OK Jim, whatever you say. The US military is dysfunctional and it and homeland security cannot defend the homeland against the threats they spent the last 15 years preparing for. You're absolutely right.
I wasn't going to post this until this new thread was created, but now that it is here, and I put in the work to make this composite image.... here we go! Please affix your tinfoil hats!The "bird" that passes *in front* the F9 as it explodes appears in 8 frames of the original video (the 30fps video, not the upconverted 60fps interpolation junk). I took those 8 frames and cut them up in GIMP so that I only had the 1/8th of the frame which contained the "bird", and then stitched them all together to make a composite of the flight path. Keep in mind that because the "bird" is moving from right to left, time in this stitch is also moving from right to left. The slice that contains the rocket is actually the second frame of the video which showed the explosion, the slice one to the right is actually when the explosion began. Anyway, what struck me about the "bird", and the reason I keep using quotes around that word -- is that the "bird" appears to be behind the lightning tower in the final frame. I know, I know -- this is probably a compression artifact. BUT -- maybe it really is behind the lightning tower. Seems impossible -- if it did fly behind the tower, it would have to be traveling at least mach 2 (closer to mach 3) in order to cross the field of view in only 1/4 second. And MUCH faster than that if it was even 2 miles out to sea. But in the realm of crazy ideas, a hypersonic vehicle passing by the rocket at the exact moment it explodes is about as crazy as it gets. I wouldn't even post this if that last frame wasn't so strange -- the "bird" does not change much in terms of brightness or apparent size though out its' brief appearance except for that last frame! There is no dark body ( a 2x2 pixel area present in all of the previous frames) and the lightning tower does not appear to be distorted in any way. Again, I don't know much about image compression beyond what I learned reading the landing video reconstruction thread a while back. So maybe there is a good explanation for why the "bird" appears to be behind the tower when in reality it is still only a hundred meters in front of the camera. But I can't explain it personally.
Anyway, what struck me about the "bird", and the reason I keep using quotes around that word -- is that the "bird" appears to be behind the lightning tower in the final frame. I know, I know -- this is probably a compression artifact. BUT -- maybe it really is behind the lightning tower.
Quote from: PreferToLurk on 09/09/2016 11:47 pmAnyway, what struck me about the "bird", and the reason I keep using quotes around that word -- is that the "bird" appears to be behind the lightning tower in the final frame. I know, I know -- this is probably a compression artifact. BUT -- maybe it really is behind the lightning tower.At best, I see the blur as being adjacent to the corner of the tower, not behind it. IMHO, what looks like a vertical spike from the corner of the tower in front of the blur is an artifact. If the blur was in the vicinity of the rocket, it would have been illuminated, as least slightly, in those last few frames but I don't see any real difference.
Ultimate conspiracy theory.Shawyer created a working emdrive and was going to drag race the f9 to orbit
Quote from: glennfish on 09/10/2016 12:27 amUltimate conspiracy theory.Shawyer created a working emdrive and was going to drag race the f9 to orbitA working EmDrive is no longer a conspiracy theory :-P
How big would that "bird" be to have been behind the towers. It's a bird out of focus nearer the camera.
I'm not sure if this is wacky or not, but I might be seeing something real, or just animals in the clouds. It looks like three events happen that are separate from the 'fireball'. Something shoots out to the left, a flame leaps out to the left, and then flames leaps out to the right. If you watch the original video further, you can see that smoke to the right looks different then the fireball, too. Or maybe I'm seeing things..
FWIW, re gunshot theory.An F9 is 12' wide. At, say, 3600 yards - about 2 miles - that's a 6 2/3 minute of angle target, well within capability for a competent marksman. But after that, the problems pile up:- As noted above, you have to have figured out how to 'one shot kill' an F9.- You have to have your ballistics dead on, and get your windage correct through 2 miles of air.- For comparison, the longest recorded sniper kill on a human target is 2700 yards. Shooting at that range with enough residual energy to kill requires something like a 50 cal or a 338 Lapua. Hard to conceal, very hard to keep quiet.- To punch 3/16 aluminum plus an inner structure, you likely need to have a supersonic projectile at target. (I don't actually know terminal ballistics of a 50 or 338 vs. aluminum plate.) That means you will have the characteristic 'whip crack' of a supersonic projectile at the target and all along its path there, which should be picked up on any sound sensor.
We did track some objects earlier in the discussion thread three or so IIRC. I saw one to the left going down... Have a look, in case you didn't see it.http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30981.1200