The Flight Characteristics and Physics of UAP

Summary

This presentation analyzes the physical flight characteristics, energetics, and observable signatures of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) based on military sensor data, peer-reviewed physics literature, and case studies. It evaluates the Department of Defense AATIP ‘Five Observables’—positive lift, sudden acceleration, hypersonic velocities without signatures, trans-medium travel, and low observability—alongside physical anomalies such as low thermal signatures, optical distortion/lensing, relativistic kinematics, and strong magnetic field effects. The authors propose analytical models for UAP propulsion and travel metrics, considering both plasma mechanics and subluminal warp drive concepts.

Page 1: Title Slide

THE FLIGHT CHARACTERISTICS AND PHYSICS OF UAP

KEVIN H. KNUTH 1,2,3, MATTHEW SZYDAGIS 1,2,3, DAVID MASON 2

1. DEPT. OF PHYSICS, UNIVERSITY AT ALBANY (SUNY), ALBANY NY, USA
2. UAP EXPEDITIONS (UAPX)
3. SCIENTIFIC COALITION FOR UAP STUDIES (SCU)

Page 2: UAPX Team and Expedition Overview

UAPX HTTP://UAPEXPEDITION.ORG

Team members pictured:

• Jeremy McGowan, US Air Force, ret.
• David Mason
• Prof. Matthew Szydagis
• Senior Chief Kevin Day, US Navy, ret.

Page 3: The Five Observables

THE FIVE OBSERVABLES ADVANCED AEROSPACE THREAT IDENTIFICATION PROGRAM (AATIP) DIA PROGRAM 2007 - 2012

1. Positive Lift
2. Sudden/Instantaneous Acceleration
3. Hypersonic Velocity without Signatures
4. Trans-Medium Travel
5. Low Observability or Cloaking

Page 4: Scope of UAP Cases and Anomalies

The VAST MAJORITY of UAP are misidentifications of astronomic and atmospheric phenomena or conventional aircraft. Another large proportion are hoaxes.

Only about 3% of UAP are of interest as a subset of those appear to be Anomalous Unidentified Aircraft.

Page 5: Mistaken Identity - Vancouver Case

MISTAKEN IDENTITY Vancouver BC [Image showing distant airborne object over harbor shipping cranes, Rob8 2005]

Page 6: Mistaken Identity - Sea Gull Explanation

MISTAKEN IDENTITY Vancouver BC Sea Gull [Image showing close-up resolution and motion blur comparison revealing the object to be a seagull in flight]

Page 7: Altered Images

ALTERED IMAGES The stars are not real. Guess what else probably isn’t real??? Copyright: Tim Ley 1997 [Image of iconic triangular UFO over silhouette cactus landscape]

Page 8: Structured Craft Identification

SOME UAP HAVE BEEN PARTIALLY IDENTIFIED AS STRUCTURED CRAFT

THESE CASES ARE OF GREAT INTEREST

Page 9: Section Overview - Physical Observables

THE FIVE OBSERVABLES AND OTHER PHYSICAL OBSERVABLES

Page 10: Positive Lift

POSITIVE LIFT

Important Points: • No apparent lift or control surfaces • Unknown how lift is generated • Capable of flying/hovering for LONG periods of time • when chased by jets, jets often run low on fuel (eg. Washington DC 1952; Lakenheath 1956) • Propulsion Mechanisms Unknown • No heat signature from engines or exhaust

US Homeland Security, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. April 26, 2013

Page 11: Sudden/Instantaneous Acceleration

SUDDEN/INSTANTANEOUS ACCELERATION

Important Points: • “Instantaneous” really means Too High to Measure • Estimated / Measured accelerations range from about 70g to over 5000g

Drop maneuver: 28,000 ft to 0 ft in 0.78 s Kevin Day, (RADAR) Nimitz Encounter 2004

Citation: Knuth, Kevin H., Robert M. Powell, and Peter A. Reali 2019. “Estimating Flight Characteristics of Anomalous Unidentified Aerial Vehicles” Entropy 21, no. 10: 939. https://doi.org/10.3390/e21100939

Page 12: Hypersonic Velocity Without Signatures

HYPERSONIC VELOCITY WITHOUT SIGNATURES NO SONIC BOOMS

Important Points: • UFOs have been tracked at Hypersonic Speeds in air Hypersonic Speeds as high as:

• Mach 55 ≈ 42,500 mph (Oberth 1954)
• Mach 60 ≈ 46,000 mph (Knuth, Powell, Reali, 2019) • No energy deposition when decelerating or stopping
• Nimitz 2004 drop maneuver should have deposited at least 4.3 × 10^11 J of energy (100 tons of TNT) assuming a mass of 1000 kg (Knuth, Powell, Reali, 2019)

Quote from Hermann Oberth (1954): “Their speed is sometimes very high. 19 km/sec has been measured with wireless measuring instruments (radar). Accelerations are so high that no man could stand it; he would be pressed to the wall and bruised. The accuracy of such measurements has been doubted. If there would be only 3 or 4 measurements, I would not rely upon them and would wait for further measurements, but there is existing more than 50 such measurements; the wireless sets (radar) of the American Air Force and Navy, which are used in all fighters, cannot be so inaccurate that the information obtained with them can be doubted completely.”

Page 13: Relativistic Rocket Equations

RELATIVISTIC ROCKET EQUATIONS

t is the elapsed time in the galactic frame τ is the elapsed time in the spacecraft a is the acceleration of the spacecraft d is the distance traveled in the galactic frame c is the speed of light

t = (c/a) sinh(aτ/c) = sqrt((d/c)^2 + 2d/a) τ = (c/a) sinh^-1(at/c) = (c/a) cosh^-1(ad/c^2 + 1) d = (c^2/a) (cosh(aτ/c) - 1) = (c^2/a) (sqrt((at/c)^2 + 1) - 1) v = c tanh(aτ/c) = at / sqrt((at/c)^2 + 1)

SCU / AAPC Meeting, Huntsville AL USA 3/17/2019 13

Page 14: Velocity Under Acceleration

VELOCITY UNDER ACCELERATION

Plots comparing relativistic flight dynamics:

• Ship Speed under Constant Acceleration (100g): • Class IIIb (8.5 hours) • Class IV (1.1 days) • Class Va (4.7 days) • Class Vb (7.3 days)
• Ship Speed under Constant Acceleration (1000g): • Class IIIb (0.9 hours) • Class IV (2.7 hours) • Class Va (11.3 hours) • Class Vb (17.5 hours)

SCU / AAPC Meeting, Huntsville AL USA 3/17/2019 14

Page 15: Galactic Travel Range at 100g Acceleration

Range at a = 100g Acceleration

• 90 Days Ship Time (3,800 LY) at a = 100g • 100 Days Ship Time (13,200 LY) at a = 100g • 110 Days Ship Time (53,000 LY) at a = 100g

At a 100g acceleration to the Midpoint followed by a 100g deceleration, a ship could traverse the galactic disk in about 4 months (ship time). Of course, relative to those in the galaxy, the trip will take about 100,000 years.

These things are thought to be spacecraft because they have the capability to move like interstellar spacecraft.

Annotated Roadmap to the Milky Way (artist’s concept), NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech), Edited by K. H. Knuth

Page 16: Trans-Medium Travel

TRANS-MEDIUM TRAVEL

Important Points: • UAPs can travel effortlessly in multiple media: space (vacuum), air, water, solids? • Insignificant change in speed when entering a different medium

The Aguadilla UAP enters the water at a speed of just over 100 mph, and continues traveling through the water at about 85 mph.

Graph 1: Speed measured every 50 frames (Underwater <v> = 85.7 mph) US Homeland Security, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. April 26, 2013 https://www.explorescu.org/post/2013-aguadilla-puerto-rico-uap-incident-report-a-detailed-analysis

Page 17: Low Observability or Cloaking - Size Variation and Disappearance

LOW OBSERVABILITY OR CLOAKING

US Homeland Security, April 25, 2013, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico

Important Point: • Not only does the blurred object appear to change size, it also almost disappears!

Page 18: Low Observability or Cloaking - Plasma Sheath

LOW OBSERVABILITY OR CLOAKING PLASMA SHEATH

Important Points: • UFOs are sometimes surrounded by what appears to be a plasma sheath • One source of emitted light • Plasma and Heat make images blurry via plasma glow and refraction

US Navy Gimbal imagery 2015 © 2021 Ray Stanford Multi-Witness Event, Emerald Cove Pier, Corpus Christi TX, Oct 5, 1985, 4:51 pm CST Natural image from super 8mm film Imagery Not Independently Vetted (The Super 8 film was viewed by Christian Lambright a few months after it was recorded.)

Page 19: Hypersonic Velocity Without Signatures - Plasma Beam Drag Reduction

HYPERSONIC VELOCITY WITHOUT SIGNATURES PLASMA BEAM AHEAD

References & Engineering Studies:

• The War Zone: “Blasting The Air In Front Of Hypersonic Vehicles With Lasers Could Unlock Unprecedented Speeds” by Brett Tingley, September 24, 2020
• Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering: Laser induced air ignition shock wave modification diagrams
• Kevin Kremeyer, US Patent US20120234395A1: “Air is heated off-axis to generate asymmetric drag-reduction, thereby facilitating control.”

Page 20: Plasma Beam Ahead and Bottom-Forward Orientation

HYPERSONIC VELOCITY WITHOUT SIGNATURES PLASMA BEAM AHEAD

Important Points: • Stanford claims to have witnessed and photographed a plasma beam ahead effect in 1985 • Stanford notes that the disk-shaped metallic object flew bottom-forward (least aerodynamic) • Oberth (1954) also notes that disks typically fly bottom-forward

Quote from Hermann Oberth 1954: “The disks always fly in a manner as if the drive is acting perpendicular to the plane of the disk; when they are suspended over a certain terrain they keep horizontal; when they want to fly very quick, they tilt (tip) and fly with the plane directed forward. In sunlight, which is brighter than their own gleaming, they appear glittering like metal.”

Page 21: Low Observability or Cloaking - Multi-Imaging

LOW OBSERVABILITY OR CLOAKING MULTI-IMAGING

US Homeland Security, April 25, 2013, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico

Important Points: • UFOs are often observed to split into multiple objects • In many cases, this appears to be an optical effect • Contributes to blurred imagery

Page 22: Multi-Imaging Dynamics and Flickering

LOW OBSERVABILITY OR CLOAKING MULTI-IMAGING

Important Points: • Multi-imaging can be very subtle • Multiple images can appear and disappear many times a second: Flickering • Multiple images can be at different orientations from or different views of the object • Objects can look as if they are dividing or spawning other objects

US Homeland Security, April 25, 2013, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico

Page 23: Low Observability or Cloaking - Distortion Field

LOW OBSERVABILITY OR CLOAKING DISTORTION FIELD

US Homeland Security, April 25, 2013, Aguadilla, PR

Important Points: • Objects are surrounded by a volume through which background imagery can be seen to be distorted • Is this optical refraction due to a varying index of refraction? • Is this distortion or lensing due to a Gravitational Field???

Page 24: Low Temperature Anomalies - Go Fast Video

LOW TEMPERATURE

US Navy Go Fast video • The FLIR is set so that HOT OBJECTS are BLACK. • The Go Fast UAP is White • This UAP is colder than its surroundings • This is unusual for a machine, which is expected to dissipate waste heat!

Page 25: Low Temperature Anomalies - FLIR Capture of Trefoil Craft

LOW TEMPERATURE

FLIR Camera (ThermaCAM PM695: 7.5 – 13.0 µm) video of a Trefoil-shaped Craft following a Jet Airplane. David Mason (UAPx), Sept 30, 2019. Renton Washington, USA

• The Jet Airplane is clearly hot. • Trefoil was captured in two different cameras. The Trefoil Object/s has a temperature of about −60° F. • Trefoil was ONLY visible in long-wave IR — NOT visible using Night Vision (short-wave IR) !!!

Page 26: Low Temperature Implications and Metric Warping

LOW TEMPERATURE IMPLICATIONS

• The fact that some UAPs are observed to operate at very low temperatures, argues against the hypothesis that these particular objects are warping spacetime in a manner similar to the Alcubierre metric. • The Front of a moving object is red-shifted (cooler) • The rear of the moving object should be blue-shifted (hotter). • The bottom of a hovering / flying craft ought to be strongly blue-shifted (appear hotter). • Strong blue-shift of thermal blackbody radiation could explain radiation burns in victims during encounters (eg. Cash–Landrum Incident, Texas 1980; Operação Prato, a Brazilian Air Force investigation 1977-1978).

Page 27: Physical Warp Drives

WARP DRIVES?

Bobrick and Martire, 2021 Introducing physical warp drives Class. Quantum Grav. 38 105009 (22pp)

“We show that a class of subluminal, spherically symmetric warp drive spacetimes, at least in principle, can be constructed based on the physical principles known to humanity today”

Visuals: US Navy Gimbal imagery (2015), Ray Stanford imagery (1985), and schematic illustrations of warp-drive spacetimes (asymptotically-flat vacuum background, stationary curved region with spherical topology, and inner flat passenger space).

Page 28: Strong Magnetic Fields

STRONG MAGNETIC FIELDS

Important Points: • UFOs are often associated with strong magnetic fields • These magnetic fields can adversely affect electronics in airplanes and other vehicles

Reference: FIFTY-SIX AIRCRAFT PILOT SIGHTINGS INVOLVING ELECTROMAGNETIC EFFECTS Richard F. Haines, Ph.D., Copyright 1992

ABSTRACT: Reports of anomalous aerial objects (AAO) appearing in the atmosphere continue to be made by pilots of almost every airline and air force of the world in addition to private and experimental test pilots. This paper presents a review of 56 reports of AAO in which electromagnetic effects (E-M) take place on-board the aircraft when the phenomenon is located nearby but not before it appeared or after it had departed. These effects are not related to the altitude or airspeed of the aircraft. The average duration of these sightings was 17.5 minutes in the 37 cases in which duration was noted. There were between one and 40 eye witnesses (average = 2.71) on the aircraft. Reported E-M effects included radio interference or total failure, radar contact with and without simultaneous visual contact, magnetic and/or gyro-compass deviations, automatic direction finder failure or interference, engine stopping or interruption, dimming cabin lights, transponder failure, and military aircraft weapon system failure. There appears to be a reduction of the E-M energy effect with the square of increasing distance to the AAO. These events and their relationships are discussed. This area of research should be concentrated on by other investigators because of the wealth of information it yields and the physical nature of AAO including wavelength/frequency and power density emissions.

Page 29: Conclusions

CONCLUSIONS

• Some of these UAPs appear to be ANOMALOUS PHYSICAL OBJECTS exhibiting numerous observable physical effects • It should not be assumed that they are the same type of thing. • If they are craft, it cannot be assumed that they all have the same origin, characteristics, or exhibit the same technologies. • Potentially a diversity of technologies exists to match the diversity of objects • UAPX is actively studying these objects.

HTTP://UAPEXPEDITION.ORG

Page 30: Summary of Physical Observables

The Physical Observables

1. Propulsion mechanisms do not produce waste heat
2. UAPs can withstand extremely high accelerations
3. Minimal interaction with the surrounding medium (air, water). What about solids??
4. Optically Distorted (difficult to obtain clear images) a. Low-Observability or Cloaking (Nearly Invisible) b. Plasma Sheath c. Distortion Field (Refraction? Gravitational Lensing?) d. Multi-Imaging
5. Extremely Low-Temperatures (≈ −60° F) a. No obvious waste heat
6. Extremely Strong Magnetic Fields a. EM interference with conventional electronics b. Faraday Rings (interference with polarized light)