Are Planes acting weird, or just me?

reply to post by OnTheDeck


Yes! I've noticed a similar phenomenon. I live in New Jersey, right on the bay. We have been watching, almost every night, tons of these aircraft flying around and back and forth at extremely low altitudes. Sometimes two or three will fly in the same patterns, sometimes they seem to fly towards us and then their lights get real bright and big. They are completely silent. One night we counted 38 of them. All in one area. We have always just passed them off as coast guard, or army core of engineers or something, but now that I think about it, it does seem a bit odd. Like I said, completely silent, constantly flying back and forth, strange light patterns that get real bright and fade out, and TONS of them. I'm sure the explanation is pretty boring and not supernatural, but it is definitely odd. Actually, I should videotape them.


[edit on 27-2-2008 by comm12]

reply to post by OnTheDeck


OnTheDeck, you live in Arlington? I live in Arlington, the Lyon Park neighborhood, know it?

As to the flashing, I haven't yet seen examples posted on this thread. I've flown for many years (about 30+) and technology changes, of course. Many Biz Jets being introduced with possibly diferent strobe flash patterns, sequences.

Remember this: The whole purpose of strobe lights is to INCREASE visibility...not to people on the ground, but to other airplanes. This, of course, only applies in VFR conditions. At night, in the clouds, we often will turn the strobes off, because the reflection back into the cockpit can be distracting.

It is conceivable, and I am only guessing, that newer Biz Jets have more creative stobe sequence patterns, or even maybe the Military is using oddly different patterns, perhaps known to the Military pilots to identify various aircraft types at night, visually, without using their onboard electronics...I don't know whether this is the case, just a guess.

I would hazard another guess to say I seriously doubt an alien spaceship has strobe lights on it...and even an unltra-secret Military craft would not have strobes...too obvious.

[spelling]

[edit on 27-2-2008 by weedwhacker]

When I was at Pease AFB in the early 1980s they were testing the strobe lights they put on the KC-10s on a KC-135 flying out of there. He went out one night, and was talking to his receiver on the radio. He told the receiver he was turning them on, then jokingly said "Can you see me yet?" The receiver shot back (slightly edited) "Are you kidding? I'm 98 miles away and I can see you!"

reply to post by comm12


comm12, you SHOULD try to video these things...

Do they flash individually? That is, does each vehicle have a defined flash that is consistent? Or, do they just glow, and then change intensity at random?

This is why a good video would be useful, eyewitness accounts are subject to communication errors, nobody's fault, it's the nature of language.

I'd like to provide an example of eyewitness problems, even if 30 people (all pilots) watch the same video. We had this one year, at my airline, during annual re-current training GroundSchool.

We are told to focus on people throwing balls back and forth, some balls are white, and some are black. This video lasts about 7 or 8 minutes...

We are told to keep a count of how many black balls and how many white balls we see during the video, we will try to be the winner with the right answer at the end. Thing is, just near the end, a man in a monkey suit walks thru the frame, in the background...he stops, jumps and down a few times...beats his chest...then walks out of frame.

The video over, and every competitive pilot announces his final answer, how many white and black balls...each KNOWING that he/she is correct.

But out of a room of 30 or so professional pilots, maybe one or two ever saw the man in the monkey suit!! Sometimes NONE of them saw him!

I have to say, when this was presented to me, I had seen it on a documentary, so I knew beforehand what was to come...and in that room, I was the only one to see the 'monkey'...one out of 30 pilots, and if I hadn't seen the doc previously, I would have been fooled too, and I told them that.

Perhaps I've left the topic, but I think it is relevant, at least as it pertains to what people see, and how they try to describe it afterwards. The most earnest believer/viewer can still fail to convey EXACTLY what he/she wishes to convey...even videos may require multiple viewings, and discussions, to reach a consensus.

I see what you are saying. It's just that I have been a sky watcher for YEARS, (see my new years challenge post) and I have noticed a very distinct change in the very recent past. My ability to transfer this proof to the internet is quite limited right now. I don't think they are UFO's, but maybe a new gov't surveillance plane???

reply to post by jasonjnelson


jason, you're in Santa Barbera.

You know, of course, that just South of you is Vandenberg, near Oxnard.

Lots of top secret, or dare I say it? Above Top Secret stuff is happening just south of you, between you and LA...Since grew up in LA, I kinda am familiar with the geographical Coast of California...

I'll have to check my charts, but I think that there are quite a few Restricted Areas just off shore, in your area...as you look West. That means there will be Military Ops in that Airspace.

Reason that's a good place for offshore Military Ops...it is smack in between two major airports, LAX and SFO, that have regular commercial flights heading out over the Pacific at all times of the day....

Don't know of any non-stops out of SBA, do you?? Or from Snata Ynez, or Monterrey (MTY) ....shall I go on?

BTW, for those who do not know, Santa Barbara is such a beautiful place.

A little out of the way, but almost centrally located between LA and SF...a little closer to LA....

It's a very nice place to live...in fact, I wa thinking about moving West, was considering RPV, in LA...might just look at SB instead...

Well, what you bring up is an interesting point. So what sort of new training has been occurring near here, as well as on the other side of the country (according to two other posters above)? I, again, am not saying its a conspiracy, but what's up with the new aircraft in the air? I only began posting on this site because I've begun to notice changes in the world around me, wanted to ask others. Can anyone else who has seen this post a video? If I knew of anyone in this area who had a newer MAC or PC, I would be able to post these already....

reply to post by jasonjnelson


I don't know what the Military is doing, jason.

But, my theory is there are certain strobe patterns, for whatever reason, maybe to help each airplane in the OP identify visually the airplanes in their area...

Just saying, an ET craft will not have strobe lights, in my opinion...

I don't know what the lights are about, but I KNOW that they are not E.T. in origin. I just thought maybe, a, you know," Hey, we are special military," or maybe , "e.t. don't shoot at us" or even, "hey, we are not hijacked". You know what I mean?

Originally posted by jasonjnelson
I don't know what the lights are about, but I KNOW that they are not E.T. in origin. I just thought maybe, a, you know," Hey, we are special military," or maybe , "e.t. don't shoot at us" or even, "hey, we are not hijacked". You know what I mean?

jason, I can assure you, there is no way...let me emphasize this ...THERE IS NO WAY..that a pilot can 'alter' the strobe sequence to indicate 'I am HIjacked'

Just needed to clear that one up.

Sorry, just not a real idea, never imagined as an idea, won't happen.

In today's world, any suspected air piracy wil be announced, plainly on the ATC frequency, as well on the Emergency Freq, which is always tuned on the Radio #2.

The old idea of using the transponder, is a little passe now, though I would still use it anyway, since it sends a discrete signal to ATC.

7500 in the transponder means 'Nordo'...or is it '7600'...???

I am not going to give it away. Just waiting to see people post stuff that they have no idea about, then I'll pounce.


[adding]

Well, why doesn't the transponder get set to 999, or 991? Hoping those who know will refrain from answering, because you know why....






[edit on 28-2-2008 by weedwhacker]

I work on military aircraft in Arizona.

Different aircraft have different strobes on them and they blink at different rates. Sometimes all three blink in unison, sometimes none do, sometimes two do. Sometimes 1 or more of the lights can burn out. We're allowed to launch jets with 1 strobe not functioning.

Those things right there account for a thousand different variations in what you'd see at night.

You also have helicopters which have different flight paths, different lights. Helicopters and fixed wing airplanes can turn, changing what you're looking at.

Don't forget, you don't know what plane you're looking at at night, so it could be totally different than what you're used to and have another set of strobes.

I've seen pilots forget to use their strobes. I've seen them forget position lights. Pilots really aren't all that bright sometimes.

edit: Strobe patterns are different for different aircraft, yes, but you're not going to be able to identify the aircraft by its strobes for the above reasons as well as the same type of aircraft can have its strobes firing differently.

[edit on 2-3-2008 by Sovereign797]

reply to post by Sovereign797


Well, I maintain that I saw something other than the "norm", but I will take the experts at their collective word. Thanks for the responses everyone, MOD'S; Feel free to squash this thread, I feel like it served its purpose.
Thanks again, Jason

reply to post by weedwhacker


that's incorrect. vandenburg afb is north of santa barbara and what you are speaking of is point magu nas which is right next to channel islands and oxnard. i know this for a fact because i've surfed there when i was a teenager plus i was born in ventura and raised in ventura county. pt magu is the pacific missle test center, but let me tell you other things happen there other than missle testing.

after my last post here i have noticed one aircraft with light's that blink rather differently from the others. if this were just a new product or new standard in terms of marker light's i would have noticed before this since i live where i can clearly see final approach for three different airports. one is all smaller private mostly propeller driven aircraft , another which would be comparable to your airport there in santa barbara and the third which is burbank airport and is almost all comercial aircraft. i see a large amount of air traffic in the skies above my home and by my nature of being curious about aircraft am constantly looking skyward and observing them flying. so this is something new to me and i am as curious as you are about the nature of the different light pattern that i saw once and have not seen since.

Here in Dallas I havent noticed a change in the light pattern but over the past couple of days ive noticed that there seems to be a change in flight patterns or something. Planes of all types have been flying over my neigborhood lower than ever at all times of the day and night. They seem to be ordinary planes though. Nothing seems special about them. Just commercial airliners and those single engine sesna planes. I dont know the deal is but something does seem to be happening.

well i live in suburbs near chicago in illinois and it seems like every night at like 3:30 or 3am, a small engined plane will fly over my house or the general area, waking me up... pretty crazy huh

and to add in with what has been being said I see tons of weird weird planes where I live. Being somewhat near O'Hare, I guess it is expected but they are indeed different than anything from 10years ago when I was a kid. I don't even like looking into the sky anymore.

Lastly, most weirdly, and possibly the hardest to explain at all, is that one time at school, in downtown chicago, I saw some sort of UFO. It was not like alien craft per-se but it was definately like some strange orange box? or like a string of 5 connected box-kites that were stationary in the air. These were way to high up to be any normal kites and just kept floating there not changing location in the wind. It was like a sky worm or something. I have seen videos with these things and it was not too far off. It was kinda peaceful, yet scary cause of the weirdness of it all, but so intregueing

I just kinda stared at it for like 5 minutes, was going to take a picture on my phone and post it here, but it was too high up and small to really be captured on the iphone.

Has anybody experienced any of those things? the planes consistently waking me up at 3 or so in the morning, and strange orange kite box worm ufos? lol

reply to post by pues wholigan

one thing that you can do is contact your closest local airports and inquire and complain about the aircraft that is flying over at that early hour . they have niose abatement rules for loud and airplanes around most airports in heavily populated area's especially at 3 or 3:30 a.m. when most residence's are trying to sleep.. at the least they will have you contact them the next time it wakes you up at that ridiculous time in the morning and try to curb the activity.
as for the box type things i would love for you to reference a link to one of those video's that are similer to what you are speaking of. i'm curious to see what you saw so i can keep an eye out for them myself. i have always been a sky watcher my whole life and seen some different things at times but nothing like what you have described.

Yea maybe ill do that. Its really spooky to get woken up every so often by a seemingly low flying plane.

Well any ways the UFO moved like the one is this video, (slowly and morphing)
www.youtube.com...

but looked more like this one at the same time. (one stranded, colored)
video.google.com...

... So if you combine the two you get a one stranded orange morphing UFO. These UFOs on googlevid and youtube are huge compared to the one i saw, it looked like 4 or 5 boxes or segments slowly curling into different shapes. It also couldn't have been higher than the Sears Tower so it was relatively low in altitude. Just kinda floating there, curling yet stationary.

I'm orange county and there has been a lot of military action around here out of Los Al in particular lately. Oh and the cops seem to like to drag "moonlight" spotlights over everyone's houses as they circle without being called too. As far as the planes go, I haven't seen planes with odd light as much as helicopters with subdued lights. oh and I have plenty of pictures and video of this.