Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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
"Elecrokinetic propulsion means that no propellers or jets are used."
Someone want to explain that one?
It's a form of buzzword propulsion.
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
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 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
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.
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?)
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
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.
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