UFO Appears to be Flying Behind the Moon

Thats a pretty good size UFO, its real but I dont think its passing behind the moon, freeze frame it and you can tell, only reason it disappeared was because apparently the earths shadow allowed it to disappear, whatever it is it was reflecting off the suns light.

wow, there was something wrong with the Moon in the end !

www.spaceweather.com...

the 22th of February edition talks about meteorite impact , right during the eclipse.

If it was an alien space craft, why didn't it stop to take a break at the moon, since it wasn't heading toward or away from the Earth, and it happened to be passing by?

questioning where, when, or how a UFO flies is like asking why is Area 51 kept secret, we just dont know.

We dont know if it was flying away from earth either, I would of loved to have a focused video image of the moon and that object though.

I do know this though, Satellites dont travel that fast.

[It could be flying in front of the moon. If its showing up in the first place due to reflected sunlight, and flew thru the earth's shadow then it, like the moon, would have the sunlight blocked and become temporarily invisible until it flew out of the shadow. Satellite, or space junk. Good find though!

reply to post by sty


Thanks for having a go sty. If your estimate is correct, then it would point to this being a satellite. I'm not sure that it is correct, and this might be due to plugging in in-accurate data...

What we really need here is:
1. the frame-rate of the original video
2. Stills of at least two consecutive frames from the original video where the object is visible

With this data, an accurate estimate of the object's angular-velocity should be possible to calculate.

Originally posted by predisposed
screams hoax to me

Originally posted by weedwhacker
This person, it seems, decided to spoof everyone???

What hoax? What spoof? The original utube poster never claimed that this object was, with 100 % certainty, behind the moon. In fact he stated that he was not sure if it was indeed behind or in front of the moon.

Please read 'theyareoutthere's posts in this thread and then state the reasons why you believe that this is a hoax.

Calm down people and wait for the high resolution video to start tests.

reply to post by nsaeyes


Not the same. The fireball you are talking about had a much steeper angle of entry, and was also brighter than the moon at it's peak. The one we have here is no where near as bright.

reply to post by TheAgentNineteen


Agreed.

Originally posted by sty
wow, there was something wrong with the Moon in the end !

www.spaceweather.com...

the 22th of February edition talks about meteorite impact , right during the eclipse.

Wrong with the moon? I don't think so...

The moon is constantly suffering meteor impacts - during an eclipse like the one just gone, we get a chance to actually observe them, due to the reduction in glare from reflected sunlight.


Edit to add: Here is a quote from wiki refering to meteor impacts on the Hubble Space Telescope:

Even very small meteoroids can damage spacecraft. The Hubble Space Telescope for example, has about 572 tiny craters and chipped areas.

With such a small object (compared to the size of the moon) being hit so much, it's easy to see how the moon makes such an easy target for many meteoroids!


[edit on 22-2-2008 by C.H.U.D.]

Originally posted by DrakaN
Calm down people and wait for the high resolution video to start tests.

That's the best one.line post ever
I don't think it makes much sense to speculate about a short/blurred version of the video. Once we have the original, then we can make all the assestment that we want. And for first, we need to know if it's behind the Moon or if it isn't: the clues suggests that it **may** be in front of the Moon, but this can be assested with analysis rather than with guesses. Have a star

[edit on 22/2/2008 by internos]

I dont see how its a satellite, Satellites dont travel that high speed, no where near that speed.

This is just to remind you out there...
I think the video maker posted that his vid was shot before the lunar eclipse due to him filming it the wrong day

And i agree with internos that we should wait before we judge this video.
As it was one of me previous statements aswell
But we could continue to guess without trying to ridicule the one who made this video or those who do believe it is something 'alien' in origin.

My guess is that it is something flying behind the moon, judging by the ilumination of the object when it gets into the moon halo.

My .2c

Originally posted by sarentack
I dont see how its a satellite, Satellites dont travel that high speed, no where near that speed.

I agree. It seems a bit too fast to be a satellite, but not that far off...

What you have to remember, is that this video is taken at quite a high zoom ratio, and that the apparent speed of an object is heavily influenced by this - the more you zoom, the faster the object will appear to move across the frame. This can easily mislead the in-experienced eye.

yeah but the zoom is only no more then 4x or 8x I would think if that.

I watched Satellites for years flyby and the only true way to see them is the sun, even with slight zoom as in the video and they have never traveled at such speed as that object did.

The only reason I like to see a higher resolution video of the moon unzoomed is if this object cast a shadow on the moons surface.

reply to post by theyareoutthere


Thanks for the update theyareoutthere and for all that you are doing to get the original downloaded. Good luck.

Originally posted by sarentack
I dont see how its a satellite, Satellites dont travel that high speed, no where near that speed.

I have to agree as well. I've seen many orbiting satellites (as well as orbiting telescopes such as the hubble, chandra, etc.) and they have never looked like anything other than a small/slow (moving) star.

Originally posted by sarentack
yeah but the zoom is only no more then 4x or 8x I would think if that.

Well, the cam used is capable of 25x optical zoom, and I suspect it was zoomed close to that, if not the full 25x. Let's see what theyareoutthere has to say about this...

Originally posted by sarentack
I watched Satellites for years flyby and the only true way to see them is the sun, even with slight zoom as in the video and they have never traveled at such speed as that object did.

I have also been observing satellites for many years.

There is only one way to observe them (apart from when they pass across the disc of the sun/moon), and that is when they are reflecting sunlight. "Truth" has nothing do do with it - those are the facts

I think you are under-estimating the zoom here... we will see...

Originally posted by sarentack
The only reason I like to see a higher resolution video of the moon unzoomed is if this object cast a shadow on the moons surface.

I think you will be disappointed if that is what you are hoping to see. There will not be any shadow on the moon - I'm sure of that!

-

theyareoutthere - thanks for taking the trouble to upload the full video. I don't think you need to upload the whole video though. Just a 5-10 second clip, as long as it has not been modified (apart from removing the non-relevant parts) would be fine. If you do upload the whole thing, don't post the link for everyone to see, or you may end up using all your friends alloted bandwidth! For large files it would be better to upload it via a torrent IMHO.

Before assigning an exotic explanation to the object, all the logical/mundane possibilities have to be examined and eliminated. The possibility if this being the ISS (my initial thought) is unlikely due to the timing and direction. However, there are many hundreds of other satellite possibilities and until every one of these has been examined and eliminated, the logical best bet remains a satellite. Of course I must also consider the possibility of a hoax.

Looking into the details, the moon was almost full on 18 February 2008. From Hurst, TX it had an elevation of around 56 degrees at 8.45pm CST (GMT-6). This is somewhat higher than the 40-45 degrees estimated by the author. It was indeed located more or less due East at that time. You can check all these data by installing Stellarium and punching in the location. The sun was obviously on the opposite side of the Earth, almost in line since total eclipse was due in two days time. The author states he was attempting to capture it here and this worries me slightly, but we all make mistakes.

The object transits the moon's disc, apparently S to N at a shallow angle from horizontal, say 5 degrees. However, I'm not clear on whether this image is inverted or not. The moon's size suggests to me that a telescope or perhaps a telephoto lens was used. It was apparently a Sony camcorder, so these images are very digitally enlarged, which never helps with these things. As to the speed of the object, it appears very much in line with typical low Earth orbiters such as the ISS. Satellites in the 200-300 mile high class orbit the Earth in about 90 mins, which gives them a velocity of around 6 miles/sec. A typical Moon transit is 0.2-0.4 sec, so this one looks typical. The object is surprisingly bright, even with the glare of the full moon throttling back the CCD gain (the chip looks saturated to me). It really looks too bright for a satellite and even the ISS at magnitude -2.2 two hours earlier would be difficult to capture under these conditions. See the Heavens-Above data cited earlier.

There is also the question as to whether it's possible to see any satellite under the conditions prevailing. If the object is a satellite, it's in low orbit as dictated by the speed (way too slow for a meteor btw). To see these, the sun must be almost set or recently set. You cannot see low orbit satellites in the Earth's shadow, which is where we are in this video. This is also the crux to the hoaxes done by FAST/Walson/Gridkeeper, he said too much and trapped himself. However, I'm not shouting hoax on this, just pointing out the factors you must consider. We can eliminate the geostationary/geosynchronous orbits because of their slow apparent speeds. This domain is also inclined at 58 degrees as seen from the Hurst location, not the 5 degrees exhibited.

Frankly, the work involved in checking hundreds of low Earth orbit satellites is greater than this problem is worth. In fact I doubt if reterospective plots are even possible, so we may never know. Anyone can try this using the Satellite Tracker software and NORAD's 2-line orbital elements. Until all those satellites are eliminated either by their schedules or simply by the laws of optics, this video will remain unanswered. Considering all the data so far, I'm sceptical.

WG3

Originally posted by Balez
...My guess is that it is something flying behind the moon, judging by the ilumination of the object when it gets into the moon halo...

But, as I said before, during a full or near-full Moon (as this appears to be), the back side of the moon would be completely dark, therefore no reflected light would be going that direction. If something were behind a full Moon, there would be no way for it to be illuminated by the Moon, since all of the ligt is being reflected "forward". An object could still be illuminated by the Sun at that point, but that doesn't explain why it would be invisible, then visible, then invisible again.

I don't understand why the "Meteor" theory is not being discussed in detail. I think this thing looks EXACTLY like a meteor entering Earth's atmosphere (not all have bright tails), and it becomes invisible as it passes in front of the Moon because the bright moonlight is outshining it. This seems like a highly plausible explanation to me.

[edit on 2/22/2008 by Soylent Green Is People]

Anyway, IMHO, it doesn't pass behind the Moon:
as more it get close to the moon disc, as more it increases its apparent brightness (i think that this has been already pointed out):
unless we would count this one as a COINCIDENCE, there's no
possible explanation but that its appearance is actually affected by the moonlight.


Of course this is just my opinion


[edit on 22/2/2008 by internos]