“shaped like a cross”—hmm, not quite as I expected. Suddenly checking the wiki page on X-32.
If I recall correctly, didn’t he say it was moving in a cross pattern, so you’d expect it to leave a cross shaped disturbance if it were a vtol jet? I’m not actually sure, he usually says it was moving erratically, quite sudden changes in velocity. I wonder if that would be consistent with 1) a human-piloted vtol, or else 2) a drone-piloted vtol (much more comfortable with very abrupt velocity changes?)?
But how do you reconcile this with “no rotor wash”? Wouldn’t that disturbance look similar to that?
I’m drawing pictures that’re about as big for me as he says this thing was for him given his memory of his distance from the surface when he was above it, and it really isn’t easy to argue that a pilot could mistake a triangle at this distance for a capsule, given that a capsule isn’t even something he’d be primed to expect (?). But maybe as you say that sort of perceptual error fits within the weirdness margin.
The sudden disappearance of the object does not sound explicable if it was a regular plane. Note that he says one of the planes was keeping a distance, an overview, it also said it just disappeared. (This is easily explicable if it were an optical decoy being projected from a drone somewhere, either it was turned really fast, or it just turned off)
If I recall correctly, didn’t he say it was moving in a cross pattern
Not that I recall. He said that the choppy water was cross shaped, and that the object above was moving erratically. Which I interpret to mean, it was cross shaped at any one time, and the cross shape was moving erratically leading him to erroneously conclude that the object was moving, due to the lack of any other visual reference.
This leads me to make the postdiction that the VTOL jet output is emitted in a cross shape. If I’m wrong that a conventional human-tech VTOL jet (or even, less significantly, the X-32 itself) can have output emitted in such a shape, count that as evidence against my interpretation.
But how do you reconcile this with “no rotor wash”? Wouldn’t that disturbance look similar to that?
“no rotor wash”, as I understand it, is based on the assumption that the FLIR videos were showing the same object. Since in my interpretation the FLIR videos were caused by a glitch, this is to be expected regardless of whether the original object had rotor wash or not.
and it really isn’t easy to argue that a pilot could mistake a triangle at this distance for a capsule
It wouldn’t call it a triangle exactly, it’s more like a diamond shape. I expect he may have interpreted opposite sides of the diamond (i.e. diagonally relative to the actual orientation) as the front and back. Later on, he would have seen it more sideways, but may not have noticed any difference since the X-32 also looks really weird side on especially from slightly below (see the main photo on the wiki article) .
Note that he says one of the planes was keeping a distance, an overview, it also said it just disappeared
No, he asked the other plane about it when he lost sight of it and they then said they couldn’t see it. Which is not the same thing at all—they may have lost sight of it at any time between the original sighting and that point. Note that he explicitly says he wouldn’t have been able to see it if it weren’t for the choppy water, so it would have been easy to lose track of.
If I recall correctly, didn’t he say it was moving in a cross pattern, so you’d expect it to leave a cross shaped disturbance if it were a vtol jet? I’m not actually sure, he usually says it was moving erratically, quite sudden changes in velocity. I wonder if that would be consistent with 1) a human-piloted vtol, or else 2) a drone-piloted vtol (much more comfortable with very abrupt velocity changes?)?
But how do you reconcile this with “no rotor wash”? Wouldn’t that disturbance look similar to that?
I’m drawing pictures that’re about as big for me as he says this thing was for him given his memory of his distance from the surface when he was above it, and it really isn’t easy to argue that a pilot could mistake a triangle at this distance for a capsule, given that a capsule isn’t even something he’d be primed to expect (?). But maybe as you say that sort of perceptual error fits within the weirdness margin.
The sudden disappearance of the object does not sound explicable if it was a regular plane. Note that he says one of the planes was keeping a distance, an overview, it also said it just disappeared. (This is easily explicable if it were an optical decoy being projected from a drone somewhere, either it was turned really fast, or it just turned off)
Not that I recall. He said that the choppy water was cross shaped, and that the object above was moving erratically. Which I interpret to mean, it was cross shaped at any one time, and the cross shape was moving erratically leading him to erroneously conclude that the object was moving, due to the lack of any other visual reference.
This leads me to make the postdiction that the VTOL jet output is emitted in a cross shape. If I’m wrong that a conventional human-tech VTOL jet (or even, less significantly, the X-32 itself) can have output emitted in such a shape, count that as evidence against my interpretation.
“no rotor wash”, as I understand it, is based on the assumption that the FLIR videos were showing the same object. Since in my interpretation the FLIR videos were caused by a glitch, this is to be expected regardless of whether the original object had rotor wash or not.
It wouldn’t call it a triangle exactly, it’s more like a diamond shape. I expect he may have interpreted opposite sides of the diamond (i.e. diagonally relative to the actual orientation) as the front and back. Later on, he would have seen it more sideways, but may not have noticed any difference since the X-32 also looks really weird side on especially from slightly below (see the main photo on the wiki article) .
No, he asked the other plane about it when he lost sight of it and they then said they couldn’t see it. Which is not the same thing at all—they may have lost sight of it at any time between the original sighting and that point. Note that he explicitly says he wouldn’t have been able to see it if it weren’t for the choppy water, so it would have been easy to lose track of.