A.D.H.D. version ( tl;dr) skip to bottom of post if you can hold out that long



A good friend of mine’s father is an older retired Washington State Patrol.  He is a great guy, was a Marine Corps helicopter pilot in Vietnam – and does not mind telling aviation stories.  


A few years ago I asked him  “What was the fastest speed he had ever caught anyone going on radar?”  


His answer to this question has puzzled me ever since.


Eastern Washington State (1982-83?)
Interstate Route 90 – somewhere between Ritzville and Medical Lake

He was parked in one of his favorite spots on a long straight stretch of I-90.  It was a good safe spot to catch people in the middle of “nowhere” on a very long straight run….and also catch up on some paperwork.  

He had his radar set on a “speed alert” mode.  You would set a desired speed, and if a vehicle passed by at that speed, or faster, an audible alarm would sound off.   The speed captured would lock on the display unit.

Sometime between 2:00am - 3:00am he feels his cruiser “sway” like a semi-truck passed by – his radar speed alert starts beeping.  
He says he was pretty sure it was set to alert at 65mph (the speed limit was 55 back then).  

He looks to the radar display and sees…. 272 mph!    He said his first thought was "WTF?"

He scanned the highway in front of him and saw nothing but a faint red glow rapidly getting smaller. He did not even bother starting up the car or making a radio call...just sat there trying to understand what just happened.

He said the strangest thing (besides the 272mph) was that he heard no sound of a vehicle go past.  He did feel his vehicle sway similar to what a large semi –truck would do…but that is about all.

His first thought was the possibility of an aircraft buzzing his hiding spot very low, but he ruled that out because of the lack of any sound and his experience with the radar unit operating limits.  

As for the “dim red light”, he said it did not seem to be “flying above the road”, but he admitted that it would be difficult to determine because of it’s unknown size, the dark roadway, and undetermined distance from him at the time.

Said the radar had been "calibrated", and even had it checked out by a "tech" soon after the incident just to make sure he was not crazy

WTF

His story reminds me of the scene from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" where the little red ufo zips by.   I mentioned this to him, and he laughed "kind of...but I did not see anything bright or zipping around in the sky"

The only other thing I could think of was some kind of "jamming device" that spoofed the radar into displaying a faster speed....but that does not make any sense either for obvious reasons.


Anybody out there in GD land have a similar story to this?  Any ideas what it might of been, or malfunction of some kind?


A.D.H.D. version ( tl;dr) - Retired state patrol with military aviation background clocked "something" at 272mph in the 1980's? Any ideas WTF it was, or heard of similar stories?


Movie clip for the hell of it:

it is the jato car!

Lol....maybe he just wanted to screw with me, but I dont think so.  He is a real straight shooter.  Good question on the radar though.

He dreamed that shit and told it as if it happened.

Refer to my sigline.

Yea...the jato impala would probably go that fast

But he said no sound, no flames.

Somebody from McChord AFB fucking around on the way to the Yakima Live Fire Range.

Or it could have been one of the privately-owned T-38s that live at Boeing field, out screwing with people.  A lot of folks will follow the Concrete Compass headed across the mountain pass when they're VFR... even when they're SUPPOSED to be IFR.

I have a lot of respect for the man. I believe him, he is not claiming it is anything but a mystery to him.  He will not say it was a UFO because he could not tell if it was "flying". He is very technical about things.  He just says it was something going very fast, or one hell of a "gremlin" in the radar unit.

Yeah....that would definitely go fast enough...lol

Meh... I heard the same story from a Sulphur La. cop on I-10.... supposedly it was a drug runner in a Lambo with nods going from Florida to California or something.... I never believed the story, but he told it well!

- Clint

This is the most logical....I agree.  Maybe an A-10? But he said no sound!!??

I have never had an A-10 zip overhead at low altitude, but in videos they still seem pretty damn loud...and they are more quiet than most military aircraft I have heard.  

I worked with a guy who had a jammer , he ran it set at 55 no matter how fast he was running

LOL...maybe this is a joke retired law enforcement like to tell people to screw with our heads? I have never heard the Lambo "pilot" with nods...that would be cool for long straight runs.  

I have never worn night vision goggles....I would hope they had pretty good range and depth perception at 200+ mph.

Pucker factor would be definitely be high

Best I ever did was tag a B-1B on final at about 155 mph.

Best I've got is 146 from a BMW 335I.

I did the PA turnpike. Came out of one of tunnels on a Sunday morning at triple digits. 2 PA troopers there. He hit the lights and pulled out. And then just pulled right back in.

I have read about early 80's "jammers", and even downloaded "schematics" to build one.
Interweb says they did and did not work - illegal either way

Did you have any experience witnessing his actually work?   Was it home built, or purchased?

Any guess on the B-1B's altitude when you got a reading on him?

He was a few hundred feet off ground, on final, just about over the end of the runway  I wasn't directly in front of him so even though I was getting a reading of about 155, it could have been slightly higher

Sounds like fun...were you driving your avatar?

Also......

Thanks for the reply

I know this is GD, but this story has been on my mind for some time now...and I was hoping to hear something like your experience just to try and come up with some kind of theory.

I've heard the same story. In mine it was a blacked-out Lamborghini doing drug runs from Houston to San Antonio

Back in 2002 I was riding with a buddy of mine in  VERY modified Supra single turbo.  We were riding behind an exact replica of his car driven by another friend.  The lead car took off on I-70 between Fredricksburg MD and Gaithersburg MD and dissapeared into the night quick.  My friend looked at me and asked if we should try and catch him.  I said yes....so we were off.  140, 150, 160, 165, 170....we sat at 170mph for a couple min and never caught him so we slowed down and continued on to our destination at 80mph.  We finally arrive and as we are getting out of the car a cop car pulls up with lights and siren going nuts.  

After some pleasantries about, "don't move" being exchanged the cop approached us and asked, "Do you know how fast you were going?".  
My buddy's response, "75 or 80".  
Cop, "Bullshit!!".  
My buddy, "Seriously officer, 75 or 80."
Cop, "Total hogwash son, my radar stars out at 150mph (***) so I know you were going faster than that!"
My buddy, pointing to the other supra sitting a couple parking spots away, a direct replica of his, "Are you sure it wasn't *that* car..."
Cop...befuddled..."I'll keep my eyes on you."

Now, I know for certain there are units that go over 200mph, because I've seen them, but *some* models obviously do have a limit that can be exceeded.

 

 

Nope. I was driving my beat '87 IROC with 250K. I had some girl with a Prelude Si following me. She got off for gas when I did and followed me, or played leap frog until the Maryland split. I covered PA in less than 4 hours.

 

That is actually a real thing that MANY people do you know...

not much on the street then or now that could run that kind of speed, and none that I can think of that would do it quiet enough to not be heard  from the edge of the road..even a nascar stock car back then I doubt would be able to pull over 230 or so..just to hard to cut the air at those speeds, a top fuel rail would..but only a 1/4 mile at a time..and you would hear/see it ..would just about have to be some kind of airborne vehicle.....I mean hp/torque has to almost multiply in doubles to pick up just small speed gains...not to mention aero drag which is even harder to pick up on...let alone tires to run that speed(drag slicks are one of the few rated for 300mph stye speeds besides land speed tires..

That is actually helpful...if a 2002 radar unit could not calculate speeds over 150mph, I would have my doubts that one in 1982-3 could go that high.  I know nothing about the radars though - maybe they could register a speed that high, but had no way to "calibrate" them for legal purposes?  

"Officer Shmoe,  could you hand the 200mph tuning fork set...?"

I bet he was parked under this billboard.

Wow..130 -140 is pretty fast for the 80's!  What were you driving / riding?  I agree on the sustained 270+...ESPECIALLY in the 1980's....hell a Bugatti Veyron won't even go that fast (I think).

If my friend is telling the truth (and I believe he is) - it had to be something flying.  Only thing that makes an sense, but still does not make ANY sense would be some kind of cruise missile type craft with a very quiet turbo fan?

LoL......

Man I could get off topic here....but you must have spent some time and $$$ under the hood of that baby!!!   A green with white hood stripes 69' RS/SS was "almost" my first car in high school (1985)...but I got busted drinking at a party the day before my grandma was going to loan me the money to buy it  

I think some of those radar jammers make radar report crazy speeds.

I blew by a Mass State Trooper at 120 MPH when I was 17. He just stayed put on the side of the road. I figure he was either asleep or didn't care. It was late at night on the Mass Pike, no traffic. Scared the crap out of me. I kept going for a couple of miles then slowed down to a healthy 55 MPH and counted my blessings.

I have read the same kind of stuff.  You could supposedly dial in what ever speed you wanted the police radar to display. Not sure why
you would want to have it say you were going faster than you actually were....but allegedly they had the capability to do this.

Maybe someones jammer was malfunctioning and making his radar read way too high, and was traveling fast / running dark.  Still does not solve the issue of "no sound" though

He said he did not hear anything other than the "swoosh" of the air gently rocking his cruiser, and the beeping of the radar alarm

Damn....you guys get lucky on those "Pikes"

zoominiroc told his Turnpike story a few posts above!

Well....I guess I will just have to go with the little red ufo theory for now

Makes me think of Jackie Chan in Cannon ball run. Him and the other Asian guy put on night vision, turn off the lights, and fly by that cop in the electric car. Funny as
hell. "They won't see us, the son of a guns"

Why would an ET spacecraft have lights? The have perfected interstellar travel, but don't have night vision?

I can't believe it took this long.

Fastest I've done is 22 miles in 10 minutes flat. This was on  a road with straight runs mixed with corners and a hill. 1978 Roadrunner, one of the first cars with a computer control ignition module.  We figured it would do 155 top and drove it many times at speed. Car floated a little at max speed but never felt unsafe, not very impressive today but 35 years ago it surprised everything and must have been invisible to the Troopers.

Careful you don't trigger any countermeasures by lighting up aircraft.

 

No car in the 80's went that fast.  And nothing goes that fast--at that elevation--horizontally, without making a shitload of noise.

Must've scanned a runner in the KPH setting...who was powered down and coasting to fuck with cops.  

I cringe every time I see that story.