[rhema]

Well, the only reason they were scrambled to begin with is that they had been tracking these objects for weeks using advanced radar. As I understand it, the radar is based on multiple resolutions. The active radar can point in the direction of objects of interest and get very very precise measurements. It's not just the video, its the radar data.

The thing that pushed me over the edge in believing these things is the long podcast interview between Commander David Fravor and Lex Fridman.

[zardo]

> its the radar data

Did the Navy release the radar data, or an analysis based on it?

[BluSyn]

Unfortunately, radar data - from all the incidents in question - will never be released, as the hardware involved is highly classified. We only get footage from the IR camera because the IR tech is not "classified" (basically off-the-shelf FLIR cameras with fancy object tracking software).

[rhema]

Not that I know of, so I take your point there. Here's a related video with some radar data https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh4QngYJG4I . In the interview, Frevor does talk about the radar and instrumentation on the plane, but it's been a while since I listened to it.

[beeboop]

Fravor is a convincing person, but he's also ultimately an asset of the US military. I want to believe him, but unfortunately the simplest and most likely explanation for this situation is that he's lying, and lying in combination with other people. Most likely because they were incentivized or asked to.

I listened to maybe half of that interview, and I really really do not buy the response to Lex's question of "Why didn't this cause more commotion in the ranks?"

Fravor said because he was the commander of 17 airmen and 300 sailors and has the weight of that command on him. I get it, but this is also his job, and we all tend to acclimate to our jobs. I don't think this guy and all other witnesses were so burdened with the idea of being a CO that they weren't able to process a potentially world-changing event. If this was in the middle of a real war and real combat - of course that's different. But this was just during the millionth training exercise of this guy's career.

He was also quick to move on from this question, and did so without any prompting from Lex. He went on to what sounded like a rehearsed talking point (I'm sure because he's said it so many times) about how he doesn't get paid for these appearances, but there's no way to know what other outside incentives he may have to go on these shows. That Lex doesn't push back on this at all is disappointing, but I get that he's not there to interrogate him.

The final sticking point - Fravor admits that he's an apologist for secrecy and the US government hiding things for reasons of "national security". Clearly someone with this belief would welcome the idea of lying repeatedly, very publicly, to help cover something up. What I'm implying is that something did happen that day (that is much more mundane), but we're not getting the honest story, and Fravor outright suggesting it was something we know to be impossible with currently technology is likely obfuscating the truth of something that is probably an embarrassing mistake/leak/something that the US government doesn't want there to be public clarity on.

[rhema]

Your interpretation is entirely plausible. At the same time, I found the interview to be very convincing in terms of Fravor's credibility. He mentions details about who was with him, bar scenes, and generally comes across as a professional. Historical sightings (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_fighter ) and angelic phenomena ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over... ) are much older and at least predate the current US military objectives.

It's also totally possible that this is some kind of funding grab. That Rubio et al. are simply pawns being teased and pushed around in the name of national security to fund large and barely monitored government research and military funding. It could be some of both.

[shepardrtc]

A good point brought up by Fravor and conveniently ignored by people is that when describing the incident, they saw multiple objects. Their camera pods, however, could only track one at a time.