In the wake of the latest shootdown of an unidentified object over North American airspace, we now have audio recordings of the in-cockpit communications from the two F-16 fighter jets involved in yesterday afternoon’s intercept over Lake Huron.
What’s immediately striking on listening to them, is that the pilots in question also seem to be perplexed as to what they are actually observing and the precise nature of the craft that they ultimately dispatched.
Audio recordings courtesy of Mike in Southwest Wisconsin
Most interesting is the fact that the Viper pilots had a tough time definitively describing the object.
“I wouldn’t really call it a balloon … I don’t know what … I can see it outside with my eyes,” one of the pilots says. “Looks like something … there’s some kind of object that’s distended… it’s hard to tell, it’s pretty small.”
“I’m gonna call it a balloon,” one of the pilots later adds.
Part of the reason the pilots have such difficulty in getting a better understanding of what it might be is simply that it was so small — and moving at a very slow speed relative to their jets.
“The size of it, that would be challenging, it’s so slow and so small, I just can’t see it,” one of the pilots says. “Definitely smaller than a car,” is the judgment of one of the pilots. At one point, one Viper pilot seems to say it was about the size of a “four-wheeler,” likely referring to a recreational all-terrain vehicle. There is also an indication that the pilots were worried about a possible collision with the mystery craft as it could only be seen at very close range.
There are, however, repeated mentions of strings, or something that looks like strings, hanging from below the object.
“In the targeting pod, I can’t tell if it’s metallic or what, but I can see like lines coming down below it, but I can’t see anything below it,” one pilot says.
“You can definitely see strings below but don’t see anything hanging below.” This paints a picture of something balloon-like, at least in the sense that there is a larger structure, with strings hanging down from which you might expect to see some sort of payload attached.
As to the color of the object, it sounds as though it may have been a metallic black and it was clearly shiny enough to reflect the sun’s rays – adding to the difficulty in working out its overall shape.
“Looking outside it’s like a black-ish, I’m gonna call it like a container, can’t really tell though what the shape is,” one pilot says. “I’ve got a tone,” he adds, indicating that the AIM-9X locked on and that he had a “good track but can’t see through the glare of the cockpit.”
“It looks dark, but I can get a pretty good sun glint off of it,” the other pilot remarks.
