I'll also put my tinfoil hat on, since I've had a long fascination with anamolous phenomenon. I still think the jury's out on what exactly is going on, but one thing that's consistent worldwide is that balls of light are associated with UFOs, bigfoot, poltergeists, etc.<p>My rational mind doesn't really believe in all of this, but if it did, I think I'd take Jacques Vallee's theory seriously. Jacques Vallee is an astronomer and computer scientist (involved in early ARPANET) who's studied the phenomenon since at least the 70s. Here's a fun paper:<p><a href="https://www.scientificexploration.org/docs/4/jse_04_1_vallee_2.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.scientificexploration.org/docs/4/jse_04_1_vallee...</a><p>He essentially argues that the UFO phenomenon is neither extra terrestrials nor merely misidentified aerial craft. It's something even stranger!<p>Also, if you find that paper interesting, here's one of this books (one of the most well-known in the anomalous phenomenon field):<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Passport-Magonia-Folklore-Flying-Saucers/dp/0987422480/" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Passport-Magonia-Folklore-Flying-Sauc...</a>
Transcribing the interesting bits from 18:15<p>Man A (ATC?): There's nothing showing on either primary or secondary<p>Woman A: Ok, it was moving so fast. [Inaudible]<p>Man A: Alongside you?<p>Woman A: Yes, it was rapidly [inaudible] bright light and then it just disappeared at a very high speed. I am still wondering.
Didn't think it was likely collision course. Wondering what sort it could be.<p>Man B: Meteor or another object. Some kind of re-entry. Seem to be multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory. Very bright where we were<p>Woman B (ATC?): Ok, that's copy, so what's the direction it was going in.<p>Man B: Virgin 76 [inaudible] saw that NRS 11-o'clock position two bright lights.<p>Woman B: Roger that's copy, thank you.<p>Man C: So that wasn't just me?<p>Man B: No. Yeah, very interesting, that one.<p>Man B: Virgin 76. I saw two bright lights 11 o'clock. Seem to bank over to the right and then climb away. Speed at least Mach [inaudible]<p>Woman B: Okay, we're passing that on, thank you.<p>Man D (or is it Man A?): [inaudible] 94 Shannon.<p>Man D: Just to let you know that other aircrafts in the area have also reported the same thing. So we're going to have a look and see.<p>Man E: Speed was astronomical. It was like Mach 2.<p>Man D: Roger, OK. Thank you.
Actual link to the tweet that has all the actual content:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/IrishAero/status/1061669444093730820" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/IrishAero/status/1061669444093730820</a><p>Direct link to the audio:<p><a href="http://archive-server.liveatc.net/einn/EINN-High-Nov-09-2018-0630Z.mp3" rel="nofollow">http://archive-server.liveatc.net/einn/EINN-High-Nov-09-2018...</a><p>Side note; including a screenshot of a tweet with out a link to it, is pretty lame.
Since we don't usually get UFO threads on Hacker News, I may as well brush the dust off my tinfoil hat...<p>What's always puzzled me about UFO sightings is the preponderance of "bright lights" being what people report seeing. If some extraterrestrial being came to visit, why make itself known? And in such an obviously unnatural way, too?<p>One immediate counterargument I can think of is that it's good camouflage. Who needs difficult shit like invisibility when we can just pound the earthlings' pupils with light so they can't see us well! Nevertheless, has always made the skeptic in me raise my eyebrows recursively.
A few months ago I was walking alone in the park when I saw a bright light moving in strange patterns in the sky. It scared the pants off of me.<p>For about a day my mind was nothing but paranoid thoughts. I had fear that I had seen something that I shouldn't have. That not only extraterrestrial life was real, but that they knew of my existence and would be coming for me. Or perhaps they were coming for all of us. I was a mess.<p>And sure, it was probably a drone. Or a plane. Or a shooting star, etc. But was it? I couldn't shake the thought that it wasn't.<p>It sounds hilariously silly now, but at the time it really screwed with my mental state.
A lot of people typically have a "Where's the proof?" wrt UFOs. However, there is Dr Steven Greer who in 2001 fronted a 'Disclosure Project' in which many people from positions of authority (eg FAA chiefs, Tower operators, Military pilots, etc) stated quite clearly on National Press Club in Washington their testimony on UFO's. [0]<p>Since then, he's been often quoted as saying that there's such an abundance of proof that it's embarrassing. He has video and other testimonies from world leaders, and often sits down with heads of state advising them, and now has hundreds of testimonies from verifiable people in the military industrial complex testifying to the authenticity of their existence, as well as the massive deliberate misinformation systems put into place to control the UFO 'story'. [1]<p>I'd recommend watching his documentaries, Sirius and Unacknowledged [2][2b]<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClhNHIEPCKE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClhNHIEPCKE</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJVg1HBlWA4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJVg1HBlWA4</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShZMgbXNSBs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShZMgbXNSBs</a><p>[2] <a href="http://siriusdisclosure.com/" rel="nofollow">http://siriusdisclosure.com/</a><p>[2b] Sirius: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C_-HLD21hA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C_-HLD21hA</a><p>edit: better links
Do any airlines have high-def video cameras on planes? Seems like something that would be financially feasible with modern technology and would provide very useful data for unexplained phenomena like this. I imagine I'm not the only one who would pay to subscribe for a streaming service for airline footage, even when there aren't UFO sightings to examine.
It it were aliens, they are probably making contact with the cephalopod population under the sea to see if they have developed technology yet, and in this planets case they've found another monkey hominid infestation in one of those rare millennia before its civilizations manage to collectively off themselves.
Uh, so... I don't have precise enough times to do this, but my first question is, "Is this an Iridium Flare event?" If you have never seen "Iridium Flares", grab your phone and download an Iridium Flare app. They're confusing, spectacular, and they actually happen pretty often.<p>Because this sounds an awful lot like an iridium flare. And they're a kind of persistent source of "inexplicable aircraft" reports because they're SO bright you assume they have to be close by.
I saw one not too long ago. Two white lights in the sky spaced close enough and moving so as to be obviously 'connected' to each other.<p>It was perfectly still night in the UK. I outstretched my hand and finger and, I forget the details exactly, but the finger just about blocked out the pair of lights I think.<p>A quick call to my father in law (pilot) and some info on joining the landing pattern at Boscombe Down, added to the lack of red/green lights so not normally a craft expecting to interact with other traffic, and a little investigative intuition seeing as the lights were moving so slow as to almost be gliding - and I find the Zephyr high altitude long endurance surveillance aircraft.<p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-buys-third-record-breaking-uav" rel="nofollow">https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-buys-third-record-bre...</a><p>A bit of trigonometry showed with a wingspan of 35m (I think that was it) and the angle of my finger outstretched, put the craft at about the height it should be for following the standard approach path into Boscombe Down.<p>So with a little knowledge it was possibly to determine with a high degree of likelihood what this 'UFO' was.<p>I suspect that virtually all reports can be attributed to similar terrestrial origins with experimental aircraft and using the 'extra-terrestrial' card is just a convenient way of covering that up.<p>EDIT - I should add I saw it because it was I think the night SpaceX launched and landed a reusable rocket maybe for first time? Or perhaps it was reused rocket with reused dragon cargo capsule to ISS. The path I think was going to take it over the UK anyway, so I was out to see if it would be visible, having watched the launch a little earlier in the evening.<p>Note to Royal Air Force - don't land the slightly secret plane when many people is likely to be looking up!
Not to put a downer on speculation but probably military jets that lit the afterburners and zoomed away. My first thought was F-111s, but since it seems they were radar quiet, maybe stealth planes.
Isn't the most likely explanation for these sightings secret military aircraft testing/missions?<p>There's been a number of credible UFO sightings lately, some even by military pilots and captured on video.<p>If you consider how long it's been since there's been a major breakthrough publicized in the air superiority department, and how advanced technology in general has become since the days of the SR-71, we're long overdue for some next-level aircraft likely to be kept under wraps until required to win a conflict.
Why all these sightings are never accompanied with sonic booms? If something is moving that fast through the atmosphere, there must be a sonic boom. Or is there any way to suppress this? At least theoretically?
For anyone fascinated with the hype around UFO sightings, "The Resonance of Unseen Things" [1] is an interesting read focusing on the structure of the stories and their connection to people's social and economic lives. It approaches the UFO believers subculture from a sympathetic viewpoint and tries to understand. Great ethnography.<p>[1]<a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/8373560/resonance_of_unseen_things" rel="nofollow">https://www.press.umich.edu/8373560/resonance_of_unseen_thin...</a>
Carl Jung wrote about UFOs as something of a collective hallucination, a mass psycho-spiritual phenomenon. Not in the sense that they are "unreal", but in that they tap into an extraordinary dimension of our collective awareness.<p>I suggest checking out "Flying Saucers: a Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky."
I saw the Black Triangle UFO [1] in Duluth, MN about 10 years go. It went from a low altitude hover to a slow glide across the night sky. I was standing almost directly under it in a parking lot. I thought it was a strange pattern of new streetlights for a few moments until it started gliding. Always wondered what that was.<p>[1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_triangle_(UFO)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_triangle_(UFO)</a>
Misjudging distance seems to be a very frequent suspect in tales of the unexplained. "The light moved at an extraordinary speed" - it moved at an ordinary speed, close to you. Likewise "through the distant moors it stalked - a panther!" - a pet cat.
Perhaps it'd be more interesting for both casual observers and conspiracy theorists alike to assume modern UFOs are not extraterrestrial spacecraft, but clandestine earthly government aircraft.<p>Maybe they turn on the bright lights to pretend to be aliens, to throw off the scent.
I saw 1 meteor over Dublin this weekend. It was on Sunday at about 23:30 and I was looking towards Ursa Major. I've seen a few by now to know that it was just that, a meteor. White and bright, moving fast and disappearing.
I haven't read/heard any comments about possible sound (sonic boom or other) from these lights, whatever they were. Anybody know differently?
Well this lends some credibility to a comment I posted just about a week ago. It got a lot of push-back understandably but being an eye witness myself. I know the phenomenon is true. It was in no way a meteor because it moved in erratic directions, up, down, left, right, and figure 8's. Is this from outer space though? It's been happening for at least 25 years.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18367198" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18367198</a>
I still feel like if UFOs really were able to one: fly here and two: mess with us, they would just kill us off and take our planet. Or enslave us.<p>It's what we would probably end up doing.
These sightings are all most all the time reported in the United States which probably means this is some sort of advanced military aircraft testing.<p>The reason why none of the incidents can see the thing clearly is that because when seen clearly its just another plane and nobody reports that.
I am guessing most people browsing this are suddenly intrigued by the topic. This is the most interesting incident ever, by far: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Tehran_UFO_incident" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Tehran_UFO_incident</a>
A couple of years ago, I heard of a case where a guy was flying a small plane over James Bay in Québec in around 1978 and he saw what he thought were 5 fuel tanks on the ground, around 60' in diameters each. This was strange since this is in the middle of nowhere and these weren't even there a couple of days before and no road is leading to this place.<p>As he approached the location, the "fuel tanks" started moving in formation and flew upward at an impossible speed. They looked like fuel tank from above, but they were circular crafts.<p>Keep in mind, 5 objects of this size, moving at this speed would have displaced a lot or air, but there was no disruption, no noise.<p>There's some big hydro electric dams in this place and apparently these crafts are often seen hovering above the power lines.