US Air Force's 1950s Supersonic Flying Saucer Declassified 300
MrSeb writes "Tighten the strap on your tinfoil hat: Recently declassified documents show that the US Air Force was working on, and perhaps had already built, a supersonic flying saucer in 1956. The aircraft, which had the code name Project 1794, was developed by the USAF and Avro Canada in the 1950s. One declassified memo, which seems to be the conclusion of initial research and prototyping, says that Project 1794 is a flying saucer capable of 'between Mach 3 and Mach 4,' (2,300-3,000 mph) a service ceiling of over 100,000 feet (30,500m), and a range of around 1,000 nautical miles (1,150mi, 1850km). According to declassified cutaway diagrams, the supersonic flying saucer would propel itself by rotating an outer disk at very high speed, taking advantage of the Coand effect. Maneuvering would be accomplished by using small shutters on the edge of the disc (similar to ailerons on a winged aircraft). Power would be provided by jet turbines. According to the cutaway diagrams, the entire thing would even be capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). The fact that there are no disc-shaped aircraft in the skies today, though, suggests that the USAF's flying saucer efforts probably never got past the prototype stage."
So how did this interact with pop culture? (Score:4, Insightful)
The 1950s were saucer crazy. And apparently the US government was too, at about the same time. So was this leakage from inside the weapons program showing up in Hollywood or were the engineers looking at Ed Wood movies and saying, "Yeah, let's give that a shot"?
1950: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Saucer [wikipedia.org]
1956: crazy USAF saucer design
1959: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Outer_Space [wikipedia.org]
Re:so all those people weren't crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It all sounds vaguely familar... (Score:4, Insightful)
Helicopters are usually extremely loud and, most importantly, simply unable to fly faster than 300mph or so: any faster and the supersonic shockwaves from the rotors tips (keep in mind those are traveling at helicopter speed + rotational velocity) destroys it's ability to fly. This could go much, much faster, as fast as you want, and probably be a fair bit more maneuverable.
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Re:Didn't Get past prototype (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but if you are using inductive reasoning, there is no difference between proving a negative and proving a positive. The only thing that allows you to make a reasonable conclusion in those cases is statistics. For example: the if the Higgs boson was believed to be observed with a 5 sigma certainty, you can't prove absolutely that its apparent existence wasn't due to random interactions. Conversely, if it wasn't observed with a 5 sigma certainty, you can't prove absolutely that its apparent nonexistence wasn't due to random interactions. Only a belief in statistics will resolve this inherent problem with inductive reasoning.
Since we use inductive reasoning in the real world, saying that you can't prove a negative has no meaning if you don't provide context. Intelligent Design and Russel's Teapot are unlikely, but not impossible. Statistics allows us to throw these ideas in the trash. The fact that UFOs aren't identified often is another item that we can use to dismiss the existence of flying saucers still being flown by the USAF. The certainty isn't nearly as high as something like Russel's Teapot, but it isn't something to be ignored either.
Re:so all those people weren't crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
No most of the reports were nutjobs with wild imaginations. SOME of the reports were a military prototype.
No flying saucer for you! (Score:4, Insightful)
"The fact that there are no disc-shaped aircraft in the skies today, though, suggests that the USAF's flying saucer efforts probably never got past the prototype stage."
Not so! It in fact suggests that the Greys filed a cease-and-desist suit with the Galactic Court to stop humans from producing a craft in that shape. They won, and *that* was when the Americans really sat up and started taking notice of Patents.
Other galactic species are talking behind their back, though, because the Greys sued with a design patent based on "rounded corners" for a flying saucer...
Re:so all those people weren't crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes people do see something, but they just didn't understand the technology at the time. There was some preacher missionary on a Pacific island who reported hearing a buzzing noise and seeing a craft that looked a glass dome on legs hovering above the tree-line, being controlled by a pilot who seemed to be sitting at a chair pushing and pulling levers. They achieved some basic communication where the preacher bowed, and the craft's pilot reciprocated. I hate to say this, but it does sound a bit like a navy helicopter.
Re:so all those people weren't crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
You looked up the stars and satellites but didn't think to film this amazing event?
Difficulties identifying flying objects (Score:5, Insightful)
People's brains are not especially good at identifying objects above the horizon. We typically determine the size and distance of distant objects with visual cues because our stereoscopic vision is limited to close range. For example, we are able to determine the distance of a person because we know (generally) how big a person is. If there's something next to him, we can then know it's size (by comparing it's apparent size to the apparent size of the person) and distance (it's about the same distance as the person). But in the absence of these visual cues, we are unable to determine the size and distance (as well as a host of related factors such as velocity and acceleration) of objects. Moreover, even the color of objects is determined by visual cues, since we color correct images to account for differences in lighting.
This leads to a lot of difficulty in identifying objects in the sky. Since flying objects are not arranged in a plane, we can't use their position in relation to the horizon to approximate their distance. Nevertheless, we often do. The moon seems to be much larger when it's near the horizon because we assume objects near the horizon are much farther away (the moon also appears larger due to atmospheric distortion, but this effect is minor).
Re:so all those people weren't crazy (Score:5, Insightful)
You assume that they can even see light in visible wavelengths.
That's our visible wavelength, you insensitive clod.