"UFO" over Niagara Falls : Video

Further to my above suggestions about asking if any hot air balloon company do night trips, I sent an email to www.balloonsoverletchworth.com... asking if they do night trips.

Apparently nobody does and the airspace in the area is also restricted.

Take what you will from that.

reply to post by waveguide3

Who the heck uses spotlight beams to advertise stuff - it's just too much to swallow.

Nighclubs,

important buildings,

movie theaters,

any big party,

concerts....





....Batman?

Seriously, a LOT of people use spotlights to get marketing attention.

Originally posted by RickandKathy
My husband and I took several pictures of the lights. Here is the link to the best shot.

www.flickr.com...

Rick and Kathy
Niagara Falls Ontario

Can you give a rough indication of what part of town they were over? Or where they looked to be from your vantage point?

I'm pretty confident that the 'Saucer doesn't have anything to do with this - I lived in the area for years, and I don't think they ever bothered advertising. Everyone knows the Saucer. Best breakfast in the city. Even if they did somehow feel the need, this is a pretty small budget place - a flyer in the local paper would be more likely.

a little odd but ehh... whatever

Originally posted by jackphotohobby
A follow up news piece in The Niagura Falls Review (19th October 2009):

"What was in the skies above Niagara on Saturday"

www.niagarafallsreview.ca...

From the article:

After a check of photos uploaded on The Review's webpage, however, Pihack (Brian Pihack, a long-time member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Niagara Centre) now thinks the celestial apparition was more likely a form of light pillar.

Light pillars are luminous streaks of colour created by the reflection of light from ice crystals.

They are most commonly seen at sunset and are known as sun pillars, however moonlight or strong artificial light - such as the casino strobe lights - can also form light pillars.

"If memory serves correct, it was cold enough for this particular type to form," Pihack said.

I have no idea if this is what was seen, but here is an image search of Light Pillars

[edit on October 19th 2009 by greeneyedleo]

reply to post by greeneyedleo


I think the only thing against it is the references to reflection of light from an object, although such an illusion could be a by-product of light pillars. Still many questions outstanding based on the initial reported descriptions in OP. Although, things like "..no distinct shape to it.." make me think of something natural, generated by a combination of local search lights and atmospheric conditions.

The thing I find amazing about this incident is it was witnessed by many many people and recorded on film. All of these people watched for a long amount of time 10 minutes or so. The thing didn't move according to the witnesses. If it's clouds, can't be clouds because they move. People saw different colors from different angles.

The best part about this is for once a reasonable explanation is not within grasp unless we just don't want it to be a UFO.

Someone has uploaded to YouTube a somehow enhanced version of the video:

the sync audio/video seems to match the one of the video in the OP: its uploader said in the comments that it was originally uploaded by deltplayer19, the user who uploaded the one in the OP.

The following are screen captures of the frames between 0.00 Sec. and 0.11













This animation was made using the same frames (i did set the frame rate to 1 second).





[edit on 20/10/2009 by internos]

Originally posted by internos
Someone has uploaded to YouTube a somehow enhanced version of the video:

Thanks for the link Internos.

Someone else has uploaded a slightly longer video (57 seconds), which appears to be from a different angle.



Unfortunately, this video seems to have even less detail visible than the original footage - and comes without any location/direction stated by the witness (although there is some context given by the last couple of seconds of the video - so somone familiar with the area may be able to identify the location and direction).

All the best,

Isaac

I saw a triangle shape.
Unless witness come up with details as in other cases we have
nothing but this video.

One side by an apex is flashing, then the other side.

A fluorescent gas light effect however no bulb in the case of
a UFO perhaps as it is charged up with static.

In the video that Internos posted above it seems to me that the lights on the object are external lights. What I a mean by is that it seems as if two spotlights from the ground are criss-crossing each other directly on the object. The second video seems to illustrate this as well as it is a single spotlight crossing the object as viewed from a different angle. This of course is what I am seeing. So in summation to me it looks like an object is there, yet the light source is supplied from the ground.

Originally posted by vox2442

Originally posted by RickandKathy
My husband and I took several pictures of the lights. Here is the link to the best shot.

www.flickr.com...

Rick and Kathy
Niagara Falls Ontario

Can you give a rough indication of what part of town they were over? Or where they looked to be from your vantage point?

I'm pretty confident that the 'Saucer doesn't have anything to do with this - I lived in the area for years, and I don't think they ever bothered advertising. Everyone knows the Saucer. Best breakfast in the city. Even if they did somehow feel the need, this is a pretty small budget place - a flyer in the local paper would be more likely.

They were above Valley Way and Victoria. They didn't move, flash or anything. Just stayed there for about 3 hours.

i am a resident of niagara and grew up in the area that this happened. i did not see this event personally and i am not one to jump rite at the conclusion that this object is not from our planet or anything like that but i am curious as to what it was and this a become a popular local topic in the last 3 days. The local newspaper on monday even had an article wondering what it was which leads me to believe it was not a blimp or balloon or anything like that because local residents would likely no if we had balloons or blimps flying around 12 midnight, also i have worked in that area and those tourist attractions are unlikely to have anything like that in the air. From people who i have talked to this object was apparently very high in the sky and in the 1 video u can see the camera man lower the camera and the skylon tower seems under his shot angle which is roughly 550 ft high. as to the location of the object by what people say it seems that it was not over the falls itself but closer to clifton hill because in the videos people can be heard saying theyre around the spicy olive (a local bar) or florence avenue which is quite some distance from the falls which also explains the light shining every 5 seconds. apparently this light is the strobe lights that the casino uses from the ground that point very high into the sky, the shiny light is NOT coming from the object but a reflection more or less of the 4 lights that the casino uses as an attraction. Now i would be very convinced this object is a UFO if it moved or hovered but it was seen in the same location from 9pm - 12 am which is unlikely for a "spaceship" to hover in the same exact spot for this long. This still does not explain what it is but possibly something was being used on the border. The local bridge to the USA is in this exact area and i no in detroit they were using camera balloons to watch the border so maybe this is a test run of something like that in the niagara falls area idk, but i will continue to read about this because growing up here i am intersted in to what this could be and i need alot more evidence before i can admit i think this is anything other then man made.

reply to post by greeneyedleo

The photos that are shown as light pillars show them coming from the ground. These were high up and not seen as reflecting.
Rick

Originally posted by RickandKathy
They were above Valley Way and Victoria. They didn't move, flash or anything. Just stayed there for about 3 hours.

Hi there,

Thanks for taking the time to post your photographs and some information.

Since it is very difficult to estimate distances of objects in the sky (particularly at night), it would be very helpful if you could post your approximate location and the direction from your vantage point of the object(s).

With information from one or two further witnesses at other vantage points, it may then be possible to draw a map and triangulate the position of the object.

I still think that the videos may simply show a tethered promotional balloon/blimp and would like the above information from several witnesses to either eliminate this potential solution or identify the location of any such balloon/blimp (and then enquiries could be made with specific hotels etc at that location).

On the other hand, at least one account online refers to the object(s) being visible over vast distances (which seems to be rather inconsistent with most of the accounts)...

Kind Regards,

Isaac

This is a post from captgravity on another site:

I work downtown Niagara Falls and I saw this outside. At least 100 other people I work with saw it too. It was all we talked about all night. I have lived in the Falls for a long time and I know every light in this city. This was something unusual. We can't figure it out. Several of us called home and asked if it could be seen from farther away and it was visible from at least 20 miles away. It looked like a 100' metalic rectangle or elipitical object with its own lights stationary about 1000' up, but from farther away, they said it was much higher in the sky, like at least 30 000' or higher which would mean that it would be much bigger, like 2-3 km in diamiter. It was strange that it didn't move from 8pm until 3am, then it disappeared. Still stunned and without any explanation

judging by his statement i think this object was too high in the sky to be a promotional object and if it were it was not there in the morning and i doubt any company was trying to promote in the dark at 12 am that far up most promotions in this area are located not to high above the buildings like giant bill boards and things like this. and i do not think any hotels in niagara are tall enough to tether an object that would be this high in the sky.

reply to post by niagararesident


Thank-you & starred, but if possible always include links to the other site you're quoting from, just to ensure that sources have references, in case there were a need to contact them via the internet.

What would be really useful is information like where witnesses were standing, which direction they were looking in, and where they think the object was. People often supply one or two pieces of that information along with what it looked like, but often it's a jigsaw puzzle that needs bits filled in.

The quote is from Rick and Kathy's photo of the sighting:

www.flickr.com...

There's another interesting quote from someone claiming to have witnessed it also:

justdarkchar says:

I was there as well that night. I work at one of the casino's and we have our breaks outside in back and dozens of my co workers, myself, and some customers raced outside every hour to watch these strange lights which appeared to be directly overhead. The glowing part of the lights did not change when the spotlights were not directed at that area and when the spotlight did cross over this spot a beacon of light flashed back at us as clear as if from a lighthouse. The beacon phenomenon COULD be a reflection caused by the spotlight but reflecting off WHAT? There has to be an explanation even if it is a boring one. Too many people saw it for it be discounted as nothing.

The reflection thing intrigues me.

reply to post by jackphotohobby


Thank you jackphotohobby for the rules, I am new to this site and still unsure of all the protcol and i will remember to post the link next time.

That is an interesting post but we have 2 casinos in niagara falls and the user does not specify which 1 he/she works at. I would be surprised if a witness can describe exactly where this object was. By the sounds of things this object was very high in the sky and the locations where people are saying they viewed the object are quite scattered around the area atleast the size of a couple square km and it seemed to be too high for anyone of them to clearly make it out. based on where other sightings were described and the strobe lights from the ground i would say that casino employee works at casino niagara which is rite on the border across the street from the rainbow bridge. He/she claims that it was directly above them so i think that this object maybe has something to do with the border. in this post 9/11 era the government is probably testing many different survalience ideas in that area. I could also be totally wrong here because i have not seen any kind of testing like that beofre. i guess the only things we know forsure is that

1. it was quite high in the air for so many people to witness it from such a large area and none of them could see it close enough to make out exactly what it was.

2. the object must have been quite bright because so many people noticed it in the sky which means it probably has to be bigger then a 5 or 10 ft weather balloon 1000' in the sky. It must have been quite large.

3. i think that its location was above or almost above casino niagara in the middle of the tourist district for every1 to see and that is about where the strobe lights from the casino point straight up and reflected off the object.

4. the object did not move from the spot it was in for atleast a couple of hours

Maybe a tourist balloon or a real srtange ship? The light seems to be getting closer.

What would be the point of an advertisement blimp or any advertisement if you cant see it?

Also wouldn't anything flying at that height be it a balloon, or anything else, have to have lights on it to alert aircraft to it being there? I know when I was there I saw a lot of planes heading towards Buffalo I think it was, but the locals would know better.

In the last video above, it looks to be above the tower when the camera pulls back, and if that tower has to have a light on top, so should whatever it was.

Pretty cool, am I right this was on the Canadian side?