of small fighters, and I have many times marveled at the big cargo planes looking so slow when I drive near the local airbases when it is really just the difference in altitude.
Infuriate left and right
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.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Theoretical Scientists have discovered that the V-ship is powered by a homeopathic antiradioactive nuclear (HARN) power plant.
This incredible breakthough was paved the way by new age researchers. It's well know that it's possible to treat medical problems by giving someone immensely weak doses of substances that would cause similar symptoms in large does. What most scientists didn't realize was that the same thing could be accomplished with nuclear power.
By having a small dose of nuclear material (in this case the glowing stuff scraped off the watch hands from an old glow-in-the-dark watch) blocked by an extremely watered down substance (the remaining amount of lead in a lead pencil), massive amounts of nuclear power can be harnessed. Also, since the objects naturally cause a minute amount of gravity to affect the ship, the ship responds with an incredible amount of anti-gravity, allowing it to fly.
No Zen is good zen
www.abovetopsecret.com
Ignorant jackass...the Bin Laden's and the Bushes go back about 30 years.
But Osama was the "black sheep." Sure, uh, huh, the one trained by the CIA since 1979 who Clinton declined to arrest (3 times) and also the same guy protected by George W. via executive order.
I can't wait until the suitcase bomb and biological attacks are blamed on Iraq so America can acquire ANOTHER oil protectorate.
Face it, the U.S. is a Banana Republic, and this is the part where the government encourages terrorist attacks and blames it on the most strategically convenient enemy of the moment in order to further their agenda.
It could be because they claim that they great flying airships are nuclear powered. How comfortable would you be with an active nuclear reactor flying over your head just waiting to be shot down or have a mechanical failure? Letting the public know we had something like that in our arsenal would cause all sorts of scare-mongering. Hell, I'm not fully comfortable with the idea. At least nuclear subs are likely to be in deep waters if they get sunk.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I see a lot of "haw! haw! what a load of bs!" posts in response to this /. bit. Explain to me what is so hard to believe about the government producing a radar-neutral aerostat? Remember, this is the same government that still refuses to acknowledge the existence of the Aurora, and kept the F-117A a total secret for more than 10 years. The Feds DO spend 10+ billion dollars every year on "black" programs that they want kept secret.
all your base are belong to us
No kidding - in Omaha Nebraska (Home of Strategic Air Command), where I grew up - the craft was completely black, on a dark moonless night and was being escorted by several aircraft. The only way you could tell it's size / shape is by it's obfuscation of the stars behind it.
I always wondered what the heck that was...
From the articls: "There appears to be an increase in deployment of these vehicles," Kelleher said. "The only time you see these things are when they are leaving or coming in. A lot of these sightings are at night. Our information is that they spend a long time aloft, weeks at a time. They can be thought of as ocean-going ships, rather than aircraft," he said.
This reminds me so much of Final Fantasy! How cool. I wonder when they'll make a luxury air liner; it could reach a lot more sights than an ocean liner. I wonder if they have one called The Big Whale, or if they have a captain named Setzer. They have to have a mechanic named Cid!
BlackGriffen
If true, there should be some very large custom-built hangers for these things that would show up in commercially available satellite photos. Do these exist? (For that matter, the craft themselves should have been imaged multiple times, but in the flood of data, it could be hard to find them.)
On a side line - how are the 'Aurora' rumours coming along? ('Aurora' is supposedly a deep black hypersonic reconnosance airplane, replacing the SR-71.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Back in the 1970's, author John McPhee wrote a great book called "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed," detailing the efforts of the Aereon company to create a lighter-than-air transport vessel.
e re on.jpg (the original design for the Aereon)
9 /a ereon.html (article from 1999 about the possible return of the Aereon corp, including the following quote:
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
this
If you see one, there's probably an Angel nearby they *ahem* forgot to tell you about.
Seek shelter, and look out for giant robots falling from the sky...
Been developing a craft for some time.
Maybe it was real. Maybe it was swamp-gas. Both are entirely possible in my estimation.
In what manner did it dissapear? Did it fly off over the horizon, getting smaller & smaller until it was gone? Did it simply fade from view? Typically, when genuine, these things fly off at 'incredible speeds'.
Just curious.
-Fantastic Lad --Art Bell: disinfo genius?
Why in the heck is Lockheed Martin produce pr0n!! ;-)
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Do the sitings also correlate to conferencers CowboyNeal has been attending? If so, how was Slashdot able to contract service from the DoD?
Many apologies to CowboyNeal for the joke made at his expense...
In what manner did it dissapear?
Well, "disappear" may be overly dramatic. "Became too damn hard to see anymore" is more like it. It was difficult to see in the first place, and just became impossible to see after it turned and moved away from us.
Congradulations. You have just demonstrated yourself to be the very sort of evil Ameri-colonialist bent on their destruction that justifies them to be bent on our destruction. Its a hell of a lot easier to kill them if we at least pretend that their opinion of us is sheer paranoia.
We're being invaded!
They look just like those creatures from the planet Zen in Hal-Life! It's all comming together! That wasn't a game, it was a training exercise!
Assume these were DoD or military ships, what would happen if a 'UFO hunter' went up in a
plane or helicopter and by some means brought one of these ships down?
Would it be covered up? Would you be charged with homocide?
1. The existence of "big airships" would be classified if knowledge of them exposed classified technologies and/or methodologies used to build, fly and maintain them.
2. "Keeping stuff" classified is not that difficult. No one is going to avoid any promising new technology simply because it will be classified. Clearances do take a long time, but plenty of cleared personnel are already available.
3. The U-2, the stealth prototypes, and the SR-71 all flew for years before being publicly acknowledged by confining flight operations and support to a small number of secure facilties.
4. Lack of a clearance does not absolve you of responsibility for exposing classified information. If someone decides to land a secret aircraft within view of your office window, one of two things is likely to happen: (1) You won't be allowed to be there when it lands; (2) you get a security briefing, you sign some papers, and you get a new clearance.
5. A large, stealthy transport that can hover or make use of a very short runway and fly missions of global dimensions would be a tremendous boon to any country's military. Such an aircraft would greatly reduce dependence on prepositioning troops and materials and on the willingess of other nations to allow use of their facilities and airspace.
6. If such an aircraft exists, why assume it is a cargo or troop transport? Why not a weapons platform? The U.S. uses the B-2 as a weapons platform on flights originating within the U.S. Think what weaponry a stealth aircraft the size of a football field could carry.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Just for clarification, the company you refer to is different. You're right though, it's iffy, but for military logistics the arguments seem pretty compelling to me if the costs hold up.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
When the Air Force builds one of these big, black triangular craft then I'll get excited. Until then this is just more fodder for Art Bell.
Bush should have died, not Reagan -- Morrissey
Morrissey rides a cockhorse -- The Warlock Pinchers
gleam,
Why do I have this feeling that Aereon is actually a front company for a Lockheed Skunk Works project?
If you remember from the late Ben Rich's book Skunk Works, the way Clarence Kelly Johnson got the parts to build the U-2 was to order the parts through a front company named C & J Engineering, complete with a postal box out in Sunland, CA, which was well-away from the Lockhead plant at Burbank, CA. It's possible that the Aereon company was a ruse to cover up Lockheed's ressearch into stealth lighter-than-air vehicles used for reconnaissance and special ops transport.
3 of them said they were outside when object at very low altitude, huge, and trangular in shape blocked out all the stars, and floated away without making a sound. we live about 30 miles from a major military base.
You're right. I've been very insensitive. I'm sorry. Please accept this national holiday and 3 billion dollars in foreign aid to make up for my boorishness.
Just because this is on Space.com doesn't mean it's legit. Who the hell are the "National Institute of Discovery Science" ? How are they different than any other crackpot group saying they see black helicopters? I don't believe a lick of this until (a) there are PICTURES not drawings and (b) the contractor tells me what the aircraft model is. I think this whole thing is a load of crap for cheap publicity on the part of "NIDS".
Ok, here is some reference material for you regarding this story. There is a company in Germany called Cargolifter, that has been exploring the usage of lighter than air vehicles for heavy cargo capabilities. Their website is here: http://www.cargolifter.com/2002/repository/splash_ e.html
From the information within the website their vehicles will be about 213 ft in diameter, 870 ft long, and a total 270 ft high (you know, cockpit and other misc mechanical stuff). They also believe they can carry up to 160 tons, and travel at speeds of about 60 mph.
They are partnered with Boeing on high altitude vehicle research, have apparently sold some to Canada, are buying engines from GE, and a second construction facility is to be built in North Carolina.
A: You're doing it again.
B: What's that?
A: That talking thing....stop it.
SUPER Whacko Site
Saw one of these in Wappingers Falls, circa mid-1986. Both an awesome and dull experience, really. Awesome because it was so large and slow-moving, dull for the same reasons. Believe me or not, I don't give a shit, but a whole parking lot full of people I was with watched the thing for ten minutes or so. If it's military, BFD, that's what most of us assumed anyway.
For more info look up "Hudson Valley UFO" in Google. This thing's about as secret as Pamela Anderson's tits...
Night
If this kind of stuff gets posted to /. then I'm wondering why we didn't hear about any of their animal mutilation reports or the paper that says that time reversals are responsible for deja vu.
Ad hominem is a reasonable argument once in a while. Say crazy things enough times, and your credibility is burned.
Do you even know how much the sheilding would weigh to make it safe enough for the crew.
We've had nuclear power for roughly 60 years and how many nuclear powered planes have you heard of?
None and the reason is the sheilding to make it "safe" enough for the crew would make it so heavy that it probably would have to have a runway
that is in the 10's of miles.
Wow, my University just got linked. Now the suckness that is our webpage will be reveiled to the world. Damn damn.
I would not trust anything that comes from a profesor at WSU. Think of David D's character in Evolution...
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
If it doesn't need pressure to hold its shape, the helium/hydrogen can be at 1 atmosphere, and will only leak slowly if punctured. It would probably have multiple cells, many of which would have to be deflated to crash the ship.
All together, it could be less fragile than a plane relying on thrust and airfoils for lift.
--
Benjamin Coates
Big airships? OK
Stealth? OK
Electrokinetic drives? Uh Uh (Google).
For the link weary (wary?), electrokinetic drives are a crude form of ion propulsion where instead of using some form of ion source, the ions naturally present in the atmosphere are accelerated by a large electric field. The first link in the list seems to be the most reputable and reports NO acceleration produced. A few of the later links talsk about elctrokinetic migration of ions in soil due to chemically generated electric fields. Electrokinetic propulsion of airborne vehicles seems to be impossible.
They all say "Goodyear" on the side of them, right?
The "landing just about anywhere" thing is all of the point. Being able to drop an armored vehicle and a handful of troops anywhere, any time, with no warning and little prep is a Very Big Thing. Alternately, you could take that same troop/armor load and sit twenty miles off someone's coast for a couple of days and wait for something to happen, with a reaction time of minutes instead of hours (or days). Or, if it has good high-altitude capability, you could fly a partly-loaded one up to 100,000 feet or so and use it as a manned sensor/weapons platform that nobody could touch.
Doesn't anyone remember when everybody in Phoenix got a view of this thing back in '97?
Phoenix lights
Okay, I've checked about a dozen calendars now. Since this is NOT April 1, I don't get it...what's the punchline?
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
and thanks to my habit of tracking the ISS, I saw one of these just after dusk.
Slow. Grey. Muted, if any lights. Odd, somewhat vapor trail, but not quite. Not consistent speed, or tracking. Strangest thing I've ever seen in the sky, and I spent my first 15 years of life five miles from an unclassified runway that hosted all sorts of AF weirdness.
I had my digital, and took a picture. I will not post it.
Anyone who disputes this will be proven wrong at some point, because these things are real.
What kind of crack-pots wrote this stuff?
My job was in transportation of passengers and cargo. I've been to every major base, loaded every type of aircraft, and have not seen or heard of anything as stupid as this story while in the Air Force.
/.
How could anyone keep a blimp a secret? Skunkworks? Come on! I really doubt the premise that the DoD or a contrator has built a big, secret, triangular, black blimp and has been flying them around. Near populated areas? With running lights? This doesn't add up. I'm feeling a lot of stubble burn when I apply Occam's Razor.
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.
I wonder if this could be used to carry
some very large version of the Pegasus rocket
or something similar?
Am I the only one who thinks its silly that modern air ship designers are still too affraid to use hydrogen?
We use dangerous chemicals and gasses in countless industries, and because of a single incident in airship history, hydrogen has been rulled out for all times. Didn't they prove it was the skin of the Hindenburg that caused the big problem anyway?
Wouldn't the substantially better lift capabilities be worth the cost of building in a few extra saftey protocols?
One puzzling thing about the secret military craft theory is why the hell they would fly them over *populated* areas, such as Pheonix, etc?
If you have a secret craft, generally you find places with the *least* amount of eyeballs. Pheonix and Texas cities do not qualify. (Plus, the chance it may crash if it is a test vehicle.)
Table-ized A.I.
Microsoft has agreed with the 8 remaining states and will begin to break Microsoft into three different divisions. Bill gates has voluntarily submitted himself to the state police and is awaiting for sentencing. Steve jobs went on record stating "I love windows. All this time I was simply jealous of Bill Gates and his billions."
Are pretty big. Someone should go try to find one on terraserver, or lostoutdoors.com, or some other satellite photo page. If groom lake (popularly known as Area 51) is on there, then surely some MAC airbases are...
Sholdn't be too hard to find, unless they're well camoflagued, as they probably are. Still worth a shot, IMHO.
I don't know if you can see the same ad on that webpage as I, but it has an ad for free-fall (weightless) flights where it looks like about half the passengers are going to lose their meal. Especially Mr. Heaverthot near the bottom there.
The guy against the wall looks like he just finished and is happy just to wait it out at the hand railing.
I think I would find a better ad image if I was the flight company there.
Table-ized A.I.
While "Signs" is certainly one of the best (if not THE best) movies I've ever seen, perhaps this "paranormal/alien/government conspiracy" article may be a byproduct of M. Night manipulating his way into my every nightmare?
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 ...
Two Mormons, one Johava Witness, and 3 Scientologists already did this for us.
It is the "new Ark". It must be true because that is the only thing those oddballs all agreed on.
I purchased 3 tickets just in case they are right. If they are wrong, there is always ebay, no?
Table-ized A.I.
I'd rather have a reactor go down than a flying oil tanker. At least the reactor won't spray napalm over my neighborhood when it hits -- there will be instead be a slightly "hot" crater. The nuclear fuel will hit the ground like armored lead, and stay where it lands. No impressive and deadly fire/explosion to kill dozens or hundreds (even thousands) as it careens at 400+ mph through my residential streets.
I'm not trying to poke fun at you, but the mind can play tricks.
I was driving along a country road at night, many years ago. It was a moonless night, and I was the only car on the road. Out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly noticed a light. It really freaked me out. It was a long bright cigar shape, and it was going exactly the same speed as the car. It was on the passenger side, and as it followed me, it was moving slowly up and down.
It took me about a minute to finally figure out what it was. One completely freaked out befuddled minute. And then I realized... My car headlights were reflecting off a power line.
Oh well. Maybe another day...
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
I'm not really swayed one way or the other by technological arguments for or against such propositions. I'm not scientifically illiterate, meaning I'm literate enough to know I'm ignorant of much of science.
What really strikes me is the socialogical aspects of such an undertaking. You don't just team up with your bestest buddy from grade school who would never rat on you and build a 100 giga ton nuclear powered orbital warship. This type of endeavor would require the participation of, I dunno, many thousands of people. At the least.
How the hell do you keep that many people quiet?
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
These are spy satellites known to fly in a triangle formation. Could be an answer to what people are seeing. http://www.satobs.org/noss.html http://www.eclipsetours.com/sat/class.html
If the US actually had a big cargo lifter, it would be in use right now moving stuff into Afghanistan. Our units there now are light on artillery and armor because everything has to be flown in. It's a very tough logistics problem.
Im takeing a guess hear,
that they dont think those of us
in Austrlia who have seen such
things, with no flight lights on at
all are gona go 'oh so that is what it was'
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
Anything is possible in Texas. A coke dealer can become president. a CEO can escape prison and with 100 Million US$. Not bad. Now, we have to get smarter and not try and place nuke waste in volcanic areas. It should actually go to the real desolate place. like dallas.
This is not necessarily true. If it goes down there is a chance that it will scatter radio active material throughout the country side in the form of dust (sort of a dirty bomb). However that is the least of your worries, what happens if one of these reactors has problems while flying, did anyone think of that. If you blow a nuclear reactor in the upper aptomosphere it will be a disaster the likes of which you have never seen or imagined. It will have ecological impacts that the EPA would shit themselves over.
Imagine if you will how far dust can spread if it is caught in the wind. Now imagine that this dust is radio active, because that is what you will be dealing with. It won't be just a simple explosion like a Nuke, it will be FAR worse and have the possibility of doing massive harm for a very large area, potentially making areas bigger than texas uninhabitable. We should not be putting nuclear reactors in air planes for this reason. At least when naplam hits it burns out quickly (in geological terms atleast), this stuff will last a VERY long time and contaminate VERY large areas. which would you rather have a quick burning death or a slow aginising death due to radioactive poisoning. I think I would rather have the quick painful death instead of the long painful death.
I would prefer seeing these floating over the US!Giant Firefighting Blimp
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
Uh, dust? That's soooooooooo 1950's. Nuclear reactors use metal fuel now (including subs). Stop trolling (all the caps 'VERY' and a bunch of other scare mongering). lol, my favorite quote:
"a quick burning death"
Since when was being covered in gasoline and being lit on fire a quick death?!?!?
Remember, dirty bombs don't come from nuclear reactors. They come from people who want to create dirty bombs.
If this thing is really 300 feet wide, that implies that somewhere there's a pair of aircraft hangar doors more than 300 feet wide.
Surely there's not many hangars capable of hiding this kind of beast (unless it somehow folds up like Optimus Prime)
Until I see pics, Call me a skeptic
Yes, yes, crap. Thanks, let's move on.
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.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
one has to use passive and remote controlled methods to detect these "top secret" planes and about only thing that I can come up with is a camera with high resolution and brightness. camoflage it well and use hard-to-detect means for data transfer like lasers or directional antennas which don't leak to other directions.
humans and all activity are easily detected with IR and other ways and military are likely to avoid testing in such areas where they believe they might get sighted.
just remember that you're paying the taxes they use so is it too much asked to take a peek what they're doing? (...and tell all about it in internet, haha!) oh, and do release your info so that it can't be taken off the net (p2p, freenet,...)
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
These are the same set of tactics used by fundameltalist Christian groups (such as Jehovah's Witnesses, via their "spin-off" Watchtower Publishing) to attack evolutionary theory. Take one (1) institute out there with a scientific-sounding name, one (1) ambiguous report holding some pieces, but not all, of an argument, and one (1) researcher from a university and BAM! Instant 'credibility'. Works almost every time against people used to blindly accepting scientific "truth". Then again, it could be true...
The dream reveals the reality which conception lags behind. That is the horror of life- the terror of art. -Franz Kafka
But they haven't explained why they seem to suddenly disintegrate over Camden, NJ.
The larger the area you spread your radioactive material across, the smaller the impact that radioactive material will have. If I took a single fuel rod from a reactor and spread it evenly across the entire US, it wouldn't even register as a blip among all the background radiation.
Dirty bombs are only good as a pure terror weapon. They sound scary and evil, because they have all the conotations of Nuclear and Bomb. In reality, the sort of dirty bomb a terrorist could build would have no more impact than your common terrorist fertilizer bomb. A properly equiped team could clean up any radioactive material from a dirty bomb within a couple of weeks.
...looks like my design for a rigid frame vacuum airship constructed from some freaky thin yet strong material that won't implode. Unobtainium, I like to call it.
this reminds me of a famous Simpsons quote:
Homer: Well, the night started at the gentlemen's club,where we were discussing Witzchenstein over a game of Backgammon.
Scully: Homer, it's a felony to lie to the F.B.I.
Homer: We were sitting in Barney's car eating packets of mustard, there ya happy?
taken from [3G01] The Springfield Files
I can explain everything easily, but first you must look at the little light at the top of this metal tube thing.
Thank you, what you saw was not a delta flyer, or an alien space craft, it was... umm... the light defracting off of venus through some swamp gas released by a weather balloon... yeah, that's it... So, don't worry about it and go on your way. nothing to see here. And you... find someone you like and get some new clothes...
~ kjrose
you fitna raise up and get your travel on?
bring a towel, cuz at delta, its laid out like dat
|---------------|
practically an AC
4. Lack of a clearance does not absolve you of responsibility for exposing classified information. If someone decides to land a secret aircraft within view of your office window, one of two things is likely to happen: (1) You won't be allowed to be there when it lands; (2) you get a security briefing, you sign some papers, and you get a new clearance.
(3) You don't come home from work for the next twenty years.
It's the floating S.H.I.E.L.D. base!
Someone needs to see if there was a sighting of a hairy dude with an eyepatch and a cigar in the area.
I first saw this on a newsletter sent out by:
http://www.space.com/
of all people!
We are on the internet, you know. You can look it up. These stories have been coming from everywhere, for a long time now.
Read, especially, about all the "experts" who are quoted who saying, "Ah, I Knew it all along!". They are going to look like fools, aren't they? Right!
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
I worked on the flightline for the USAF, and if two "standardized pallets" fit side-by-side on a KC-10 (think: heavily modded DC-10 cargo refueler), then I doubt a 747 (larger than a DC-10) would present much trouble.
If this is what I think it is, It was debunked on the Discovery Channel, the History Channel or the Learning Channel.
It had to do with some stuff passing behind some mountians in the distance and they accounted for what people saw exactly.
I'm sorry for the vaigue refrence, I'll try and dig up the details.
Generators don't create charge. They seperate them.
You can run a generator all you like but you won't change the overall charge of an airship. You could do something like make the skin have a different charge than the interior, if that's what you mean. That could have some effect in the clouds, but it sounds like it would be unpredicatable and dangerous.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
Yes, it must definitely be the case that any and all taking the circumstantial evidence that we are being visited by *something* seriously (as well as all witnesses who can't explain what they have experienced) is a "wacko". It is exactly your kind of attitude that is going to make it more difficult for the public to accept this if it ever does turn out to be true. And since ruling it out completely is not logical (lack of hard evidence for something does not mean it does not exist), I suggest that your conclusion-jumping is just as bad as some of those websites you criticize.
Damn. I wasn't going to bother posting in this story because it's already been swamped. But you are just ignorant of how the world really works.
The term "bannana republic" is used to refer to regimes that we put into power to support our business interests. It is not used in referring to those who are pulling the strings.
A easy way to remember is that bannanas don't grow in the United States.
So you are assuming this is a lighter than air airship. What it the buoyancy effect is just used as a freebie, and the large wing area also contributes to the lift significanty, even at low speeds like 35mph. Anyway, you can't land a 747 on a cornfield, the dunes, etc. I would think a stall speed around 30mph would be a useful feature for a large transport.
In the 50's they fitted a B-36 bomber with a nuclear reactor to study the feasability of a nuclear powered aircraft. The damn thing even flew, but under the power of conventional engines... the testbed had no way of using the power the reactor generated for flight. A second plane, one that actually would be powered by the reactor and not just carrying it, was planned but never built. A quick google search yeilded this url if you want more info: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/b 036-13.html
Sounds like you saw a B2, and in the early 1990's there were a few flights of them from what used to be Carswell in Ft. Worth to Tinker in Okie City, the flight path would take it right along the northwestern edge of Denton where you were located. The B2 is freakin' huge, and thus looks like it's going slow when in fact its slow cruise is about 150 knots, plus when cruising slow the engines are throttled way back and the aircraft is virtually silent. When they make a steep banked turn you can't believe they can stay in the sky, but they can, and it is a breathtakingly awesome sight. They are extremely dark charcoal grey, almost black but not totally. If you hadn't ever seen one of these before, and weren't expecting it, you'd swear it was an alien spaceship.... but it ain't. It's good old American Technology.
Well in Somalia, no one really made any money.
Perhaps the NGOs providing aid to the region did.
The arms in theatre on the Clan side were left overs from the Marxist government there. The arms on the American side would have been there no matter what.
The DoD doesn't buy extra M-4s for a peacekeeping action.
I honestly don't think "peace" is the best thing for each and every situation.
An example would be Panama. The government was corrupt, refused to allow the elected leaders take power, started to imprision people that spoke out and finally started to murder civilians and foriegn nationals. So when each and ever political card is played, a Government needs to have the tool of War.
Back to Somalia - Who on the American side made money?
United Technologies got to replace the UH-60s lost within the next couple years, so they made some money. The bandage makers and medical companies got to replenish the stocks for the US forces, so they made some money. The ammo makers got to make more ammo, but all in all, I don't think the arguement is there for the Somali situation and the Day of the Rangers being a textbook Military-Industrial-Complex driven conflict.
The Soviet Union sure didn't make a mint from suppling the Third-World with AKs and RPGs.
And no politician's campaign chest was emboldened by supporters of the Somali comapaign.
Electrokinetic propulsion is all well and good. It might happen, it might not. Big, black and stealth are possible too. Keeping it semi-secret is possible too. All you really need to look for though, are the hangers. Ever see one? for a blimp that large, they'd have to be quite large as well. And if they're placed somewhere reasonably flat, like an airfield, you can see them from quite a distance out. There are some near the coast where I live and they're hard to miss.
I saw one too. I was 16 years old, so 1996, camping with 2 friends. We were in a fairly flat area delimited by small mountain ranges. I saw it first - It came over one of the mountains, and it was huge. I mean, huge. It was completely black, and it had sets of lights at each edge of the triangle, and then a set of lights in the center. They would each flash one at a time, then they would all flash. It passed DIRECTLY overhead, amazingly low, so low I probably could have hit it with a rifle, and I am not a good shot. I was completely silent. I guess the entire sighting, from seeing it come over the mountain to seeing it disappear in the distance, lasted about 1 minute. It was around 11 pm, in the countryside without much ambient light other than the stars. One of the most amazing things we had ever seen. I am familiar with the flight characterstics of both military and domestic aircraft. I have been to airshows, I have my Air and Space subscription, I try to keep up to date. I have actually also had F-18's and F-16's fly over the exact same area where we camped, and I have seen KC's in action, so this is not a case of mistaken identity. I have no idea what I did see, but I can tell you it was unlike any aircraft I have ever observed in flight. This occured in Quebec, Canada, 40 miles from the U.S. border.
- If This Peace Is Fictious, I Shall Destroy It
What it the buoyancy effect is just used as a freebie, and the large wing area also contributes to the lift significanty
Ah, you're talking about something like the deltoid pumpkin seed. Yeah, that's a valid possibility that I overlooked. (Posting in the middle of the night, what can I say.) Modern materials technology might make that design more feasible (although they did eventually get the prototype working).
-- Alastair
If you don't believe it, check out the story and video from CNN
What was the last law that benefited people but not corporations?
I agree, to launch a strike like this, we need a real declaration of war. I don't see that the administration has *any* constitutional ground to go ahead on there own. But if they can persuade congress to actually declare war, then at least they've done their duty by the laws of this country.
The estimates can't be anywhere near reality. I mean "weighing on the order of 100 tons". Yeah, right.
Go look at http://www.cargolifter.com/ for some info on people are actually planning to build a heavy lift airship if they cane solve their insolvency problems. That baby'll weigh around 400 tons dry.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
.. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Try this.
**>>BELCH
Jet technology is not our cutting edge technology. Our cutting edge technology is too expensive to make in mass quantities, This is why we still use jets.
While we can create unmannned flying triangle shaped blimps for spy missions, we cannot make enough of them due to their price to use them in great numbers.
While we do have aircrafts which are saucershaped and not jets, these aircrafts cost a fortune to make and they arent very stable due to how they fly, they craft alot so they are unmanned, they were used to spy on the russians during the cold war. They fly at high speed, usually high up in the air and take pictures at the land down below.
Theres also a few of these saucer shaped craft that have weapons which are manned currently in development.
This information is of course classified, you will not see pictures of these crafts until we actually need to use them or until they are obsolete.
Jets are obsolete, so its okay to show our enemies our jets, our newest experimental aircrafts, the best you'll find on them is patents, designs, and scientists talking about its development on newsgroups.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I thought I'd just note, that Channel 2 news in Utah recored one of the ships withen the last week that flew over part of the Salt Lake City area. I think people around here have pictures. If there are any Utah residents who have pictures, can you post them?
Since when was being covered in gasoline and being lit on fire a quick death?!?!?
Since I last looked into cancer and old age as an alternative.
yes, otherwise if it's just a blimp why wouldn't it look like a blimp? all that extra surface area (per volume) on the delta would seem to only slow the aircraft down. the book you pointed out sounds like a good read; the cover on the picture looks very much like the craft from the original article in this thread. thanks.
and what is h in barn slugs per year?
SECTION 1. DECLARATION OF WAR.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Are these sightings of the mysterious Aurora (a Brit aircraft-spotter hobbyist saw black triangle was seen in formation with F-111's and a tanker over a North Sea oil rig) which is supposed to be this hypersonic SR-71 replacement, or is this something else?
So, it's not a UFO. It's just a perfectly ordinary flying object that remains unidentified. This article sure closed the case on this one!
Another damned comic
+++ NO CARRIER
The Central Intelligence Agency Motto: "Proudly Overthrowing Fidel Castro Since 1962"
How does that cover Iraq?
Uh, they helped the terrorists maybe? Nah, it was a coincidence that Mohammed Atta met with a senior Iraqi government official. Goodness knows Iraq has no reason to hate the U.S. and even less reason to use a proxy to launch an attack.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
As for pre-empting *future* attacks by Iraq, that's a good motivation for ousting Saddam, but it's not covered by the resolution you cited.
Iraq helped the Sept. 11 terrorists. End of story.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
First, I apologize that I am posting as AC, but I forgot my account info.
i ghts.la rge.20sec.mov
s /index.htm l
e =UTF-8&oe =UTF-8&safe=off&q=phoenix+triangle+stars+March+13+ 1997+UFO
I did some searching into information regarding this story, and found a couple of interesting tidbits of info:
CNN article regarding the March 13, 1997 "the Phoenix lights" - a series of lights in the sky which attracted the attention of hundreds of people, and was actually televised at the time. I remember watching it on either ABC or CBS news back then Live - and it was very strange. The military eventually claimed it was a formation of planes on a training excercise, but other people claimed you could not see the night stars in between them, which would indicate some sort of lighter-than-air vehicle.
I think the strange thing about it is if this is a blimp, the sheer size of it would be huge - and there are not very many large hangars of the size needed to house something like this.
At least they have a video link:
http://www.cnn.com/US/9706/19/ufo.lights/l
Here is the link to the CNN article:
http://www.cnn.com/US/9706/19/ufo.light
Google search string:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&i
Also, another interesting story - this time by me. I live and work in Tucson, AZ, and we have the enormous David Monthan AFB down here. They frequently fly in and out black aircraft, as evidenced when they shutdown half of the airforce base and turn out all of the landing runway lights and tell all of the personnel to leave the landing area. One day when I was driving home to work at around 3 pm (it was a bright, sunny day), I saw a strange object in the sky. It looked like a triangular piece of tinfoil, about the size of your fist if you hold your arm straight out. I stopped my car and watched it sail over the road I was on at a leisurely pace. It was in my view for a good 2-3 minutes before it disappeared - it got so far away that the sky was brighter than itself, and I could not make it out anymore. If the object was traveling at ground level like a car, it would only have been going around 20 miles per hour, but it was pretty high up in the air - anywhere from a few hundred feet (it would have to have been a remote control airplane to be that close), to a few thousand for an aircract. Don't know what it was, but it makes a good story!
Notice though that (according to my recolection, varrious news reports, and the reference that you cited) that declaration has not been passed. It was introduced and refered to committee.
A lot of bills get introduced, but they don't count until they are voted on and passed.
-- MarkusQ