Originally posted by defcon5
I agree with the folks above, it’s a hot air balloon. Most of what I first saw in the video has already been pointed out above, so I quoted them to
give the proper due, if I missed anyone I apologize.
1) The object shows very little motion, its just hanging there.
2) There is a small heat source at the bottom of the circle which is apparent in the night vision video.
3) The airbag catches the wind right at the end, it distorts the airbag causing it to hit the heat source and ignite.
4) If you notice on the left side there is flickering that can be seen from the fire of the heat source.
5) The object breaks up pretty much like a home made hot air balloon made of reflective plastic material.
This used to be a very old trick, you can do it with a dry cleaners bag, some straws, fishing line, and something to use for the heat source.
[edit on 2/18/2007 by defcon5]
Sigh.. ok... this down and dirty disclaimer is intended for everyone with no intent towards malice .. So if I offend someone, I'll apologize now
as that is not my intent.
I'm going to say this upfront right now.. anyone starting to get uncivil with myself or other members in this thread or argumentative (as I see so
often) will result in my reporting it, and my ceasing to be cooperative. Sorry, but I have a life and I think many of you waste way too much time with
the "digital-ego" as Springer calls it. I've been a avid skywatcher/researcher for over 25+ years, yes thats right, while many of you are
downloading from YouTube, I'm outside for up to 10 hours at a time actually trying to capture something on top of a hill that I drove three hundred
miles to because someone in that area said they saw something! Add to that my personal researching and.. well you get the idea.. I have a bit more
than an average interest in it. So any hint by anyone suggesting this to being a hoaxed capture, and you can plan on my cooperation ending.
With that said, below is the original preliminary report I sent.
Here's the original report I submitted to Brian Vike
Please read the above first before you get all engrossed into trying to figure it out.
I will say this. I highly doubt that this was a cleaning bag/balloon hoaxed ufo. The object would have been way too big for that. Now how can I make
such a claim as that? Well none that will quench your thirst as :
One: you were not there to observe the 20+ minutes of observation both with the naked eye and through the camera lense. The Location and brightness
of this thing made me first believe that I was seeing a extremely large celestial body (prior to sunset) the size of Venus. In fact this was my first
logical preliminary deduction, that this 'had to be' Venus. The illumination was constant and did not flicker, strobe or worble. The brilliance was
extremely bright by the naked eye and this was during the day with no other celestial bodies visible for at least another 13 minutes at the most.
Two: as a former broadcast cameraman working with any number of pro and yes even consumer model videocameras with a beyond average knowledge of focal
pov's, I can guesstimate that at the optical focal range I had my camera at this thing was quite large. If I were to conjecture a size based on jets
and blimps I've videotaped at the same settings but from a great distance, I'd have to say that it comes close to being the size of perhaps a
'Cul-De-Sac' of a standard residential area.
Three: the object did not move more than a snail's pace and as it got into the sunset minutes, I actually shut the camera off trying to convince
myself, 'this has to be Venus'!
Four: after the Sun had set and I was able to now view a bit of Orion's Belt along with the object and noticed that although the speed seemed
consistent with the stars, it's trajectory was different. Hence I started taping again. The object appeared (to my pov) to be 15-17 times larger than
the surrounding stars, and that is a underestimate in my opinion.
Five: As time continued, I zoomed into the object past the optical zone and into the digital zone, (which because of pixelization I detest on
camcorders). It was then I noticed the secondary smaller object which seem to have dropped (or perhaps was released) and it moved away to the bottom
of the larger object.
Six: I had stopped taping once again (bad habit of mine of wanting to save tape), but as the stars were getting more pronounced and were above the
object, I zoomed back to include them in the shot.
Seven: shortly after the realignment, the object exploded (or more than likely imploded) at which time I quickly jumped towards the camera (as I was
about a foot away just viewing occasionally at the 4" viewscreen since nothing was happening).
Eight: I followed the debris as it careened downward back to earth for another few minutes, occasionally switching from 'NiteShot' to a regular
mode. My reasoning for this was to check and see if it was visible in the normal light spectrum. This wasn't apparent at any of the times I did so.
And though it seems to you that the debris just hangs there, it is traveling downward at a decent pace and "yes", I'm that good at following an
object with a $600.00 Bogen/Manfrotto fluid-head tripod.
I'll stop there with the recap.
Now before anyone hops on the conjecture war-path, I will add this. To date, I still do not know what this was. But after an intense amount of
research and using the "occam's razor" theory (don't know what that is?.. It's worth looking up.. Google it), I still lean towards this more than
likely was a High-Altitude (possibly military) test. Could it have been a balloon such as in the supposed Project Mogul? Sure.. why not.. sounds as
good to me as just about any of the other countless theories and ideas I've heard.
Did I try contacting airports and law enforcement? Yes,, and you guessed it, no one saw or reported anything.
Did I check with NASA's J-Track to see if it was perhaps a orbiting object? Yes, it was the first thing as a skywatcher that I do after an
observation to confirm that I may have really captured something.
Did I try and find where the debris might have dropped to? This is the one thing I didn't do but I did check with fire departments as far as 50 miles
away to see if there had been any reports or odd fires.
Did I check with the local and regional media outlets for any news or reports of the sighting? Yes, in fact a number of the outlets wanted to
interview me on what I taped, I turned them down. Now why on earth would I do something like that? Because it's a UFO...! And the report was (and as
far as I'm concerned still is) in a fact-finding arena.
Did I contact the military about this event? No, I did not. I have contacts that did for me.
Can I say without a doubt what it wasn't? Well yes, it wasn't a plane or helicopter, I doubt very much that this was something ET related, and I can
say with 99.99% certainty that this wasn't a helium-filled cleaning bag that ignited. And several Air Force pilots, numerous ufologist and one
scientist from the ESA agrees with me... nope, no cleaning bags here...
[edit on 19-2-2007 by JohnnyAnonymous]