and another question...

[Jo Zebedee]

Sorry, loads today.

I have a scenario where an alien ship has landed in a forest. Now, this part of England is very flat with scattered forests and my ufo hunting team, who I want to find the ship before the military, are looking for the ship. I'm thinking that they know if it's in the flat country the army will inevitably find the crash site first, so have decided to centre their search on the wooded areas.

1. does it sound plausible that the army would carry out a wide search before narrowing it down to individual areas like the forest?

2. would you buy the smaller team finding it first in this scenario?

3. if not, in what way would you?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Umm luck?
Or
Army waiting for pass of polar orbit spy satellite so are not searching AT ALL. They don't know it's a "race". When they have the satellite images they know exactly where to go. They can read capital letters about 60cm quite well (now in reality). An alien ship is easy. Why would they waste time searching?

Spy satellites are often in polar orbits so that they cover the entire earth, in strips. So you may have to wait some hours. Lower ones are faster and closer but narrower strips. Higher orbits are slower but wider strips, less resolution.

Note "Google Earth" so called "Satellite views" if any detail are actually aircraft surveys, not satellite!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I wondered if it would be possible the army didn't know. The crash happened in an area with lots of low-flying fighter test jets, so the crash is covered by what the witnesses assume is one of the test flights, so there may be no reports of the crash. Then I wondered if something like that could happen. I think I can use an energy surge idea to draw the attention of people specifically looking for UFOs, to give the explanation of how they turn up.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I would buy they know ESPECIALLY if it is a test flight area, but are in no rush as it's not one of theirs. They wait the few hours for photography as they are short of resources. (hint how many jets are bombing IS in Iraq?).

Also your expert UFO people can have a passive radar using reflections from Military Radar. These are easy to do now. I was thinking of fitting one here to monitor Shannon and Woodcock Hill Atlantic approach radar. The Human plane traffic unless in a War zone all has transponders easy to monitor you can add to lap top screen. So a "flight" radar reflection with no transponder is immediately an UFO (which can be Meteor, Balloon, shower of ice or alien craft).

There are even websites where all the ship and aircraft transponders around UK are streamed live online by enthusiasts running Transponder scanners 24 x 7 and servers.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I can explain in more detail ...

The cheapest and easiest way to go radarspotting is using an internet connection and web browser.

There are lots of websites where you can track aircraft flying around the world in realtime. Some require a subscription but most are free and a great introduction to radarspotting. As well as tracking flights, you can check the registration and type and view a picture of the actual aircraft. Most sites will also display the flight number and the route.

some links
http://www.coaa.co.uk/planeplotter.htm
http://www.radarspotting.com/forum/


Passive radar is nothing to do with reception and decoding transponders (above links) which is simple.
With passive Radar you have one fixed dish (a 2nd hand solid satellite dish on chimney) pointed at the local radar site. With a suitable piece of converter on dish arm (off the shelf) and an Off the shelf PC card based "radio" you pickup the transmitted radar pulses.
You have a 2nd movable dish which is an identical setup. It picks up the reflections from the aircraft. The difference in time (corrected for distance you are from real radar) of the pulses allows calculation of distance. The dish position at that instant is the direction. It's totally passive so no transmission, no laws broken, no dangerous radar pulse transmitter.

 

[Brian G Turner]

2. would you buy the smaller team finding it first in this scenario?

I would expect them to display their skills and talents to do so, not merely by luck. Ray's suggestion about radar is interesting.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Ray you're amazing. I might plague you as this goes on further.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Springs, some questions for you!

1. Is the army/government response one that base on today's reality, or do you have a UFO hunting department who actually believe in extraterrestrials and would stop at nothing to get to the site because they know that there is something very important?

2. Is the story set today, in the world of twitter and facebook?

The first question is important because if you want to do a real government response there won't be a big concerted effort to find anything (I believe the UK government currently takes the view that UFO's are atmospheric phenomena of some unknown scientific process, and are not of any threat to national security). That does not mean they would not come out in force - it depends on the circumstances - if the crash was reported as an air plane crash, seen by official people or quite clearly caused a lot of damage. Yes then they could well be out in force. (but not looking for aliens.) On the other hand if you have a fictional branch of the army as alien hunters, then they would probably there quite quickly - unless they are useless! So it depends on how far from reality you want to take the government!

The second question is relevant I think, because in the past people phoned the emergency services and news on 'strange things' happening got to official quite quickly (usually not really taken seriously of course, but the reports are there.) Now I think people will be more likely to post things immediately on twitter or post pictures on facebook and elsewhere. 'OMG seen bright light in sky hit behind hill.' etc...

If you have a government response that is lukewarm, 'cause it don't believe in extraterrestrials (at first!), and an amateur group who are responding instantly to the twitterati/internet (maybe one of your team is a conspirational techie who follows such things online and can pinpoint where all the reports are coming from?) Then I personally could buy that the amateurs get there first.


You may be interested in an article on a 'real UFO crash in the UK' that occurred in the Berwyn mountains in 1974. The article I have is from the Fortean Times* #252 (August 2009) p30 - it's written by Andy Roberts. At the moment the latest version I can find of it online is an older 2001 version that doesn't have all the info that the '09 version has. Essentially he tells the myth, then examines what really happened - including what the government response at the time was (and also what army responses were to other events that may help you decide on a response.) Unfortunately the 2009 version is, I think, better but I'd have to type it in and send it to you at the mo'. Tell us what you want: This is the 2001 one to whet your appetite. http://www.uk-ufo.org/condign/berwart.htm

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* p.s. This sort of story is bread and butter to Forteans like me, as it's part of the vast amount of stuff that the said Fortean Times regularly dips into with glee - I have to say I'm quite surprised that no one here on Chrons seems to read this brilliant magazine. [Note to Brian - this is not an advert . Purely my personal view!] UFO's, ancient mysteries, ghosts, faeiries and folklore, monsters, black magic, Fortean literature and huge amounts of all sorts of weirdness - that really help me (at least!) as a SF&F writer. Can be serious (science-y or arty), always fun and generally on the sceptical side of issues but it is welcoming on a broad range of stances (best if you are at least willing to suspend your belief and develop an open approach.)

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I've dipped into the Fortean times from time to time, too, itms good fun. Great link, thanks, I'll read it in full tonight.

It is set in the real world, and I have factored in the Facebook/Twitter-age. The ufo hunter is also a minor media celebrity so he can access the media well and can go viral quite quickly, which is important I think. But your first response ie do nothing is the perfect one and coincides nicely with Ray's. Fab.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Hope it helps! I think the interesting thing about the differing responses is seen best in what Andy Roberts pieces together as the official response in 1974 to whatever happened (on page 6 of the article, paragraph starting 'Following the 8.38pm earth tremor..') and the response that he highlights when a plane with top secret equipment crashed into the mountains on the page afterwards.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Okay, clever blokes. Will this wing it for me:


“We need to keep it off the military channels.” (said the kooky ufo hunter)

“Won’t they already know about it?” I asked. “Surely they’ll have picked up the craft?”

He smiled, big and broad. “Whatever came down didn’t have a transponder on board. The military won’t know what we have here.”

“A transponder?” They were talking a different language, taking it for granted as if I should know what they meant. “What’s that?”

“It sends out signals. Every aircraft carries one. And Dad’s team track the sky for anything on their flight radars that doesn’t have a transponder.” He grinned at his dad. “Of course, that mostly means we’re chasing weather balloons all over the country.”

“But not always,” said Brent. “For once we got lucky.”

 

[Venusian Broon]

Wouldn't fly by me I'm afraid .

Civilian radars look for transponder signals - because (I think) by international aviation law all civilian aircraft must have one. But Military radar is also geared to look for things that do not have transponders (i.e. If the Russkies were to attack the UK with a fleet of aircraft they were highly unlikely to switch on their transponders to allow us to track them from afar!)

However that means that military radar is also highly sensitive to all sorts of known and unknown signals - i.e. you can pick up clouds of insects and flocks of birds off radar, have strange bounced signals off temperature inversions, etc... It's a very messy business, I believe, and you get all sorts of false signals and weirdness. (Hence the reason that they made all civilian aircraft have transponders - it simplifies air traffic control, you get rid of all the crud that doesn't really matter!). I'd imagine that a military grade radar if it is trying to pick up objects in real time it needs a great deal of data processing to cut through the random noise and chatter. (I'm sure others know better than me about this, so don't take my word!)

And perhaps if they are data processing you have a chance - because a military radar could miss a crashed UFO because it does not look like a plane, which is really what they are looking for - so if it moves fast 'like a large meteor' they will dismiss it as one and ignore such radar data collected.

i.e. Because they are not looking for it they won't see it, basically. If you catch my drift.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

So, why won't what I put not fly then? I'm essentially saying the same thing, but simplistically because I don't want to get into an info dump - He's not saying the military don't know that something came down, just that they're not interested. Is that not the same thing?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

As I said earlier, even if the military are interested they may wait for the next satellite pass. They don't move the survielence sats, just wait for the imagery.

I think springs has it about right. A single crashing blip too, with no transponder also doesn't look like a military attack. The RAF etc wouldn't rush out without a photo.

 

[Venusian Broon]

It's just the bit about transponders and the military. They will, like your kooky ufo hunter's dad, be looking out for things without transponders.

I'd go for: because the track of the downed UFO is not like that of an expected threat (i.e. planes, missiles etc...), they will dismiss it as anything of interest.

I think me and Ray are sort of arguing the same thing.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think we're all on the same page, it's just the language that's varying. It's for a YA book, though, so .i don't want to slow it down with too much info.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

For my money the question comes down to what information each group has. Transponders are a bit of a red hearing when even civilian airliners can apparently turn them off - (why?). So MH370 vanished from civilian radar by clicking a switch and now we have no idea where it went down. But there are other ways to fool radar. And stealth technology is the most obvious.

So lets say your crashing UFO is stealthed. Radar misses it completely. Then the only information you have is eye-witness. And that comes out first as twitter etc. Which means if your team can access twitter, has a bunch of say algorhythms that can look for key terms across millions of tweets and then pull up sightings that way, they're in with a shot - especially if they get started before the military does.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I had thought of that - the social media thing (I had it first, actually) but for plot reasons don't want anyone to see it crashing. Also I worried that once on media the military would mobilise, too? Or the police?

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

It comes down to cleverness and the military don't have a monopoly on that. What you need is a system that not just picks up tweet, but does it chronologically and geographically. So you know if Jo reports seeing a silver ball in the sky to her west heading north at twelve and five minutes later frank does the same from another location, you have a rough course. It's rough and ready, but if you have enough tweets, you can plot a course.

Does the military even do this? I don't know. They might. But if they did, how would they respond? Not with a full scale operation. They might send a few teams around on exercises, maybe a chopper or two. They might start using their satellites. But unless they had a confirmed sighting - say a radar fix with an accurate course - they just aren't going to fully commit. They need approval from the top to order large scale deployment, and you don't do that based on a few sightings and no confirmed target. That gives you civies a little time to respond first.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[jotun913]

Sorry, loads today.

I have a scenario where an alien ship has landed in a forest. Now, this part of England is very flat with scattered forests and my ufo hunting team, who I want to find the ship before the military, are looking for the ship. I'm thinking that they know if it's in the flat country the army will inevitably find the crash site first, so have decided to centre their search on the wooded areas.

1. does it sound plausible that the army would carry out a wide search before narrowing it down to individual areas like the forest?

2. would you buy the smaller team finding it first in this scenario?

3. if not, in what way would you?

the military may have had a raider hit on it before it crashed if not the a small team will have a better chance of finding it if they knew where to look. but if they know where to look someone would have more than likely told the constables and they may have called it in to there higher ups if they invegasted it.