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American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

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Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#201
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cruise missiles are able to fly in controlled and uncontrolled airspace on Military Training Routes (MTR). There are procedures in place for a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) to be requested and published that alerts other operators of the hazard to flight.

Speaking as a pilot, If there was a NOTAM I can guarantee with 100% certainty an airline pilot would know about it. Also the military doesn’t screw around with this sort of thing, I think the chance is virtually nil they intentionally flew an unmanned aircraft that close to an airliner.

Also pilot here: I’d drop that figure to 90% as there are so many notams it’s easy to miss the needle in the haystack with the ridiculous volume of irrelevant notams out these days.

https://ops.group/blog/the-problem-of-bullshit-notams/

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#202

I have a hypothesis about UFOs that everyone needs to ponder. You know how they are frequently just simple shapes? Okay well imagine you are making a game and you need an object to act as your player and you don't care what it looks like. The easiest way is to just drop in a primitive shape. So you just drop in a cylinder or whatever because it doesn't matter. I think that might be the kind of thing that's going on w…

Pondered, I have no idea what you're alluding to.

I think he's suggesting maybe we're in a simulation and the people writing the code are testing in prod.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#203
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbh this seems like the perfect situation to test US air defences and radar technology. Flying a long range unarmed stealth drone in lightly populated areas through the US would tell you a great deal about how observable the drone is to US radars. Flying dangerously through Air traffic controlled space also ensures that the military radars get pointed in your direction at some point or another. For an unarmed small(i…

This seems like the perfect situation to test how quickly you would like to be arrested.

If I understand the GP correctly, it’s hard to arrest the Russian or Chinese Air Force.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#204

I won’t be able to provide information that other people haven’t already but I have encountered one of these “aircraft”. I own a small light sport airplane and was flying between UT and CA at 12.5k ft and saw one of these pass 1,000ft below me not far outside of Reno. ATC didn’t call it so presumably they didn’t see it on radar. It was exactly as described, small, shiny, cylindrical, no wings, and fast. If I could gu…

I saw one too when I was flying in/around the restricted airspace near Cape Cod / Camp Edwards in MA. I was flying at 5,500 ft. Surprised the heck out of me, until I realized it was probably just a drone.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#206
post #191

Why is everyone arguing about stuff in this thread instead of focusing on the less-interesting but still super concerning fact that something flew "right over the top" of a commercial airplane? Even in the least-interesting case of it probably a US test thing of some kind - wtf is it doing flying in commercial airspace? Can you imagine if it had hit the plane?

Probably because "right over the top" can be a 2D descriptor of 3D space. We therefore have no idea how close this object was to the plane. It is entirely possible it was directly above the plane but high enough that it actually wasn't in commercial airspace.

There is no such thing as "commercial airspace." I think you're confusing Class A with commercial, as that's primarily where commercial airliners fly, but there's nothing saying that military operations can't happen there too, so long as they are IFR

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#207

Fwiw, the skies over Arizona were loaded with contrails today. Very unusual to see this kind of volume. All of the aircraft appeared to be heading due west in the direction of Las Vegas (Nellis AFB) and southern Cal. The last time I witnessed this degree of activity was in early 2020, one day after the drone strike on Iranian General Soleimani. The whole sky was a crisscross mesh of expanding vapor. In these circumst…

I saw all that, too (I even took a picture of it and make a joke about living on a missile range), and I think you're reading too much into this.

Those contrails do not indicate more aircraft. They indicate favorable conditions for the formation of contrails.

And I wouldn't call it "very" unusual. It happens about every month or so, and more often at this time of year.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#208

Why poo poo this? This is what really irks me when people laugh this stuff off and spout off something about Fermi's paradox without even understanding it. Fermi's paradox only asks simply "if statistics say they are everywhere, well then where are they?" What if the answer is simply: "Zooming all around us and we occasionally see one". Period. The rest is assumption. Fermi's paradox does NOT presuppose contact. That…

If there are aliens, we are in deep shit.

There are two poles: Either the aliens are extremely rapacious, or very enlightened.

If they're rapacious, we are weak annoying ants to be crushed.

If they're enlightened, a cursory examination of our history and treatment of the world would show that we are extremely rapacious, and need to be contained or destroyed.

So no matter where on that continuum, we are either destroyed or enslaved.

Re: American Airlines confirms UFO contact over New Mexico on Sunday

#210

Why poo poo this? This is what really irks me when people laugh this stuff off and spout off something about Fermi's paradox without even understanding it. Fermi's paradox only asks simply "if statistics say they are everywhere, well then where are they?" What if the answer is simply: "Zooming all around us and we occasionally see one". Period. The rest is assumption. Fermi's paradox does NOT presuppose contact. That…

>... Think of the lawsuits!

On what grounds? Besides, the federal government is sovereign and can't be sued in most circumstances.

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