lightpanther

1 hour ago, Robert Wilson said:

1. I agree that we have to wait for an expert answers, otherwise this talk is pointless.

2. I'll just say that I had the chance to work several times with that kind of systems (thermals cameras for aircraft) and I can tell you that they produce a lot of heat. Yeah the sensor itself is cooled to a very low temperature by a cooler that is attached to it, but all the electronic around it is hot, the camera itself is very hot. So I have no doubt that when a camera like that is sitting in it's small space inside the pod it is just like a Heater, and the air around it is hot. An insect will have not problem of cold when he is next to the camera, and if it will get warmed by the camera, then it will looks hot when it's standing on the pod's window.

What systems were you working with? Can you provide links to their specification and architecture?  And specifically, to their heat generation profiles? Though, altogether I still think this doesn't really go anywhere without a Raytheon expert, so I am going to stop saying this as it is just going on repeat.

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3. I saw a video that I can't find now that gave me the impression that the IR camera inside the pod is fixed in it's place, and only the front pod's unit with the window is rotating around it. If that's the case and the pod's window can move and and pass the view to a fixed camera inside, then it may explain how it can bring the object to the center even if it's fixed on the window.

Okay, but I can't really comment without seeing the source and assessing the origin of the source.

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4. To insert an image into the text you just have to paste the address of the image, that's all. If the image is on your local computer then you can use this free site to upload it to the internet:

https://imgbb.com

Then after you finish click it to open, then right click on it, copy image address, then paste here.

Thanks for that 

 

1 hour ago, Robert Wilson said:

Sorry but I don't have time to investigate this to the deep now, let's face it we are both not experts about how it works, we need to find someone who actually works with this system who can tell us if the infrared camera can move inside the pod, or if the algorithm can move the picture a little while it's in zoom mode. If the object was acquired while the picture was in zoom x2 (meaning that you see only part of the full frame) then theoretically the algorithm could move the zoomed area left/right/up/down to bring the object to the middle.

And, there is also the possibility that just by chance the bug landed on the middle of the window, which you know it's not that big...

The fact that an expert on the specific system is the only person that can resolve these otherwise pointless speculations is something that I raised in my first post. I haven't changed my view since then. The other day, I sent an inquiry to Raytheon asking a) whether it was possible for an insect to get into the sensing path and b) whether there were additional axes of rotation within the housing. I haven't yet received a reply (and broadly speaking, since the inquiry concerns defense equipment in active service, I reckon the company might be wary of answering, even if they feel inclined to...they would also have to pass on the inquiry to the appropriate engineering team, which is not flagged on their front of house public presence). On the general point though...that only an expert on the system can resolve those particular issues to everybody's satisfaction...I agree.

I do however still think that you are confusing a pan-and-zoom style function with a target tracking system. These are not the same thing. I don't really know how to react to your assertion that the insect could "just happen" to be dead centre of the image. And I maintain that the tracking is operating by 3-axis acquisition of the external object. The entire pod gimbal structure then turns in physical space to centre the object in frame. 

 

Again, we need to ask an ATFLIR expert to know, but as far as I know the type of tracking that we see in this video is done by an algorithm that follows the object in the image itself. So if the algorithm looks at the picture and think that the object move from left to right, then it will send the Pod a command to move physically to the right to keep the object in the middle.

The "image" is really an end-point demonstration to the user.  I can't see any advantage to the system getting its tracking information anywhere but directly from the sensor array. The system also has a laser designator, though it is unclear whether it was activated in this instance. However,  I hope you will agree that at this point further speculation is pointless without a Raytheon expert.

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I think that both of you, you and Moontanman, are doing lot of assumptions which are not necessarily true about the temperature of the bug.

Since I do have degree level training in biology, I don't feel that I am a chump on "bugs" which is why I pointed out the cold-blooded thing. The examples that you gave are various (fairly unusual) exception cases. The bald fact remains that insects are cold blooded and do not normally generate heat unless involved in vigorous mechanical activity (for instance termites)

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Look at this picture, as you know trees are not producing heat, do you think that the deer and the trees has the same temperature?

 

There is nothing particularly unusual about this photograph, though I don't think it is a particularly sensitive thermal imaging system, which I suspect is why it is not making a sufficient distinction between the animal and the trees. It is correctly reporting the animal as the hottest object in the scene. Those tree trunks are nowhere near as hot as a warm blooded mammal, so unless this is just after dusk and those trees have been standing in strong sunlight all day, the performance of the camera is really not very good.

And let's look at some frames from the 'UFO' video itself, do you think that the clouds are Hot as the object?  

I haven't really figured out how to put images into text here, but I isolated the object area in photoshop and superimposed it onto the cloud area you indicated. I had to reduce the luminosity of the object by 1 and a half full exposure stops to get it to the same brightness as the cloud area your arrow is pointing at (I placed it in the brightest area of the cloud). The object is much thermally warmer than the background.

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You also forget that the pod has lot of Hot electronic equipment inside, so if the insect was first on this hot equipment, and only then he flew to the window, then it would still be hot.

I very much doubt that this equipment is constructed in such a way that any insect could get into the high precision sensor path. Again, expert required.

 

 

The pod is a large tank with lot of equipment inside, many times the Technicians open the pod in order to do maintenance works. When the pod is open, what prevent from insects and bugs go inside and walks between the infrared camera and the pod's window?

These just look like regular service hatches to me. I'm willing to bet that the optics and ultra-sensitive electronics are in their own high performance sealed unit (no insects   ) and in order to service or adjust the components in there, the unit would need to be sent back to Raytheon for high end service, probably in the equivalent of a clean room.

If almost 25% of the people that tried that survived, then you can be sure that at least 50% םf the insects in this conditions will survive. And again I remind you the it's hot inside the pod because of all the hot electronic equipment that it carries, so an insect inside will not suffer from cold, that's for sure.

In fact, it's possible that the system is cryogenically cooled, as some high end thermal image equipment is. But even if this is not so, unless the electronics are temperature stabilized in some active way, the governing temperature will be the extreme cold of high altitude. Again, obviously the electronics are designed to function within these parameters.

 

On 10/17/2019 at 5:52 AM, Robert Wilson said:

That's a guess, you can't know why it in the center, maybe it just happened to go there, you don't have the beginning of the video to see what exactly happened.

No, it's not a guess. The object is DEAD centre...meaning it's acquired.

 

I'm just saying that even if you will take an insect and glue it to the center of the pod's window during flight then there is a big chance that you will get exactly the same behavior that you see in this video. The tracking algorithm will see the insect that you attached to the window, and it will try to track it like it's an external object on the background of the sky and the clouds. Why shouldn't it track it? How should it know that it's not an external target? It sees something hot on the background of the sky and it's trying to track it like it was an airplane.

Tracking isn't physically performed by "the algorithm" but by the sensor array. If the object is not free to move separately from the sensor array, then it cannot be tracked.

 

You are guessing, you can't know by the colors in the video if the object is "much hotter" than the surrounding. In many infrared cameras the image processing gives (in "White Hot" mode) a black color to the coldest pixels in the frame,  a white color to the hottest pixels, and all the other pixels get grey levels between. So even if the insect temperature is just 0.5 degrees hotter than the window it will be white (or black in the "Black Hot" mode).

If it is hot enough to give IR artefacts (your "insect legs") then it is substantially hotter than ambient. This is academic anyway, since insects would be at ambient.

 

1. You don't know what was the temperature inside the pod, you forget that it's a closed box... if the aircraft rose to 25,000 feet it's not necessarily says that immediately within a second or two the temperature inside the pod drops below zero, and don't forget that there are many electronic systems inside the pod that produce heat.

You are clutching at straws. First of all, an insect has to be inside the housing. Second, if the pod is not pressurized (and I see no reason why it would be as it is not designed to contain anything living), then even IF an insect got in there, it would be dead. This also assumes that Defense equipment is so badly designed that an insect could get into the sensor path of a high end tracking and targeting system in the first place...another pretty implausible notion. I mean, even your consumer level Canon or Nikon lens architecture has the wit to prevent that...

 

2. There are stories of people who survived inside a wheel well of a plane (a landing gear compartment) so an insect will not survive it? Even for a few minutes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wheel-well_stowaway_flights

The vast majority of people who try this of course die, which you are neglecting to mention. In other words, this is special pleading as well.

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1. Many insects can produce body heat:

https://asknature.org/strategy/muscles-create-heat-to-warm-nest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_thermoregulation

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28889866

2. It's logic that an insect inside the pod will be hotter than the cold window that it's attached to which is exposed to the frozen wind outside.

No it isn't. It would be the same temperature as ambient.

 

Here:

https://www.metabunk.org/nyt-gimbal-video-of-u-s-navy-jet-encounter-with-unknown-object.t9333

"Here's the type of motion we are talking about rotation, and tracking on the exterior. This will be combined with internal camera movements to keep the horizon level."

Metabunk is a private hobbyhorse site, not an authoritative source on the Raytheon ATFLIR system. Raytheon are the appropriate source to consult on their own system.

"This will be combined with internal camera movements" Unless you can show me Raytheon-sourced documentation suggesting that there is an internal camera system maneuvered independently of the pod front housing, this assertion is meaningless, as it consists of amateurs guessing about equipment they don't have direct involvement with.

Well, I also disagree with you and I think that it is solid. I saw several examples of flare and what we see in this video is not even close.

See this two pictures that I created to show the different between the object and it's flare:

The black shape that we see in the "Gimbal Video" is too massive to be a flare, and it has a very clear shape.

It looks very solid to me, and I don't think that it's a flare, sorry.

I'm sorry too, but I am not seeing any demonstration from these pictures that the "insect legs" aren't artefact spikes in the IR. The aircraft architecture can clearly be seen in the aviation shots. Also, I strongly suspect that to be more metabunk material. Please supply authoritative sources.

Also, having now read some of the posts on that thread you linked me to...you do understand that they are basically arguing my case and not yours? I don't readily agree with his conclusion that is is an external conventional aircraft...but he has correctly grasped that it is external.
 

 

59 minutes ago, Robert Wilson said:

lightpanther,

1. Let's suppose that the insect decided to rest on the center of the Pod's window (on it's inner side of course) why wouldn't the scenario that we see in this video describe it? 

That's special pleading. The object is centred because the tracking has centred it.

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2. About the movement of the pod (that you can see on the top-center of the display) it can happen because of the tracking algorithm that got confused and concluded that the object moves to the right, because as you can see the tracking aircraft is turning to the left toward the object, but the object stays in it's place so it looks as it's comming from left to right, so the tracking system makes the necessary corrections to bring it in front on the plane.

I don't understand what point you are trying to make here. The tracking array is on a 3-axis gimbal, so naturally it will compensate for movements of the aircraft or object to keep it acquired.

3. Also even in case that the insect was not in the center of the window, I read in another place that the internal camera inside the pod can also move independently from the pod movements, so it could change it's position in order to make the insect be centered on the frame.

First of all, the object is much hotter than the surround and therefore not an insect, because insects are cold blooded and other than moths or butterflies are at ambient temperature. The IR tracker is in white = hot mode. Your "insect" is much hotter than ambient meaning that it has a strong infrared presence. Also, the aircraft is at 25000 feet as you can see bottom right of the HUD...no insect would survive. The same would apply to a particle on the optics or sensor array. Where did you see this information about the camera / sensor? It doesn't make sense to me since the pod already has a 3-axis gimbal. Can you please link me to what you are talking about with the camera movements, and I will assess that when I see it. The details I gave you are directly from the manufacturers of the equipment.

4. Another point, we see on the display that the camera was in a digital zoom x2 ("Z 2.0" on the top-left) that's mean that you see only part of the full frame, so I don't know how exactly does it works, but the camera could digitally shift the zoomed frame up/down/left/right to make the insect centered.

The fact that the target is acquired in the first place means that the sensor can  track it and center it. This is not altered by the zoom function and has nothing to do with it.

5. I don't think that it's flare, I saw several examples of IR flare and it's not looks even a bit similar. The glare looks like a long, narrow beams that are coming out of the object, which is not what we see here. Also the contours of the object looks strong enough that it's clear to me that we are looking at the object itself, and not on it's glare.

I disagree. The object is much hotter than ambient and shows the characteristic asymmetry and spikes of IR flare. I am not saying that it is JUST glare. But I am suspecting it to be a non-solid object.
 

 

13 hours ago, Robert Wilson said:

Of course that this object is being tracked, how exactly does it contradict the Insect theory?

The system see an object on the screen and it's tracking it, it doesn't know if it's a flying airplane or if it's a bug on the lens that looks "flying" when it Integrates with the view behind it. It's sees a spot in the frame and it's following it.

Please explain why doesn't it move when the airplane rotate? Why the horizon line (that you can see behind the clouds) move perfectly in correlation with the artificial horizon of the aircraft, but the object stays Exactly in the same possition?

https://i.ibb.co/zx2WhbP/Toggle-3-4.gif

Only object that is attached to the airplane can explain that.

 

Robert,

It doesn't work that way.

If you look at Raytheon's own material and specification for the ATFLIR, you will see that the entire front pod structure, including the external housing, rotates to track the object. It is literally *not possible* for this to be a "bug on the lens" scenario. That is an object out in external space that has been acquired by the tracking system. My own view, as I articulated above, is that it is an amorphous heat and light signature, which is why the system is struggling to get sufficient range data. I also replied to your point about it seeming to stay in the same position. What you are looking at is mainly artefactual IR flare from the object, imo, and the attitude adjustment is not sufficient to change this (think in terms of rotating your camera lens when there is a lens flare in the frame). Only later, when the object itself clearly rotates, do we see a sufficient change.

Please understand that the tracking system could NOT acquire this object if it was attached to the system.

Edgard, you make a very good point. The object is dead center, so it is actively being tracked. An object can't be on the array and tracked by the array simultaneously. Although we don't see the gimbal object acquired, the "go fast" object is definitely acquired during the video.

14 minutes ago, Robert Wilson said:

Who said that it's part of the Nimitz incident?

Look again especially at "Example 2" that I gave, if you watch it on a big screen, in a dark room, then you see clear enough the horizon line behind the clouds (it looks like a sea) and it's perfectly correlated with the artificial horizon line of the aircraft, but the 'Object' stays exactly in the same position.

Sorry, an external object will not behave this way, it's very clear that it's attached to the aircraft.

 

14 minutes ago, Robert Wilson said:

Who said that it's part of the Nimitz incident?

Look again especially at "Example 2" that I gave, if you watch it on a big screen, in a dark room, then you see clear enough the horizon line behind the clouds (it looks like a sea) and it's perfectly correlated with the artificial horizon line of the aircraft, but the 'Object' stays exactly in the same position.

Sorry, an external object will not behave this way, it's very clear that it's attached to the aircraft.

 

You said:

"You can't say for sure that the target that they saw on the radar is also what you see on the FLIR screen."

The target on radar referred to is part of the Nimitz incident and so has no bearing on the gimbal footage.

I don't need to look at your captures again, because I already acknowledged a change in attitude of the tracking aircraft. It is possible that it is a piece of particulate matter on the sensory array, but without informed input from a Raytheon engineer (and I wouldn't hold your breath since it is defense hardware) we are just speculating when we imagine that this is even possible.

My comments refer to the possibility that this is an amorphous heat and light signature external to the aircraft, in which case the  apparent shape on the sensor may be more in the way of artefact than real, and if that is the case, I don't think the attitude adjustment was sufficient to conclude that the object was not in external space.

40 minutes ago, Robert Wilson said:

As I said, it looks like there is a lot of confusing between several different events, it's not clear at all which testimonies are related to this particular even that I'm talking about. They may have seen something in the radar, which can easily be a flock of birds of flock of fish:

 

You can't say for sure that the target that they saw on the radar is also what you see on the FLIR screen.

Did you see the two examples that I showed from the video?

Example 1:

https://i.ibb.co/VWjFPMb/Toggle-1-2.gif

Example 2:

https://i.ibb.co/zx2WhbP/Toggle-3-4.gif

How does if fits to an external object?

 

This was not part of the Nimitz incident at all.

However, It does seem that the gimbal object may remain in the same attitude when the tracking aircraft makes a slight attitude adjustment, but I don't think that the adjustment is sufficient for what is seen on the video to be that clear cut. It would need a larger correction in attitude to be certain, and we don't have one, because when there is a larger correction, both objects are in rotation.

There are three videos of interest, imo. What is called the "gimbal" video, what is called the "tic tac" video, and what is called the "go fast" video. The one you are discussing here is the so-called gimbal footage. I strongly suspect that what you are calling insect legs are in fact asymmetrical artefacts of the infrared tracking. It is clear from watching the video that the object rotates independently of the aircraft's attitude.

The gimbal video is not of the Nimitz incident, which is the "tic tac" event. As I said above, for that event, objects were radar observed by the USS Princeton intermittently for a two week period prior to this sortie. During the sortie, commander David Fravor had prolonged visual contact with the object as did his accompanying aircraft. They did not succeed in getting a tracking capture. A subsequent aircraft launch after Fravor had landed captured the tracking video.

I am no UFO nut, but I'm also no debunker. This cannot be an insect/insects if these military people aren't lying. It also cannot be a conventional aircraft because of its behavior. This then leads to the following possibility set, imo:

1) High capability technology of our (human) own, perhaps being (surreptitiously) tested to determine real world pilot response (but that's a bit of a conspiracy theory and not very plausible, imo)

2) A natural phenomenon of this world of a form we don't understand (the most likely, imo)

3) Technology or phenomena associated with a source that is not human and not from here 

4) Carefully contrived hoax with military involvement and consent (again, has the "conspiracy theory" problem).

Hello. I have been following this topic and also wondered if it is a bug on the lens. However, in interviews, the commanding officer of the strike group has specifically said that the objects were simultaneously tracked visually and by radar. Indeed, the sortie existed in the first place because they were sent to the location to investigate anomalous targets radar had been picking up in the vicinity for two weeks. I cannot reasonably see how this combination of events can be insects on the sensing equipment unless the military pilots are simply lying.

As to the "legs" on the bug....yes they could *conceivably* be legs on a bug...and they could also be nothing of the sort. The image just is not clear enough for that kind of conclusion and that is just creating a "canals on Mars" problem.

All the same, I would like to see someone who has expertise on this particular type of fighter sensor equipment give their view on whether or not it is even possible for an insect to be inside the system. I would assume that an insect would have to be inside the equipment housing and not just on an external surface, as it is difficult to see how it could possibly sustain itself in that position.

Does a forward seeking infrared sensor even give a heat report for something that would be inside the equipment body? Again, without proper, technically accurate and informationally rich answers from those with direct knowledge of this particular type of equipment, speculations here cannot be considered conclusive.