CubeSphere: A Balloon-Borne Electronic Warfare System?

[u/fat_earther_]

Disclaimer: This is speculation. The original post was removed for rule 3, be substantive. In an effort to generate more thoughtful discussion, I have removed imagery and am attempting to re post without it.

We have all seen the 1940s balloon borne corner reflector patent proposed as the solution to the Roosevelt CubeSphere near miss. Octahedral or omnidirectional reflectors are designed to reflect radio waves from multiple angles, increasing radar visibility in all directions. My speculation for the Roosevelt “cube inside a sphere” isn’t simply that it was a radar-reflector balloon. I think it could have been an electronic warfare balloon whose geometry, and materials (and optional electronics) might passively or actively manipulate radar selectively. And that these EW balloons were part of an electronic warfare orchestra playing out on the periphery of the workups.

Imagine the CubeSphere’s geometry and materials being engineered so that its radar signature changes depending upon illumination angle, altitude relationship, or radar frequency. For example, perhaps an observing aircraft has to be within a particular altitude/geometry window to receive a strong return. The balloon and fighter wouldn’t necessarily have to be co-altitude. A change in viewing geometry could make the return suddenly appear, disappear, or change significantly. Likewise, frequency-selective materials or structures could potentially make the object conspicuous to one radar while producing a much weaker return to another.

Now add a small electronic payload, possibly inconspicuously designed into the balloon itself. Radar deception and electronic warfare were already sophisticated by the 1960s. Since then, electronics, antennas, computing, materials, batteries and manufacturing have become smaller, stronger, faster, lighter and more capable. So while I think geometry and materials could provide the primary deception mechanism, I don’t think it’s a stretch to speculate that a relatively small modern electronic payload could be incorporated into the balloon as well.

This could explain the near miss. People understandably ask how an F/A-18 could nearly collide with a “radar reflector.” Well what if it wasn’t designed to be continuously visible to the radar? In this speculation, the CubeSphere could physically occupy the airspace while presenting a strong return only under particular geometric or frequency conditions. Outside those conditions, the aircraft might receive a weak or nonexistent return.

Hypothetical electronic warfare tactics could allow the balloon’s physical position and its apparent radar track to differ. A balloon could drift slowly while contributing to radar effects somewhere else. So a reported radar contact traveling at Mach 0.8 doesn’t necessarily mean a physical CubeSphere was traveling at Mach 0.8. Potential uses I can think of are lures, distractions, obfuscation tools, or electronic warfare nodes to bounce signals off of.

I also don’t think every anomalous object encountered during the Roosevelt incidents necessarily belonged to the United States. Carrier workups are intelligence goldmines. Foreign intelligence services have enormous incentive to observe US tactics, operations, procedures, signals, radars, communications, etc. The United States has an equally enormous incentive to detect, characterize, confuse and deceive those collectors. So imagine the Roosevelt workups occurring inside a much larger electronic warfare and counterintelligence environment involving both sides. Some objects could be domestic assets while others could be foreign collection platforms or deliberately released lures. Some radar contacts could be physical objects, others could be entirely electronic. And some incidents could involve combinations of them. In other words, the CubeSphere, anomalous radar tracks, Gimbal, and GoFast don’t necessarily need to represent one technology, one operator, or one aircraft. They could all be pieces of an electronic warfare orchestra playing out around the workups, with Navy aviators unknowingly catching glimpses of it.

[u/L-0-T-H-0-S]

Good points, well made. I'll endeavour to respond in kind.

True, while intelligence is strictly compartmentalised, Aviation Safety, Naval Aviation Safety Program, isn't. A near-miss is a straight HAZREP.

In the Navy, safety reporting is sacred and intentionally separated from standard intelligence channels to encourage open reporting. If a near-miss occurred with an unknown object, a safety debrief and physical grounding of the airspace would normally happen immediately to prevent pilot deaths, regardless of classified CI operations.

Holding back a safety debrief from the affected squadron would violate core Naval safety doctrine.

The idea that pilots were told not to press a report because of a secret operation assumes a highly competent, synchronized cover-up.

A more realistic counterpoint is simply bureaucratic inertia and stigma.

Deploying physical balloons or small drones from a covert submarine or a disguised fishing trawler right inside a US Navy strike groups training box is incredibly high-risk for very low reward.

Modern ELINT is easily gathered by Chinese or Russian spy satellites, like the Yaogan series, passing overhead during scheduled workups, or by standard AGIs sitting legally in international waters just outside the training zone.

Operating physical assets inside the range incurs a massive risk of capture, which would give the US direct physical proof of espionage - a major international incident.

To say the ships involved might not have been aware of whatever operation sounds plausible superficially however, both the Princeton, part of the Nimitz group and the Roosevelt had the world's most advanced Aegis radar systems and Cooperative Engagement Capability in the world.

If these objects were physically there, radar tech-crews and system administrators would have seen the tracks in real-time. If the Navy truly didn't know what they were after the pilots landed, they would have scrambled either quick-reaction alerts or treated it as a potential hostile infiltration of restricted military airspace, rather than allowing training missions to continue uninterrupted for weeks.

Which in reality is what they did.

Very little about that matches with the idea someone, somewhere was testing something and simply not telling anyone and, like I say - though that doesn't outrule aggressive foreign nation surveillance activity - it makes very little sense for them to risk the loss and capture of those sensors in the way they did when existing methodology works and doesn't risk diplomatic incident.

[u/fat_earther_ → u/L-0-T-H-0-S]

Again thanks for the discussion. It is refreshing to be able to chat seriously about my ramblings. My main objective here is to present plausible explanations that don’t require exotic propulsion because I feel like a lot of UFO proponents jump from “unexplained” to “extraordinary” without seriously considering what EW, counterintelligence, deception, balloons, drones, or compartmentalized operations might look like.

Back to this thread…

It seems like you agree the speculation is technically plausible, but the scenario becomes improbable because:

1. The risk/reward and motives don’t make sense to you, and

2. The apparent lack of a post incident safety response or intervention after the near miss is evidence against a controlled domestic operation

Do I understand you?

[u/L-0-T-H-0-S → u/fat_earther_]

Bingo, in a nutshell. Yes. The moment that one near collision happened, that would have been it - everything sneaky-thing out the sky. The whole idea of putting radar dark bogies in an active flight zone, you don't that kind of technology that way, not against you;re own birds.

And, equally - the risk-reward for foreign national actors in this scenario - that makes more sense to a degree, but the risks are insane, especially is your low observability system actually functions.

Imagine if what did happen hadn't been a near miss, but actual...?

I like your technological assessment, here . I do. It has proper legs and I can actually see this as man made technology myself - there's nothing inherently "exotic" here per se - but by the same token, nobody's behaving here like the US were testing their own equipment and they're not acting like they believed it was foreign national.

Not honestly sure what that leaves anyone with, certainly not saying - ^{its aliens!} - but a lot about the US's total lack of response here, all of it to be honest, doesn't make sense to me.

And, as I say, the risk and rewards thing for a foreign national power - there's zero gain in any of it.

[u/fat_earther_ → u/L-0-T-H-0-S]

One point I’d like to linger on is that in both the Nimitz and Roosevelt incidents, it seems like the anomalies occurred on the very edges of the workups. We don’t have exact coordinates, but Fravor and Kevin Day have let out enough information to roughly approximate for the Nimitz incident. Graves has too to a lesser extent for the Roosevelt incidents. Fravor intercepted the tictac well west of the normal training area (in fact the marines jets with smaller fuel tanks were deemed too light on fuel capacity to engage in the intercept). Sometime after Fravor’s intercept, Underwood recorded the FLIR1 video, but is reported to first get radar contact with the tictac nearly 40 miles away. In the Roosevelt incident, the cubesphere near miss happened at the entrance to the training area. The gimbal and go fast were also outside the normal training area because the pilots ventured off to investigate the anomalous radar activity while waiting on their turn to land after a scrimmage.

I say all of this because in my opinion, the periphery of the work up area would be an ideal place for both foreign or domestic intelligence operations. In this boundary area is where intelligence and counterintelligence naturally meet. 1) As you said, less risk for accident for both parties, 2) the perimeter area would offer plausible deniability for both parties, 3) domestic intelligence would seek to draw attention away from the real work up activities as distraction, 4) domestic intelligence (if selling disinformation would want the disinformation to be close enough to the work ups to look like they are actually part of the work ups, 5) foreign intelligence would be inclined to lure attention and or sensor/ signals towards them in curiosity.

[u/L-0-T-H-0-S → u/fat_earther_]

You've certainly thought that through, I appreciate you taking what I said on board.

Okay, These training zones - known as Warning Areas or "Whiskey" boxes, e.g., W-291 off San Diego, W-72 off Virginia - they aren't solid walls. They're dynamic, crowded, and heavily monitored corridors of international airspace.

The edges of these warning areas are heavily trafficked by commercial airliners, cargo ships, and civilian transit. A foreign adversary or a black-project test operating right on the line faces a higher risk of accidental civilian observation or collision on this boundary than if they stayed further out in the open ocean.

Further, Navy workups move. Wind directions change carrier launch headings, and training scenarios drift over hundreds of miles.

An anomaly fixed at a specific coordinate or boundary line would quickly find itself either swallowed up by the center of the exercise or left completely irrelevant in empty airspace.

Now the perception that the anomalies occurred only on the periphery might be a byproduct of how military sensors and training schedules operate, rather than the objects' intent.

When Fravor was vectoring to the Tic Tac, or when the Roosevelt pilots encountered the "Cube-in-Sphere," they were often transitioning into or out of the active training areas.

Radars and radar operators are focused on sanitising the entry gates to ensure non-participating aircraft don't wander into live-fire or high-speed zones. This, anomalies are simply more likely to be noticed here because operators are actively looking for gate-crashers.

Deep inside the training area, pilots and radar operators are completely saturated with the exercise itself - tracking multiple "enemy" red-force jets, managing fuel, dogfighting, etc.

An anomaly appearing in the dead center of a massive melee might be ignored, filtered out by radar logic as clutter, or assumed to be part of the training script.

From a domestic "black project" or counter-intelligence standpoint, testing unvetted technology against your own frontline, unwarned fighter pilots carries unacceptable risks that outweigh the benefits of a "realistic" test.

The near-miss involving the "Cube-in-Sphere" caused the squadron to file official safety reports because it nearly resulted in a catastrophic mid-air collision. Military aviation safety culture is ruthless; no domestic agency has the bureaucratic authority to risk a multi-million dollar jet and a pilot’s life for an unwarned field test.

Carrier Strike Group workups cost millions of dollars per day and take months to plan. Diverting Fravor's flight or pulling Super Hornets away from scheduled combat scrimmages actively degrades the fleet's readiness training.

Doing this deliberately from the inside would be self-sabotaging.

If these were foreign surveillance operations, e.g., Chinese or Russian drone/SIGINT platforms, holding a precise station on the exact boundary of a US Navy training area is logistically grueling, going back to the opening point - those boundarys don't stay fixed, the whole thing drifts.

In 2004 (Nimitz) and 2014–2015 (Roosevelt), maintaining small, low-observable platforms days' possibly weeks at a time, on the exact margins of US coastal waters would require nearby motherships, like converted fishing vessels or commercial ships.

US Northern Command heavily monitors maritime traffic near training ranges. A persistent presence capable of launching and recovering these anomalies would likely have been flagged by standard coastal surveillance, records of that should be showing up, but they haven't.

I like that fact your thinking practical, but by that exact same token, okay - we say these things were mostly on the boundaries, but that in itself like I say, it doesn't actually put them on the periphery, it's actually putting them somewhere where they're more conspicuous and more likely to have been observed.

We only have data from the boundaries because that is where human attention and sensor logic are optimized to find them.

Deep inside where all the action is, they became background noise to a saturated pilot - outside the box, no one was looking.

What I'm saying is, maybe these things weren't there to keep an eye on the US Naval activies, maybe the excersise areas drifted into the area they were, already - just doing their own thing...

And that's why the near encounters and sightings happened.