Kevin Knuth on The Physics of UAP

The 2004 Nimitz 'Tic Tac' object was tracked dropping from about 28,000 feet to sea level in 78 seconds.

these Tic Tac shaped objects were observed to drop from about 28,000 feet to sea level in 78 seconds

The minimum acceleration implied by the Tic Tac's reported descent works out to roughly 5,000 G's.

the minimum acceleration... comes out to be around 5,000 G's, 5,000 times the acceleration of gravity

An F-35's wings would rip off at about 13 G's, illustrating how far outside known engineering tolerance 5,000 G's would be.

an F-35's wings will rip off at about 13 G's, so 5,000 G's is really anomalous

Assuming a mass of roughly 1,000 kg (one-tenth of an F-18's ~10,000 kg), the power required for the Tic Tac's maneuver comes out to about 1,100 gigawatts, more than ten times total US nuclear power output.

one-tenth of the mass of an F-18 you come out to a power... of 1,100 gigawatts, this is more than 10 times the total nuclear power output of the United States

In a 1954 lecture on flying saucers, Hermann Oberth stated that UFOs had been measured by radar traveling at about 19 km/s (~42,000 mph), based on more than 50 such radar measurements.

in 1954 he gave a lecture on flying saucers where he pointed out that they have been measured to travel at speeds of 19 km a second... there is more than 50 such measurements

French researcher Claude Poher analyzed radar observations of an egg-shaped UFO at (what Knuth calls) 'Mino' Air Force Base in 1968, finding accelerations described as '2009 G's' and a top speed of about 9,000 mph.

here's another work done by French researcher Claude Poher who looked at the radar observations at Minot Air Force Base in 1968

A Japan Airlines pilot near Anchorage, Alaska in 1986 estimated a UFO that followed the plane to be about three times the size of a Boeing 747.

a JAL Airlines craft flew across Anchorage Alaska in 1986 followed by a large UFO... the pilot estimated to be three times the size of a 747

Radar data from the 1986 JAL case, reanalyzed by a researcher Knuth names as 'Dr. Kumbe' at the Niels Bohr Institute, showed 11 discrete 'jumps,' three with accelerations of 9,000 G's or more and a top speed of about 269,000 mph, with no sonic booms recorded.

he analyzed 11 jumps made by this aircraft-size object and found that three of those jumps... had accelerations of 9,000 G's or more with a top speed of 269,000 miles an hour

If the energy involved in the Tic Tac's abrupt stop had been released as an explosion, it would have been roughly equivalent to about 250 Tomahawk cruise missiles detonating simultaneously -- yet no such explosion, sonic boom, or fireball was observed.

it should have been an explosion about... the same amount of energy as 250 Tomahawk cruise missiles simultaneously blowing, that's what should have happened, it didn't

At a sustained acceleration of 1,000 G's, standard relativistic kinematics imply a craft could reach 90% of the speed of light in about 17 hours.

if you accelerate at 1,000 G's you can get to 90% the speed of light in 17 hours

At 10,000 G's of sustained acceleration, a traveler could reach any star within 50 light-years in less than a subjective day, while about 50 years would pass for observers who stayed on Earth.

at 10,000 G's you can get to all of those stars within 50 light-years... in less than a day, it's a day trip... for the rest of us it's 50 years

Bruce Maccabee's photographic analysis, as reported by Jacques Vallee, found a luminous UFO's light output on the order of 2,000 to 30,000 megawatts, assuming uniform radiation in all directions.

the luminosities are on the order of 2,000 to 30,000 megawatts of light coming off of this craft

If instead the object's light was directed as a beam toward the observing aircraft rather than radiated uniformly, the revised power estimate drops much lower (Knuth states a figure he gives as roughly '2 kilowatts,' though this appears inconsistent with the surrounding context of megawatt-scale figures).

you get a much lower estimate of the power which is about... close to 2 kilowatts, still a lot of power for a light

Jacques Vallee has summarized other UFO luminosity estimates ranging from tens of kilowatts to 500 megawatts.

Dr. Vallee has summarized other luminous power estimates from tens of kilowatts to 500 megawatts

McCampbell (1983) catalogued vehicle-interference cases in which car engines fail near a UFO and sometimes restart once the object leaves.

McCampbell in 1983 had identified several automobile interference types, you get engine disruption and failure, the engines sometimes fail to restart

An electric field of about 3x10^6 volts per meter around a UFO would be strong enough to short a gasoline car's spark plugs and distributor, stalling the engine, but would not stall a diesel engine (like the one in the truck depicted in Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

if you have a strong enough electric field... it's got to be on the order of three times ten to the sixth volts per meter, that'll short out the spark plugs

Rieger's catalog documents 268 cases where a car engine stopped near a UFO, and in 27 of those cases (about 10%) the engine restarted when the object left, matching Knuth's independent physics-based prediction of roughly a 10% restart probability.

in Rieger's catalog he has 268 cases in which the engine stops and in 27 of those it restarts when it leaves, the numbers match

Generating the electric field needed to short a car's ignition around a small UFO would require several coulombs of charge, roughly 10^9 joules of energy.

the electric fields... generated by a small UFO are going to require several coulombs of charge, which is a crazy amount... about 10 to the 9th joules of energy

A photograph published in 2012 shows apparent Faraday rings (polarization rotation) around a UFO, implying a magnetic dipole moment on the order of 10^11 to 10^13 amp-meters-squared.

the magnetic fields generating this have got to be on the order of 10 to the 11th to 10 to the 13th amp-meters-squared

Video from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, analyzed by SCU (the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies), shows an object entering the ocean at roughly 100 mph without a splash and continuing underwater at about 85 mph, at points accelerating.

the UFO dips into the water, doesn't make a splash... as the UFO hits the water at about 100 miles an hour it continues traveling... it only drops down to about 85 miles an hour

David Barnett, a sonar operator aboard HMNZS Southland, reported that in November 1986 the ship was repeatedly followed during exercises in the Hauraki Gulf by small unidentified submerged objects showing no propeller wash, and on one occasion by an object about 800 feet long -- roughly 30% longer than a Typhoon-class submarine.

they were followed, usually by one or two small USOs that did not have propeller wash... a large USO which beamed about 150 feet wide... 800 feet long, about 30% longer than a Typhoon-class submarine

Per Barnett's account, the 800-foot object closed a 20 km gap in about 30 seconds, passed under the ship, and knocked out all power, draining the batteries; the crew drifted for about 4 hours before flagging down a fishing boat.

the 800-foot USO closed the distance of 20 km... in about 30 seconds, went under their ship and took, killed all the power, the ship lost power, batteries drained... they had to wait for 4 hours

From the 20 km closing distance in 30 seconds, the object's minimum underwater speed is estimated at about 1,500 mph, with a minimum acceleration of about 4.5 G's, reaching a top speed of almost 3,000 mph underwater.

the minimum speed of the USO underwater is around 1,500 miles an hour... the minimum acceleration... would be one where you accelerate at a minimum rate of 4.5 G's underwater... reaching a top speed of about almost 3,000 miles an hour

Knuth argues that because trans-medium UFO/USO travel has been observed and recorded for about 140 years, AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick's public statement (after leaving AARO) that such objects are either foreign adversaries or alien does not fit the historical pattern.

I think Sean Kirkpatrick left AARO recently and he made some kind of public statement, these things are either foreign adversaries or alien, not 140 years ago

Knuth's UAPx colleague Matthew Szydagis has developed and is patenting a handheld, lithium-powered nuclear fusion reactor, intended to power UAP-observing equipment on the hypothesis that UAP detect nuclear material (possibly via neutrinos or gamma rays) and might approach it.

my colleague has developed a new technology, it is basically a handheld lithium-powered nuclear fusion reactor which he's now patenting

UAPx has a paper coming out in early [the following year] reporting initial results from its first field expeditions.

we have a paper coming out early next year on our initial results from our first field expeditions