Current mystery aircraft / urban legends

I think that the other photos referenced in this thread are more interesting than 2495's, unless his prove SR-71 is still with us. That lower right photo can't serve any other purpose, surely?

http://www.ufocasebook.com/2009b/greenvillesc052609.html


Senior Citizen, Sentinel or hoax? It's not like it could be Venus or swamp gas.
 
About 5-years ago, I saw an aircraft flying an hour after dark 90-miles east of Wichita, Kansas. It was very low, under a thousand feet, flying sub-sonically, around 275-300 knots, and VERY quiet--nearly silent. Total observation time was 5-7 seconds, and I got a very good look at the aircraft at well under a mile through 10x binoculars.

The aircraft was black in color. It had a luminescent green formation light (long rectangular strip) on the starboard side under the cockpit and the same thing on the starboard rudder. (The aircraft was flying without standard night recognition strobes--it was blacked out.)

The aircraft looked A LOT like a F-117--but I don't think it was one--the geometry was not quite right.

Does this ring a bell with anyone?

Bronc

Did the F-117 have rectangular green formation lights? I've been told that they didn't.
 
Gridlock said:
I think that the other photos referenced in this thread are more interesting than 2495's, unless his prove SR-71 is still with us. That lower right photo can't serve any other purpose, surely?

http://www.ufocasebook.com/2009b/greenvillesc052609.html


Senior Citizen, Sentinel or hoax? It's not like it could be Venus or swamp gas.
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Going with Hoax on this one. The pics don't show the usual signs of photoshopping so it's possible the "aircraft" actually exists, but the scale compared to the lamp and trees in the foreground means that it is very small and very low. It looks close enough that you'd be able to distinguish at least SOME details, but there aren't any. This is either a kite or a clever model, the fact that the poster says it was silent or that he couldn't hear it over the distant thunder - something that close would make some kind of noise - is evidence enough of that.
 
Broncazonk said:
About 5-years ago, I saw an aircraft flying an hour after dark 90-miles east of Wichita, Kansas. It was very low, under a thousand feet, flying sub-sonically, around 275-300 knots, and VERY quiet--nearly silent. Total observation time was 5-7 seconds, and I got a very good look at the aircraft at well under a mile through 10x binoculars.

The aircraft was black in color. It had a luminescent green formation light (long rectangular strip) on the starboard side under the cockpit and the same thing on the starboard rudder. (The aircraft was flying without standard night recognition strobes--it was blacked out.)

The aircraft looked A LOT like a F-117--but I don't think it was one--the geometry was not quite right.

Does this ring a bell with anyone?

Bronc

Did the F-117 have rectangular green formation lights? I've been told that they didn't.
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You know, you might just be describing the F-117 predecessor, the HAVE BLUE. Although it had roughly the same shape as the F-117, there were some significant differences in the wing and tail design between the two.
 
I'm not one to automatically dismiss such testimonies like many do, but it is more likely that you saw a low observable UAV than a piloted stealth fighter... I have tried to list only the publicly acknowledged UAVs over the past 15 years, and it is nearly impossible. Many, many types from many large or small companies all over the world, all types, all sizes... Now add unto these all the ones that are veiled in secrecy because of whatever sensitive technology they may contain, and you get a host of types that are likely to be flown at night in sparsely populated areas.
 
The only reason I thought it was a manned/piloted aircraft was because of the luminescent green formation light (long rectangular strip) on the starboard side under the cockpit and the same thing on the starboard rudder.

Question: Does the airforce use green formation lights, or just the navy?

The F-117 is a small aircraft, but this was smaller, and I'm almost certain that the tail geometry was different. (It had that prominent 'cockpit hump' like the F-117 though. (I remember seeing the same general angles of a F-117. This was not a "rounded" or "blended" body--no curves, all angles.

It was flying under a thousand feet, headed straight east, and moving right along. The aircraft was NOT powered by a turbojet, it was very quiet--to the point of being nearly silent--so there must have been a high bypass turbofan tucked in there somewhere.

In all honesty--I know this sounds strange--but I think it very well may have been a Have Blue--but painted black with green formation lights.
 

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Havef117.png


"smaller and with a different tail" pretty much sums her up, but then the 117 itself looks weird from non-3-plan viewing angles, in my experience.


HB would be a strange sight 5 years ago though, no? RAM testing, FME radar evaluation, nothing really I can think of that wouldn't be better tested on something else.
 
Have blue sized one-off tech demonstrator?
Interesting - what's in Kansas that it might have been flying out of and from where-to-where?


Not altogether surprising - my interest in this field was kickstarted in '89 when an ex-girlfriend and I on a valentines day
road trip stumbled across two obvious vs/tol prototypes hovering over a field in outstate minnesota.
 
aliensporebomb said:
Have blue sized one-off tech demonstrator?
Interesting - what's in Kansas that it might have been flying out of and from where-to-where?


Not altogether surprising - my interest in this field was kickstarted in '89 when an ex-girlfriend and I on a valentines day
road trip stumbled across two obvious vs/tol prototypes hovering over a field in outstate minnesota.
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SENIOR CITIZEN demonstrators?? ::)
 

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Closest thing we've seen to it but not close enough. In planform, the mystery aircraft leading edges reach all the way to the nosetip. Not so in the design you've compared it to. Still it could have been a scaled-down proof-of-concept r/c model for it.
 
I can see that accounting for the middle 2 pictures, at that size and resolution you can expect the wings to visually blend to the body. But the upper left and lower right of the original are definitely not pictures of something new or unknown.
 
[quote author=aliensporebomb]Interesting - what's in Kansas that it might have been flying out of and from where-to-where?[/quote]

The sighting was 90 miles east of Wichita.

EVERYBODY is in Wichita--Boeing has a HUGE presence, GE, Rathyton, Hawker Beechcraft, Ceesna, Moonie, Textron, Omni Aerospace, Missile Systems Inc, Honeywell, Garmin, about 50 others. Wichita IS aviation.

Boeing was in the Senior Citizen game. What did that look like?

Bronc
 
[quote author=flateric]Can I make a suggestion?[/quote]

It wasn't like any of the spacecraft pictures. The aircraft I saw was very similar to a F-117--I thought it was one at first--but smaller I think and a little different. It had that F-117 cockpit bump and all the sharp angles--sharp nose.

I keep coming back to the green formation lights.

Bronc
 
I posted this on another thread but might make sense here as well:

The need for faster and more nimble combat drones will likely only climb, though, with the Air Force specifically mentioned as having a sound barrier smashing "super/hypersonic" remote fighter already in development.
 
Broncazonk said:
The sighting was 90 miles east of Wichita.

EVERYBODY is in Wichita--Boeing has a HUGE presence, GE, Rathyton, Hawker Beechcraft, Ceesna, Moonie, Textron, Omni Aerospace, Missile Systems Inc, Honeywell, Garmin, about 50 others.
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90 miles east of Wichita would possibly fit along the route from Whiteman AFB to the Smokey Hills bombing range in Kansas, that's something to consider. I wouldn't necessarily relate this to anything in Wichita per se. The Boeing stuff is on the western side of McConnell AFB, where I was stationed for a while. They mostly dealt with upgrades and maintenance for heavies, like the C-135 series, the ABL, etc, co-located with the plant doing a lot of civillian work. You also got the occasional B-52 or E-2 in there, as well as transient B-2s and A-10s from Whiteman, and a whole mess of stuff from Luftwaffe MiG-29s and Swedish Gripens to USAF F-15s and F-22s flying across the US from one palce to another. Not to mention the Volga-Dnepr An-124s chartered to fly parts back and forth between Wichita and Seattle for Boeing. For a USAF base seemingly far away from anything interesting, McConnell certainly got its share of interesting traffic.

Broncazonk said:
Wichita IS aviation.
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Yeah, yeah..."Air Capital of the World." Yeah right. ::) To me, they lost that title when I had to sit on the runway at Wichita-Midcontinent for three hours. Why was I stuck in the airplane for three hours? So they could fly in a mechanic from St. Louis.

Seriously.

Broncazonk said:
Boeing was in the Senior Citizen game. What did that look like?
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Find an answer and you'd be the first!

I wonder...did you maybe see a J-35 Draken? They've been worked on for civillian and contractor customers at Jabara airport on the northeast side of Wichita before.
 
Found this: "... SENIOR CITIZEN is said to be in operational use since 1989, and almost always in conjunction with F-117A attack planes, flying behind them only minutes away. In August 1990, the type was seen in England, on the Alconbury RAF base. ..."

From here: http://stargazer2006.online.fr/aircraft/citizen.htm

I've looked everywhere and I cannot confirm night formation lights on a 'standard' F-117A. And thinking about it--why would a normal F-117 have them? However, if I saw a F-117 chase plane, a chase plane customized for operating with an aircraft that I didn't see, that might explain the VERY DISTINCTIVE green formation lights that are commonly seen on US naval aircraft.

The aircraft in question was quite small--and I remember thinking, "F-117?....Yep....Nope....What is that thing?...." And then it was gone.

I always carry 10x binoculars to look at wildlife and aircraft and anything I might see--and they really paid off this time. I was pulled off the side of road (watering some plants) and I could see the aircraft coming to my left. (The aircraft was silhouetted by town lights far behind the aircraft.) I grabbed my 10x glasses out of the passenger seat and located it in the air. The aircraft went by at roughly a 90-degree angle, left to right, at well under 1/2 mile. VERY little noise--the aircraft was darn-near silent. And it had those luminescent yellow/green (color of a firefly) rectangular formation lights—I’ll never forget those.

(This event ranks right up there with the time an F-106 screamed past our truck on I-70 in Colorado. I was eight at the time, and he was about 100-foot of the ground going like a bat out of hell!)
 
To add to the confusion. Looks like Flateric's vehicle. The basic configuration looks a little like the D-21 with a dorsal inlet.
 

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Dynoman said:
To add to the confusion. Looks like Flateric's vehicle.
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I must admit it's something completely different
 
As a farm worker (yeah laugh but you all will moan when we stop producing your food!) I seen that blurry picture above before.

Curve of the beaks a giveaway! Its a pigeon with its wings raised. Must of had an out of focus scope lol.

@ Bronc - Couple of weeks ago I was reading about an F-117 trio who were followed out of area 51 by an unknown with green light on the underside and all else being dark. Described as similar to an F117 but different rear.

I am unsure as to which site it was but it might be a place to start a google search.
 
Dynoman said:
To add to the confusion. Looks like Flateric's vehicle. The basic configuration looks a little like the D-21 with a dorsal inlet.
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Tu-143?
 
Dynoman said:
To add to the confusion. Looks like Flateric's vehicle. The basic configuration looks a little like the D-21 with a dorsal inlet.
Click to expand...

I've seen sailboats in the distance take on ragged edges like that on hot, humid days. Given the right viewing conditions, I can see a D-21 looking like that. No dorsal inlet, just an illusion. This could be some other swept-wing drone in the same viewing conditions.

Ever seen a car in the distance look like it has wheels on the top and the bottom?
 
Madurai...I think this vehicle has a raised inlet similar to the Tu-143, however the blended body appearance and wingspan in relation to the size of the rest of the vehicle seems a bit different. I'll keep looking though. The posted image has been floating around the internet for a while as the "Skyripper" combined cycle propulsion aerospace plane.
Here is a Tu-143 in a similar aspect angle.
 

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Just looking at the arrow-shaped vehicle in the montage and speculating if it could be the Northrop Nightstalker II. The patch is in the link below.

http://www.naderlibrary.com/icouldtellyou.13.htm

The Trevor Paglen patches have previously shown aircraft configurations hidden in the patchwork.
The shovel head patch could indicate the shovel-nose of the vehicle.
The nose represents the aircrafts planform.
The eyes, a cross section of a Billig type inlet system.
The spike on top of the head, an ejector ramjet flame for the takeoff engine.

Since we're speculating I thought I'd go for broke.
 
just guesses, guesses. there are dozens of aerodynamically sound planform configurations that may be hidden in this patch
 
Dynoman said:
Madurai...I think this vehicle has a raised inlet similar to the Tu-143, however the blended body appearance and wingspan in relation to the size of the rest of the vehicle seems a bit different. I'll keep looking though. The posted image has been floating around the internet for a while as the "Skyripper" combined cycle propulsion aerospace plane.
Here is a Tu-143 in a similar aspect angle.
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It's a pigeon. See post 141
 

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Broncazonk said:
The only reason I thought it was a manned/piloted aircraft was because of the luminescent green formation light (long rectangular strip) on the starboard side under the cockpit and the same thing on the starboard rudder.

Question: Does the airforce use green formation lights, or just the navy?
Click to expand...

The Air Force uses green, they call them slime lights. Some UAVs do have them.

Gridlock said:
HB would be a strange sight 5 years ago though, no? RAM testing, FME radar evaluation, nothing really I can think of that wouldn't be better tested on something else.
Click to expand...

Considering both are buried at Groom and are quite unfindable, that would be a feat.
 
sferrin said:
It's a pigeon. See post 141
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Well yes.... But is it that top secret, supersonic, VTOL stealth pigeon that ATS is talking about? That's the question.

Regards & all,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
 
This one has always intriqued me. At first I thought it was a recreational RC aircraft with some navigational and anticollision lights strung on it, but the more I look at the video the more it looks like Northrop Grummans stealth patent. Later I found this picture of a very similar aircraft listed as a Northrop test aircraft. Are they the same aircraft, an act of disinformation, or a predecessor to a full scale aircraft?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF9Ft7j1eqw

20090602_084118_northrop1.jpg
 
Whilst I have seen UAS that resemble (in configuration) the posted photo, I find it hard to believe that that's from NG - it's just made from flat Depron sheet and they haven't even routed the R/C aerial in a channel in the foam. Also, aerodynamically it's not very sophisticated - for example, all the washout is in the elevons. I would've hoped NG would have engineered it in a rather more elegant way. I certainly know of much smaller companies that would...

Sorry but IMO both that and the video are model aeroplanes. I can't remember where I've seen it (sorry) but I'm almost certain I've seen the thing in your video before. Probably on one of the R/C forum sites. If I run across it [and remember], I'll update this post with the info.

Regards,

S
 
Komet said:
This one has always intriqued me. At first I thought it was a recreational RC aircraft with some navigational and anticollision lights strung on it, but the more I look at the video the more it looks like Northrop Grummans stealth patent. Later I found this picture of a very similar aircraft listed as a Northrop test aircraft. Are they the same aircraft, an act of disinformation, or a predecessor to a full scale aircraft?
Click to expand...

Look familiar?

http://www.suasnews.com/2011/06/5719/students-test-remote-aircraft-built-in-northrop-program/

http://www.myrift-platinum.com/?p=991
 
quellish said:
They lost me at:
"Among the high-profile experts invited to speak on the show, retired US Navy Major Donald Keyhoe"
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But you have to feel sorry for Keyhoe, a lot of people genuinely saw Aquatone and Oxcart but had no idea what they really were. Keyhoe just drank the massive disinformation Kool Aide surrounding them.
 
Stargazer2006 said:
I find this video much more intriguing... and convincing. Not only is it shot in broad daylight, but it's not some kind of blurry image as is most often the case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=A3OjXTWArrQ
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So obviously fake too. Maybe it should have been more blurry if it was real. But considering that the contrail would have been about 6 miles away, that "plane" is way too crisp and clear, and big.


Its just CGI airplane overlaid on a contrail
 
The USA does not have mega dollar projects in the works today.....WE ARE BROKE!!!!! Way broke like trillions and trillions in the hole. Other than some UCAV stuff that is about it the reat is just CGI pipe dreams. The only real black program that exist today is the black hole where your tax dollars are going and its getting deeper and blacker by the second. So thos good old days are long gone unless we come up a society with enough back bone to stand own two feet and face the world like a real men or woman and not depend on uncle sam to hold our hands and craddle us all the way to the grave. We don't have those kind of dreams anymore because we have become a 50/50 society where one half of the poeple spend all thier time and energies feeding the reat of the bums and goverment ...... its over we tipped the scales the other way and its down hill from here. Its not just the USA its the whole world ...well except China. So if your for looking for cool semi black projects look towards China. If looking in teh USA or Russia your looking into in all the wrong places these days. Russia blew its wad and we're well along the same path. The ownly thing China a float is its an emerging economy give it hundred years and it will join the rest of us.
 
airrocket said:
The USA does not have mega dollar projects in the works today.....WE ARE BROKE!!!!! Way broke like trillions and trillions in the hole. Other than some UCAV stuff that is about it the reat is just CGI pipe dreams. The only real black program that exist today is the black hole where your tax dollars are going and its getting deeper and blacker by the second.
Click to expand...

Or you could just look at the 2011 and 2012 defense budgets. There are still plenty of special access programs, and plenty of money is being spent.
 

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