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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.'"

33 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why would they classify airships? by captain_craptacular · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All of the "wars" america has handled in the last little bit were total one sided slaughters. It's not like if Iraq of Afganistan had an extra 2 weeks to prepare they would have "won"...

    --
    They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
  2. Bullshit. I saw one. by revscat · · 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.

    1. Re:Bullshit. I saw one. by david.given · · Score: 5, Interesting
      It was probably a jet.

      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.

    2. Re:Bullshit. I saw one. by revscat · · 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.

    3. Re:Bullshit. I saw one. by Peridriga · · Score: 5, Funny

      Thank you for posting...

      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

    4. Re:Bullshit. I saw one. by revscat · · 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.

    5. Re:Bullshit. I saw one. by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, but a stealth blimp would need to be angular. That way it doesn't reflect radar back in every direction. And being thin like you describe would be advantageous too, in that regard. However, it would still have to be big enough that it could have sufficient lift. How big was the object you saw? If your UFO was full of helium, think it could lift a few tanks?

      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?

      --

      There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
    6. Re:Bullshit. I saw one. by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Interesting
      > 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

      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. :-)

    7. Re:Bullshit. I saw one. by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 3, Funny
      $ host www.mib.gov
      www.mib.gov does not exist (Authoritative answer)

      At least, that's what they'd like you to believe...

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  3. Airship by papasui · · Score: 5, Funny

    Great you got an airship now all you need is a guy named Cid to fly it and some dudes with swords.

  4. This is ridiculous. by Debillitatus · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The editors came up real short on this one. After reading the /. blurb, it sounded like an actual piece of journalism that was reporting on this. Ok, fine.

    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

  5. Re:Electrokinetic Drive? by Bearpaw · · 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.

  6. Re:Electrokinetic Drive? by Maniakes · · Score: 3, Funny

    Airships are big balloons. We've all rubbed balloons against our shirts, then stuck them to the wall. This is an "electrostatic" effect. If you rub an airship against a big enough shirt, it will accellerate towards the nearest large wall. The clever bit is that you pile a bunch of drywall slabs on the back of a truck, then drive the truck around while the airship follows. Since the wall is moving, the effect is "electrokinetic".

    I'm waiting for a report that the development of the large shirts in the 1950s was partially responsible for the Paul Bunyan legend.

    --
    A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
  7. Re:Electrokinetic Drive? by cpeterso · · Score: 3, Funny

    Elecrokinetic propulsion means that no propellers or jets are used.

    I think that means they are using telekinesis. That would explain why the CIA is harboring so many al Quaeda members in psionic prisons in Cuba. Islamic people are well known to have strong psychic powers. There brand of Evil is strong.

  8. Hey man, don't bogart the consciousness by xant · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  9. Does not compute. by AJWM · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Does not compute. by liberteus1 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      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.)
      Why not use B747 ? Because they're not what you think they are. They are probably using magneto-hydronamic (MHD) tech to generate a shockwave in front of them and surf it. Sounds like a UFO ? Well, consider the F117 was developped in the 70's. Disclosed in 1990. Do you know why militaries disclose sercrets ?
      1/ can not be kept any longer. Not a good reason, considering secrecy was held for 10 years.
      2/ impress your enemies
      3/ you have better
      reason 2 and 3 are not exclusive, and I think that's exactly what happened: the message is: "you cant touch us" and "guess what we developped between 1980 and now ?".

      Now, I'd say that if such crafts are disclosed by the US militaries, it would be a way to tell Saddam and others: we can get thousands of men in a day in your country. Remember 1990 ? US Army took 6 month to be able to operate. Now, if that could last 10 days to bring all the people on the battlefiled, imagine the strategic advantage.
    2. Re:Does not compute. by nathanm · · Score: 5, Informative
      A 747-400 has a payload of over 120 tons with a range of over 4400 nautical miles. Why not just use 747s?
      A standard 747 works great for carrying passengers, and freight configured 747s can haul lots of cargo in small crates, but military airlifters use standardized pallets that won't fit in (current) 747s. Also, they can't carry tanks, large vehicles, helicopters, or other aircraft. Military cargo aircraft can accomodate the pallets or other large payloads. Besides, the C-5 can carry over 145 tons (max wartime payload, standard max is 125 tons).
  10. They're out there, waiting and invisible by patiwat · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

  11. Big Black Delta Mystery Solved? by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    "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.

  12. Oh, please by linuxwrangler · · Score: 5, Informative

    Big Black Ships? mysterious humming drive systems?

    How did this get by the /. editors.

    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.virtuallystran ge.net
    www.ufofinland.net
    www.ufowisconsin.com
    www.ufodisclosure.com
    www.aliendave.com
    www.oreg onuforeview.com
    ufounderground.net
    www.ufowatchd og.com
    www.truthseekeratroswell.com
    www.stardriv e.org
    www.intrudersfoundation.org
    www.ufoinfo.co m
    www.ufoconspiracy.com
    www.artbell.com

    You be the judge

    --

    ~~~~~~~
    "You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
  13. Re:You know what is really interesting is by platypus · · Score: 3, Funny

    They don't need no stinking antigravity gadgets to let these things fly. I'll tell you what they do.

    These ships are made of super light but super solid nanotechnological materials. Since they are so light, they fly practically without any technology. Read more books!

    Btw. their windows are made of diamonds.

  14. Re:Why would they classify airships? by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In Somalia no one "won".

    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.

  15. Why keep a transport airship secret? by Goonie · · Score: 5, Interesting
    As was discussed in the slashdot writeup, there have been serious proposals for transport airships for some time now. This British company is proposing 1000-tonne capacity cargo airships.

    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?)
  16. I saw one.. by BitGeek · · 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.

    --
    Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
  17. Ground support? by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  18. Re:Why would they classify airships? by Fred+Ferrigno · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think surprise could be very important to the outcome in the (probably) upcoming war against Iraq.

    Think about what you just said. If it occurs to you that a war against Iraq is probable, maybe the same thought occurs to the Iraqis? Kinda ruins the whole surprise aspect when the Washington Post publishes your battle plans. Congress is already holding hearings about how to set up our puppet government in Baghdad once we've done away with Saddam.

    They know we're coming. We just don't know it yet.

  19. The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed by gleam · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    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/ae re on.jpg (the original design for the Aereon)

    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/6-22-99 /a ereon.html (article from 1999 about the possible return of the Aereon corp, including the following quote:

    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 .sig is not a .sig.
  20. Cover for "Skunk Works" project? by MtViewGuy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Cover for "Skunk Works" project? by gleam · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's possible, but I doubt it... there's too much obscure and weird history to Aereon corp for it to really be a front..

      examples:

      1) Founded by a presbyterian pastor (I think), who provided most of the original funding for the project.

      Quote: In Mr. McPhee's words, Mr. Drew, asked himself: "Why not bring the world's underdeveloped nations into the transportation forefront of the 20th century in a single leap by eliminating the need for roads, railroads, tunnels, bridges, airports, storage facilities and prepared harbors? Enormous warehouses in the sky would move from place to place, landing lightly on grass fields."

      It's possible Lockheed got a lot of strange religious people to start up this company, but I kinda doubt it...

      2) The now leader of the company, William Miller Jr., is also a religious man: he's a graduate of the Princeton Theological Seminary. It just strikes me as unlikely that an organization with such a...holy...background would be a front for lockheed-martin.

      Basically, a huge number of those involved with the project are a pastor, reverend, priest, minister, or graduate of a seminary...

      3) Lockheed's interest in lighter-than-air vehicles is fairly well documented..

      4) Another quote:

      He didn't give up. When the aircraft industry showed no interest, the theologian/flyer/inventor turned to the trucking industry. An aging trucking industry magazine in his files shows a football-field sized Aereon pulled up to a loading dock. Trucking companies showed some interest, but, Mr. Miller said, unions representing truckers felt threatened by the airship that could put many of them out of business, and so funding never materialized.

      It's possible the whole thing is a coverup, but I think it's more likely that Aereon is just a group of people who believe in the idea of an aerobody.

      -gleam

      --
      this .sig is not a .sig.
  21. Re:It's about the upstream... by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Very general knowledge such as "the US may attack us within the next couple of years" is useless. Just like when Al-Qaeda spreads rumors that there might be an attack somewhere in the northeast US, "soon."

    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.

  22. Re:Not really a baloon by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 3, Informative
    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.
    The USS Shenandoah (an experimental US-NAVY airship) broke up in several pieces in a storm, back in 1925. Many crewmen were able to escape death by "piloting" some of the pieces to the ground.
  23. Several Points about This by evilviper · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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