Tic Tac-Shaped Drones Swarmed Navy Destroyers. No One Knows Where They Came From. UPDATED 27MAR21
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
- Over the course of four nights in 2019, several unidentified drones visited U.S. Navy destroyers off the coast of California.
- The drones, although seemingly harmless, displayed an obvious interest in the destroyers.
- The Tic Tac-shaped objects were reportedly similar to the UFOs that Navy pilots observed in 2004.
Several U.S. Navy guided missile destroyers sailing off the coast of southern California reportedly encountered a mysterious fleet of drones in 2019. The Navy investigated the bizarre incident, which filmmaker David Beatty and The War Zone both reported, but came away without a satisfactory explanation.
On the night of July 14, 2019, the Arleigh Burke -class destroyers USS Kidd , USS Rafael Peralta, and USS John Finn were sailing approximately 100 miles off the coast of Los Angeles when crew members sighted the strange craft.
Ship logs indicate the USS Kidd spotted two"UAVs," or unmanned aerial vehicles, and called out the ship's Ship Nautical Or Otherwise Photographic Interpretation and Exploitation (SNOOPIE) team to investigate. SNOOPIE teams are typically made up of sailors equipped with commercially available, consumer-grade cameras that take pictures of objects of interest and possible threats to the ship.
Accord to Kidd 's log, Peralta and Finn also called out their SNOOPIE teams, with Finn explicitly announcing it had spotted two UAVs. Kidd saw a red light and observed another visible white light above its helicopter flight deck.
On the next night, Peralta and another Burke -class destroyer, USS Russell , spotted the UAVs again. Two other destroyers, USS Pinckney and USS Paul Hamilton, were also in the area, but the ships didn't observe the drones.
Kidd recorded more sightings of the mysterious drones on July 25 and July 30.
Although the crews of multiple warships saw the drones, their source remains unknown. The drones weren't identified as civilian drone models, and despite a nearby cruise ship flying drones on the days of the encounter, the ship's drones didn't match the description of the mystery UAVs and weren't airborne at the exact time of the sightings. In fact, the cruise ship, Carnival Imagination , called the Navy to report the sightings and declare the drones weren't theirs.
Intriguingly, the sightings took place roughly near the location of the USS Nimitz 's now-infamous 2004 encounter with Navy-confirmed UFOs. Crew members who saw the 2019 drones described them as"Tic Tac-shaped," which is exactly how the Nimitz fighter pilots described their own perplexing UAVs in 2004.
The drones are still a complete mystery. They reportedly demonstrated capabilities far exceeding commercial drones, including flight time. The destroyers also encountered the drones 100 miles from the California coastline—far beyond the reach of most commonly available drones—and there were no vessels in the vicinity that could have controlled them.
In one case, a drone paced a destroyer as it sailed at 16 knots, so the drone operator was clearly capable of observing the drone's surroundings.
The bigger question: Who operates the drones, and why they would choose to interact with a large group of Navy destroyers? At one point, according to Beatty, the drones were"almost eye level with the bridge, hovering." Whoever was operating the drones was clearly trying to ensure they caught the crews' attention—and they certainly did..
The Navy's 2019 drone sightings were not isolated incidents. That September, observers spotted five to six drones in and around the Palo Verde nuclear power plant. And in January 2020, a wave of mystery drone sightings took place over Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming.
But the Burke -class destroyers' sightings are simply baffling. Who do the drones belong to? And why would someone operating advanced drones off the coast of California intentionally seek out— and intentionally reveal themselves to—U.S. Navy destroyers?
One thing is for sure: If the Navy doesn't know the answer to these questions, neither will we.
Update 27MAR21: Government Reports Say UFOs Broke Sound Barrier Without Sonic Boom
John Ratcliffe, who served as the Director of National Intelligence Community from May 2020 to January 2021, told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on Friday the reports include sightings of objects that“frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain.” Ratcliffe said both U.S. Navy and Air Force pilots and satellite imagery have spotted the UAP.
The objects reportedly made“movements that are hard to replicate that we don’t have the technology for, or traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom,” Ratcliffe said.“In short, things that we are observing that are difficult to explain.”
When an aircraft increases its speed, pressure waves build up on it and eventually coalesce into a single shockwave. When the plane outruns that shockwave and travels faster than the speed of sound in air, it causes a sudden change in pressure, which in turn creates the sonic boom. There’s no publicly available scientific data to suggest any aircraft can break the sound barrier without producing a sonic boom; while engineers can take steps to try to reduce sonic booms, physics says it’s impossible to outright eliminate it.
Full article here:
Government Reports Say UFOs Broke Sound Barrier Without Sonic Boom (msn.com)
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Speculations anyone...?
Bored science geeks?
The Ships were 100NMI off the coast....
So that means the drones came from a boat/sub nearby being more likely.
Could the drones be capable of home on the ship's radar/communication emissions? Yes, but that sort of processing means more weight, more battery, Etc.... less endurance.
In other words.... I still got nothin that makes sense.
Pretty strange indeed. I read another article about the other drones seen and it sounds like no one has an explanation.
In the other article they said some stuff was found where the drones had been that was a product called SOILPAM . Some sort of a product designed to improve water infiltration in soils.
They also said that the government is saying they have no idea what they are either. But it seems the case has gone cold.
If a helicopter can be created to fly on Mars, then I am sure there is at least one over the top brilliant science geek who could pull it off. But for now, I think we just have to file it under one of life's little mysteries, like the night lights in Marfa TX.
Your seed reflects what this story was saying about the earlier sightings in Nebraska, and Colorado.
Today's seed also indicated a reference to a 2004 sighting by the fighter crews off of the Nimitz. Same shape, same size.... 17 years ago in the same general area that the three destroyers were operating in.
Too many people and too many records for this to be a fabrication..... so now what?
Your points are well taken..... but I really don't like mysteries. Techno-Thrillers yes..... mysteries, no.
Spanning a time of 17 years has to be a clue. To someone.
Unfortunately, not me. lol
Weird stuff. I do hope they find the origin though, IMO: things like this really need to be investigated so we know for sure they are not an undetected threat to our society by some one or some place that wants to eventually do harm in some way.
Lots of questions that IMO: we should really try to answer.
If we can, and I bet if we try like going to outer space we can.
But likely its not worth the time, effort and or money to do much until and IF it really is a problem. By then the damage could be done IF it is nefarious.
Time will tell.
I think we are already screwed like the proverbial frog in the pot
considering that knowledge is power and we seemingly have no idea WTF these are, ya may be on to something there Trout.
I had a weird dream about an UFO landing in Central Park the other night. And they weren't Friendlies
Stephen Hawking's warning: "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans."
My fav life's little mysteries are:
Night lights of Marfa
Amelia Earheart
Jimmy Hoffa
Atlantis
Air Force fucking with the Navy?
Air Force knows better..... All the way back to when they were part of the Army in the 1940s!
This is something you would test at say at an area 51 sort of facility. In my opinion, if you were going to test it out on blue water ships..... you would do it with a submarine for security, as they could absolutely control whom was topside and could see whatever. This was seen by three Burk Class Destroyers that would have little in the way of control of whom was out on deck at the time. Lots of Mk1-Mod1 eyeballs around to account for....
I was sort of kidding because the Air Force is getting a bit big for their britches these days
I've seen a documentary or two about these Tic Tacs. Fascinating
Air Force is getting a bit big for their britches these days
Space Force bothering you like it is me by chance?
Just a bit. I don't like that they copied the Star Trek logo
Live long and prosper......
FYI...... the coincidental and somewhat inverse of that statement is :F-off and die!
Good to know!
Always a pleasure to serve Trout!
And I mean to serve Trout... not to serve "Trout".... (been waiting years to say that...!)
Best battered and deep fried
Pan fried or oven baked?
Ummm....
And...
Why did the Navy not shoot any of them down if they were considered a threat? Is it possible the Navy knows more than they are admitting? Was this a test the Navy was actually involved in? Too many unanswered questions on this.
Too many unanswered questions on this.
You and me both Ed.
Marriage of old tech with new tech. Batteries not required. Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and is still operational because it is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Here's a patent for a nuclear powered drone from 1986 filed by Grumman.
Multiple drones (a swarm) distributes computational requirements across several platforms, sort of like parallel computing. Again, marriage of old tech with new tech. Several countries (including the United States) have been investigating drone swarms for military applications. Here's one about China's testing of drone swarms for military use.
DARPA doesn't always inform their test subjects that they are test subjects. And DARPA really does try some truly sci-fi things that will never be revealed to the public.
A DARPA project makes the most sense at this time..... Push that theory to the head of the class.
Long range surveillance drones controllable from another ship.
Ours or theirs?
If theirs..... why tip your hand to a potential adversary?
If ours..... why not test it on a surfaced submarine using a reflector to simulate a surface ship (if you are using radar to locate) to maintain security?
There were no reports of emissions detected by the three destroyers... Even if you are homing in on what might be electronic emissions from the destroyers, why not simulate that with a submarine for secrecy?
All speculation on my part.... Just applying Sun Tzu training.
Where this occurred, twice now, it couldn't be theirs or the operational platform would have been found. I don't think a high aerial reconnaissance plane would work as launch base, so it would have to be ship or sub. Ship or sub would be too easy to see that close to any US war ships even if these were long range drones. I also don't think they were homing in on anything they didn't already know was there. Couldn't the Navy jam a block of frequencies to see if they could drop these things in the water?
Couldn't the Navy jam a block of frequencies...
The Burks are armed with just such equipment. Range gate stealers, swept-spot jammers, directional brute force jamming. But as other reports indicated.... no emissions were detected by the shipboard ESM operators..... Can't jam what you can't detect.
Back in Germany I worked for a small company that design and field tested just that sort of equipment at the Munich airport to deal with drones that people were flying near the runways. It had a small, high resolution acquisition radar paired with what looked like a shotgun antenna that sent out a focused 2KW burst of RF energy at the drone. Usually dropped it immediately upon cooking the flight stabilization microprocessor. Had a few catch fire as it shorted out the controls of their power supplies.
I'd seen some early versions drone killers back when personal drones were just starting to hit big and everyone was worried about window peepers. Drone killing seems like under the right circumstances could be fun!
Which is what really confuses me. I guess they could be pre-programmed with some type of AI logic - find a target and follow. But it's just weird.
Drone killing seems like under the right circumstances could be fun!
Around airports is a safety factor must. A $800,000 jet engine FODs out on a commercial aircraft after ingesting a $200.00 drone on approach ain't good! Engine loses power at the worst and most difficult time to recover from engine failure. Our four prototypes guarding the runway approaches bagged seven drones in the first week, then quickly tapered off. I guess we got all of the really stupid drone owners quickly.
I've seen reports where other airports were using trained falcons and hawks to do the same thing. I'll see if I can dig up one of the old videos.
The prototype we built in 2014 was similar to what this company is marketing..... There is a video with annoying music in the link that is worth watching.
Wouldn't it be possible to piggy back on the ship's satellite uplink?
It's heavily encrypted and would still be detectable were they broadcasting any signal. Even one that piggybacks on another signal.
Love the music! Geofencing is a interesting idea combined with drones both for use and killing. I remember back when people were complaining that we couldn't put geopositioning in cars because someone in Russia would strap it to a bomb and target DC. Then people were crazy about drones because the government would use them to target and spy on people. People are weird...
The satlinks on warships are designed to be very directional to minimize any stray EM signals, so I would say no.
In peacetime though, these ships would still be operating one of their SPS (whatevers) surface search radars and one in the group would have their SPY-1 (6 for newer ships) for monitoring the airspace around them. These are peacetime SOPs. Especially true with the number of collisions the Navy has been involved with in the last few years.
Again.... no reports of anything being tracked by the air search radar systems, and nothing reported in the way of emissions being detected. Were there contact reports, and the Navy isn't saying, or were these things not detected.... more worrisome!
Evidently something similar to these were seen in Colorado, and Nebraska not too long ago..... Again, no reports by local radar (at least released) military, commercial, or ATC centers.
Too many questions.... but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it just yet...!
Clancy wrote about a commercial airliner being used to fly into the US Capital during a State of the Union Address back in 1994 in one of his techno-thrillers. Then we had 9-11.
Given the human lack of understanding and the hyper-imagination associated the two sides of the sword in every technological advancement, we come by our weirdness, craziness, and ignorance honestly..!
My thought was to embed a low power signal onto the carrier and surf. EM detection is power dependent, isn't it? The inverse square law means the detectable range of emissions decreases as the power of the emission decreases. DARPA would know the detection limits of the equipment being used.
The article indicates the drones remained in contact for an extended period suggesting a robust power source. The article also indicates the drones were emitting visible red and white light which isn't very stealthy but may suggest a mode of communication.
From an electronic warfare standpoint what you are describing is what we call detectability range. It is based upon signal strength ratio to distance that your sensors can pull a viable signal out of the "grass" of other low level signals considered noise.
If m&ms can dance then tic tacs can fly.
Both are pretty aerodynamic.....
So a couple of flying suppositories are checking out our ships...
Weird.
As relates to ship commanders and suppositories...... their pucker factors get pretty high as they don't like like things flying up their asses!
So, other than “tic tac shape” we don’t really have a clear idea what these things looked like, do we? No pictures?
Below is a photo.
This is a link taking you to a video image taken by a F-18 pilot off of the Nimitz years ago.
USS Nimitz ‘Tic Tac’ UFO: Declassified Video - Bing video
Broke speed of sound without sonic boom......Neat trick!
Our understanding of fluid mechanics and physics says that can't be done.
In the video I wish they would have at least estimated the rate of departure of the UFO. Weird stuff !!!
PS: Clicking on the video took me off page of NT. Not a real problem though. I'm back...lol
Sorry about that.... Maybe Perrie or some other NT individual can educate me on how to not let that happen....!
Hi Fly,
Man that sounds weird...LOL
Anyway, There is a look-alike paperclip in the option box above where we write our posts. Click on it and it shows where to place a link.
I usually paste the link in my post, cut off the https/www so the part left still shows what the link is but doesnt work.
Then under that I post the real working link.
I use the paperclip to insert the link I want by clicking on the paperclip and pasting the link address into both the URL and TITLE lines and hit save.
Pingo Pongo Then ya have two links: one shows what's in the link but doesn't work and one works.
I figure more people will click on the link if they know where it's taking them and what's there.
I like to do it like this:
ww.cnn.com/videos/health/2021/03/26/dog-saves-owner-having-seizure-vpx.ctv