IFOs and Confirmed Atmospheric Phenomena

Perhaps this isn't the place to post this, and perhaps it already exists? (If this question is out there please excuse my failed search.) I am acutely interested in unexplained phenomena in our skies and have noticed I am definitely not the only one. The biggest issue I am seeing is that there is a lot of stuff in the sky that looks out of the ordinary but is definitely not beyond our ability to positively identify.

Is there a good central repository of information that could be used as a check for those of us who see something in sky we can't explain?

Our skies are full of aircraft, balloons, rockets, satellites, a space station, and a huge array of observed repeated weather and atmospheric phenomena. Somewhere in there many of us believe (hope) there are also craft being operated by non-human intelligence, secret military / corporation craft or effects and who knows what else!

I would like some sources to help identify known phenomena and craft which would assist in a quest to find that which can't be identified.

If such a repository exists can someone please point me to it?

If not I would like to suggest people just post the most mis-identified objects / phenomena they are aware of with pictures here.

Thank you in advance to anyone who considers this!

Heavens Above will give you a list of satellites and the times they pass over specific to your location.

reply to post by Jinglelord


As far as I know , there is no comprehensive database of all the crap that flies in the skies and the orbit of the Earth. There is the previously posted Heavens Above, but that doesnt include military aircraft , either current or in testing, nor does it include weather recording balloons, or for that matter , anything other than satellites, which in my opinion are the least likely objects to be mistaken for UFO, due to their linear progressions through the sky.
I once thought of creating a database of airbourne and outeratmospheric objects , as a reference for myself and anyone who fancied a look at the sky, but I soon discovered that there are just TOO many possible objects that could be out there, from passenger aircraft, to military , to balloons and lanterns and so much else.

Originally posted by Jinglelord
Is there a good central repository of information that could be used as a check for those of us who see something in sky we can't explain?

I vaguely remember one thread on ATS that was sort of an index of other threads on ATS that encompassed a wide variety of what you're asking about, but the ATS search function doesn't seem to work all that well so I'm not sure I'll be able to find it. Even if the search function worked great, I'm not even sure what to type in the search box since IFO may not have been in the title.

However I can offer you one site that while not comprehensive, has an excellent database of IFOs and some relatively unusual atmospheric phenomena that may not be widely known:

www.caelestia.be...

CAELESTIA was initiated in 1994. Its purpose: to collect, investigate and document reports of unidentified aerial phenomena. The name CAELESTIA is borrowed from Latin and can best be translated as "affairs of the heavens". The general idea behind the initiative was - and still is - that reports of "Unidentified Flying Objects" deserve a more correct treatment, be it from the scientific community or from the UFO community itself.

CAELESTIA uses the term "UFO" as little as possible, not only because of the restrictions implied in the words "Flying" and "Object", but also because of the popular conception that UFOs equal extraterrestrial vehicles. We prefer to designate the subject of our study simply as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). When we refer to UFO reports in these pages, we are talking about those reports that circulate in UFO quarters, not to the ones that we extracted from scientific journals or were reported directly to CAELESTIA by amateurs and professionals in the field of meteorology and astronomy.

Ufologists have accused CAELESTIA of focussing on IFOs (Identified Flying Objects) rather than on UFOs. They argue that the cases we investigate concern only uninteresting lights in the sky and vague images on photos and videos. The material presented on this website proofs this accusation to be false: many UFO reports examined by CAELESTIA describe apparently solid objects manoeuvring close to the ground. Several of the cases we discuss in these pages are considered classics within the UFO community.

Identifying unexplained aerial phenomena is one of the project's major concerns. A concern which, we are sorry to say, is rarely met with sympathy from the UFO community. Most ufologists are reluctant to search for explanations. Even careful attempts to explain UFO reports in a rational manner are often met with suspicion, if not hostility. The only explanation we can give for this unsporting attitude is the natural desire of people to hold on to personal beliefs.

They have a tremendous gallery of images and I'll post two examples I've sourced from that site. Here's a phenomena that I believe comes close to fitting the description of the UFO seen over O'Hare airport, and I believe that like O'Hare airport where fuel was being burned underneath the appearance of the UFO, fuel was also being burned under the appearance of this IFO, which is a vortex ring:
www.caelestia.be...
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f2ca4262314b.jpg[/atsimg]

Here's another great photo from that site (came from a 2005 Mexican newspaper) that showed a couple of UFOs spraying a hillside, according to witnesses, but of course they are really UAPs, or in this case, IAPs, not UFOs as the witnesses claimed (check the mirage section):

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2513e065cb52.jpg[/atsimg]

Here'a a listing of the areas they have or are adding photos for:

* Aircraft
o Airplanes
o Experimental Aircraft
o Helicopters
o Remotely piloted vehicles

* Artificially Created Light Phenomena
o Flares
o Light and laser beams
o Chemical clouds

* Astronomical
o Anomalous appearances of the Sun and the Moon
o Meteors and space debris re-entries
o Stars and planets

* Balloons
o Blimps and radio-controlled balloons
o Observation and research balloons
o Party balloons and luminous balloons
o Sky lanterns and solar balloons
o Special shapes

* Biological
o Birds
o Insects

* Buildings and Constructions
o Common buildings and structures
o Futuristic buildings
o Modern art sculptures

* Clouds
o Contrails
o Distrails
o Lenticularis
o Mammatus
o Other unusual cloud shapes

* Ground Markings
o Crop circles
o Fairy rings
o Ice circles
o Other traces on soil and vegetation

* Kites
o Illuminated kites
o Special shapes

* Optical Phenomena
o Artificial light pillars
o Mirages
o Solar and lunar halos

* Photographic Artefacts
o Film defects
o Lens flares and focus errors
o Trickery
o Water drops and aerosols

* Vortex Phenomena
o Funnel-shaped vortices
o Ring-shaped vortices

Not all of them are populated yet but that's a pretty good list for starters. I only gave 2 examples I already had uploaded but I highly recommend browsing through that site and their image gallery. For the meteors and space debris, they don't have any photos yet however I think it's really best to search the youtube videos for the best examples of these. The dynamics of those events aren't fully captured in a photo like they are in a video. If you familiarize yourself with all the phenomena on that list, you'll be a step ahead of many UFO researchers.

Caelestia has more than just images, they have some fantastic case studies, some incredibly exhaustive and detailed. Here's one of my favorites about the 1954 BOAC case: www.caelestia.be...

Edit to add: I noticed that list doesn't include rockets, satellites, etc. When Space shuttle dumps water it can create a sighting, here's what that looks like:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c8483a0a0a11.jpg[/atsimg]
However i don't know if the ISS does the same thing, and the shuttle is being retired.

Heavens above was mentioned but here's a video of an iridium flare so you can see what it looks like:


Two other videos of interest:
Here's a blimp video that some people thought was a UFO when they just saw the beginning of it:


Here's a plane video that some people thought was a UFO when they just saw the beginning of it:

The reason people ruled out a plane for sightings like this is because it hovers motionless (or appears to), and some people think planes can't do that.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Oh wow, Caelestia is a great site! This along with Heavens Above I would bet can explain 3/4 of what people see and should prove very helpful.

I appreciate all the answers so far!

My hope would have been that this is one of the very first questions Ufologists (amateur or pro) would ask and there would be tons of comprehensive information out there. After I looked it doesn't seem to be the case. Sadly it seems many people would rather speculate than look for the real answer.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Following some links and advice I found out about Solar Balloons, I had never heard of these before and it looks like they could account for quite a few of the "Silent Large Black Triangles" people see. Check these out and imagine some of them as the sun is going down huge and floating through the dusk sky...

www.solar-balloons.com...

Originally posted by Jinglelord
Check these out and imagine some of them as the sun is going down huge and floating through the dusk sky...
www.solar-balloons.com...

Possibly, but you may want to listen to this interview of aviation author Bill Scott who I think has another explanation for some of the sightings, though I am not saying some of them aren't solar balloons, they may be. But the ones that aren't, are possibly, according to Bill Scott, military blimps in a triangle shape.

According to Scott, they aren't on any set timetable to declassify projects like the stealth blimp, and they may keep it classified for a while:

UFO Hunters 206 Arizona Lights

Bill Birnes asks Bill Scott when these craft might be revealed to us:
"They may never be revealed. As long as it's an advantage, we don't want people to know about it. That's the way the black world thinks."-Bill Scott

I don't think the stealth blimp explains all triangle and delta UFO sightings, but it might explain some of them. Bill Scott seems to think so too and he's spent considerable time researching this and writing about it.

The solar balloons might explain a few more, and some triangle sightings may be neither one but something else.