WTF was that refueling

RidgeRunner,

Does your Klingon Bird of Prey resemble the Lockheed CL-823 concept as depicted in the below link:

en.m.wikipedia.org...

It was a precursor to the CL-2000 SST design that never made it past the mock-up stage.

a reply to: TheHans
Cant really tell from that angle for sure, saw it above and going away

a reply to: TheHans


I'm back from some RnR for a week and I though I'd chime in again. I was passing through my aunt's place in Saskatchewan on the way to Ontario (aka my cousin's mother and stepdad). And for some weird reason we got to talking about his time in Iraq and it seems my Aunt was told about some of his escapades and she confirmed that he told her he had seen some weird spaceplanes at his FOB. Looks like my cousin told his version of the stories to her and that there is more to the tale than what my cousin told me.

My aunt says he showed her some photos taken on his cell phone of the spaceplanes! After she saw me freak out she looked at me all funny and asked what's the matter. I asked if he (my cousin) still has the photos! She said probably but why did I freak out so much!

Wow! Photos?

I do know he had one of the old Motorola Razr (sp?) flip phones with the camera on it in 2004 and I remember the photo quality of those was only 640 by 480 pixels but I was stoked when I heard he took photos. I just had to call my cousin right away to get the real scoop! Yes, he has photos of the spaceplanes and he thinks he has about 15 of them, which is what he thinks how many he took, on some CD's and copies somewhere on his Mac! He said he's gonna look for them this weekend and send me the copies if he finds them! I also asked how'd he get the photos and he admitted him and his enlisted buddy was on the roof of a building enjoying some free time and shootin' the breeze! (knowing him, they were probably drinking some Jack Daniels or Vodka) He also admitted it was at night when they went on the roofs and that some fully kitted-out MP's with machine guns and everything were guarding the spaceplanes which were right out in the open all lit up by flood lights but behind some weird high baseball field style fencing with gray or green strips inserted into the mesh so people couldn't see the hangars which were away from any enlisted barracks which is how he described it all. I asked if he and his buddy were ever caught and the said the MP's couldn't see or hear them from their place on the ground because of big air-con units and ducting and hissing noises. He could see the MP's and the spaceplanes but they couldn't see them!
Since I'm guessing they were probably drinking, they probably knew the best hiding places so people couldn't see or hear them on the roof.

He swears it looked like a cross between the Concorde and the XB-70 which I told him to look up while he was on the phone with me. I told him to look at the F-19 drawing on the Internet at the link I texted him while he was on the phone with me and my aunt. He confirmed that is what he and his buddy saw on the back of the big aircraft. He thinks it was about the same size or maybe only a little shorter than a Boeing 747 when I asked him how big it was. He says the spaceplane on the back of the bigger plane looked about as big as those F-111 Aardvaarks (he knows what that is at least).

Even at 640 by 480 pixels, being all lit up by floodlights means the picture quality will be good enough for us here. I dunno what to make of all this. I mean, don't they usually put a plane like that -in- the hangar? Now things are getting all interestingy and touchy-feely here. Some photos would be the Smoking Gun here, doncha ya think?

I'm all excited now and all stoked up to see his photos. I will post them here when I get them. Thanks!

Id be a little cautious if you did get the photos and attempted to share them. If what is said is true yes the aircraft may of been in the open but your cousin took the photos unknowing to the MPs and other personnel, also photos being taken on the FOB and not in a public place. You may end up getting a knock on your door or find the images disappearing.

a reply to: PhotonicsTechnologist

So, just to make sure I've got this straight....

This SAP, that has supposedly been in existence, and successfully hidden from pretty much everyone for at least 20 years, possibly 30,goes to Iraq. Once there it lands at a location that doesn't even have overhead cover, so anything passing over, including those high resolution satellites, can see it. And to help with that, they light it up like noon with multiple light carts.

Then they set up a fence to block it from view, and major security all around the fence, that somehow completely forget to check rooftops, and oh yeah, so do the guys in the tower.

Does that about sum it up?

a reply to: PhotonicsTechnologist

Amazing story, dude! Indeed read!
There is something waiting for you. Look at the upper left corner of ATS page. You should see a letter icon near the search button on the top of the page. Click on it and see!

Cheers!

a reply to: Zaphod58

snork.

a reply to: Zaphod58

lol, reminds me of Mark mccandlish(spelling?) story of his fluxliner ELECTRO UFO. he said that in palmdale they would roll out the the motorized scaffolds in a circle, and they had a curtain hung up and the 'ufo' would drop down into the curtained off area.

that story sent my BS detector on fire. any super secret aircraft are more than likely not landing anywhere near a civilian population.

we have so many bases on islands like DG that we know about it makes me wonder why people think these super dark programs are just being rolled out on the runway.

i could see MAYBE if there was a issue during the flight or some other logistical support issue.


but bases you can see into from the road or the right hill i would assume are no-go spots for such things.

a reply to: penroc3

For locations like that, they appropriate the land in a big area around it, like Groom and TTR.

14 years after the event it's only because you get to talking about secret aircraft with your Aunt and then call your cousin who happens to say, "oh yeah, I have some photos of a secret spaceplane I took on my RAZR I totally forgot about, let me send them to you".

Sounds like a normal day to me.

a reply to: Zaphod58

look what happened to groom, i have wondered from time to time if they expanded their land because they needed more space because something would be able to be spotted easier from the old areas. or they just were tired of chasing people away.


the story above is just really bad fiction, ill eat my hat if the pictures materialize because i guess you never know.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: PhotonicsTechnologist

So, just to make sure I've got this straight....

This SAP, that has supposedly been in existence, and successfully hidden from pretty much everyone for at least 20 years, possibly 30,goes to Iraq. Once there it lands at a location that doesn't even have overhead cover, so anything passing over, including those high resolution satellites, can see it. And to help with that, they light it up like noon with multiple light carts.

Then they set up a fence to block it from view, and major security all around the fence, that somehow completely forget to check rooftops, and oh yeah, so do the guys in the tower.

Does that about sum it up?

I would be careful what my cousin says. He's was a cook and still is! I doubt he knows what airplanes are what, and I doubt he knows what the difference between F22 and a Hercules 130 is. I'm an airshow fanatic and I know what the difference is, but I doubt he does! What he describes and what actually happened are probably two different things.

Because they lit it up with floodlights and didn't put it in a hangar and used MP's to guard the thing rather than special forces personnel, I'm guessing he's all mixed up what that the spaceplanes actually are! And I know him pretty well. I am 99.99% sure they were drinking Jack Daniels or Vodka on the roof for some RnR and FOB base downtime! What we call the Valkyrie and F-19 here I am betting is a business jet something like a Learjet and a drone of some sort! I know the size of a Boeing 747 as he described it and Learjet doesn't jive, but like I said, I'm pretty sure him and his enlisted buddy had some JD or vodka in them so I would take their descriptions with some salt and pepper!

If he sends me the photos and they show something really different, I'll post them here. I can say though, is that he is not computer illiterate. His high school had decent classes for computers so we would have saved his cell phone photos to CD-R (what computers had at the time in 2004 to 2006). And since the phone is probably long gone, sold or given away I'm betting he transferred them to disc and eventually his Mac since I know he took photos with his then girlfriend, now wife, during their FOB assignment where they served on the same base as cooks! The aircraft photos would have been in with all his other daily stuff which I know he saved.

He's not a dumb bunny, but he likes his JD and remember, he was a food services contractor! He wasn't actually a military person unlike his enlisted buddy so I'm not sure my cousin has the training to know about all the aircraft types that would have been operational in those days. The photos will tell me what actually was there. At 640 by 480 pixel they may not show much but you just never know!

We'll just have to wait and see.

a reply to: SpeedFanatic

I don't have the photos yet but I did text him to hurry it on up. He's a procrastinator so don't get your hopes up too much. I'm pretty sure we won't get a result for between one to three weeks, which is my best guess. Ya gotta remember, he likes his JD and from what I heard from him and others, life on an FOB in Iraq was mostly young kids sitting in an air conditioned half-round metal hut moving boxes from one place to another and mostly 99% boredom with the 1% excitement being the 3x daily rush to the chow line! My cousin did mention that most enlisted and contractors were fine and sober during the day but off-hours were almost always on their Xboxs/Playstations, drinking from their hidden stashes or drinking the local made-on-base hooch! The term he used was all the kids were sober-drunk. They did well on the job but off hours it was all first-person-shooter videogames and drinkin' hooch of every kind!

Anyone else have that kind of experience on an FOB in Iraq or elsewhere?

a reply to: PhotonicsTechnologist
If you get anything interesting you shouldnt share them publicly.

But dont mind all the scepticism. Stranger things have happened - but unfortunately those stories are usually unsubstantiated bs, so it doesnt pay to be a *believer*.

originally posted by: Zaphod58

Does that about sum it up?

So just like with the Companion during the Invasion?

a reply to: mightmight

No.

originally posted by: mightmight
a reply to: PhotonicsTechnologist
If you get anything interesting you shouldnt share them publicly.

But dont mind all the scepticism. Stranger things have happened - but unfortunately those stories are usually unsubstantiated bs, so it doesnt pay to be a *believer*.

originally posted by: Zaphod58

Does that about sum it up?

So just like with the Companion during the Invasion?

Why can't I share the photos publicly?

Its just cell phone photos. What could possible be the problem with those!
They would only be 640 by 480 pixels and probably barely or if-at-all in focus.
Like I said earlier, don't get your hopes up. We're dealing with two "kids" who
were in some nuthin'-but-sand desert of a foreign country, moving boxes
all day or night and then playing xBox/Playstation. Add in all that
"Drinkin' Hooch" probably every day like all the rest of their peers!

You just can't expect too much from kids like that. I'm betting if the photos
do show something it will be some business jet carrying some test drones.
What officer in their right mind would use MP's and some baseball fencing
to guard a secret aircraft? If those photos -do show something- really unusual,
I will eat a milk-chocolate hat from the dollar store and down some Tobasco
sauce right afterwards and then loudly proclaim the Moon is made of
Green Eggs and Ham!

So in other words, don't get your hopes up and you won't be disappointed!

Then again, life is like a box of chocolates. Ya never know what you're gonna get!

originally posted by: PhotonicsTechnologist


Why can't I share the photos publicly?

For starters, its probably illegal for active US Service members to take pictures of restricted areas and haven them posted all over the internet.
So sure, if they dont show anything interesting noone will care. Probably.
But if *they* decide they do show something interesting, things might get interesting. I wouldnt risk it.

For arguments sake and this is just out of curiosity .. what if someone where to have some pictures of a secret super duper aeroplane and they were to sketch a picture of the photo then post it ?

Check out Kristian Saucier. I would not try to play games with them.

a reply to: mightmight

So the moral of Kristian Saucier is post the photos and have POTUS pardon you? We all know that the Russians and Chinese love it when people post photos of our national secrets.

Interestingly, I though that PhotonicsTechnologist said his cousin or whomever was a civilian chef. I wonder if he signed any NDAs. Like let’s say I was in Afghanistan working in mineral exploration and hadn’t signed any NDAs specific to secret helicopters and climbed up on a building and managed to take an unauthorized picture of a stealth Blackhawk (kind of like the pictures that emerged of the RQ-170) - what could they do?

I would think the criminality hinges on (a) who I’m working for and what I’m contractually bound to do/not do if anything and (b) where the pictures were taken from. Do we own the hanger or building or do the Iraqis? I’d probably tread lightly.

Why would the Buzzard be in Iraq in the open? I don’t totally discount the story though. I used to have an aquaintence who worked at Wright-Patterson who walked right up on a classified demonstrator out in the open, that’s existence has never even been guessed at or discussed anywhere I’ve seen on ATS (though patent applications and old Northrop artwork in the public domain clearly show it on the net!). I would think it would be easier to hide a plane refueling in Iraq - especially if a mishap occurred - than in Ohio.

This thread is getting weird. Back to the OP’s sighting... my money is on the idea that a few TSTO launch/test vehicles were built in the 80s/90s and that’s what is back flying around to test hypersonic technologies/demonstrators from its back.