Diamond-shaped Calvine "UFO", alleged US Navy/USAF black project

[Hansblix]

The very first thing that illustration brought to mind is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_lantern

There was a large and acknowledged military response with chinooks. There is a lot of physical evidence from the incident. Additionally the road was torn up in the middle of the night and replaced. Much like scattering scrap parts from older military jets when an F-117 crashes.

It’s a really fascinating story that has more fact than fiction.

Do you have a trustable online link to an authoritative official report to corroborate any of these claims? I'm asking because at least one website I checked with regard to those assertions thoroughly debunked them. The only way to settle this is documented proof positive, and the onus is on the claimant, i.e. you. Per the Sagan Standard, ECREE. Otherwise, sky lanterns rule

There has been a lot of recent work to debunk this and it seems this event did not happen.

 

[archipeppe]

Then I suppose both of you have missed the point: I replied to Black Dog as he is referring to posts made on ATS. My point was that a particular poster there is the source for the jalopnik article. The idea of a companion aircraft has credibility for me due to that one individual. Companion mission is something still only hinted of ('buddy-lasing' is of the TR-3a/F-19 theme).

Talk of a 'TR-3A' or 'F-19' completely discredited all early mention of an F-117 Companion from late-Eighties/early-Nineties (and continues to do so).

However... the former boom operator who has given brief details of such an aircraft on ATS in the last year is the real deal:

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/confessions-of-a-usaf-kc-135-flying-gas-station-boom-op-1578048155

(See also http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,16089.msg170370.html#msg170370)

The idea that the "TR-3" serves as a high altitude lasing platform for the F-117 is odd. Lasers don't work so well from high altitude, or through weather. The F-117 wasn't designed to hit mobile targets which might necessitate such a "buddy" platform.


Throughout the 80s the press reported that the stealth fighter was the product of the "CSIRS" program (Covert Survivable In-Weather Recce/Strike). When the F-117 was revealed to be a strike aircraft, some people wondered where the covert recce component was. This may have been where the idea of a "buddy" aircraft came from, at least in relation to the "TR-3". Now there is some certainty that there was no "CSIRS" program at all.

Hello,

Alongside Dr David Clarke of Sheffield Hallam University, I was recently involved in a small way in finding and publicising an original print of the 1990 Calvine "diamond" photo (see: https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/2022/08/12/the-calvine-ufo-revealed/)

View attachment 684084

Assuming, for a moment, that the photo shows a real vehicle, and perhaps ignoring the alleged witness claim that it was hovering and silent, I was wondering whether anyone with knowledge of black project UAVs could say whether they feel it fits the bill as having been created under/within AARS, please? I am specifically thinking of QUARTZ, TEAL CAMEO, TEAL RAIN, etc.

I have been reading "Air Force UAVS - The Secret History" by Thomas Ehrhard (https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA526045.pdf) and several other detailed posts on SP - many from quite a few years ago - that hint that there might well have been a super-UAV (very expensive, long-endurance, stealthy, etc) made in the late 80s and early 90s that was the "cat's pyjamas", a real quantum leap in tech, to be used for locating and tracking Soviet SS-24 and SS-25 rail- and road-mounted ICBMs in the days preceding WW3.

Elsewhere, I also know that Dr Clarke was interviewing a former high-level defence source when the latter, unprompted, turned the conversation to Calvine and said:

that the diamond was real,
that it was American,
that it had been tested over the low countries (presumably playing a part in the 1989-1991 UFO flap),
that it was used in the Gulf War,
and that its defining purpose had been to loiter over enemy territory and scan for targets to be subsequently destroyed by B-2 stealth bombers.

If anyone is also able to privately share a copy of the PhD thesis, Ehrhard, Thomas, "Unmanned aerial vehicles in the United States armed services: A comparative study of weapon system innovation", I'd be grateful to hear from them, too.

Thank you.

It reminds me an Aeron airship seen from side view.....

 

[martinbayer]

The very first thing that illustration brought to mind is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_lantern

There was a large and acknowledged military response with chinooks. There is a lot of physical evidence from the incident. Additionally the road was torn up in the middle of the night and replaced. Much like scattering scrap parts from older military jets when an F-117 crashes.

It’s a really fascinating story that has more fact than fiction.

Do you have a trustable online link to an authoritative official report to corroborate any of these claims? I'm asking because at least one website I checked with regard to those assertions thoroughly debunked them. The only way to settle this is documented proof positive, and the onus is on the claimant, i.e. you. Per the Sagan Standard, ECREE. Otherwise, sky lanterns rule!

Prove it didn’t happen.

That's not how it works, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot.

 

[jstar]

" periodically over the next few minutes flames shot out of the bottom, flaring outward, creating the effect of a large cone. Every time the fire dissipated, the UFO floated a few feet downwards toward the road. But when the flames blasted out again, the object rose about the same distance."[3]" My first thought on reading this segment was : Hot air balloon as observed by two frightened individuals.

 

[martinbayer]

" periodically over the next few minutes flames shot out of the bottom, flaring outward, creating the effect of a large cone. Every time the fire dissipated, the UFO floated a few feet downwards toward the road. But when the flames blasted out again, the object rose about the same distance."[3]" My first thought on reading this segment was : Hot air balloon as observed by two frightened individuals.

I agree - see my sky lantern comment above.

 

[Dynoman]

Square balloons for scientific purposes and lenticular airships have been around for a while. My first impression of the 'UFO" is that it is a tethered balloon that someone happened to get a photo of with an aircraft flying in the background.

 

[Dew]

Square balloons for scientific purposes and lenticular airships have been around for a while. My first impression of the 'UFO" is that it is a tethered balloon that someone happened to get a photo of with an aircraft flying in the background.

Eh, I tend to think if it's a genuine picture (rather large if there !) then I struggle to see it being something tethered (or a balloon for that matter). If it was tethered (to what?!) then where the picture purports/appears to have been taken/made to look like it was taken (delete as applicable) then it would have been noticed by many more civilians. if it was faked then there was nothing tangible to tether to!

edit: being kind, nothing in your attachments looks like the Calvine picture, and wtf would they be doing in Perthshire?
double edit: by 'genuine' I mean 'as it is presented'. I don't particularly doubt it's (the actual photo's) provenance (i.e. could well have been sent to the Scottish paper in the 90's), but the whole thing is fishy.

 

[Hansblix]

" periodically over the next few minutes flames shot out of the bottom, flaring outward, creating the effect of a large cone. Every time the fire dissipated, the UFO floated a few feet downwards toward the road. But when the flames blasted out again, the object rose about the same distance."[3]" My first thought on reading this segment was : Hot air balloon as observed by two frightened individuals.

I agree - see my sky lantern comment above.

A sky lantern as tall as a water tower. Can I buy that on Alibaba.com? A UFO is more believable than that.

 

[martinbayer]

" periodically over the next few minutes flames shot out of the bottom, flaring outward, creating the effect of a large cone. Every time the fire dissipated, the UFO floated a few feet downwards toward the road. But when the flames blasted out again, the object rose about the same distance."[3]" My first thought on reading this segment was : Hot air balloon as observed by two frightened individuals.

I agree - see my sky lantern comment above.

A sky lantern as tall as a water tower. Can I buy that on Alibaba.com? A UFO is more believable than that.

Look at the fifth and sixth photographs from the top on the right hand side of the Wikipedia article under the link I provided.

 

[Hansblix]

" periodically over the next few minutes flames shot out of the bottom, flaring outward, creating the effect of a large cone. Every time the fire dissipated, the UFO floated a few feet downwards toward the road. But when the flames blasted out again, the object rose about the same distance."[3]" My first thought on reading this segment was : Hot air balloon as observed by two frightened individuals.

I agree - see my sky lantern comment above.

A sky lantern as tall as a water tower. Can I buy that on Alibaba.com? A UFO is more believable than that.

Look at the fifth and sixth photographs from the top on the right hand side of the Wikipedia article under the link I provided.

I’m not saying they don’t exist. You have had NASA, lawyers, the Air Force, journalists and scientists all heavily study this event as one of the most compelling cases and not 1 has ever said a massive sky lantern in the middle of Texas.

 

[martinbayer]

There's a first time for everything.

 

[Hansblix]

There's a first time for everything.

Exactly. It just didn’t happen if there wasn’t a photo taken of it

 

[CJGibson]

Exactly. It just didn’t happen if there wasn’t a photo taken of it

Such a simplistic position to take.

I might have a Leica-lensed camera in my pocket today, you might have one with a Zeiss, Sony or Hasselblad lens in your pocket, always on you. Wasn't always the case. There was a time when you had to make a positive decision to carry a camera. Not many folk carried an SLR or even an Olympus XA or a Rollei 35 on a day-to-day basis like we carry camera phones today. I didn't and I'd class myself as a keen photographer.

As I think one of the denizens of this very forum has pointed out, since the advent of the camera phone there's not been many UFO sightings.

Chris

 

[Hansblix]

Exactly. It just didn’t happen if there wasn’t a photo taken of it

Such a simplistic position to take.

I might have a Leica-lensed camera in my pocket today, you might have one with a Zeiss, Sony or Hasselblad lens in your pocket, always on you. Wasn't always the case. There was a time when you had to make a positive decision to carry a camera. Not many folk carried an SLR or even an Olympus XA or a Rollei 35 on a day-to-day basis like we carry camera phones today. I didn't and I'd class myself as a keen photographer.

As I think one of the denizens of this very forum has pointed out, since the advent of the camera phone there's not been many UFO sightings.

Chris

This entire forum is based around black projects that are so deeply classified, what has been pieced together is speculation at best. The same can be said for the numerous projects that will never have a proof positive of existence.

 

[CJGibson]

Exactly. It just didn’t happen if there wasn’t a photo taken of it

This entire forum is based around black projects that are so deeply classified, what has been pieced together is speculation at best. The same can be said for the numerous projects that will never have a proof positive of existence.

So why the 'No pic-no happen' statement?

Chris

 

[Hansblix]

Exactly. It just didn’t happen if there wasn’t a photo taken of it

This entire forum is based around black projects that are so deeply classified, what has been pieced together is speculation at best. The same can be said for the numerous projects that will never have a proof positive of existence.

So why the 'No pic-no happen' statement?

Chris

My apologies. Mr. Martin Baker has been saying that to everything I have commented on in this thread. That comment was a bit cheeky and directed towards them.

 

[CJGibson]

My apologies. Mr. Martin Baker has been saying that to everything I have commented on in this thread. That comment was a bit cheeky and directed towards them.

Apology accepted.

I've been hearing it for decades and well, it gets tiresome.

Chris

 

[jstar]

" periodically over the next few minutes flames shot out of the bottom, flaring outward, creating the effect of a large cone. Every time the fire dissipated, the UFO floated a few feet downwards toward the road. But when the flames blasted out again, the object rose about the same distance."[3]" My first thought on reading this segment was : Hot air balloon as observed by two frightened individuals.

I agree - see my sky lantern comment above.

A sky lantern as tall as a water tower. Can I buy that on Alibaba.com? A UFO is more believable than that.

The average height of a hot air balloon is 60-80 feet tall. Average water tower is 130 to 150 feet.

 

[jstar]

Exactly. It just didn’t happen if there wasn’t a photo taken of it

Such a simplistic position to take.

I might have a Leica-lensed camera in my pocket today, you might have one with a Zeiss, Sony or Hasselblad lens in your pocket, always on you. Wasn't always the case. There was a time when you had to make a positive decision to carry a camera. Not many folk carried an SLR or even an Olympus XA or a Rollei 35 on a day-to-day basis like we carry camera phones today. I didn't and I'd class myself as a keen photographer.

As I think one of the denizens of this very forum has pointed out, since the advent of the camera phone there's not been many UFO sightings.

Chris

UFO's emit a type of radiation that renders the electronics in cell phones cameras temporaraly useless. Doesn't do anything to film, though. Everybody knows that.

 

[martinbayer]

Exactly. It just didn’t happen if there wasn’t a photo taken of it

This entire forum is based around black projects that are so deeply classified, what has been pieced together is speculation at best. The same can be said for the numerous projects that will never have a proof positive of existence.

So why the 'No pic-no happen' statement?

Chris

My apologies. Mr. Martin Baker has been saying that to everything I have commented on in this thread. That comment was a bit cheeky and directed towards them.

It's Bayer, not Baker, and I'm a singular person, not a collective or company, so it's him, not them.

 

[Mr London 24/7]

Elsewhere, I also know that Dr Clarke was interviewing a former high-level defence source when the latter, unprompted, turned the conversation to Calvine and said:

that the diamond was real,
that it was American,
that it had been tested over the low countries (presumably playing a part in the 1989-1991 UFO flap),
that it was used in the Gulf War,
and that its defining purpose had been to loiter over enemy territory and scan for targets to be subsequently destroyed by B-2 stealth bombers.

Almost exactly one year before the two walkers made this sighting at Calvine in Perthshire (from which they saught zero publicity - ever), Chris Gibson had his sighting (admittedly of something quite different) from the Galveston Key rig in the North Sea.

That sighting was apparently enough for General Hogle to be overheard advising someone to ask McMahan in an attempt to possibly prepare to dismiss the story.

There's the potential for a couple of vague links between some of this disparate stuff, often best posted here at this forum over so many years. The UK's DI55 certainly seemed to think something was up around the same time period.

The idea that some kind of LTA vehicle could have been a stealthy receiver or sometime emitter in some kind of last-of-the-Star-Wars-budget/end-of-the-Cold-War-era TEL-plinking/MiG-killing scenario is an interesting one.

I always like to return to this *actual video* of someone's 'Friday project' tumbling through the skies at the S-30 radar range in Nevada to remind me of just how weird things can get ;-)

 

[CJGibson]

Welcome back Mr London 24/7. Where ye been? Inside?

Chris

 

[CiTrus90]

Of possible interest.

 

[publiusr]

Another Calvine type allegedly spotted over Argentina...pix making the rounds on the interwebs

 

[RavenOne]

Another Calvine type allegedly spotted over Argentina...pix making the rounds on the interwebs

hmmm, ncant find any links on web

cheers

 

[Hydroman]

It reminds me an Aeron airship seen from side view.....

Also doubles as a USN submersible target. Kind of on the plump side, switch to gluten-free fuel to prevent bloating.