I witnessed Incredible technology 2.20.14 17:30 PST

FlightAware General
1

I live in North Western Nevada. I just moved here a year ago from Sunnyvale , CA. I’m use to monitoring some of the strangest aviation vehicles entering and leaving Moffett Field/Ames research center. Since I relocated to Nevada I’ve noticed more contrails (Chem-trails)? than I’ve ever seen. I even categorize them and file Jpegs of them. But what I witnessed last night was beyond belief. Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not reporting a UFO as it looked to be an experimental aircraft coming out of Edwards AFB in SoCal.

It had no finish, the sun was reflecting off of what ever alloy they were using for a fuselage. At first I thought I was watching an F-22 or F-15. (It appeared to be wedge shaped or “swept winged”) But at that altitude it had to be much bigger. Usually at that altitude, these poor tired 50 year old eyes can’t make out the shape of the aircraft. I normally take a Hi-Rez photo with my Nikon, then blow it up once I’ve down loaded it to my PC.

There was only one problem. The time it took to come over the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, (south of Lake Tahoe in a NE trajectory) to the time I lost visual contact somewhere in the Ionosphere over eastern Idaho (It was ascending until it just vanished) was just a little over 30 to 45 seconds.

Can somebody tell me what I saw without paying me a special visit? I’m a Stanford Educated individual and not some conspiracy theorist wearing a tin foil hat. I’ve seen
F-14s exceed Mach 1 just meters in front of me from the flight deck of the USS Enterprise. But what I saw last evening was remarkable to say the least. I’ve never seen anything “move” that fast. (With or without a contrail) I was thinking perhaps the new Aurora craft but to the best of my knowledge, those are supposedly black. I appreciate your feedback.

2

The only problem is that current (and future) generation aircraft don’t have metal skins. They use composite structures not metal alloys:

http://files.air-attack.com/MIL/f22/f22raptor_productionline_20111001.jpg

Ironically, it may be more likely that you saw a bare aluminum F-86 or the like. There are a few highly polished examples in private hands in the US… and they’re still quick little planes. 8)

3

Except that if you’re talking about hypersonic velocities, there are no known composite materials suitable for the aircraft skin and control surfaces – you’d still be looking at metals such as titanium and the like, or graphite.

4

What time was it? Could you hear anything?

Might have been a satellite pass. There were a couple of satellites that flew over your area from the southwest to northeast last night.

5

Thanks for your responses. I had trouble with my account after posting. I doubt it was a satellite as the speed was incredible. Unfortunately, I did not hear the multiple sonic booms, nor did I see the donut/Pearl contrails. I was able to watch both the final contrail and craft disappear. Since 2.20.14 I’ve seen it again on 2.25. Only this time it was coming from further north of Lake Tahoe. Now that one could have been a satellite as it was not as fast, it didn’t excel dramatically before disappearing.