[cma]

> The pilots are trained

Fraver (not sure he was one of the ones in this incident) has a history of UFO pranks, shutting down engines and gliding over campfires then lighting up after burners when right over them, explicitly to give a UFO experience, and someone found a contemporaneous report of him doing it, so it wasn't just a story.

[MarkMarine]

As a former member of USMC Aviation, it's valid to point out that skilled navy pilots can have some of the same range of differences in belief, action and motivation that the general populace does. I flew with a pilot on a transport helicopter that was blasting Eye of the Tiger and taking every turn at maximum bank, constantly looking for AA to get to fire at us so he could call in F-18s and watch the fireworks. Some of them are cranks.

BUT... I don't think any US military pilot expects their cockpit recordings or FLIR video to be public at some later time, I'm not sure what the motivation would be to lie about this stuff. The harm to you as a respected pilot would be fairly severe, and you'd have to get your co-pilot to go along with it.

"Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead." - Benjamin Franklin

[graderjs]

What's "AA to get to fire at us" mean?

BTW that like sounds like the crazy pilot guy from A-team

[PlanckMeasure80]

He was trying to get anti-aircraft weapons to fire at his helicopter and reveal their locations, so that he could then watch jets destroy them

[graderjs]

Cool :)

[MarkMarine]

That is the correct clarification, we were essentially the unarmed bait being flown around, and that’s not the explicit mission.

[outworlder]

> shutting down engines and gliding over campfires then lighting up after burners when right over them

I find it very, very, very hard to believe that a fighter pilot would _shut down_ his engines in flight, at night, even more so if it's for a stunt.

Slightly more believable if he went to idle, and then full military power. Slightly.

[cma]

I'm sure it was idle or just heavily lowered, but people dug around and found reports on old internet boards about time frame seeing him do it from the same timeframe and location.

If he never did it he pranked/lied about doing the prank and that is no better for credibility.

[justsomehnguy]

There is enough videos of F-18s doing 'push the throttle and bank' in a level flight on YouTube. It's fast, but it's not instantenious. And as an arm-chair pilot I can say what a multiton plane doesn't stay at the altitude with the engines at idle.

Also the last weekend I caught a 40" bass.

[bostonsre]

So your are saying the one with evidence was a prank because he screwed around on a training mission?

[stouset]

The entire point of this a analysis is that the video isn’t evidence of anything extraordinary.

Given other potentially questionable behavior around this subject matter, yes, that absolutely calls their credibility into question.

[RobertMiller]

"Known prankster pulls another prank" vs "Known prankster says aliens are here and you should believe him because he's a professional."

Hmm.

[bostonsre]

Have you listened to the joe rogan episode where he talks about it?

It seems a little ridiculous to compare the one where he turned his engine off and on one time at night over a couple campers to the episode where multiple pilots see it, with multiple sensors seeing it from planes and from ships. He engaged in horseplay once, therefor anything he ever says should not be believed seems lame.

[cma]

>to compare the one where he turned his engine off and on one time at night over a couple campers

The camper incident caused a UFO report.

[cma]

He explicitly said he did those as UFO pranks.

[Teever]

Source?

[tunap]

Jets do this regularly over the Colorado River and various, otherwise desolate gathering places around AZ. I've witnessed such shenanigans a dozen or so times over the last 3 decades. One jet distracts onlookers while another sneaks up to buzz low over the deck(or, perhaps it's just incidental to their training Ops, IDK). These maneuvers are tests of skill, technology & amusement.

[ceejayoz]

He told the story to Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRM8AMrqqsc (at 3:57)

[cma]

What ceejayoz linked below