2 Sept 2020, updated 12 May 2022

This short paper is for those who are not well-versed in the Universal Time Code and how to convert it to local time and reverse. Most operators of MADAR sites will be interested in the former because the email alerts show the event in UTC and the spreadsheet deals with UTC in its last column, column 8.

Each Op should know what his/her time zone is, and how and if it cahnges twice a year to and from Daylight Savings Time. So keep track of the dates those make the switch.

But here let's show you how to use the conversion chart.

If you are in Furlong, Pennsylvania and your MADAR shows an anomaly at 2022-04-24  10:09:37, you can see the date and the time in UTC is 10:10 (the 09 is rounded off to 10 because of the extra 37 seconds). In the chart below in the left column look for 10:10, then slide over to the column for Furlong's time zone, EDT. The time is 6:10. It is AM because the times given are in 24-hour or military time.

That's pretty easy. Let's try an interesting example that allows you "travel in time". Grand Junction, Colorado is on MDT and had an anomaly listed on our spreadsheet as 2022-04-29  03:03:32. If you use the UTC conversion chart and go to 03:04 and slide over to the MDT column you'll notice the local time is 21:04 or 9:04 PM, BUT..........look at what part of the chart it falls in! See the "0000" times with the asterisks (*)? That means the date is actually the day prior to the UTC date. The event occurred on the 28th!



Personally I have always favored the "wee hours" for interesting anomalies, but UAP probably do what they have to do when they need to do it. But a rapid response team would have an easier time observing a UAP in the dark because of the way the human eye works. At night the eye can detect a very small flashing light very easily, so one could walk out and spot an anomalistic target or even aircraft lights very quickly. Daytime abilities are very much less.

Last, but not least, if a MADAR logs an event with a UTC of 10:25 or 11:25, in most cases this is a systemic error of some kind we haven't yet figured out. They happen far too often to be UAP-related. So you should note what time they occur for you and simply be prepared to ignore those 60 seconds blasting from your DAS. In EST, for example, 10:25 is 5:25 AM. I don't even bother getting out of bed.

Print out this chart and have on hand.
xxxUTC-Chart.
 


Fran Ridge