UFO Components (UFOAI)

Research entries of UFO: Alien Invasion's UFO components.

UFO Components

Alien EW Electronics

Commander, we've recovered an interesting set of electronics from one of our disassembled UFOs. From our preliminary testing, it appears to be an alien EW (Electronic Warfare) suite.

This is an extremely important find, Commander. If we can decipher how these alien electronics work, we could improve our targeting and detection systems dramatically. This means a vast increase in our aircraft's survivability against UFOs if we can adapt the suite for our own purposes.

Please, Commander, approve this project as soon as you possibly can.

Cdr. Navarre

"Commander, I'm happy to report that we've cracked the code. We now have a list of primary EW (Electronic Warfare) frequencies used by the aliens, and a good understanding of how this powerful piece of electronics does what it does.

Of course, before you get too excited, let me stress that we have not found a magic path through the aliens' defences. Regardless of what we take away from this research, it's not going to end the war or make UFOs any less dangerous. This is because of the EW suite's most important function -- it has an independent onboard intelligence that adapts to its combat environment.

This intelligence is continually experimenting, trying to keep enemy systems off-balance, changing its methods and deviating from its preferred frequencies to try ones that might be more difficult to work with but could bypass enemy jamming. We even believe that, when patched into a UFO's main computer, this suite will hook into other onboard systems to make efficiency-increasing adjustments based on enemy EW activity. Particularly to the targeting computers.

Besides the intelligent computer at its heart, the suite has projectors of every kind, capable of saturating virtually any frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum, even several frequencies at a time. It is also capable of 'throwing' heat several metres away from the craft, causing thermal spikes on infrared sensors that can fool missiles and draw them away from the real target. Lastly the suite comes with a set of decoys that can emulate practically any sensor signature, deployed as and when the computer thinks it's necessary.

With some modifications, we've been able to make the suite work with our current aircraft electronics. Our main success has been in developing a set of software upgrades which patch the alien EW suite into the onboard intelligence systems of our aircraft. It's a hack if there ever was one, but it will do for now.

Cdr. Navarre"

Alien Polymer Shield

Commander, the skin of armour wrapped around that Gunboat UFO that we investigated suggested several innovations we might be able to deploy in our own aircraft. It wasn't just thicker, as most alien armour improvements have been. It was lighter and more durable than anything we've seen.

Give us some time in the lab, sir, and maybe we can come up with new armour fabricration techniques derived from this UFO to outfit our own aircraft.

Cdr. Navarre

"Commander, we've finished our examination of the new alien armour and come up with several improvements we can apply to our own manufacturing techniques for a more durable aircraft armour.

The key innovations lay in the way the materials are layered and woven together, making remarkably thin applications very durable. This will improve the main drawback of our current armour, which is so heavy that we're forced to sacrifice protection for airspeed.

Start fabricating this new armour in the workshop as soon as possible, sir. It will provide a dramatic step up in our aircrafts' defense over our existing armour solutions without adding any more drag to the aircraft.

Cdr. Navarre"

Alien Astrogation

Commander, the recovery of an intact alien astrogation unit is an important milestone. Although this unit doesn't seem to contain a star chart, it will allow us to decipher alien astronomical notations and upgrade the power of our own astrogation systems by several orders of magnitude. Eventually the work we do here may help us backtrack the aliens to their home planet.

Along with Alien Propulsion and Alien Detection, Alien Astrogation is one of the three pillars of UFO design. Understanding it will bring us a big step closer to the ability to build an atmosphere-capable interplanetary defence craft.

Cdr. Navarre

"Commander, we've finished work on the captured alien astrogation unit. Here is a summary of my report.

We concluded early on in our survey that this astrogation unit is, at its core, a purpose-built computer of extraordinary power loaded with specialised software -- all intended solely for the purpose of plotting a course from one point in space to another. It uses a new, alien system of astronomical notation which we've decided to adopt in order to make use of this alien hardware.

Now that we've figured out its notation system, we can see that the astrogation unit is very good at what it does. Given correct input, the system can plot a course from anywhere to anywhere in seconds, and it can intelligently recompute that course with filters like 'least travel time', 'shortest distance', 'fewest navigational hazards', and so on. These filters can be layered on endlessly until the system spits out the exact course you want. It is even able to take into account faster-than-light capability when plotting a course, which all but verifies the theory that the aliens do indeed have access to some type of FTL technology.

The only problem with the unit's plotting method is that it requires a star chart to give accurate courses beyond the UFO's sensor range. We have never found a star chart loaded onto any UFO we've recovered. Perhaps only UFOs with an FTL drive have a chart loaded; they would surely need it for navigation.

Instead of the elusive star chart, the astrogation units we've recovered so far contain enormous detail on Earth and the solar system. Surface maps of the outer planets and all their moons (even a previously-undiscovered moon of Pluto), spectrum analyses of every body in the asteroid belt as well as the distant Kuiper belt, and the orbits of every body in the solar system plotted out hundreds of years in advance. We're not sure if this information will be of any use to us, but it will greatly enhance humanity's body of knowledge about our home system -- whenever we're allowed to release it into the public.

It's possible to program our own star charts into the astrogation unit, but I can only imagine how primitive and incomplete our charts might be compared to what the aliens have. I wouldn't condone any interstellar travel with these units until we can capture an alien chart. However, in the meantime we could certainly use these units to navigate around the solar system if we could design a PHALANX craft capable of launching into space. They will greatly simplify the whole process of interplanetary travel to the point where we'd be able to launch missions to Saturn or even Pluto at the click of a button.

And that is something we should do as soon as humanly possible.

Cdr. Navarre"

Alien Propulsion

Commander, the alien antimatter engines we recovered have been fascinating my team ever since they arrived. With our new understanding of the alien materials, I think we can work out the details and duplication of this technology. Excitingly, it now seems to be within our capabilities to replicate these engines, if we can just figure out the function and creation of the different parts.

Along with Alien Astrogation and Alien Detection, Alien Propulsion is one of the three pillars of UFO design. Understanding it will bring us a big step closer to the ability to build an atmosphere-capable interplanetary defence craft.

Cdr. Navarre

"Commander, I'm happy to report the success of our alien propulsion program. We've cracked the mysteries of the alien engine set-up and we finally understand the path of the antimatter from fuel tank to reaction chamber.

Quoting from my previous report:

(UFO Theory) "The alien propulsion system is a type of rocket engine unlike any ever built on Earth. It uses direct matter-antimatter annihilation to generate thrust by injecting protons and antiprotons into the reaction chamber, and then channeling this explosive force out the back of the engine. This gives a UFO extreme power and needs no air or other gases to fuel the reaction, allowing it to burn in hard vacuum. There is a highly-advanced cooling system continuously pumping liquid nitrogen through the engine housing in order to keep it cool and reduce the infrared signature. Engine heat is also used to supply the craft's electricity."

With this project we've learned a lot about how these engines are constructed, how to control them, and how we might be able to use them in new aircraft designs. I have to warn you, though; they will be extremely expensive to produce. Between the complex use of alien materials, the sensitive electromagnetics and the liquid nitrogen cooling system, this really stretches the limits of our production capacity.

Some more research may be required to figure out antimatter storage and control, but the engine upgrades are self-contained units -- basically just an alien engine with adapters on it for human tech.

I've mentioned before, the power disparity between our liquid fuel and these matter-antimatter engines is nothing short of astonishing. When we start using these engines on our planes, our pilots are going to need some serious re-education about the capabilities of their craft. Let me explain.

In a regular military jet, giving her a little too much throttle around a tight corner can result in impaired judgment and unconsciousness from the force of acceleration. Pilots have died from over-acceleration.

In an antimatter jet, however, these problems are amplified hundred-fold. The engines are so powerful that over-acceleration can easily turn a human body to bloody pulp in its flight chair. Even the craft itself may have trouble coping with the acceleration, and our flight engineers will have to be extremely careful in checking for metal fatigue, hairline fractures and other wear and tear on the airframe. A tiny crack in the structure may result in one of our planes breaking up in mid-flight. Mechanical thrust limiters can only do so much -- most of the G-stresses are incurred during turns.

Still, it shouldn't become a problem as long as everyone -- pilots and mechanics alike -- is extremely careful in their assigned tasks. We've done some serious tightening-up of our safety and inspection protocol just for antimatter planes. The retraining of our pilots is the only remaining obstacle to our use of these alien engines.

Cdr. Navarre"

Advanced Alien Propulsion

Commander, when our engineers were performing the latest UFO disassembly, they noticed what appeared to be some modifications to the propulsion mechanisms. If the aliens are upgrading their antimatter engines, we need to learn as much as we can from them.

I'm submitting this request to take a closer look. It could be key to winning the battle for supremacy in our skies.

Cdr. Navarre

"Commander, we've finished taking a look at the advanced alien propulsion systems and I've prepared a report for you.

As we suspected, these engines have been modified. In essence, they've upgraded the internals but left the outer casing intact. Most of the modifications have gone into expanding the capacity of the reaction chamber, allowing them to channel even more force through the back of the engine. But they've also cleverly redesigned the feeder mechanism to achieve faster rates of matter-antimatter anihilation.

The ad-hoc nature of the changes suggest the aliens are adapting technology as they go. The extra propulsion was likely designed to enable heavy UFOs to stay airborne in earth's atmosphere.

I think we can adapt these insights to design a more powerful propulsion mechanism, but the threat to an interceptor's structural integrity is so great that we'll have to design a new aircraft capable of handling it. I've put a research proposal in your queue for a new advanced interceptor that will take advantage of everything we've learned from these advanced engines and our Dragon interceptor project. Please take a look as soon as possible.

Cdr. Navarre"

Alien Detection

Commander, the alien sensor suite appears to be a very powerful set of passive and active scanning systems, including radar, lidar, magnetic and UV/infrared reception, and -- most interestingly -- a kind of detection unknown to us, but which seems to have far more success at detecting UFOs than anything we have.

If you'll let us take the suite apart, I believe we can find out what everything does and how to operate it, and how to replicate most if not all of the alien detection equipment. It would be an immense boost to our defence efforts on Earth if we can get this technology working for us, and its long-term potential for spacecraft development is vital. There's no way we could build a viable space-capable fighter with human sensors.

Along with Alien Propulsion and Alien Astrogation, Alien Detection is one of the three pillars of UFO design. Understanding it will bring us a big step closer to the ability to build an atmosphere-capable interplanetary defence craft.

Cdr. Navarre

"The project on alien detection is complete, Commander. We now have a full understanding of the machinery, its controls, and the modifications needed for human use.

Our initial assessment looks to have been correct. The detection suite makes use mostly of standard, reliable detection methods that humanity either uses or knows about. The equipment is more advanced than ours and will be useful, but by and large the aliens apply the same concepts and use the same physics as we do. As I mentioned in my proposal, radar, lidar and other such old reliables are all well-represented in the suite.

And then there's the mystery sensor.

It had us confounded for a long time, because now that it's here on the Earth's surface, it spits out mostly overpowering background noise. Up in the air, however, the picture is quite different. We think we've now identified the detector and have figured out how it works.

In the simplest terms, it's a gravity sensor, scanning for minute changes in a background gravitational field. Everything travelling through a gravity field disturbs the field to some degree based on its size, mass and composition. The sensor can identify these changes as natural or artificial objects based on course, speed and acceleration with 95% accuracy. If there is any doubt about a contact, the system will report it anyway. It seems to be more effective in stronger fields like the one around Earth, but we surmise that it will work to some extent anywhere within the gravity range of a star.

All of this detection power is linked into an advanced computer system which automatically puts all results through a series of filters, which can be adjusted at any time to suit the needs of the pilot and crew. This helps alternately sifting out targets from a mess of background noise or increasing sensitivity to search for something stealthy.

Interestingly, the detection computer seems to have a direct link to fire control, assisting in anticipating target manoeuvres and point defence control if the craft has that capability.

Parts of this technology can be adapted to our existing ground-based installations and aircraft radar. It should extend their detection range and increase resolution across the board, making it a good deal harder for UFOs to hide. However, the biggest practical gains will come from using this tech in creating new aircraft instrumentation to increase the combat survivability of our interceptors.

Cdr. Navarre"

Particle Beam

Commander, the UFO we recovered was equipped with a very interesting type of weapon that we'd like to research right away. It seems to fire some kind of high-velocity particle beam; if we can master this technology, or at least adapt it for use on our own aircraft, we could make air engagements with armed alien craft significantly more survivable for our craft and pilots.

Cdr. Navarre

"Our report on the alien PBW (Particle Beam Weapon) is ready for your review, Commander.

The general idea of particle-beam weaponry is to hit a target object with a stream of accelerated particles moving at near-light velocities, therefore carrying tremendous kinetic energy. The alien weapon is an elegantly simple application of this concept. It is essentially nothing more than a big particle accelerator and a set of focusing equipment, consisting of a high-powered magnetic containment and pinch system.

My team could've built a particle accelerator to nearly the same standards, but the focusing array shows us just how far ahead the aliens really are. The accelerator is little more than a high-energy synchrotron, speeding particles round and round in a circle until they've achieved sufficient velocity. The particles are then diverted via a magnetic field into the focusing array, where they are magnetically constricted -- 'pinched' -- into a coherent beam. The level of magnetic control the aliens achieve here is far greater than anything we've managed before. The pinch system is intelligently controlled by the UFO's targeting computer, directing the beam to its target with dead-on accuracy.

When active, the weapon is powered directly from the UFO's electrical system, constantly tracking one target of choice. Once the target has been destroyed, the computer will immediately lock on to the next hostile contact in the chain, if any.

Defending against this weapon is going to be a challenge, Commander. There is very little that can be done against a particle beam travelling at near the speed of light, carrying enough energy to knock anything we can field right out of the sky. Additional armour for our aircraft will protect against glancing blows, but in the case of a direct hit, it may as well not be there. It seems the only realistic defence against this weapon is to cause it to miss. We should recover and investigate an intact alien ECM unit as soon as we can.

On a brighter note, we've confirmed that all the weapon's components are within our ability to replicate, and their specs have been loaded into our Workshop machinery. We should be able to begin production straight away.

Cdr. Navarre"

Alien Missile Launcher

Commander, we made an extremely interesting find on the UFO we disassembled. It carried an advanced and highly dangerous onboard missile launcher, using powerful magnetic rails to accelerate its missiles to hypersonic speeds before they even leave the launch tube.

We want to investigate this launcher and determine whether or not it can be adapted to fit on PHALANX aircraft, or even if it can be applied to other purposes. This launcher system would be far more effective in bringing down UFOs than our Sparrowhawks, possibly even more effective than our current SAM systems. If we can adapt it we stand to gain a substantial boost to the firepower of our whole airfleet as well as ground-based missile systems.

Please approve this program whenever you can, Commander.

Cdr. Navarre

"Commander, we've finished work on the alien missile launcher. It's a fairly simple affair. Firing is computer-driven, fed directly from the UFO's targeting computer. Powerful electromagnetic coils around the launch tube accelerate the missile to extreme speeds, reaching up to Mach 4 at the point where the missile leaves the tube. Only once the missile is fully free of the tube do its onboard rockets kick in.

The good news is that we've managed to succesfully adapt fittings, controls and power feeds to allow the Alien Launcher to be safely mounted to our aircraft. The bad news is that we've had to drastically reduce its magazine size in order to meet weight and size restrictions on our aircraft.

Our aircraft are too small and light to be able to carry so many, and most of our craft aren't laid out with internal missile magazines. We've had to custom-build a magazine mounted with the launcher, the capacity of which falls behind the stores found on UFOs.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. We believe that we can modify the launch tube to be able to fire human missiles as well as the alien type. We'd have to develop the missile ourselves, of course -- no current human missile is capable of withstanding the stress of being fired from this launcher. However, we're confident we can design a missile that will survive launch and incorporates new UFO-tracking technologies to improve homing and ECM capability.

I'll send you a design proposal as soon as I can, Commander.

Cdr. Navarre"

Alien Antimatter Missile

Commander, we've recovered an interesting type of alien missile from the disassembled UFO. It seems to be powered by antimatter, with advanced guidance systems, extensive EW (Electronic Warfare) capabilities and top speeds far in excess of anything we've ever seen.

These missiles may be the greatest threat to our aircraft yet, even worse than the alien beam weaponry.

It's extremely important we research these missiles and figure out how they work in order to develop some defence against them.

Cdr. Navarre

"Commander, my team and I have just wrapped up our work with the antimatter missile recovered by our field team. As usual, there's good news and bad news. I'll get right to the point.

The missile's main structure consists of a rigid outer casing of alien materials, the same stuff used to plate UFO hulls, and is designed to fragment on impact into hundreds of shards of hot fast-moving shrapnel. This shell contains individual compartments for targeting, avionics, EW equipment and other electronics, and -- taking up most of the rear half of the missile -- a proton-antiproton annihilation rocket.

The rocket is by far the most powerful missile engine ever seen on Earth, capable of attaining speeds that are flatly impossible through ordinary chemical reactions. It propels the missile to speeds where it no longer needs an onboard warhead. The kinetic energy generated by the impact is enough to tear an unarmoured human airliner to shreds, and even a proximity detonation of the missile's antimatter fuel is usually enough to knock down a fighter jet. Our interceptors are not built to withstand this kind of violence.

We can duplicate the missiles well enough, but they still require antimatter for fuel, probably the most valuable substance in the universe right now. We'll get to work figuring out how we can utilize these ideas in a more affordable weapon system, Commander.

Cdr. Navarre"

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