UFOs are real and they're spectacular

[Valmy]

What are these mysterious vehicles that the government is reporting? Any one care to speculate wildly?

Aliens.

So foreigners who are going to steal our jobs?

[fromtia]

I'm mystified, personally. Probably a drone of some kind, but not an American one. The drone manufacturer must have considerable resources if the performance is what they are saying it is in the article. It's not Aliens, for the obvious reasons, more likely to be time travelers, but that's obviously absurd. I will continue to scratch my head. Strange times.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The USA needs to build a dome to keep them out.

[Rex Francorum]

 Ufo still stands for UNIDENTIFIED flying objects. So it doesn't mean we have to deal with little green men.

Besides, the distances in the universe are so enormous and the travel speed so "limited" (even at the speed of light), that the chances to be visited are virtually impossible. And I don't event talk about the ridiculously low chances for an intelligent civilisation to exist in our vicinity.

[The Brain]

Someone has been gotten to.

[Razgovory]

I'm mystified, personally. Probably a drone of some kind, but not an American one. The drone manufacturer must have considerable resources if the performance is what they are saying it is in the article. It's not Aliens, for the obvious reasons, more likely to be time travelers, but that's obviously absurd. I will continue to scratch my head. Strange times.

I think the speed is an optical illusion.  Like when you drive your car and it looks objects near you are moving faster than things in the distance.  A secret military drone could have some advanced capabilities (though I doubt it could move as fast as the object appears to move).  It would also explain why the military hasn't been interested in investigating and why the pilots could not identify it.

[The Minsky Moment]

If the US military was running the drone and wants to keep it secret, why would they fly it in the vicinity of the flight path of Air Force jets?

[The Minsky Moment]

Seems like the possibilities are:

1) Testing of US military drone designed for recon/targeting of enemy fixed wing aircraft; but why test in such an uncontrolled way and why permit declassification?
2) Adversary nation drone spying on US military facilities.  But again - how/why would the footage get declassified?  If the tech is so cutting edge, why risk discovery and capture for information that would appear to be of limited intelligence value?
3) Drone operated by non-governmental person or entity - but to what end or purpose?  Who would have the ability and resources to develop and deploy such tech in complete secrecy?
4) As yet unexplained optical illusion.
5) General Zod

[grumbler]

I agree with Minsky that none of the semi-plausible explanations seem consistent with the data.  Plus, there is some radar data to go with the visual and IR data, and it also shows the same things.  I have no clue as to what it is, but it seems clear that it isn't nothing.

The fly in the ointment is that these objects were observed in places you wouldn't think an intelligence collection system would be.   What utility to Russia or China would be a vehicle hanging around 100 miles off the US coast?  And, if whoever is operating these is being surreptitious, why operate for two years where their objects are being encountered daily by US pilots? If they aren't trying to be covert, then why not operate where they would be more frequently encountered?

[Malthus]

I have no idea what these are, but I highly doubt they are aliens.

If aliens with superior tech are observing us, we would never know it unless they wanted us to know it.

Already remote probes can be miniaturized and disguised somewhat as natural objects, by us. A few years better tech, and they will be very small and difficult to detect indeed. Why would they hang out in big spaceships in our atmosphere, obvious enough to be spotted by anyone passing by, and not simply announce themselves? Or if they don't care at all about being spotted - why are they not hovering over our cities? This flitting about in relatively remote places inside highly visible objects makes no sense.

Of course, being aliens, who knows what their motives are. Perhaps they are tourists, and this is their equivalent of a tourist waving at the lions on an African lion safari. 😀

[Valmy]

I have no theories just interested in what happens. I am highly agnostic on aliens of course but hey I am ready to be convinced by whatever is most likely given the evidence.

[The Brain]

Has anyone who is not working for Uncle Sam seen these IRL?

[mongers]

Seems like the possibilities are:

1) Testing of US military drone designed for recon/targeting of enemy fixed wing aircraft; but why test in such an uncontrolled way and why permit declassification?
2) Adversary nation drone spying on US military facilities.  But again - how/why would the footage get declassified?  If the tech is so cutting edge, why risk discovery and capture for information that would appear to be of limited intelligence value?
3) Drone operated by non-governmental person or entity - but to what end or purpose?  Who would have the ability and resources to develop and deploy such tech in complete secrecy?
4) As yet unexplained optical illusion.
5) General Zod

Douglas Adam's had a more plausible answer. 

And maybe those guy's are just getting more brazen?

[Razgovory]

If the US military was running the drone and wants to keep it secret, why would they fly it in the vicinity of the flight path of Air Force jets?

Cause they screwed up.  Military does that sometimes.

[grumbler]

If the US military was running the drone and wants to keep it secret, why would they fly it in the vicinity of the flight path of Air Force jets?

They probably have been flying in the vicinity of Chair Force jets, but the Chair Force guys didn't see them.  The reports I have seen are all from Navy aircraft and surface ships.

Maybe SpaceX is developing something and Elon Musk is just hiding it to be a dick.