Once more into the Once Again.
"On the night of 25 August, 1951, at my home at 2158 hours I observed for about thirty seconds an unfamiliar aircraft traveling from 10 degrees west of north in the direction of 10 degrees east of south. The rate of speed of the aircraft might have been 350 miles per hour.
"The aircraft was low enough for the neon and car lights of East Central Avenue {this is Albuquerque, NM} to be reflected from it. The altitude of the aircraft was difficult to judge.
"The type of aircraft was that of one with wings swept back 15 degrees approximately. No fuselage was visible. The wings did not appear to taper at the outer ends. At the rear edge of each of the wings at least six and possibly eight, soft, white lights were visible. These lights were round, not trailing as in jet aircraft exhausts seen at night. These lights were grouped in twos with a larger distance between the pairs than between each one in a pair. No red or green lights were visible. As the object moved further south the lights were not visible.
"The underneath surface of the wings of the aircraft appeared to have stripes running from the leading edge to the rear edge of the wings between each pair of lights. These stripes reflected the light whereas the areas between the lights did not reflect light well.
"The most outstanding feature of this observation was the fact that there was no audible sound from motors or jets. In fact the aircraft made no noise that I could hear."
Thus the formal letter to the Air Force command. Her husband wrote a letter which agreed with his wife on essentially all details.
"Can you say Lubbock??"
The Albuquerque witnesses of their Flying Wing basically agreed with him. When the Air Force called them back in to look at Hart's photos a week or two later [remember that the Lubbock witnesses nor Hart knew anything about the Albuquerque incident, and the Albuquerque witnesses knew nothing about Hart or his photos], they said that yes, that is very much like what they had seen, only theirs in slightly more lighted/reflected conditions.
While Texas Tech faculty deliberated over the mystery for weeks [finally going full-coward and deciding upon a howlingly stupid "natural" conclusion], the Air Force was, again in secret, being far more serious. The immediate thing which seemed as though it MIGHT explain these cases was the possibility that the Northrup Flying Wing was cruising about.
Very sensible hypothesis [if one disregards the lack of sound associated with these reports], but try as we have, there is no evidence whatever that a flying wing was any longer intact and taking some swan-song like voyages in the fall of 1951.
I'm having a hard time NOT believing this one. The "coincidence" of the earlier Albuquerque encounter is pretty powerful for me. The USAF still listed it as "unidentified" till the end of Blue Book.
As to the foolish TTech faculty: I've reported this before, but a TTech math professor, not involved with the guys in the famous picture, managed to get a crude triangulation on one overflight [he and his father-in-law from different positions] and [even with a generous error bar] was able to show that the things were high and very fast --- WAY out of the league of birds and moths who somehow could fly at supernormal speeds in tight geometric formation.
So... I'm "In" on this one.
Till next time.
"...a TTech math professor...managed to get a crude triangulation on one overflight [he and his father-in-law from different positions] and [even with a generous error bar] was able to show that the things were high and very fast..."
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting -- do you recall, from the triangulation estimate (if it was able to determine "high and very fast") approximately how high or fast? Or, the approximate width/size of the "inverted V" "object(s)"?
And, in view of the Carl Hart photos, did you notice in the two lower photos that are relatively "jiggle-free", that in the lower left picture there appear to to 18 light point sources, but in the lower right photo, there are 19 in the apparent "formation"? Also, if you compare the lower left and right photos, at the ends of the "inverted V," in each picture, that there appears to have been a "reversal" or shift of position of the double row of point sources relative to each other between the two photos?
Makes me wonder how much time elapsed between the taking of the two lower photos that might account for the "shifted" light points when the two photos are cross-compared.. In addition, there is a point source at the apex of the lower left photo, but in the lower right one, there is not. Any thoughts on what might possibly explain such discrepancies, Professor?
The only prosaic answer I can think of might be a flock of high-flying geese, whose lighter underside or bellies might somehow have been illuminated from ground sources, at least in the Hart photos, perhaps, but depending on the answers to my first question here (how high, fast, or large a formation did the TTech math professor calculate, even approximately, if known?), particularly if the formation was "supersonic" (how and who by would that have been determined, given the specifics of the two separate sightings referenced here?), were there major or minor differences between the observed characteristics (height, speed, size or width of formation, even if approximate) between the two different sightings concerned here?
It would seem in the Hart photos that whatever was photographed by Hart would have to have been relatively low and slower than supersonic to have obtained the clarity of the point sources in the two lower photos, would it not? Or am I missing something here? I'd like the benefit of your opinion on these questions and variances, if you would be so kind as to opine, based on what you may know.
Yes, I can find the original letter and have. My comment "high" is high by my standards but not exceptionally high. The triangulation, which the math professor thought to be quite good, said 2100-2600 feet in altitude. My "high" was inspired by the ridiculous debunk explanation that these were moths; birds of course could fly at such levels, though if so they are hard to see at night. The speed "triangulation" had a little more slop in it, but Dr. Underwood thought it to be in the 700 to 800 mph range [he said "700+" and I've just added a similar error bar.] At 700+ mph the plovers begin to lose this race dramatically.
DeleteAs to birds and Hart's photos, I've seen a lot of bird formation flights and they can be impressive. Air geometricians they may be, but I've never seen any group of birds which could fly in the type of fixed geometric precision that those pictures show. Hart's photos, if faked, are not of bird flights. They might be explained elsewise, but not that.
For me the fact of what you call the "discrepancies" [I'd label them "differences", but I sense some bias here with that word] makes me feel that this comes close to eliminating the lighted model theory of the pictures. Had they been all exactly the same that idea could have more weight. The appearance of the four pictures has baffled everyone, enthusiast or debunker, as to how to EXACTLY explain them. I'll certainly claim no better. I've always wondered [disregarding the two screwed up pictures] if the "thing" nodded in his direction between "b" and "d" and thusly showed a slightly different pattern. Also, lights, particularly specially positioned lights [like central ones] might well blink on or off.
Analyzing anything like this is a bit of a fool's errand: we don't, as usual, have enough evidence regarding these exact pictures to explain or say "anomalous". For me the Lubbock Lights stands or not on the multiwitness testimony [Hart was by himself] and rare things like Dr. Underwood's measurements. I am constantly saddened by the phenomenon of people finding one thing in a large narrative that they doubt and thereby dump the entire case. You may well not be doing this, however others will.