From: PHARABOD@FRCPN11.IN2P3.FR
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: What is this ?
Date: 5 Oct 92 13:48:51 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: [via International Space University]
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

Phil G. Fraering changes my title "What is this ?" into "Mystery Alien
Object Invading European Airspace..." (I must say I disagree with this
new title) and writes (Fri, 2 Oct 92 12:24:33 -0500):

\Could not be an air to ground missile since nothing fell to the ground.
/Since the altitude displayed on the F-16's Westinghouse APG-66 radar
\display screen (upper right hand corner) has only two digits, 00 on
/this screen, and 0000 in the quoted report, means anything between
\0 and 500 feet (I think 0 = ground level, not sea level). The speed is
/the absolute value of the real 3-D vector speed (air speed ?), not the
\absolute value of its 2-D vector projection on the ground. (J. Pharabod)

(There is something wrong in what I wrote above: 0 was not ground level,
but sea level. Altitude of the ground is around 200 feet in this area
of Belgium - J. Pharabod)

>Don't be so sure. Have you heard of penetrators? It might have hit the
>ground and buried itself and gone unnoticed. (P. Fraering)

Interesting. Yes, I heard of those. Who could drop penetrators in a
highly populated area of Western Europe ?

\Nobody knows what it was (I mean, those who know keep silent...). In
/its SUMMARY REPORT ON OBSERVATIONS 30-31 MARCH 1990, Colonel (now
\General) De Brouwer, of the Belgian Air Force, writes:
/"...............
\ A total of 9 interception attempts have been made.
/ At 6 occasions the pilots could establish a lock-on with their air
\ interception radar. Lock-on distances varied between 5 and 8 NM. On
/ all occasions targets varied speed and altitude very quickly and
\ break-locks occurred after 10 to 60 seconds. Speeds varied between
/ 150 and 1010 knots. At 3 occasions both F-16 registered simultaneous
\ lock-ons with the same parameters. The 2 F-16 were flying +- 2 NM
/ apart. ............."  (J. Pharabod)

>Just wondering, but I recall a while back that some Viggens on
>excercises in the Baltic once tried a lock-on to an SR-71, just to
>prove that they could catch it if they wanted to. This was "way
>back when."
>Target lock lasted all of three seconds before being overwhelmed
>by ECM. (P. Fraering)

Very interesting.

>            The "black" projects the US has been building all have
>heavy emphasis on stealth characteristics (passive ECM, as it were)
>and more active forms of ECM.
>I have heard speculation that the Belgian UFO's were American spook
>vehicles that were not capable of that sort of acceleration, but
>of making an F-16's radar _think_ it had seen something that could
>do that. (P. Fraering)

Yes. This, for instance, had been advanced by the French monthly
"Science et Vie", mainly in the article "C'est vrai: je l'ai vu" by
Dominique Caudron, October 1990.
I heard that the Belgian military, after a lengthy study of the video
record of the radar display screen, don't think it was ECM (at least,
that they are pretty sure it was not any kind of ECM known to them).
But I am waiting for confirmation. The problem with this kind of
inquiry is that you have:
1) only a part of official reports, since much is classified (as far
as I know, not "top secret", but only "confidential")
2) more or less direct information about the classified part
(private discussions, letters or phone calls).
Therefore I am still not convinced that it was not ECM.

J. Pharabod