A UFO or a Speck of Schmutz in a Sensor?

You've recently seen video of supposed UFOs reportedly flying at incredible speeds near military aircraft. A story this evening on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" (Fox News, 12 March 2018), one of my favorite cable news shows, triggered me to write this Blog posting.

Although I've been retired since 2001, I have decades of experience working on advanced avionics systems. IMHO, I am quite certain each of those supposed UFOs is merely a speck of schmutz (to use the "technical" term for dirt :^) stuck inside the optics of the aircraft video sensor, or on the lens itself.

If you click and watch either of the videos I have linked (USA Today and CNN), or look at the screen grabs below, you'll see that the horizon line is not level, which means the aircraft is turning.

You'll also notice that the supposed UFO is sometimes a DARK spot or smudge, and sometimes a LIGHT spot or smudge. The reason the spot or smudge changes from DARK to LIGHT, and back again, has to do with the direction of the aircraft towards or away from the Sun. Of course, as the aircraft turns, the Sun is sometimes shining towards the video sensor, and sometimes away.

Please read the captions on the following screen grabs to understand what is going on. (The first two are from the USA Today video. The last two from CNN.)

(1) In this image, the horizon line is almost level, but tipped slightly to the left. That means the aircraft is turning slowly to the right.

The central symbol is called the "Flight Path Marker". The circle represents our aircraft body, the horizontal lines on either side are our wings, and our aircraft tail is represented by the vertical line.

The supposed UFO is the LIGHT spot below the Flight Path Marker. That spot is inside bracket symbols indicating that it is being tracked by the sensor system. In actuality, it is a speck of schmutz in (or on) the video sensor optical system.

(2) In this image, the horizon line is tipped to the right. That means the aircraft is turning to the left.

The supposed UFO is now a DARK spot below the Flight Path Marker. It has changed from LIGHT to DARK because our aircraft is turning and our angle to the Sun has changed.

Watch the USA Today video and notice that the supposed UFO remains absolutely stationary in the video image as the aircraft turns. If the supposed UFO was an actual aircraft, it would have to be flying rapidly along a path circling our aircraft, in absolute synchronism with our turn rate, and remaining the same distance away. An impossible task!

Therefore, the spot MUST be due to a speck of schmutz that is attached to our aircraft, and, indeed, attached to (or inside) the video sensor optics.

(3) In this image, the horizon line is tipped sharply right, so the aircraft is turning left quite rapidly.

Notice that the supposed UFO is now, quite clearly, an irregular piece of schmutz in the optical system. It is dark due to the Sun angle.

(4) The supposed UFO is now light due to the Sun angle. If  you view the linked CNN video you will see that the schmutz, in addition to changing from dark to light, has changed shape a bit. That leads me to believe it may be stuck to a part of the optical system that is subject to external forces, such as the airstream or the centrifugal forces associated with the rapid turn rate.

BOTTOM LINE: Neat videos, but definitely not evidence of any type of UFO (unless the "aliens" are very small and traveling in aircraft made of tiny balls of schmutz that have the ability to penetrate inside our avionics systems).

Ira Glickstein