OT: Military Aircraft Question

B

Ben Arown-Awile

Banned
Joined
Aug 29, 2001
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889
Since there seems to be some interest and knowledge of military aircraft here, I thought it might be a good place for me to ask about a plane that passed over our house a couple of months ago to see if anyone knows about it.

I thought it was a B2 or perhaps a prototype of some other type of bomber, but the more research I did, the more puzzling it became.

It was about midnight and my wife and I were out in the backyard taking our nightly before bedtime soak in the hot tub when a large aircraft flew over. It was very large, dark gray or black in color, and triangular shaped. It was only about two or three hundred feet off the ground which I thought was quite strange since this is a heavily populated residential area.

It was also flying very slow, in terms of ground speed, maybe twenty miles per hour. Remembering back to my college physics classes, it seems like an impossibility for a fixed wing aircraft of that size to stay aloft at that speed.

The engine sound was also strange. I spent several years in the Strategic Air Command around B-52s and KC-135s so I know what large jet engines sound like. This sound was more of a whine like the sound from the electric motors when a plane is moving around the flight line before the jet engines start up.

But, the strangest thing of all was the beams coming out of the bottom of the craft up near what I would call the nose. It looked like an circular illuminated light well with three beams shining downward. The beams were at odd angles each one pointing off at a different angle, but unlike light beams which would shine all the way to the ground, these beams were truncated about twenty feet or so below the craft. There were no clouds or anything to interfere with the beams. They just ended in mid-air.

A couple minutes after the plane had passed overhead, a helicopter flew over following the same route.

I don't really have any interest in aircraft, but I was curious as to what it was that we had seen so I started doing research and began with the B-2. I found many articles about the B-2 and how it supposedly has secret anti-gravity devices. Some of the articles mentioned testimony by some retired general, some were about the history of anti-gravity research by the US - evidently it has been going on for many years, and some of the articles were very technical. I didn't understand much from these technical-scientific articles, but one of them really blew my mind as it had a drawing of the the exact truncated beam thing I had seen in the craft that passed overhead.

Of course it's hard to talk about, or research, this subject without getting into the area of UFOs and extraterrestrial craft and I did find hundreds of reports of similar sightings, but I never had the feeling that I was seeing anything other than an aircraft.

About fifty years ago when I was in high school, three of my friends and myself were on a camping trip and had a strange experience involving a bright light that descended on us, but the feelings we experienced were confusion, fear, and dread. We really didn't know what had happened and never talked about it.

This sighting had none of that "otherworldly" feeling. It just felt like I had seen some new technology that before now I had considered to be science fiction.

Anybody know anything about this? What about you, Bill? Ever run into anything like this when you worked in the industry?
 
But, the strangest thing of all was the beams coming out of the bottom of the craft up near what I would call the nose. It looked like an circular illuminated light well with three beams shining downward. The beams were at odd angles each one pointing off at a different angle, but unlike light beams which would shine all the way to the ground, these beams were truncated about twenty feet or so below the craft. There were no clouds or anything to interfere with the beams. They just ended in mid-air.
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Interesting. Beams of light extending 20 feet and abruptly ending. I know of nothing that can produce such an effect. But then again, the government probably has toys that would impress James Bond. If it was some government aircraft, seems strange to test fly it over populated areas. Especially at 200-300 feet. They would risk lots of sighting reports from citizens.



It was also flying very slow, in terms of ground speed, maybe twenty miles per hour. Remembering back to my college physics classes, it seems like an impossibility for a fixed wing aircraft of that size to stay aloft at that speed.
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I agree. It is impossible unless flying into a very strong headwind. I have a pilots license. A Cessna 152 won't fly at that speed. Uncle Bill is the expert though. Let's see what he thinks.

Also, it will be interesting to see what others think about your sighting.
 
av8b.jpg

description:
http://www.danshistory.com/av8b.html

Was it something like this, or did you notice if there were little green people waving at you?

n2s
 
Ben;

Don't take it wrong what I am about to say, because I am reluctant to say it, and I'll tell you why at the end of this post.

I think it is very, very likely that you did not see what you remember what you thought you saw at the time.

I could make a very convincing argument that places everything 'extraordinary' in your description above into a very ordinary context. Everything from your description of distance and speed to even the truncated "beams" which could have been nothing more than landing lights interacting with local atmospheric conditions, such as "trace fog" for example.

By the way, most people do a very poor job of estimating distances and speeds, especially at night. Hell, even during daylight for that matter!

So - why am I reluctant to write this post? Because I saw UFO's on two separate occasions. I have been an avid aircraft enthusiast for over 40 years. I even have a few dozen hours of private pilot flight time. I lived on and around Air Force bases for years (my dad is retired Air Force).

So, I KNOW what I saw. And this is why I hated writing what I did above, because I am convinced that you are convinced, that what you say you saw, you saw. I'm not saying I don't believe you. It's just that without seeing it myself, and knowing what I know about aircraft and how they appear in a variety of conditions, it does not take much variation from the details of your experience for it to be just a slow test flight at some inderteminate low altitude, at night.

But on the other hand - maybe you did see what you claim (shrug).

In my first case there were four other people with me who saw the same four UFO's I did. It was nothing very spectacular, just a pinpoint of light in the sky for each one of them. It was early evening, say about 9:00-9:30PM in the Sand Hills of Nebraska, mid-summer.

At first I saw only one, and thought it was a star. The sky was quite cloudy, and the five of us were laying on a sand dune in the boonies of the Sand Hills in Nebraska. We were settling in for the night because the next day would begin a three-day survival training exercise. We had no tents, and the increasing cloud cover suggested we might get rained on.

So I stated a little prayer as a joke, "Star light, star bright, please don't let it rain on us tonight."

Then someone pointed out that this 'star' was moving, so it must have been a satellite. Then it started changing directions - instantly with no loss of speed, nor any of the normal kinds of "curving" flight paths one sees with conventional aircraft.

These were just complete, abrupt changes in direction, sometimes by well over 90-degrees at a time.

(And we also noted that it was flying under the nearly solid ceiling of cloud cover above us at the time.)

This first object was eventually joined by three others over the course of five minutes or so, and the four of them maneuvered around for maybe another five or ten minutes before flying off in different directions.

We were all well-grounded young men, completely sober, well rested, and every one of us were intimately acquainted with military aircraft and their capabilities.

The second time was at a party in the evening. Fall time, also Nebraska, right over the capital city of Lincoln in 1973 or so.

My girlfriend and I stepped out for some fresh air. Neither of us drank, and both well rested. It must have been just past dusk, say 7:00PM or so.

My girlfriend and I found a quiet spot and lay down on the ground, holding hands and looking up at the sky. I commented on how big and beautiful the moon looked. It was HUGE, perfectly round, and had a very strong orangish coppery tint to it.

And then I noticed the REAL moon off closer to the horizon. It was pure white, it was NOT full, and I could very clearly see the features of it.

I looked back straight above me and saw the original huge, round - and now noticed for the first time it was featureless and smooth - "disk".

It just sat there - motionless, without sound of any kind. I have no real idea how big it was, but I had the sense it was fairly far away, and that it must have been huge.

My girlfriend was stunned.

We went back to the party to get my four buds who saw the first UFO's with me, but by the time we dragged them out of the party, it was gone.

Like I said, nothing very spectacular.

I've always believed in UFO's. I can't imagine a God who can create human beings, would simply leave it having created homo sapiens and then quit. And I don't doubt that the same inquisitiveness that causes homo sapiens to explore could be found in others on other worlds.

But I also know that mere earth-borne militaries have often times had secret gizmos.

I for one do not think it is a mere coincidence that the US military is the only nation to have such a high degree of aircraft stealth technology. The US has a reputation for leading the way in science and technology, but the Germans, British, French, Italians, Japanese and former USSR were no slouches either.

As far as I know, no other country has the continued, refuse-to-die controversy over an alien spacecraft crash like we had near Roswell, NM in 1947. One of the characterstics of UFO craft is their invisibility on radar.

Just kind of an interesting coincidence in my opinion.

Don
 
Ok....

As long as you twisted my arm. I did have a couple of engineers report that they had seen a UFO near LaPaz Bolivia in 1996. The two had been doing radio coverage testing up in the hills, which surround the capital city like the rim of a massive bowl, when they looked up and saw the strange light in sky. We wrote it off at the time as a symptom of mild altitude sickness, and suggested they remain at lower altitudes until they acclimated. (the city is located at an elevation of 11-12 thousand feet, and the surrounding hill tops a few thousand feet higher)

n2s
 
It is my understanding that the B2 has a flush toilet, whereas the B52 has a can with a bag in it. Possibly they have to slow those B2s way down to get the plumbing to work.
 
the B2 is a subsonic aircraft and it has fly by wire controls because it is aerodynamically unstable and it uses the computer to operate the flight surfaces fast enough to overcome its unstability but I am not sure what sort of stall speed they have, due to the engine exhaust ducting for reducing the heat signature it might produce a different sound than a regular gas turbine whine but the harrier jump jet seems to best fit the flight profile you gave
 
Sorry Ben, can't be of any help to you. I can, for certain, tell you as a general rule "black projects" aren't taken for cruises over heavily populated residential areas. Logic would dictate that if we did have stuff as sophisticated as anti-gravity propulsion and particle beam weapons, we would also be employing optical camouflage to make the ship pretty much invisible. There's some pretty spooky stuff running around the sky, people just don't look up near as much as they used to.

Sarge
 
You ain't fooling us Duck, we know you fly around at night with your bug eyed, grey skinned, buddies searching for Durbas. That was probably you flying over Ben in his hot tub. Ben, best run in the house and count your khuks.:rolleyes: :p ;)

Sarge
 
Kuk,
You're saying that you don't believe there has ever been any object flying in the sky that has not been identified by the viewer? (Very different than saying "I don't believe in visitors from another planet".)
Ben, how long would you say it was from the time you saw the aircraft, until you could no longer see it? Did the chopper appear to be at about the same altitude? How long did it take the chopper to cover approximately the same area?
Light coming from front wheel well?

John
 
Spec,
I'm not making fun of anyone,espec not Ben whom I respect! Harrier,N2,think you can rule that out! Been near them & those SUCKERS are LOUD!!Do I have the ans. for ALL flying objects?? No!! I just don't believe in Aliens or UFO'S!As for Durba's!! Bwaaaaaa!
THE SAINT!:cool:
 
I live 60 miles south of NAS Fallon, and 120 miles north more or less from Groom Lake and the Tonopah test range.

Yes, I've seen something, and no, I'm not going to talk about it.

(Though some folks have told me that what I saw was entirely consistant with a look up the back end of a blacked out twin jet helicopter.)
 
Originally posted by Kukri4302
Do I have the ans. for ALL flying objects?? No!! I just don't believe in Aliens or UFO'S!As for Durba's!! Bwaaaaaa!
THE SAINT!:cool:
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ahhhhh, Durrbas.:D:D Jim, if you ever want some help reasurching any Durbas, you know who to contact.;):D
 
Just had a thought Ben, could have been a C-5 Galaxy and just looked strange from an odd angle. C-5's are big birds, and their massive size makes 'em look lower and slower than reality to ground observers. Kicker is the very distinctive sound their engines make, sounds more like a huge electrical motor whining than a typical jet engine roar. I've flown in 'em plenty going here and there, and I've watched plenty taking off and landing. They always look to me like they're going so slow they oughta fall out of the sky. My best guess, could be way off, but for flight characteristics and engine sound you described it would be my bet.

Sarge
 
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