some cool old drawings i found

Great stuff
AARS would have had a much wider wingspan IMO.

Looking forward to blimps, those are fun.

Some pretty cool stuff in there for sure..

This thread certainly got a bit more interesting..

a reply to: BlackIbanez

Yeah , Analog " Computers " were All the RAGE in 50's SciFi Movies . You may be Right . .Hmm.......

a reply to: EBJet

that's all i do is make quality content


that's why i love ATS you never know who or what people will post, this started off as a simple art appreciation thread and we good some great real life pics.

originally posted by: mightmight
Great stuff
AARS would have had a much wider wingspan IMO.

Looking forward to blimps, those are fun.

——————

Time for some stealth blimp and other stuff, but first a little narrative. From Vietnam to the Iran hostage crisis to the Cold War, the US needed stealthy (acoustic, visual, radar, cognitive) vehicles for everything from persistent surveillance to the delivery of troops and materials deep behind contested lines. I won’t repeat the entire rumored history of stealth operations transports - Tyler Rogoway did an excellent two-part series on the topic - but there are lots of interesting dots out there to connect if you know where to look.

I talked to a retired sheriff from Colorado’s San Luis valley who was ex military and active during the 80s and 90s. There were a lot of UFO sightings (remember the cattle mutilations stuff). He thought it was part of the military’s testing to operate STOL special operations transports in hot and high climates e.g. Iran and the “stans.” I’m thinking Credible Sport led to several efforts and technologies ranging from relatively low-risk, conventional stuff to more exotic Senior Citizen type stuff. BTW, cattle mutilations were a nice diversion to cover what was really going on - which had nothing to do with aliens.

This is just conjecture on my part, but I’m betting there were three efforts (a) modified existing platforms (think Credible Sport), (b) stealth STOL transports, and (c) more exotic stuff like neutral buoyancy stealth airships featuring aerogels, etc:

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In 1989 someone who goes by the handle of Aliensporebomb had a pretty widely reported close encounter with two hovering, quiet aircraft. He finally after 30 years drew pictures of these and posted them on Reddit - they are the only eye-witness pics of what I’d assume to be Senior Citizen that I know of:

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Some folks noticed similarities with the old Aeron 26 (notice the pudgy look, weird empennage) and other neutral buoyancy craft:

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And some videos I suspect to be the real deal - hiding in plain sight as UFO sightings:

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www.otherhand.org...

More conventional Scaled Composites transport:

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a reply to: Bluto76

i really appreciate your amazing addition the our thread here.

what is your take on nonpermiable aerogel that may or maynot be conducted for use in a rigid airship?

i've always wondered if you could with a few plasma and magnetic 'wizardry' tricks turn the whole air ship into a quasi MHD generator, and use the induced field lines created by your controlled magnetic systems making a 'plasma nose cone', 'plasma control surfaces' etc that would enable a rigid airship that uses its skin as a way to store extra energy, the airship made like that would have a very low amount of friction and the ability to maneuver like a classic jet aircraft because of the plasma virtual noscones, control surfaces, and inlets.


i remember hearing a story about some big hitter in the political arena who was picked up by a stealth VTOL the story is so outrageous that it is kind of believable

EBJet, you have a PM, Sir.

There are some interesting pics floating around web.
Below is a Chinese copy of B-2:


I'm not sure where and when this pic was taken at, but seems it was really a long distance photo as the quality is very poor and looks like it was taken off the fence.


Now these are even more interesting... location: Waupaca, WI. 2004.



What always made me think was why the aircraft was on such low FL. Looks like it was on approach or just after take off. Waupaca, WI isn't remote place for sure...

And of course there is also this pic:


I still believe it is not Blackbird but something else entirely...

Penroc3, thank you for the kind words! Here is a really excellent video (only 40 likes) on the predecessors to rumored stealth airships.

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Regarding my take on aerogels, I have a few thoughts. First, when it comes to rumored stealth airships I start with what I think is the simplest combination of technology to achieve that vehicle. For example, could a large, semirigid delta aircraft fitting the typical sighting descriptions be constructed out of a light frame with composites, foam, etc., filled with helium gas bags, and powered by quiet internal combustion engines powering swivel fans on top, lift fans, and propulsion fans? I think probably. Second, consider state-of-the-art 1970s technology like boron fiber (F-14 tail), composites, and the possibilities are even more interesting. For example the Rutan homebuilt planes of the era such as the Long Ez were made out of a sandwich of epoxy and fiberglass around a foam core. Scale that up and there are interesting possibilities. Throw in more advanced technologies like diesel-electric hybrid propulsion, muffled turbofans, and again it could explain a lot.

If you go through the National UFO Reporting Center Database and search by shape, state, etc. there are a myriad (like tons) of sightings of low, slow, and quiet black chevrons or triangles that prowl the night. I’m guesstimating that there are 10 to 1 sightings of these things doing nothing more than hover or move slowly to every report of one zooming off at incredible speed.

Throw in aerogels, spray on Vantablack (www.google.com...), cloaking technology (www.google.com...) and flexible control surfaces like BAE MAGMA and you have the basic ingredients - just need a mission and recipe. Throw in exotic electric (or nuclear cough cough) propulsion and it gets interesting. But my point is you don’t really need all of that to create a stealthy airship.

I recently talked to somebody who worked for one of the big three (Pacific Northwest one) who was out in the Desert Southwest and had a pretty good view of what he described as a big aircraft that looked like predator (the movie not the drone) with sparkling constellation lights flying low and slow. He described it as shimmering and hard to make out - like fuzzy edges.

Anyways, I have a few more photos and concepts I’ll share as I finish cleaning out some old files. It’s amazing what is out there on the UFO sites (people see Zeta Reticulans and I see a secret plane). I guess we all see what we want.

Replying to SpeedFanatic, “I still believe it is not Blackbird but something else entirely...

I don’t think it’s an SR-71 either. Looks smaller and more blended, even a little Northropy if I can make up a word.

a reply to: Bluto76


Your posts have been very interesting.

This one of yours has always interested me as I came across it years ago when looking into black delta aircraft.
Norjen's flying triangle / delta. (3rd image from the bottom in the sequence you have just above "And some videos I suspect...").

There's a larger version of your photo on this page and comments by someone else on what they think it may be etc.
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rense.com...

Personally I'm not sure if it's more of a conventional aircraft or some kind of powered airship or neutral buoyancy craft etc, but its appearance interests me. I did some looking into Norjen too years ago when I originally came across it and they seem like a curious, intentionally low key operation with a specialisation in composite aircraft, when seems like a nice fit.

The Norjen black delta shown above on their image appears to have the classic "black triangle" circular area in the centre of the craft shown on the underside. (on the wire-frame image on the computer monitor in their picture).
I notice that on some other black triangular aircraft too, but I don't know what it is or what it depicts.

a reply to: SpeedFanatic

Those two images below the chinese flying wing always interested me a lot too. I saw those on a UFO image database and thought they looked very sci-fi. Part of that is obviously distortion of the light sources due to motion and the camera taking the photo, but the general shape of the aircraft looks very cool.

I'd love to know what they are.

a reply to: Bluto76

ill share my one confirmed black triangle sighting of my own.

i was driving with a friend in the city around 12 at night, when i noticed a large very low white light basically at rooftop height height.

ii decided to try to drive towards the light to see what was apparently so low over a residential area of the city, Trump and Clinton were in my city for the POTUS race and figured it might be a cool chopper, or worse a plane having some sort of issue.

a few turns later a little less than a city block away at no higher than typical street light level was a fighter sized(F16) was a silent hovering black triangle, i got out of the car and was honestly in total shock i just stood there looking at it.

its movement was very peculiar because unlike a normal helicopter or ballon that has some movement while hovering the triangle was rotating dipping one of the tips but it appeared to be stuck to a central point in the air.

it looked like a squashed pyramide with a un-blinking red light at the apex and the tips themselves glowed with a very strange white/blue light with a haze around it.

all of a sudden it stopped moving and was DEAD still in the air when it shot straight up 20-30 feet again coming to a dead stop in the air and moving off so fast if i had blinked i would say it just vanished.

all of this was totally lacking any sound or typical fast moving air type sounds.


so for me it isn't a question if these types of craft exist but rather HOW they exist.

the part i have trouble with is WHY fly them SO SO low that so many people have seen them and keep seeing them, they are clearly SUPER advanced and i assume have very little need to fly less than 20 feet above the ground.

even IF they needed to do that, the one i saw HAD to have seen my car let alone me slowly getting closer to it.

the tin foil hat side of me wonders if whoever was flying it was showing off abit.



i would sign any agreement to get a close look at one of these things.

Thing that gets me with triangle stories is the high speed maneuvering they exhibit.Not the low slow bits they do.

a reply to: Blackfinger

with a good enough of a light show it could APPEAR to move away super fast and in reality it cloaks itself and presents a 2d or 3D(if you want to get fancy) appearing projection that seems to zip away but really moves at normal speed.


getting a little tinfoil-esk

it might actually mess with the mind of observers in a certain radius via super advanced EM weaponry

and for the real reason these things are seen so much is they are testing their fancy new countermeasures out on unknowing test subjects, if the subjects knew it was a test it might not work the same as the observers subconscious would be primed to see a test whereas the unknowing ...victim... sees a craft in the sky with non standard lighting when the aircraft turns on its EM systems and because the shape of the aircraft is a triangle uses the faces to project a vision of it zipping away in essintly in 90 degree non convergent 'rays' along with the electronically induced 'suggestibility' to fool the observers into seeing a 'UFO"

and it seems to work.


you don't have to be a high level strategist to see the military usefulness of such a system but i don't think they would have a lot of volunteers lining up to get their brain messed with by electronic countermeasures... so do what they have done in the past and use the population.


early tests could explain allot of early sightings and a monumental failure could explain rendlesham forest where one of the airmen got to much exposure and it damaged his heart and later died, not to mention the eye damage to the other one.

but hey thats just my crazyness

a reply to: penroc3

also its pretty easy to pick the real sightings of the triangles(at least the new ones), but i feel like i shouldn't say what that is.

these things are 100% real and 100% earth made and i think the really cool ones belong to private entities outside the normal military, think something like Orbital ATK, SpaceX, Boeing, LM and NASA rolled together but outside the control of any traditional political power on earth, the only thing secret about the "so called secret space program' is who controls it.

if these craft truly have the abilities demonstrated a handful of them could decimate pretty much any power on earth.

the power sources on these things would have to put out ENORMOUS power and that would make them weapons of total devastation, extinction level destruction. The power source alone means they could focus constant nuclear detonation level energies onto targets, imagine just wiping that 'beam' from space across a large land mass.

or if you don't want to get fancy just get your ship close to relativistic speed and set your flight path towards earth and let go of a 2 ton mass with some of the shielding tech your craft uses and when it hits the earth's atmosphere all life would be gone from the detonation or the 'nuclear' winter that would happen.


if a company cracked just ONE of the propulsion modes these things show us they would own aviation and military contracting, after more and more development the owners of said tech could make demands no one could refuse.

truly a terrifying concept that makes me HOPE there are other forces keeping the owners(and i mean owners) of Earth in check for all of our sakes

Penroc3 thanks for sharing your encounter. I’m conflicted on the triangles. I like where you are going with the idea that they are elaborate projections. The website Muzj03 shared, speculating on the Norjen stuff suggested that they can disguise their visual and radar appearance (something I’ve read in other places as well). Imagine if it could appear to be zooming off at Mach 3 on radar, but is still right there cruising along at 30 knots - kind of an aerial chameleon. All the tricks hide it’s incredible vulnerability. Would explain Belgium and a lot of other stuff. What you have is a psychological weapon par excellence. Think enemy infantry: If you see an alien ship you probably don’t shoot and freak out in terror. If you see a stealth dirigible you shoot.

A few random neuron firings - many sightings report a light/protrusion/round area on the bottom. What if there is some sort of gyroscope at the heart of these allowing them incredible stability - think a flying Segway scooter.

The movement isn’t totally inconsistent with very high performance drones - I’ve seen them lit up with LEDs at night and pulling some crazy maneuvers such as darting around, slewing, right angles, rapid climbs/drops, etc. Of course they aren’t silent - but maybe with active sound cancellation. They would absolutely be UFOs 20 years ago.

Ignoring propulsion and aerodynamics for a second, they almost seem to move like being controlled by a computer mouse - again much like drones. Rotate, slew, no regard for g forces, etc.

A few ideas on the ultra-low altitude cruising: (1) physically tap telecommunication systems/wires like the submarines with wheels and (2) if you don’t want aircraft to collide with you in airspace, fly at tree top level. There’s obvious radar avoidance benefits too. It’s interesting that they are often seen with helicopters around - almost as if the helicopters are providing cover. Or this is really far out: Could they be physically feathered by something above? A silent helicopter maybe?

It’s also possible Lockheed or somebody made a huge propulsion breakthrough - the aerial equivalent of Red October - but you’d need tremendous energy source/generation for something like that. I’ve heard some crazy rumors from people that worked out in Cali and Nevada - like Captain Nemo stuff, but still. The risk of losing/crashing one of these in a neighborhood or worse an adversarial country seems insane, unless they are much lower tech then they appear.

Maybe they only test them over the US and UK because they are a doomsday/WWWIII trick/weapon - a single-use diversion or system. They practice over friendly places to train for the one time they are needed in desperation - not something you play around with in Syria, etc. Who knows?

If the first era of stealth was about being undetected, maybe era two is spoofing. Can you imagine the advantage against a near peer opponent that even two hours of chaos could provide? They think they are having a UFO outbreak, chasing phantoms, and precisely at 4:00 am zap - command and control knocked out, radars blind, half their nukes wrecked on the truck or pad, and they still have no idea who or what’s got them. Kind of puts this Navy tic tac stuff in perspective!

Quite the tactical and strategic advantage, and probably a violation of several treaties, so will stay secret forever - even if they’re just balsa wood and foam flying drive in movie theater screens.

originally posted by: penroc3
the CL-400 was to replace the US and ran on liquid hydrogen but at the time liquid hydrogen was still kind of exotic fuel, the space race made it a common fuel but the suntan was a few to years early and the SR71/A12 won out
]

Speaking of the CL-400 I made a trek out into the desert too the abandoned site Garrett used to test concepts related to this project. Ill have a post up soon/ Project Suntan lives!!!!!! sort of LOL

a reply to: FredT

sooo cool.

MM thank you for your reply to my question about the f-19 thingy. Was shocked by the resemblance to the testors model, and we know all the speculation surrounding that particular subject. More convinced than ever that we had/have something very similar flying around up there.

Penroc, was familiar with the b21 development, competitors, and trials which was what I was thinking when I saw the pic, very cool stuff. Also thought about the b2 redesign. I lurk around here a lot, but dont post much. Leave it to the more knowledgeable to discuss.

What a turn this thread took though. Bravo Zulu Bluto!! Thank you for these great pics and the ensuing conversation. Tied some of my own speculations and thoughts together.

Your pics and and videos had me, of course, thinking about Arizona back in the 90s and some discussion on the board on some old threads about giant airships. I cant remember the firm that was specifically referenced (I'm on my mobile and dont have my bookmarks), but it might have started with an A. It was a short abbreviation though. Was mention in an A**** thread I think about semi rigid inflatables being used to lift objects into near earth orbit. You think these smaller examples are capable of reaching the same altitudes and could be used to reach or re-man the much larger, phoenix craft? Which leads me to penrocs fears about this kind of tech setting a select few of us much farther apart from the rest of us.

Know I'm kinda going tinfoil on it all but due to some others posters going there first, felt like I might agree and speculate some myself. Theres at least 5-6 cool things to discuss from this thread.

Thanks again Bluto! Fun stuff to dream about tonight while sleeping haha

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: Bluto76
so for me it isn't a question if these types of craft exist but rather HOW they exist.

They shouldn’t exist, that’s the problem.

Those triangles don’t fit into the entangled military/industrial/political web we can observe in today’s world.
Even if one ignores all the tinfoily aspects of their behavior, the mere existence of those triangles suggest a deeper and more complex power structure, well beyond anything we should be comfortable with in supposedly democratic and free societies.

I mean just take the most mundane explanation. Some aerospace cooperations discovered some sort of tech that appears to defy gravity to the uninformed observer. And some three lettered government agency took it operational, build fleet of various ISR type crafts and flies them more or less regularly over half the world.

This scenario implies someone discovered what may very well amount to the holy grail of aerospace design. Not today or ten years ago, but basically during the early days of the Cold War. And someone else not only chose to keep this discovery secret, forced the involved cooperations to miss out on potentially trillions in revenue, but managed persuade literally the rest of the world to keep mum about physics and tech involved. For more or less half a century at this point.

Never mind that there is nowhere near enough money in the federal budget, let alone in the classified realm to design, build and operate a fleet of multiple triangle types in secret for that long alongside everything else that is supposed to be outthere.

Stuff like that not only shouldn’t happen, it should be impossible to achieve in modern society. The fact that is does is very worrying, no matter how *cool* the tech actually is.