I’m pleased to announce that I’ve launched a podcast to delve into the evidence underpinning the greatest (and, I’d argue, most important) aviation mystery of all time. Andy Tarnoff and I are steadily working through the disappearance, deciphering what happened step-by-step. We’re currently on our third episode, which is the first to be both a video and an audio podcast. You can find all the episodes on our show page.
Jeff have you read Vanished into thin air by Val West ??? Please let me know.
Hi @Frank, No, I haven’t read the book — I just looked at up and read the synopsis. The problem with that idea is that taking the plane to the Middle East would result in a path that doesn’t match the satellite data. That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker per se, but you’d have to come up with a way to explain why it doesn’t match.
Brilliant, looking forward to giving it a listen and recommending to friends. I was just discussing MH370 with a colleague from work and I must admit I did come across as sounding a little crazy haha It had been a while since I last read your theory in great detail so a few holes in my telling of it became apparent and I think I really went off the deep end when I started going on about barnacles.
Jeff, are there any other books you would recommend reading on MH370?
@Craig, Thanks, that’s great to hear. Other people have urged me to read Florence de Changy’s book saying it’s well reported, but I just can’t get over the fact that her conclusion is so out of left field. As far as I know the only book that really goes through the solid evidence in the case is my own “The Taking of MH370.” Sorry for the self-plug!
@Jeff, congratulations on the podcast. Great idea and well timed to take advantage of the recent uptick in interest, partly prompted by the “UFO videos”.
On that topic, I urge you to take the videos slightly more seriously than you appear to in Episode 3 of the podcast.
I suspect we basically agree, insofar as I very much doubt extraterrestrial UFOs disappeared/teleported MH370 and that just happened to be captured on satellite and UAV cameras. On the face of it, that seems pretty ridiculous.
However, I have been following analysis around the videos with much more nuance. I totally understand your instinct to dismiss them and move on, but I wonder if you should consider a few different angles,
e.g.
1) If, per your theory, there were geopolitical games at play, the videos themselves may form part of a disinformation campaign to muddy the waters. This may or may not lead to other clues.
2) Along similar lines, parts of the videos may be legitimate and others not – eg satellite and drone capture minus orbs and/or portal. There are many interesting details which seem very unlikely to be considered by an outright hoax (e.g. Citrix frame rate, cursor scrolling dynamics, accurate lat/long prior to this info being public, etc)
3) In the (admittedly incredulous) scenario where the orbs and/or portal are legit, I consider exotic terrestrial technology to be vastly more likely than extraterrestrial UFOs. There is plenty of unusual stuff in the public domain ostensibly from military projects seriously analysing zero point energy and wormholes (for example), so is it really that far-fetched to suggest certain capabilities may have been achieved and may have been deployed in some capacity? (as a demonstration of prowess or plausibly deniable way of ‘downing’ MH370).
Whilst I’ve been sympathetic to your work from day 1, I just feel “Putin ordered FSB Op to take MH370 to Kazakhstan!!!” is possibly on par with how ‘crazy’ anything around the orb videos might be.
If nothing else, the amount of intense analysis the videos have prompted is worth paying attention to, because some of it may discover clues in the less unusual data that we do have.
With the greatest of respect, you appear to have a habit of dismissing our ot hand any theories even slightly outside your own – e.g. refusing to read de Changy’s book because her “conclusions are so out of left field”? Are they really? As far as I understood her conclusions, she seemed to lean towards an unusual event (possibly shootdown) early in the timeline, with fabricated data and misdirection subsequent to that. Once again, I don’t think that is a particularly crazy proposition given various historical precedent for ‘accidental’ shoot downs of commercial aircraft and the geopolitical tensions that brings. As one of the more respected MH370 commentators, I actually think it’s your responsibility to read her book.
@Enzyme, Thanks for elaborating your position in such a thoughtful way. One basic reason why I don’t believe that either the UFO videos or de Changy’s book to merit any further consideration is that both require the Inmarsat data to have been forged in their entirety. In other words, we can’t be sure of anything, have no reliable factual information upon which to judge the case. Thus we find ourselves in the world of “Nothing is true and everything is possible” — an endless epistemological fog from which no escape is possible. It may feel like you are freeing yourself to discover hidden possibilities, but in fact you are ensuring that you will never reach any conclusion that can stand up to scrutiny.
But putting all that aside, I would be legitimately curious to ask you: if we imagine that this UFO footage is real, how then does it figure into our broader understanding of what happened to the plane? Do you think that someone turned off the plane’s electronics to make it disappear from radar screens, pulled an aggressive 180-degree maneuver to fly back over the Malay Peninsula and up the Malacca Strait, and then coincidentally it was abducted by UFOs?
@Jeff, at some level, I totally agree re the risk of wandering into the “epistemological fog”. We have to rely on available evidence and prioritise that evidence by credibility. There must be a name for a defined “logical fallacy” along these lines. But sometimes the boundaries of credible evidence become blurred. The videos are indeed incredulous (excuse the forced adjective), and I want to dismiss them – the 90s VFX effect angle almost has me over the line, but that is significantly offset by so many other compelling details which would seem very unlikely to be covered by a typical hoax.
I think a key point of difference between us then is Inmarsat. For a number of reasons, I am somewhat more circumspect as to the veracity of that data. Their relationship with UK/US suggests to me that if cooperation was needed, it could have been facilitated.
There is also this (and I’m very interested as to whether you knew about it?) –
“early in the second week [after the disappearance]… “, Inmarsat’s VP of satellite operations “… found out that a key member of his operations team, one of the satellite controllers, had suddenly died overnight.”
Source: https://www.aviationtoday.com/2014/12/01/inmarsat-exec-talks-about-operators-role-in-search-for-mh370/
(Actually a very interesting article – I haven’t seen anything else giving any sort of detailed insight into Inmarsat machinations at the time).
Who was this person? How central to the investigation were they? What was the cause of death? These are the kind of leads that may emerge if we broaden our epistemological boundaries, and things that I worry you are at risk of overlooking.
To answer your question re possible scenarios connected to the “orb” videos (I don’t like the term “ufo” because I think terrestrial technology or terrestrial disinformation is far more likely than something alien), here are a few ideas:
1) crew hijack and subsequent shootdown – or outright accidental shootdown – with videos released as misdirection (possibly ‘limited hangout’ real aircraft on sat/drone with faked orbs/portal) to avert serious crisis e.g. w/China
2) crew hijack with exotic technology to intervene, legitimately captured on film and everything after SIO turn falsified
3) preplanned use of exotic technology for unknown reasons – possibly as demonstration of capability – with on board or remote takeover and comms jammed from initial turnback
4) some combination of the above with active comms/negotiation between military & crew/Z between initial turnback through to final SIO turn (and everything after that falsified)
You’ll undoubtedly baulk at some of these, but again I ask you to step back and ask: are they really that more ‘crazy’ than a perfectly executed Russia/FSB special op? A side note here is that, while Russia plays heavily in your head (and I acknowledge timing re Crimea), I personally consider US / China geopolitics as a more likely source of intrigue.
@Enzyme, All points well taken, I guess I just have a hard time getting over the fact that the footage looks super fake to me.
@Jeff, so do I! But I hope I have outlined my holistic perspective effectively. Thanks for the exchange.
I am left hanging re Inmarsat – wondering what your level of suspicion is about the death in question?
@Jeff further to the above – there is this
https://twitter.com/nihonmama/status/573290119588925444?t=b5VOsZa7WTEX9Fe0FRdFew&s=19
@Enzyme, I guess I would say that if this mysterious death raises questions about the Inmarsat data, then the next step would be to take a close look at the Inmarsat data, understand how it says what it says, and try to figure out how some kind of illicit activity might play a role in changing that data. We’re dropping episode 5 of the podcast today, and we start to actually get into the first metadata set, so I think it might be useful in helping you clarify your thinking.
Hi Jeff
Came across this article in Politico about GPS spoofing:
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2023/10/24/gps-spoofing-thickens-the-fog-of-war-00123284
Ken
@Ken, thanks!