The NEW UFOs:
An overview of Drone and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles:
Unmanned Arial Vehicles or, Remotely Piloted Aircraft/ Vehicles and similar
phrases all describe a multitude of variants in craft that require no human
operation on board.
The military have used these for a very long time and the recent transport of
one by low loader in the U.S.A. caused a media stir amongst passing
traffic as it made transit between airbases. This has inspired me to write
further on these crafts, due to the significant increase in their sightings.
Although some reports remain strange and unexplained in their behaviour,
BUFORA has received a marked increase in the last two years in relation to
these objects. They have either proven to be definitively U.A.V.s or at least
highly probable as the cause of a significant number of some of these witnessed
UFOs.
If this kind of technology was almost exclusively for military or other
government use up until about fifteen years ago, it most certainly is not the
case now. The first attempts at some kind of automatic piloting in the early
to mid-twentieth century is well known in predicted flight plans and
mechanisms attributed to German V rocket attacks in the second world war.
Although prone to errors, many succeeded in getting close to targets but
these were vary reliant on descent governed by fuel cessation measurements to
achieve target drops.
Weather balloons and reconnaissance cameras have been employed with gas
filled craft including dirigibles, which we know so well as a leading
argument in the Roswell case. As silent runners, these have been responsible
for countless UFO reports which continue to this day. Naturally, these
examples are all craft that have various levels of unpredictable changes in
direction, reliant on fuel supply or wind direction.
Then we reach the next level of technology in guided missiles and planes,
including spacecraft launches, which become more exact in their trajectories
and targets, this includes the ability to correct courses and keep them
stable to achieve their target.
The guided missile and unpiloted spy planes have seen the most expenditure,
if we account for the more recent reliance on global positioning satellites,
allowing guidance over greater distances. The development of these throughout
the 1980’s into a rapid expansion of a network of satellites was driven by the
cold war and ‘Star Wars’ with some satellites planned to be fitted with
sensory equipment disabling laser beams.
Satellites have been progressively populating in proliferation in the orbit
of the earth, with new civilian networks for television, radio, meteorology
and aviation support. It has to be remembered that there are many of these in
orbit that have been able to save lives or safety, with regards to hurricane
prediction and navigation during the most testing weather conditions. The
long range cameras used by some satellites caused a media frenzy when the
first pictures came through from space of an image of the text of a newspaper
being read on the ground.
If surveillance could be this good in orbit, then back in normal air space
the capacity for assistance in farming, street planning and geographical
surveys into the 1990s would ultimately follow on from this space technology.
It is ironic that after we enter the new century, we have a police assistance
aerial drone watching the crowds at a summer solstice event at Stonehenge,
yet just a short distance from this monument this technology was instrumental
in finding ground traces and depressions leading to definitive discovery of
Woodhenge which predated the existing stone monument.
We have satellites as orbital surveillance, which have been the cause of
thousands of UFO sightings, including the fully fitted solar panels making
craft such as the International Space station the brightest non-planetary or
star object in the sky.
On the ground level, the first planes to fly under a sense of true remote
control were first experimented with from the first to second world wars but
if we now add in the further development of radar and radio transmissions
after this period, this is where the shapes of craft become far different
from their manned-flight cousins.
As there is now not the need to keep a pilot supported and an oxygen supply
and seating arrangements, the modern jet planes are now capable of being a
multitude of different shapes and sizes, due to the power and weight ratios
changing. The capability of rapid turns and sudden dives or rises that would
cause various degrees of pilot fatigue or compromise is now cast aside in
design constraints.
The most basic of shapes is the guided missile, no longer just a long range
rocket for launching military or space programme payloads. We have seen the
much smaller version of the mini-rocket in the shape of missiles originally
launched from planes now needing no assisted vehicle and able to complete
missions with completely self-guided or remotely controlled guidance systems.
Many of these resemble rockets but with small wings and a small front window
with forward guidance equipment or sensors and cameras elsewhere on the
fuselage
.
In more recent times, the rocket shapes have been joined by remote airships,
which can be down to the tiniest sizes and to improve manoeuvres, they have
wing shapes built into the shape of the main blimp, almost giving the
impression of a balloon derived plane that has an over-inflated fuselage.
These have been responsible for a lot of UFO sightings but as we know, there
were many of the new expanded delta wing type of planes that moved on the
Vulcan bomber outline to become more of a triangle shape which we know as the
stealth bomber today. These were responsible for a considerable amount of UFO
reports generally around the 1980’s and onwards, but there are still
many UFO reports that remain unsolved or inconclusive due to these triangles
defying all conventional manoeuvres and markings/lights.
In a recent air show to attract new interest, we have seen the unmanned
version of the stealth triangle shape, now much smaller and remotely or
automatically controlled. These are the small cousins of the originals and
may have the potential to cause sightings in the future for those not
convinced that the craft was large enough to be a terrestrial stealth shape
of the larger established variety.
The most striking change in unmanned vehicles in the last decade is the rise
of affordability both military and civilian use. In rapid response to
military situations, the faster jet and conventional engine planes will be
afforded by allotted military expenditure, including drone helicopters.
In the last ten years, there have been massive rises in the propeller and
battery cell version of the small engine helicopter versions. These have been
responsible for a very marked rise in UFO reports. The power to weight ratio
has seen a meeting in the middle of the model aircraft at the small scale and
the conventional fuel helicopter or propeller plane at the other.
The weight ratio of these newer small UAPs is dealt with by stripping the
frame down to very light tubular steel or plastic skeletons with a battery
cell and camera mount in the centre of the frame. The most conventional
frames are quadrilateral, with some varieties just having a central control
unit, with four simple single rods coming out of the unit in an ‘X’
formation.
In either variety, the triangle or quad shapes at their end points house a
rotor blade and these are optimised to work at different speeds to change
altitude and direction, thus bypassing additional rudder mechanisms.
As these newer types of craft have kept weight to a minimum, they are joined
by cameras, normally in a centrally housed glass or plastic dome. If we look
at how little weight there is to a mobile phone and quality of sound, picture
and live recording they are able to perform whilst weighing so little, it is
no surprise to see this technology easily fitted to a very light framed
multi-propeller unit. This has created a very light and strange looking
object. Although they may not achieve the fast speed of a jet or conventional
airliner, their ability to hover or suddenly dive or rise is not an issue, as
g forces on a human occupant are not an operational issue.
The continuing development of battery technology and solar power efficiency
have improved in leaps and bounds in the last two decades, these kinds of
drones are able to remain in the air for ever increasing periods of times
before requiring a recharge or maintenance checks. In the U.S.A. in
particular, they have been rather controversial in being used as hovering
alternatives of cameras that were once used to CCTV monitor on the tops of
buildings and street lamps. In the same way the U.K. had a wave of activity
protesting against speed cameras and their vandalism, so we have seen signs
of aversion to these airborne camera systems. There will be civil
liberty issues over privacy with these UAPs which have also seen the
U.K. become aware of the implications and debates over fair and
intrusive use.
On the positive side, these mini-drones have been immensely useful for
disaster assistance in earthquakes and other similar natural disasters; they
have also been extremely valuable to archaeologists and climate study.
In crowd and security issues, the UAPs have assisted in monitoring safety at
large events such as gatherings and events, to ensure crowds do not become
concentrated and also provide rapid response to social disturbances that
would not have been detected on the ground. In the case of many of these
controversial or positive situations, the use of conventional piloted
helicopters and planes would have been impossible on the grounds of
conventional aircraft and personnel costs.
So where does this leave us in the UFO arena? There will be versions of these
flying which may have the propeller units at the top side of the aerial unit,
which means from the ground, a viewer may mostly see just the orb shape of
the camera system. To those not used to seeing the quad-frame of these units,
they will look extremely strange and their hovering and manoeuvring manners
will certainly provoke curiosity or possible alarm.
As this kind of technology becomes lighter and cheaper to build, they have
now made an appearance in models which are affordable to buy for the general
public. These can be run solo but now even linked together in formations and
the most recent development has seen them controlled by iPad and other
handheld computer applications and control interfaces.
The non-civilian versions of these are not concerned with their aesthetic
appearances, but with the public purchased versions, they have been
embellished with all sorts of L.E.D. light effects and some with brighter
lights, based on the balance of battery cell time and how much aerial time
the purchaser would prefer. With programmes developed to allow these to fly
in formation and interact with more than one operator, these may also provide
some potential further UFO reports in future sightings.
What I have not attempted to write about is the vast amount of individual
technical data of each of these summarised categories of UAP. It is purely to
note that the very first of these, many decades ago, may have been responsible
for UFO reports that pre-date BUFORA’s formation.
This short article is to alert investigators and researchers that according
to our data, there is a marked rise in probable or definitive sightings that
have seen the UAP. No longer exclusively the use of armed service but small
and more affordable, these aerial units have become increasingly affordable
and more common place in their use in more civil and urban deployment. It is
also to note that the technology is becoming ever more affordable in use as a
leisure pursuit and as an aid to scientific, safety and security
applications. The UAP has definitely now made its way into our top twenty of
UFO reports in the CE1 category to consider in some investigations. The UAPs
now join with other recent IFO reports which include the now brightly shining
International Space Station and sky lanterns as potential in identifying some
sightings.
In many cases, the UAP will be quite obvious to identify but as with
conventional planes, it only takes seeing some objects at strange angles and
trajectories or in unusual circumstances which may generate a report.
This recent rise in UAP objects appearance and behaviour and its rapid and
diverse development of shapes and types still leaves us with statistical data
that remains; that approximately 95% of all UFO sightings are explainable by
conventional events in the sky and on the ground. The remaining 5% continues
to be researched by us onwards into our next half century.
For further research and images, just input ‘UAP’ or ‘drone’ to any search
engine to see the continuing shapes and sizes that are in current or past
development.
Matt Lyons
Copyright BUFORA 2013.
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