Big Black Delta Mystery Solved?

jonerik writes "According to this article from Space.com, hundreds of sightings of enormous arrowhead-shaped aircraft that have been logged since the 1980s just might have been solved. According to a new report by the National Institute for Discovery Science, the craft (referred to as Big Black Deltas, or BBDs) are massive black airships on the order of 600 feet long, 300 feet wide, and 40 feet tall, weighing on the order of 100 tons and capable of carrying huge loads over long distances. Since a 2001 NIDS study correlated sightings of large triangular or delta-shaped objects with Air Force Materiel Command and Air Mobility Command bases throughout the United States, it's assumed that the BBDs are DoD transport airships. Dr. L. Scott Miller, professor of Aerospace Engineering at Wichita State University, agrees with much of the NIDS report. 'I do think that a large airship, with a heavy lift and other mission objectives, has been built,' says Dr. Miller. 'Lockheed has shown a great deal of interest in airships for many years. The real question is whether the Department of Defense has committed to buy and use such machines.'"

how about....

[jormurgandr]

Bill Gates' personal "transport". After all, the best way to hide money from the government is to spend it, right?

Mystery Solved?

[sllort]

That's awesome that they've proved these massive airplanes have been kept secret from us for so long. When can I fly on one? Can someone mirror the pictures of them on the runway? Maybe some Slashdotters can go to the airbase where they're based and get some snapshots of the crew!
I'm so glad we have proof now!

It's like the square root of a million....

[gfxguy]

No one will ever know. (Nelson from the Simpsons)

Sure... Aliens aren't visiting us

[ObviousGuy]

These airships have the ability to remain stationary in the air and then accelerate to maximum speed almost instantaneously.

Sure.

It's a trick!!

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just trying to get you to take your tinfoil hat off! Don't do it!

Re:Mystery Solved?

[anotherone]

Slashbots? Go outside? Not bloody likely.

Help

[CableModemSniper]

I can't seem to find the "-1: Crackpot" mod.

Airship

[papasui]

Great you got an airship now all you need is a guy named Cid to fly it and some dudes with swords.

Re:Electrokinetic Drive?

[Bearpaw]

"Elecrokinetic propulsion means that no propellers or jets are used."

Someone want to explain that one?

It's a form of buzzword propulsion.

Re:Mystery Solved?

[cpeterso]

Did you even read the Space.com article? They had a photograph [space.com] of one such "BBD".

I've solved it....

[T3kno]

NIDS invented NADS the Australian hair removal system. The flying wedge is the transport system that will be used to systematically drop free samples of Nads over Europe, the Middle East, and Russia where excessive hairyness is a problem.

Re:Why would they classify airships?

[sirsex]

I don't think these modern wars can get much shorter. The Gulf War was over before my popcorn got cold.

Sadly...

[NanoGator]

... the key witnesses to one of the sightings, Vicks and Wedge, were killed before they could take the stand.

Re:Electrokinetic Drive?

[Maniakes]

Airships are big balloons. We've all rubbed balloons against our shirts, then stuck them to the wall. This is an "electrostatic" effect. If you rub an airship against a big enough shirt, it will accellerate towards the nearest large wall. The clever bit is that you pile a bunch of drywall slabs on the back of a truck, then drive the truck around while the airship follows. Since the wall is moving, the effect is "electrokinetic".

I'm waiting for a report that the development of the large shirts in the 1950s was partially responsible for the Paul Bunyan legend.

Re:Electrokinetic Drive?

[cpeterso]

Elecrokinetic propulsion means that no propellers or jets are used.

I think that means they are using telekinesis. That would explain why the CIA is harboring so many al Quaeda members in psionic prisons in Cuba. Islamic people are well known to have strong psychic powers. There brand of Evil is strong.

Re:Electrokinetic Drive?

[the way, what're you]

"Elecrokinetic propulsion means that no propellers or jets are used."

Simple - if it does not use propellers or jets, then according to the quote, it must be using electrokinetic propulsion. Examples of this include paper airplanes, baseballs and automobiles. :)

Nonsense, they're really...

[dpilot]

Vogan survey ships, measuring and laying out the interstellar bypass. Sometime in the next decade the Constructor ships will arrive.

Support your local poet.

Hey man, don't bogart the consciousness

[xant]

Consciousness studies are usually conducted with what I would term "consciouness aids". In the Timothy Leary sense. This could explain almost everything else this website reports on.

Re:Mystery Solved?

[JoeBlows]

umm...that is a computer image.

They're out there, waiting and invisible

[patiwat]

The airships don't come and go - they're out there constantly. They're just invisible, both to optical and radar wavelengths. The ships are actually filled with tall, thin, vicious aliens who want to exploit earth's natural resources and kidnap earth's children.

The reason they haven't landed yet is because they find earth's atmosphere poisinous. The high humidity burns their skin the way hydrochloric acid burns human skin. They haven't developed the appropriate environmental suits yet because (despite being able to traval intersteller distances) they're not that smart, and don't know, for instance, how to turn door knobs. They're also confused about where to land, since all of their original crop sign navigation markers were soon replaced by the work of Disney executives and 30 year-old nerds who don't have girlfriends.

Patiwat Panurach
[e-mail]

Re:Electrokinetic Drive?

[dark&stormynight]

Actually, they're using multiple Vectored Cow Flatulence Propulsion Modules. They have cows suspended in frames that squeeze the cows in the right places producing hugh amounts of thrust. If you've read this far...then it must be true.

Big Black Delta Mystery Solved?

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Big Black Delta Mystery Solved?"

One really shouldn't use the words 'Big' and 'Delta' in the same headline unless it is about Delta Burke. I had to read a little ways in before I realized I had the wrong image in my mind.

Re:Bullshit. I saw one.

[Peridriga]

Thank you for posting...

An appointment has been made for a visit by many men in dark suits and black sunglasses to visit you and 'explain' to you what you 'really saw'.

Please contact [e-mail] to schedule a time that is acceptable for you. We will most likely disregard you request and just shove you into a black van during the day.

Once again, thank you for your coperation on this matter.

The Management,
-- Employee #82108302

Re:Mystery Solved?

[uncoveror]

And now, local news. That black triangle we all saw yesterday was not a UFO. It was a military airship developed by Lockheed. In an unrelated story, a dozen or so area farmers reported livestock mutilations, including goats and cattle. More news after these messages.

Re:You know what is really interesting is

[platypus]

They don't need no stinking antigravity gadgets to let these things fly. I'll tell you what they do.

These ships are made of super light but super solid nanotechnological materials. Since they are so light, they fly practically without any technology. Read more books!

Btw. their windows are made of diamonds.

Recently overheard at Lockheed's Skunk Works...

[Shadow Wrought]

"Hey guys, you'll never guess what they think we're building this time!"

Re:Why would they classify airships?

[Fred Ferrigno]

Incidentally, it was the government's stated goal during the Gulf War to eliminate Iraq as a threat in the Middle East for at least 10 years. The Gulf War was in 1991. Iraq's a little overdue for an ass-whooping.

Re:What about the radar return?

[blair1q]

NEXRAD has a pixel resolution of about a kilometer, and can be jammed by a squirrel fart.

You shoulda sent for the X-Ray specs, tho'. Those things are amazing.

--Blair

Re:It's a trick!!

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Actually, in the words of Mon Calimari Admiral Ackbar...

"It's a Trap!"

Re:Why be so secretive?

[echucker]

Ahh.... so that's where the nuclear wessels are. ;-)

Re:Mystery Solved?

[Anonymous Coward]

that's what they want you to think.

Re:Bullshit. I saw one.

[Just Some Guy]

$ host www.mib.gov
www.mib.gov does not exist (Authoritative answer)

At least, that's what they'd like you to believe...

Re:What about the radar return?

[ColaMan]

But I did get an ad in the mail just the other day for my very own phased-array NEXRAD weather radar

*inside secret military craft, a warning light comes on.*

Pilot: "Looks like we're lit by a ground-based bogey bearing two-four-oh , approximately two-point-five miles."

Copilot: "Powering up laser."

6PM news: "And in local news , there was a massive explosion in an apartment building at 2:30am this morning. The occupants are presently missing, feared dead. Authorities state the occupants were using some kind of "weather radar" device and were known "hackers". Authorities caution that this kind of dangerous apparatus should not be in the hands of the general public. They have declared an amnesty on the return of these devices intact and anyone in the local area possessing them should hand them in to their local police station immediately."