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Key points
- Congressional testimony from credible naval aviators described astonishingly fast aircraft.
- The aviators asserted that these craft are far more advanced than anything the U.S. has or is developing.
- Although the aviators may be correct, it's also possible that their reports reflect cognitive biases.
The Naval aviator's testimony in front of Congress last week was riveting. After describing his airborne encounter with a mysterious flying object that made astonishingly fast maneuvers, the former commander said, "I would like to say that the Tic Tac Object that we engaged in November 2004 was far superior to anything that we had at the time, have today, or are looking to develop in the next 10-plus years.”
Reading this testimony, I was reminded of the adage: "When you're a hammer, the whole world is a nail."
Cognitive scientists have a more formal term for seeing what we expect to see and missing what we don't expect to see: cognitive bias.
Although the Naval aviator might indeed have encountered an exotic flying craft, he could also have exhibited a form of familiarity bias, which predisposed him to see anything artificial moving through the air as a self-propelled manufactured vehicle of some kind, because, through long experience, those were the only types of flying objects, besides birds, he'd ever seen.
And even though the Tic Tac appeared to "defy the laws of physics" through astonishing accelerations, the aviator, operating with the biases we all have, still perceived it as a self-propelled physical object.
But, let's suppose for a moment that the flying Tic Tac, while displaying jaw-dropping maneuvers and unreal accelerations, did not defy the known laws of physics. What would have to be true about the object, and what would the implications be about the motives of whoever was controlling the "object"?
A simple physics lesson holds the clues
One of the most basic laws of physics is A=F/M, meaning the acceleration of an object (A) is equal to the force (F) applied to the object divided by the mass (M) of the object. A thought experiment will give you an intuitive idea of how this equation works: Imagine that on your kitchen counter are a small BB and a large marble. Further imagine that, with your finger, you flick both round objects with your finger to skitter across the counter. Intuition tells you that, given the same flicking force, (F) the BB will accelerate (A) far faster than the marble because its mass (M) is far lower than that of the marble.
So, if the Tic Tac had mass (M), its unheard-of acceleration (A) must either have arisen because an astonishingly high force (F) was applied to it, or from the Tic Tac having extremely low mass (M). And notice that nothing in the equation says that the force must come from an internal engine. (e.g. rocket, jet, or rotor). It's entirely possible to propel something, such as a BB or marble, with an external force, the advantage being you can lighten the craft by eliminating the weight of fuel and the engine.
UFOs may have very low mass
Speaking of which, NASA, in its quest to speed up (increase A) spacecraft by making them much lighter (decreasing M), has developed "Lightcraft" that have no engine or fuel of their own, but are propelled by directed energy beams such as lasers and microwaves. NASA has built small versions of these and flown them, as you can see in the flying saucer-shaped hovering object below.
Lightcraft work because even though directed energy beams that push on them have no mass, the beams carry tremendous momentum due to "photon pressure," and thus produce a large amount of force (F).
NASA has also tested "light sails" that use solar radiation or space-based directed energy to push spacecraft to velocities unattainable with rockets. It's worth noting that the directed energy beams, both microwaves and many wavelengths of laser energy, are invisible to the eye, making it appear to an external observer that the objects are self-propelled.
Could the mysterious "objects" described by naval aviators have achieved astonishing accelerations because they were ultra-light laser-propelled reflectors as shown here?
And if so, were the objects in question of terrestrial or extraterrestrial origin?
We don't know the answers. But one thing we do know is that such light craft do not, as has been suggested, "defy the laws of physics."
Or, they may have no mass
Anyone whose ever seen a laser light show will tell you that it's possible to paint images in the air with lasers, and it's further possible to move these images around in the literal blink of an eye.
In this image, you see a fan of laser rays from different lasers, where the fan or cone of rays is actually just one beam moved around so quickly, via a small laser steering mirror, that the laser beam appears to be in multiple places at one time.
In this picture, the laser energy, which has no mass, reflects off of particles in the air, but higher-power lasers can create plasmas by breaking down atmospheric gases, and these plasmas (which are usually formed by invisible lasers)—like their close cousins, lightening—emit light all on their own.
In fact, not far from the spot off the coast of San Diego where Naval aviators encountered the Tic Tacs, the U.S. Navy itself has developed and is experimenting with Laser Induced Plasma Filaments that can be projected from the back of an aircraft to draw the shape of an aircraft (using steering mirrors) in midair—away from the aircraft itself—in order to form an aerial decoy that will confuse an enemy's heat-seeking missile, and draw it away from the aircraft producing the mid-air laser plasma image.
Here is a drawing from the Navy's patent on this technology, titled "System and method for laser-induced plasma for infrared homing missile countermeasure."
Although these plasmas, deriving from atmospheric gases, do have very small but finite masses, they don't actually move. When the invisible laser beam creating them moves, the plasma is formed in a new location, creating the illusion that a single object has moved. Thus, these "objects" can literally be considered to have no mass, from the point of view of the equation (A=F/M) that we started with.
Again, if the UFOs described by the Naval aviators were indeed such plasmas, we don't know whether humans or aliens created them. But, just as with light craft, we know they do not violate the laws of physics.
What is the motivation of whoever is behind the UFOs?
I keep coming back to the non-violation of the laws of physics, because a strong implication—when these laws appear to have been violated—is that the UFOs must, therefore, be from an advanced alien race that knows a lot more about physics than we do. But clearly, humans with high-powered lasers, operating unseen at some distance from a UFO, could be controlling the "objects."
But this begs the question: Why are they doing it?
Possibly the U.S. or other countries are testing plasma decoys or light craft. Or maybe a U.S. adversary wants to test the performance of U.S. sensors and fighter aircraft used in air defense in order to learn how to defeat such defenses. Or maybe such adversaries, as sometimes happens, just want to mess with our heads to create confusion and dissent (which has certainly happened).
Or maybe adversaries have all of these motives but aren't actually human. Presumably, an alien race capable of getting here from the far reaches of space, even with "unmanned" vehicles, is advanced enough to operate light craft and/or air plasmas. Maybe the aliens even got here using light craft in the first place.
Finally, who says that all of these phenomena have to be either from humans or aliens, but not from both humans and aliens? Hints of this possibility come from credible sightings from the military of glowing, astonishingly fast-moving aerial objects in the 1940s and 1950s, long before humans possessed laser beams capable of pushing ultralight objects or air plasmas around.
The point is, to get to the truth about UFOs, we must work hard to set aside our biases, expectations, and preconceived ideas, and open our minds to all possibilities, including the idea that there may not be one simple answer, but multiple complicated answers.
The truth, as they say on the X-files, is out there, but nothing says that truth is simple.
