Sensor sanity toolkit
A camera does not measure speed
The single most common error in UAP discussion is reading a velocity off a video. A camera records the projection of a trajectory onto an observation plane, from a moving platform, at an unknown range. Change one assumption about range and the answer changes by an order of magnitude. Here you can do it yourself.
Worked example: GOFAST, January 2015
One of the three US Navy recordings whose authenticity the Pentagon confirmed. It appears to show a small object racing just above the ocean. The values below are taken from the aircraft’s own head-up display, visible on the footage.
This is the one number the video does not give you. Everything else is on the HUD. Drag it.
What that means
Assumptions of this model — read them
- The line of sight lies in a vertical plane; the observer’s velocity is treated as perpendicular to it. Real geometry has a crossing angle that reduces the parallax term.
- A flat Earth over these distances and no atmospheric refraction — both negligible at this scale.
- The angular rate is the rate of rotation of the line of sight, taken from tracking the object across the frame.
- The result is the transverse component of the target’s velocity. Motion directly toward or away from the observer is invisible to this method.
02
Aperture shape, not object shape
A defocused point of light takes the shape of the lens aperture. A night-vision device with a triangular aperture turns every distant light into a triangle. This is why the USS Russell “pyramids” are pyramids.
03
Angular size proves nothing about size
The same frame is consistent with a small object nearby and a large object far away. Photometry narrows the interval; it never closes it. Drag the distance.
17.5m
Implied object diameter
This toolkit is deliberately simple and states its assumptions. It is a teaching model, not a forensic tool — it demonstrates the sensitivity of the result to one unknown, which is the entire point.
Read the GOFAST case file