Lockheed Martin in Georgia

I live about ten to twelve miles from the Lockheed Martin test center in Marietta Georgia, and I sometimes at night I hear something extremely loud and fast fly over. Not the usual commercial, or even private jet sound, not even the sound of an average "F" fighter planes. This is much louder, and is gone within five seconds. I used to live in Ramstein Germany, so I'm quite used to the sounds of fighter jets and C5 Galaxies. (around here, we even get to see Raptors fly low in broad daylight. They are loud, but this is louder) Any ideas of a plane being tested in the southeast that can completely disappear in less than five seconds?

It is clearly Aliens! with their UFOs!!!!

(must not be one line!)

maybe so, but why would aliens be interested in flying over this place? wouldn't they be more apt to fly over somewhere a little more interesting? perhaps it could be a reverse-engineered aircraft.

Originally posted by venom79x
maybe so, but why would aliens be interested in flying over this place? wouldn't they be more apt to fly over somewhere a little more interesting? perhaps it could be a reverse-engineered aircraft.

I don't know, Aliens think weird...

Well, this sounds a bit outre, but you could always contact the folks at Marietta and ask them what it could be.

You could also (if you were really interested and wanted to investigate this further) invest in a wide-angle lens (or maybe kluge up a night-vision lens setup) for your digital camera and hang out at night and see if you can get a picture of it.

Finally, since you live within fifteen minutes of their test center, go as close to the upwind side of their runway as possible and try to take a picture of it taking off (if it's taking off from there).

You're in an ideal spot to do some serious research into this if you want to. But whatever happens, let us know. Pictures would be great, but even an eyewitness report would be better than nothing.

there are alot of trees in my area, so aside from hanging out at the end of the flight line, or in the vacinity of cobb parkway (where the facility is located), pictures would be almost impossible. i haven't heard this in close to a month now, but it was quite a regular occurence (three or so nights a week) during may and early june. i did see several apache helicopters late this afternoon though, and i must say it was impressive to see them flying just a few hundred feet off of the ground. i didn't realize they are as large as they are!!!

No idea... Could it be a Raptor with the afterburners on...? no idea... but i't seems cool to live near Lockeed martin... I'd like to do that to...

maybe, when i've seen raptors during the day, i noticed they are very loud aircraft.

The two major projects at Lockheed Marietta right now are the F/A-22 final assembly line and the C-5 Galaxy upgrade/depot maintainence programs. What you heard was probably a Raptor. Because of the close proximity to civilian areas, there is no way to hide what is on the runway. For this reason, nothing "Black" is ever tested there. Those projects are carried out from Advanced Projects Division (skunkworks) at the Palmdale site.

[edit on 13-7-2005 by JP_8]

Most likely it's the Raptor.

At night there is alot less noise pollution depending on where you live and it's easier to hear low flying jets then.

A good example of this is the sonic booms from the space shuttle returning to the cape. Alot of times if it's coming in during the day it seems much fainter, but if it's at night it feels like it rattles your windows sometimes.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
Well, this sounds a bit outre, but you could always contact the folks at Marietta and ask them what it could be.

You could also (if you were really interested and wanted to investigate this further) invest in a wide-angle lens (or maybe kluge up a night-vision lens setup) for your digital camera and hang out at night and see if you can get a picture of it.

Finally, since you live within fifteen minutes of their test center, go as close to the upwind side of their runway as possible and try to take a picture of it taking off (if it's taking off from there).

You're in an ideal spot to do some serious research into this if you want to. But whatever happens, let us know. Pictures would be great, but even an eyewitness report would be better than nothing.

You have to catch the takeoffs on days when the wind is not blowing west to east, very rare. The Cobb Parkway viewing is on the south-east portion of the base, near the VW dealership. I have seen F-22 flight tests on the east side of the city (past Lilburn) and north of the city (near Helen). I too have heard wierd sounds but normaly the humidity levels are dramaticly different than during the same day. As a GA resident you know how our humidity can be. Next time check the weather. The last time we had just had a storm and the humidity was higher.

As a GA resident you know how our humidity can be. Next time check the weather.

Actually I live in Arizona, where the term humidity isn't even in the local vocabulary!

And I live within eight miles of the Boeing facility where the Apches are built. No Lockmart facilities around here....