Cloak and dagger
DAVID HAMBLING tells how an Above Top Secret US aircraft gave rise to a 1990s UFO sighting
A new Pentagon report reveals that a UFO sighting from the1990s was actually of a classified aircraft. No great surprise there; for decades, successive generations of socalled ‘black’ aircraft have been generating UFO reports. What makes this one different is that 30 or so years later the aircraft in question still has not been revealed. Based on the available information, though, it might be possible to make an educated guess at what secret technology might be involved.
The incident is mentioned in a 6 March report by the US Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), set up to investigate what were formerly known as UFOs and are now called UAP or ‘Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.’ The report covers historical sightings previously investigated by Government agencies and has two main thrusts: establishing whether any of them might be of extraterrestrial origin, and exploring the persistent popular belief that the Pentagon, NASA or private industry has captured remains of alien spacecraft and is reverse-engineering the technology.
The report gives a resounding “No” to each of these questions, finding no evidence either of extraterrestrial sightings or recovered alien technology. It goes painstakingly through many rumours and reports and tracks down the evidence behind them. The researchers were immensely helped by having full access to classified information that outside investigators would never see.
The researchers went as far as obtaining a sample of an alloy acquired by the US Army claimed by some to be from a flying saucer. They determined the alloy of magnesium, zinc and bismuth was “manufactured, terrestrial alloy and does not represent off-world technology or possess any exceptional qualities.”
So far, so dull. Such denials will not sway true believers or conspiracy theorists who will conclude that the samples were switched and the real alien alloy is still in a secret vault somewhere, and that the true stories behind sightings are being covered up.
The study noted that a UFO report from a US miliary facility in the 1990s with a “peculiar flight pattern” could be linked directly with a specific aircraft project.
“The seemingly strange characteristics reported by the interviewee match closely with the platform’s characteristics, which was being tested at a military facility in the time frame the interviewee was there,” states the report, adding, “This program is not related in any way to the exploitation of off-world technology.”
The aircraft was part of a Special Access Program, this being a level of security above Top Secret with information only made available to specific individuals.
The AARO report lists historic secret aircraft which are believed to have produced UFO reports before they were revealed, including the high-altitude U-2 spy plane and its successor the Mach 3 Blackbird. Because the U-2 flew higher than any known aircraft, and the Blackbird faster than any known aircraft, sightings may have been dismissed as UFOs.
The last classified aircraft to be unveiled was the Tacit Blue, a stealthy reconnaissance plane that was flight-tested briefly in the 1980s but not revealed until 1996, 11 years after it had been retired. Tacit Blue did have a ‘flying saucer’ profile, so might have confused observers from a specific angle, but the timeline does not match up.
The AARO report does not divulge details of the sighting or of what made the classified aircraft look like something from another world. Recent miliary UAP sightings have included objects that have accelerated at hundreds of g, travelled at incredible speed with no supersonic boom, or which could vanish from sight – effects still impossible with known technology.
One technology might fit. On 24 July 1991 two plane spotters set up their camera by Highway 58 near Edwards Air Force Base in California. Around 1am they spotted a glowing object coming out of the West. It was shaped like a pencil, surrounded by a glowing white layer and a layer of gold over that, and was shedding a trail of glowing blobs as it went.
The object, nicknamed ‘the Dripper,’ disappeared as rapidly as it had arrived. The spotters quickly ruled out their first assumption, that it might be a meteor, which it resembled. They showed their video to some Cal Tech scientists, whose off-therecord assessment was that the Dripper was an aircraft with a layer of plasma around it that was constantly being shed. Plasma, charged gas, is present in neon lights, lightning and the surface of the Sun, and emits a visible glow.
Injecting plasma into the air flowing around an aircraft reduces drag, and this could be used to increase speed or to provide a means of steering with no moving surfaces. Plasma also absorbs radio waves. There have been several projects to develop plasma ‘cloaking devices’ to make aircraft invisible to radar, while lighting them up like neon signs. The Russians are believed to have tested a plasma stealth system on their MiG 1.44 prototype, which never went into production. Back in the 1960s the US even experimented with painting a U-2 spy plane with radioactive Polonium paint; at high altitudes where the pressure is low, the radioactivity would generate a layer of cloaking plasma.
Plasma is far less effective than other radar reduction techniques, such as using radar absorbing material or shapes, though, and plasma aerodynamics have made little progress in the last two decades. It seems likely that the Dripper’s plasma technology, whatever it was, was not sufficiently mature to progress. But it may have shown enough promise to remain classified until further breakthroughs would make it viable.
The 1990s timeline appears to make the Dripper the most likely candidate for the AARO UFO report, although until they are able to provide more details this is speculation. All we know is that the military have some aircraft which appear to be, but are not, otherworldly. The truth, whatever it is, is still out there.
Their off-the-record assessment was an aircraft with a layer of plasma around it