Sighting of huge oval object over Idaho and Washington on 2. august 2017

a reply to: beetee

Yup, I watched all of tommyjo’s videos too. They all sound like turbo props.

These witnesses describe hearing a ‘pulsating humming’ sound — and very different physical features (circular / oval) than a fleet of Airbus A400M’s would.

In the video of the event you provided, the daughter seemed to keep her composure far more than her mom, e.g. the shooting star. The daughter was less emotional by the situation. Smart kid.

a reply to: KKLOCO

I do understand that people can get scared when they see something that they do not understand, and which seem to be a bit ominous.

That is why I can't really believe it could be a turboprop plane. We would be absolutely inundated with reports of this kind if this was the case, and people would freak out weekly. I mean, come on, this is clearly not the case.

Also, I cannot quite see why it would be so difficult to believe that the Air Force have in their fleet some platforms that they do not talk about, but occasionally have to move from place to place.

It would not be the first time, after all, that this has happened.

The F-117 managed to crash twice if I remember correctly while still being completely black.

Compared to that, keeping a few odd and ends out of the public eye by moving them at night seems not so much of a stretch, if you ask me.

Here is a video of the Goodyear Blimp, for comparison, since blimps came up.



And another:



Well, I think if "blimp" is the answer to this mystery, it is not this kind of blimp we are talking about.

Live in Boise and wish I would have seen this. The location of the first sighting is directly in the flightpath of the Boise airport which one would think would have been concerning to the airport. Any radar reports?

The distance from Oakesdale to Lincoln is about 118.5 km in a straight line, which it was covered in around 12 minutes giving an average speed of just below 600 km/h (592,5) or around 368 mph.

This is, of course, only a rough ballpark estimate as we do not know if it traveled in a straight line (at all) or flew some other route, and especially since we have no clear idea of exactly where it was when the witnesses recorded the time.

I also did a rough calculation for the longest distance, Boise to Lincoln, which gives us a distance of roughly 500 km in a straight line, which it would have to have covered in around 25 minutes giving us an average speed of 1200 km/h or around 745 mph.

These speeds are clearly not extraordinary for aircraft, but is way higher than any conventional blimp would be able to do. The speed record for an airship is, according to www.guinnessworldrecords.com..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">Guinnes Book of Records is 115 km/h (71.46 mph) set in 2004.

While this is the FAI official record, it is non the less pretty far from the speeds we are dealing with here, which lies closer to what you would expect from an conventional sub-sonic aircraft.

I agree that this is rather pointless, given all the uncertainty surrounding the sighting and the times recorded, but it is fun to speculate a bit. If all these sightings actually are of the same unidentified flying object, then it would at least have to be able to fly at 1200 km/h, or just below the speed of sound. If we just take the two closer and later sightings into account, which I am most confident about being the same craft, we arrive at a more conservative speed of around 600 km/h.

A lot of factors play a part in what kind of speed you would actually get with a given air frame, like wind conditions and altitude and so forth, and any detours would have to be made up for to get the times we see.

The Airbus A400M has for comparison a cruising speed of 781 km/h (485 mph; 422 kn) at 9,450 m (31,000 ft) according to its Wikipedia page.

a reply to: mzinga

Any radar reports?

I am not aware of any radar reports. It seems that there has been little, if any, investigation of this. I found nothing, apart from the witness reports, at MUFON and although NUFORC seems to have at least talked to some witnesses, I am unaware of any investigative steps they might have taken.

Maybe it would be easy to write it off as people getting excited over conventional airplanes, although the NUFORC commentary on the reports seemed to indicate they took it pretty seriously. But it's been nearly two years since it happened, and apart from the witnesses, few seem to be aware it ever took place.

I'm not sure who else might have looked into it, and if they would have gotten anything had they asked.
If it was some kind of secret platform, then I guess they would have been pretty tight with what they gave out publicly. It might even have been pretty hard to see on radar, for all we know.

Thanks for a fascinating, impeccably presented thred, BT.

originally posted by: beetee
I have been given permission to share another video from the witness who reported the UFO in Lincoln, which would be the fourth sighting report in the list of four, which she uploaded to MUFON where she also reported the sighting as outlined below...

You can also hear the witnesses are quite upset by what they are seeing.

It's almost akin to what a HQ video of the Phoenix Lights would have seemed like - at least in terms of witness excitement because of course we can't see the actual lights aside from a momentary glimpse around the 25-sec point. But the noise is just as interesting as the first video posted.

The step-dad tries to explain it away and doesn't sense the same scale of the UFO as his wife seems to. The daughter doesn't seem as upset as her mum who is UTTERLY convinced it's a massive craft, but fiddling with the camera must have been distracting for her. Her written account certainly conveys her fear more acutely.

Intriguing!

a reply to: beetee

Hey, now this is what I call UFO research! Good find. I'm always interested in PNW sightings since I live there but in Western Washington.

A lot of people don't realize how sparsely populated the western states are compared to the east coast. A lot of secret stuff goes on this side of the Mississippi.

a reply to: beetee

Yeah even if this was a blimp, I think it's still something top secret and exotic (exotic to us).

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Different witnesses said different things about the Phoenix light sighting? All the hundreds of witnesses didnt say the exact same story?

Oh, I guess thats reason to believe that a whole bunch of people just freaked out (and at least one guy literally crapped his pants) over nothing then. Sounds legit.

And these people ran inside screaming at their family members to get outside for nothing.

Man, people are just idiots huh? They go their entire life seeing planes, helicopters...and then one day they see just another perfectly ordinary plane or helicopter and freak the f out like they had an acid flashback, saying crazy bs like "I know what I saw"...

And then, whatever "UFO madness" effected them, it effected 3 more groups of people in a line, in sequential order. Must've been an airborne virus spread by the birds starting to come back north for the coming spring. An avian flu bug, but it only effects you for about a half hour or so and then vanishes without a trace.

I guarantee you, you find these people, and you ask them, and they will tell you, the common link here is that either they, or someone close to them, was crapped on by a bird sometime that day...

a reply to: ConfusedBrit

Yes, it is pretty interesting.

I don't buy that this is just some random transport plane flying overhead. People don't usually start praying when they do, or the US would be the most pious nation on Earth given the volume of air traffic people usually get used to.

I am trying to get a handle on the aircraft traffic in the area on the day in question, and while I doubt I will find anything very exciting, I have managed to dig up a couple of odd things.

Cheers,
BT

Ok, so just a slight oddity.

I am looking at the commercial air traffic in the area on the 2. august 2017 just to get a handle of the situation, and although this might be fairly innocent, one aircraft behaving a bit weirdly do turn up.



It is this plane which seems to be operated by Mitsubishi?

Apparently flying around out of Moses Lake and doing what in the middle of the night? This is the situation at the moment the witnesses reported their sighting close to midnight.

If there was a lot of military planes flying around in the area at this time, why is this privately owned out there doing whatever it was doing? And in the middle of the night?

I am not saying this is any kind of "smoking gun" but it is definitely a bit odd.

It took off from Moses lake a little before 21:00 on the 2. august and flew around the area before going in to land at a little before 01:30 on the 3rd. Which means it was there when the "event" happened, at least, and went in to land an hour and half after our mystery "flight" landed.

So, were they doing "test flights" for Mitsubishi, or were they there for something else? Were they there to monitor something, perhaps?

EDIT: It seems that Mitsubishi does indeed have a Flight test center at Moses Lake. The have been testing and certifying their Regional Jets there, and were indeed doing test flights in 2017.

I still think it is a bit curious though, although it might be unrelated.

a reply to: beetee

It was updated active until January this year on the operators schedule. Now locked. If that's of any significance.

bally

I remember reading that sightings of huge black triangles were correlated to Air Mobility Command bases. The idea was that they could have been hybrid airships. Could be the case here too maybe.

Well, I have found a few more interesting aircraft.

One is a Learjet35 who flies over just at the time the witnesses in the two last sightings have their experience.



I do believe that Air Mobility Command do operate a few of these, but this might also be related to the exercise.

Learjet35

Another interesting flight pops up momentarily at 24500 feet at 340 knots and then disappears again from the tracking page a few minutes before midnight. It is listed as an "unknown type" and there is little else to go on except airspeed and altitude.

This might be a military plane, as it is not squawking any code and seems only to be caught on radar coming in from the East (along with the Learjet above).
Although flightradar is showing it a bit all over the place before it goes away, it curiously appears to be going north just before it disappears. This can very well be the tracking software making a mess of things, but it is a bit curious.

Here it is in all it's glory right before it disappears at a few minutes to midnight, as our witnesses in Lincoln are saying prayers and generally not having such a great time.



The Learjet is to the West.

I have also found another private jet of unknown ownership that flies a jolly path from Las Vegas up to around our area then turns around and goes to Denver on the night in question. I don't know the habits of the rich, of course, but perhaps they just like to fly.

Here it is as it turn around and flies to Denver.



Hey, maybe they forgot where they were going... you never know.

Don't know how much further I can get with this. Looking at civilian air traffic probably won't reveal anything exceptionally significant. This is the picture in the immediate vicinity of Lincoln, WA as the sighting happened



A few unknown flights, business jets, our Japanese friends doing their thing and a few Airlines. If anyone were to have seen something, it would have been these guys.

originally posted by: beetee
a reply to: tommyjo

Thank you for that.

Certainly a very distinct sound. Did you listen to the video I posted above?

Yes. Thanks for posting it. Yes to me it sounds like the distinct hum of an Airbus A400M. You also have to factor in distance.

originally posted by: beetee
Ok, so just a slight oddity.

I am looking at the commercial air traffic in the area on the 2. august 2017 just to get a handle of the situation, and although this might be fairly innocent, one aircraft behaving a bit weirdly do turn up.

Have you factored in the time offset? Flight tracking software uses GMT. (Greenwich Mean Time). The likes of Washington State would be behind GMT during August by 7 hours. Any local time for that period in August you have to add 7 hours to convert it to GMT.

For example the Washington State sighting at 1143PM. Convert that time to GMT.

11:43:00 p.m. (23:43:00) Wednesday August 2, 2017 in US/Pacific Time converts to 06:43:00 a.m. (06:43 GMT) Thursday August 3, 2017 in GMT.

Time converter link

a reply to: tommyjo

Yes, I have been trying to find a suitable clip to hear how it would sound when flying over at distance, especially in a group.

The video below is from the actual exercise with a lot of metal flying out of McChord.



What I cannot get to fit is that the witnesses describe the sound as being very loud, causing stuff to vibrate etc, but yet it is described as a "hum". And the exercise went on for quite a while, with all sorts of aircraft flying around the area, but we have not a single similar UFO report from the rest of the exercise.

Yet on this one night we have four reports.... I find that a bit strange.

I really appreciate your contribution, by the way, because if we could nail it down it would be good.

I have been trying to look at flights, but I am not aware of any way to get a hold of any military flights for the night in question, so it is a bit futile.

originally posted by: beetee

It took off from Moses lake a little before 21:00 on the 2. august and flew around the area before going in to land at a little before 01:30 on the 3rd. Which means it was there when the "event" happened, at least, and went in to land an hour and half after our mystery "flight" landed.

I've just run that flight back on Planefinder and I can see your error. You have forgotten to factor in GMT. In reality the flight took off from Moses Lake at a little before 2 pm on the 2nd August and landed a little before 6.30 pm on the 2nd August making it a daylight flight. Washington State during that time of the year (August) was GMT -7 hours. Any local time you have to add 7 hours to get the GMT.

a reply to: tommyjo

Ah, thanks a lot.

What a silly mistake.

Now I have to start over ... lol..

Really appreciated.