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Real-Life UFOs Real-Life UFOs, From Month-Long Flight of the Voltron Drone In Russia, UFO Flies You! Flying Flapjacks to What could be more UFO-like than a What's a UFO if it isn't green? The EKIP Mystery Missiles flying robot that can spend a solid five years up ("Ecology and Progress") was a Russian cargo- in the air? That's what Darpa, the Pentagon's and-passenger aircraft that didn't need an Continued from Page 37 out-there research branch, is trying to pull off airstrip to take off or land, thanks to its with its "Project Vulture." That's a long way hovercraft-like jet-air cushions. Strong thing, The Navy Can't Resist an Otherworldly away, so Darpa is taking it slow — one month too: The amphibious EKIP carried 100 or more Satellite PunIf you build satellites for a living, at a time. tons during intercontinental flight — up in the you've got to spend part of your time designing The challenge of keeping an unmanned sky or just above the sea surface. programs whose acronyms abbreviate to aircraft aloft for a month — well, and the $155 The Navy was so enamored of it earlier spaced-based puns. million contract at stake — got the aerospace this decade that it offered to help develop the Boeing employees sure did. The Navy industry working overtime. Aurora Aerospace, EKIP, offering a Maryland location up for tests. uses a series of high-frequency satellites to keep one of the bidders, submitted this design, Even despite the post-Cold War cooperation its ships and mariners talking to each other. In dubbed "Odysseus." It's three 160-foot drones that the EKIP represents, the hovercraft suffers the 1990s, it hired Boeing to give them an in one that would meet in flight and interlock from a lack of funding, but its engineers still upgrade. That led to 601 pieces of cheekily like Voltron. want to keep the flying-saucer-looking craft named space junk. Since the original satellites Powered largely by sunlight during the aloft. were known as Ultra High Frequency, Boeing day, Odysseus would latch into the Z-formation dubbed its revamps the UHF Follow-On. Get it? pictured here to maximize light absorption Russian Missile Failure Lights Up Better yet, Boeing's $1.7 billion UFO through its solar panels. At night, it'd flatten out Norwegian satellites inspired a Navy unit patch that to make more efficient use of its collected couldn't help but overexplain the joke. energy. Martian HuntersDon't ask Russia about This fall, Darpa opted against Odysseus its disappointing Bulava missile launch last and went with Boeing's similarly-solar-powered year. What started as an attempt at testing out a SolarEagle, a design only slightly less crazy. ballistic missile from the White Sea became a The SolarEagle is a thin, white drone with a seminal moment for Scandinavian space- 400-foot wingspan — the David Bowie of watchers. unmanned planes — with four long fingers to The Russians have had bad luck with carry a payload instead of a traditional fuselage. their experimental submarine-launched nuke- Boeing's got till 2014 to keep the SolarEagle ready missile: Seven out of its 12 tests have aloft for a month at 65,000 feet, about three been failures. But last December's test lives in times as high as most drones infamy. The missile let off a spiral of white and blue light, freaking out residents of the Norwegian city of Tromso. Fish-factory worker Jan Petter Jorgensen captured the spiraling flash on camera in the pitch black. "I could not Spy Blimps the Size of Football Fields believe my eyes, and got the shivers and was quite shaken by it," he reflected after his footage Anything larger and you'd have the caused an international sci-fi stir. S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. In June, Northrop Soon after, the Russian Defense Grumman got a $517 million contract from the Ministry manned up and said the flashing lights Army to build three enormous airships as were due to the Bulava's motor spinning out of floating intelligence centers. The Long control. But our own GeekDad had the far more Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle is industrious idea that the sky-spiral was intended supposed to carry 2,500 pounds worth of to promote ABC's V reboot. If only the show "sensors, antennas, data links and signals itself was as interesting. intelligence equipment" to Hoover up Air Force Alienlike Stealth Plane information beneath its corpulent husk. With a payload like that, it's a good thing Over 100 feet long with a 56-foot the blimp will be the size of a football field and wingspan, the Air Force's old unseen fighter, the seven stories tall. Not quite Hindenberg-sized, triangle-shaped F-117 Nighthawk, looks like it but that blimp didn't exactly end well. came from outer space. The Air Force didn't Why does the Army need something like even acknowledge having it until 1988, seven that? It would be the first air asset in its arsenal years after its first flight. And true to the that can remain at 20,000 feet for up to 21 days. mystery surrounding it, it was born in the One Army official judges it would take 12 Nevada sands near Area 51. Reaper drones to do an equivalent amount of Like a lot of top-secret airplanes, Naval Aviation Gets Flapjacked spying. starting with the U-2, the Air Force spent the F- Charles H. Zimmerman was a can-do Its first destination: Afghanistan, next 117's test cycle near Groom Lake, right by the guy. An engineer for a precursor of NASA, in summer, where eagle-eyed locals might be restricted-access base synonymous with the 1930s, he figured he could increase a plane's forgiven for thinking they're seeing an alien paranormal activity. With the government not efficiency by making it mostly wing. That was mothership acknowledging the Nighthawk's existence in the the origin story of one of the odder designs in 1980s came a rise in "triangular" UFO the history of naval aviation: the Vought-173 sightings. Even now, two years after the "Flying Flapjack," basically a flying saucer with Pentagon announced it would stop production two big propellers, sending airflow over the of the F-117, debate rages among UFOlogists wings even when the Flapjack slowed. about whether a curious shape in the sky is a Conventional fixed-wing aircraft couldn't do Nighthawk or something more extraterrestrial. that, and struggled to maintain altitude at slow Kind of gives a new meaning to speeds. But its sleek design made it "a sure bet "stealth." to lead the field in the race to smash the supersonic barrier," marveled Modern The ‘X’ Zone Podcasts Mechanix in a 1947 cover story. www.xzonepodcast.com Continued on Page 39