It is entirely plausable that the UAV has little or new tech in it, it could be that the the numerous protestations from the US are there purely to to encourage certain other nations to waste their time, diplomatic capital, and resources on trying to get hold of the much hyped technology.
Am sure the sensor load in the numerous reaper etc that have been lost before will be much the same.

It is definitely plausible, but in my opinion there are quite a few other plausible scenarios too.

The one you postulate above is infinitely less damaging than some of the others and I believe it is in the interests of the US military/CIA to perpetuate it. Hence my scepticism of the reporting.

That of course does not mean it’s a fabrication – it could be the truth.

But personally, at this point, given the relative paucity of reliable information, I would not be terribly surprised if this is a hugely more embarrassing and damaging loss than is currently presented.

Time will tell.

I have not the time to go through stacks of old business cards to find out if I have ever met her. But I would no more judge journalists or any other professional group by the behaviour of a few individuals that I would judge doctors by the behaviour of the late Doctors Crippen and Mengele.

Funny.

I’m not implying that all or even a majority of journalists in the Defence/Political sphere operate under the thumb of state interests.

Just a few well placed ones, some of the time.

In this specific instance, concerning the drone, I’m dubious about some of the reporters, their sources and their intent.

I could of course be wrong.

Such fantasies are not unknown. According to an old Fleet Street journalist, during the 1970s a certain Soviet diplomat in London would solemnly assure his Western drinking companions that a secret department within the Pentagon wrote all the defence stories that appeared in Aviation Week, Flight International and Air et Cosmos.

I dont think they’re actually writing the articles in bunker and mailing them out – it’s a little more subtle:

Hacks get a briefing from an ex, or current low ranking spook who occasionally gives them a decent tale to tell, in return for which, all he or she asks is for them to peddle propaganda that paints their employers in a favourable, or in this case, the least damaging, light.

In return they’ll get an “exclusive” on some Cuban spy ring that was trying to steal Burger King recipes, or a first look at a the wonder plane/satellite/toy.

If they jam GPS, the UAV doesn’t know where it’s going.

Yeah that makes perfect sense, build a cutting edge stealth UAV, designed to be largely autonomous in hostile environments and dont bother with an Inertial Navigation System.

I think the most likely explanation is indeed that it suffered a flameout, for whatever reason.

I’m also reminded of the F-22 bug which occurred a few years back when they crossed the international dateline and their avionics went cuckoo and they had to follow tankers home – in a complex system, things can and do go wrong.

The question then is, if it suffered an avionics/navigation failure, was that due in part to Iranian jamming/spoofing of for instance, its GPS feed and a consequent failure of the INS, or just that the system couldnt deal adequately with a well designed attack.

As to covering up the undercarriage: one of the lines put out by the Iranian media/military is that they actually took control of the aircraft, my guess is they didnt and showing the undercarriage up and a damaged belly would have shown quite plainly that they werent really in control – if they were, and they had that level of knowledge, it would have been laughably easy to drop the gear down.

There are lots of other possibilities, but right now I’m assuming, it’s the real deal and there was a screw up.

This is pure comedy:
http://cryptome.org/0005/pentagon-rq170.htm

There have been a number of tantalizing reports of UFO’s from quite reliable witnesses, military and civil pilots for instance: but not one piece of incontravertible evidence – and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I’m agnostic on the subject – there’s not enough hard evidence, but there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence.

IMO, the biggest enemy to any real research of UFO’s is not some dark world government conspiracy, it’s the stark raving mad ufologists who jump on any piece of evidence, however poor, and declare it a smoking gun of extraterestrial visitation.

Anyway – this should probably be in general chat right? 😛

GBU’s