We examined this peculiar move by the Navy and the odd timing of it in great detail in
my last article on the subject, and this series of events likely had something to do with it. Regardless, with all this in mind, what can we take away from these new on the record revelations?
First off, they
are a huge deal. We are talking about two more Navy fighter pilots on the record and another three talking to
The New York Times on background. And this was not some account that occurred a decade or more in the past, this was just a couple years ago. Yet what strikes me the most is that once again, this series of encounters occurred in tightly sanitized airspace over the ocean where the military does its most advanced and complex training and testing, just like the
Nimitz's Tic Tac incident many years earlier on the west coast. In that case, the gear and personnel involved were also preparing for a major deployment.
Yet what the
New York Times doesn't seem to firmly drill down on enough is that we are now getting first-hand accounts that describe a major upgrade in radar technology as being a catalyst for actually detecting and tracking these mysterious objects. Much of my last piece was
dedicated to the little known fact that back in 2004, the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group was executing very complex and highly integrated training prior to deployment with Cooperative Engagement Capability technology installed on its ships and aircraft. This was the first time this game-changing suite of sensor fusion and data-link technologies was
ever integrated into an operational Carrier Strike Group. As a result, multiple accounts definitively state that its unique, 'fused' sensor data was confiscated after the Tic Tac incident culminated in a number of close encounters.
Taking the recent information about the radar upgrade on the Super Hornets into account, it adds a new facet of plausibility to the
Nimitz/Tic Tac events. The higher fidelity radar telemetry data Cooperative Engagement Capability provided, like the introduction of AESA fire control radars on Navy fighters not long after, may have allowed for the detection and documentation of these objects like never before. Whether that was by design or by chance remains unknown.
These two facts—the encounters occurring in secure military airspace off the continental U.S. coastline and the presence of advanced, highly capable radar systems in both series of incidents—is compelling, to say the least. As we stated in our last piece on the subject, these areas and the gear present in them during the encounters would make for very attractive testing conditions for undisclosed aerial capabilities. When it comes to the object's strange appearance, making something as alien looking as possible is probably a good thing for deniability and unconventional camouflage purposes. Even the testing of sensors under real-world conditions against such a craft using various guises could be beneficial.
As for near collisions, they have happened among military aircraft operating in highly controlled airspace where both parties are being helped by air traffic controllers. As such, the near miss doesn't seem like an outright disqualifier for these objects belonging to the military, or a military, as the pilots seem to think. And it's not like the presence of totally unknown aircraft that could be a threat to the safety of other aircraft hasn't occurred even in highly trafficked airspace that is patrolled by alert fighter aircraft.
We have broken three major
stories about just that in just the last 18 months, one of which is
unprecedented in its level of documentation.
I do have to stress that this is not
the explanation we are giving for these incidents, but it is one that has to be taken into account, especially considering the similar circumstances at hand.
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