Self-confessed sceptic snaps photo of UFO over Caloundra

I came across a recent UFO sighting in Australia that seems worthy of discussion.

It occurred on the night of Good Friday at around 8pm and was witnessed by an anonymous person that claims to be a commercial pilot.

Sunshine coast daily

A COMMERCIAL pilot with more than 30 years' experience has been left scratching his head over mysterious lights he saw over Caloundra on Good Friday.

It has the self-confessed "world's greatest sceptic" questioning everything he believes about UFOs.

Caloundra is a popular tourist/holiday destination and the holiday festivities would have been in full swing - the witness is aware of the appearance of Chinese lanterns, yet dismisses its' likelihood.

Here's an image he managed to capture.



Without the benefit of the metadata and considering the use of digital zoom, the object does appear to maintain a defined shape and outline not easily explained.

Gonna throw out a random guess,

Atmospheric re-entry of something Controlled.

The light being so bright and vanishing, the movements (could be S motion of breaking maneuver).

Zoom used, altitude and size unkown, with out further radar data, or further information thats a good a guess as I can make.

Queensland seems to be a hot spot for UFO's its not really a unusual shape that i haven't seen in UFO's but as for what it is i have no idea! S&F though, interesting.

The legend is true, the Phoenix has returned.



Pretty hard to make out what we are looking at here.

why O why O why, can't someone out of 8 billion capture a decent picture of unidentified objects, its interesting yes, but is just another image to add to the several thousand that look similar. there is very little to go on, could be absolutely anything, at first it looks like a tear in black material held up to the sun and photographed. but literally there are hundreds of ways to produce such an image, so it has to be filed away with all the others just like it..

a reply to: flipflop

Doesn't matter. A good photo would just be called CGI (and in might likely be). It's a no-win at this point with photo evidence. Like bigfoot, it will take a body or actual downed craft observed by thousands of people.

originally posted by: flipflop
why O why O why, can't someone out of 8 billion capture a decent picture of unidentified objects, its interesting yes, but is just another image to add to the several thousand that look similar. there is very little to go on, could be absolutely anything, at first it looks like a tear in black material held up to the sun and photographed. but literally there are hundreds of ways to produce such an image, so it has to be filed away with all the others just like it..

With modern equipment and software, you would think it would be relatively easy to set up some kind of automated Cam to scan the skies.

A good HD Digital, with an optical zoom, Night vision.

set up the software to follow the motion it detects in the sky, Ive seen automated Paint Ball turrets that use similar, Set it up to work off moving light sources.

You would probably get a lot of air traffic and sats, and you might get some surprises.

Id wager it could be made for under 1000, I wonder if anyone in the UFO Research field has tried that at a Hotspot...

"World's greatest skeptic" -- Sorry, but unless he's spent a good solid few years rolling his eyes in the Aliens & UFO forum of ATS he is by no means close to even a "great" skeptic.

Cool picture, not really possible to tell what that is.

Being skeptical and then claiming to see an impressive UFO doesn't really give any merit to the case however.
That's like being a poor student all year and then surprising the teacher with a passing C on the finals,

Maybe this guy can get his face on video with his testimony, then we can at least see if his eyes dilate while he's telling us his story.

P.S: Looking at the link provided, there's a poll that made me shake my head. "Do you believe in Unidentified Flying Objects?" The author bothered to write out the acronym, but didn't bother think about what it actually means. Once again: Unidentified

And regarding folks who are wishing for some superb HD footage of impressive UFOs, all I can say is: Even with expensive equipment, it is still very difficult to take a quality shot of a moving object. That being said, I too wish that one day someone would get lucky enough to film a UFO that really displays extraordinary qualities. I witnessed several astonishing things in Northern California, but because I had no equipment I'll unfortunately be going to the grave with my experiences. That's just something people like me have had to come to terms with.

One day, perhaps.

S+F either way, thanks for sharing.

originally posted by: Perhaps
I came across a recent UFO sighting in Australia that seems worthy of discussion.

It occurred on the night of Good Friday at around 8pm and was witnessed by an anonymous person that claims to be a commercial pilot.

Sunshine coast daily

A COMMERCIAL pilot with more than 30 years' experience has been left scratching his head over mysterious lights he saw over Caloundra on Good Friday.

It has the self-confessed "world's greatest sceptic" questioning everything he believes about UFOs.

Caloundra is a popular tourist/holiday destination and the holiday festivities would have been in full swing - the witness is aware of the appearance of Chinese lanterns, yet dismisses its' likelihood.

Here's an image he managed to capture.

Without the benefit of the metadata and considering the use of digital zoom, the object does appear to maintain a defined shape and outline not easily explained.

This, from your original source:

The Pelican Waters man was admiring the sky with friends about 8pm last Friday when they first saw two coloured lights in the sky.

He said they reminded him of Chinese lanterns, rising high into the sky and heading south and then east.

www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au...

So, if they looked and behaved like Chinese lanterns... perhaps they are Chinese laqntern?

a reply to: DJW001

So, if they looked and behaved like Chinese lanterns... perhaps they are Chinese laqntern?

It's quite possible... yet the witness also goes onto say

Sunshinecoastdaily

moving at a speed that I have never seen a lantern or something of that sort doing.

Now what... ??

a reply to: Perhaps

'Reminded me of a Chinese lantern' could also be in relation to the colour and brightness only..it certainly doesn't have the shape of a lantern, Chinese or otherwise, so i suspect he was referring just to the colour / brightness reminding him of the colour and brightness of a lantern.

originally posted by: MysterX
a reply to: Perhaps

'Reminded me of a Chinese lantern' could also be in relation to the colour and brightness only..it certainly doesn't have the shape of a lantern, Chinese or otherwise, so i suspect he was referring just to the colour / brightness reminding him of the colour and brightness of a lantern.

Since we do not know how long of an exposure the photograph was, we don't know if the object had a shape, or if the "shape" is just the point source of light moving.

a reply to: Perhaps

It's easy to say it could be this or it could be that, just to satisfy a skeptics fear of the possibility something unexplained can be real. The only way skeptics will ever change their perspective on the phenomenon is when they actually witness a sighting, which is what this pilot experienced.

a reply to: Halfswede

A no win with photo or video evidence. I really don't see why people even bother with this. Threads like this only open the debunk floodgates. If any of these videos or pics are actually otherworldly craft we will never know.

a reply to: DJW001

So, if they looked and behaved like Chinese lanterns... perhaps they are Chinese laqntern?

I think if you continue reading, the next line might help:

Then a third warm-orange glow appeared and suddenly changed direction, tracked north-east and quickly disappeared. "We were looking for an identifier; a beacon or strobe light but there wasn't any," he said.

They saw the two that looked like Chinese lanterns, then a third one that behaved differently.

originally posted by: Pimpish
a reply to: DJW001

So, if they looked and behaved like Chinese lanterns... perhaps they are Chinese laqntern?

I think if you continue reading, the next line might help:

Then a third warm-orange glow appeared and suddenly changed direction, tracked north-east and quickly disappeared. "We were looking for an identifier; a beacon or strobe light but there wasn't any," he said.

They saw the two that looked like Chinese lanterns, then a third one that behaved differently.

Since when do Chinese lanterns have beacons or strobes? In any event, it does not say that the third one behaved differently, it said that it suddenly changed direction. The other ones changed direction, too, presumably as the wind at different altitudes shifted.

originally posted by: Perhaps

Hard to tell without the EXIF data.

He said they reminded him of Chinese lanterns, rising high into the sky and heading south and then east.

That's what it looks like to me, if the EXIF showed the shutter speed.

Not sure about the World's Greatest Sceptic title either lol...

originally posted by: WeRpeons

It's easy to say it could be this or it could be that, just to satisfy a skeptics fear of the possibility something unexplained can be real. The only way skeptics will ever change their perspective on the phenomenon is when they actually witness a sighting, which is what this pilot experienced.

Read a dictionary.

(a) an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object;
(b) the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain; or
(c) the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism that is characteristic of skeptics.

link

Note the suspended judgement part - I don't predetermine an outcome, which means I cannot be wrong. You on the other hand do predetermine the outcome, which means [this being a UFO forum] you are most likely wrong 99.9999% of the time.

Moving on...

If the pilot suggested it could be a Chinese lantern, then it probably is. But it does look like a re-entry type of event. Otherwise, I don't know.

a reply to: flipflop
my theory as to why we cannot capture a decent photo that has not been c.g.i.d? well i'd go as far as to say: they flew billions upon trillions of light years to our planet. if they have the tech to do that then y wouldnt they have the tech to scramble our image capture tools? I would think that would be a no brainer. they (e.t.) would only be seen if they wanted to be seen. like i said jmo.