These Stars and Planets Are Often Mistaken For UFO's

Originally posted by ascension211
A friend of mine recently saw an object in the sky that had blinking colors and got brighter and disappeared off and on. Now I have seen these patterns of lights before too, so I understand why we think they may be UFO's; when any of us see them. The atmosphere (color spectrum),the distance and the angle of the view all play a part.
snip

I don't see how anyone with a good pair of eyes and a sound mind can mistake stars or planets for UFOs. Stars may twinkle and you'd have to be pretty dumb not to know such a basic. Stars don't move and planets don't move, they're "stationary"! These are some of the reasons why nightime reports have to be mostly ignored. Only daylight UFO reports have any validity and then the witness has to see a real UFO, not mundane objects that the witness thinks is a nuts-and-bolts "alien" craft.

The only nightime reports that can be considered are when "stars" are seen to move and make angled moves. Anything else is a plane, a shooting star, a satellite, etc.

Then you have my kind of sighting in which what I assumed were 3 stars that went from stationary to thousands of miles an hour instantly. Known as UFOs that disguise themselves as "stars".

reply to post by The Shrike


Not all of us are as brilliant as you are. Guess what? There are UFO's for a reason and they are not all alien spaceship's. Unidentified means we do not know what it is, therefore, if you are looking at one of the stars or planets and do not know what they are, then they are UFO's, until they are identified as being one.

Originally posted by The Shrike

Originally posted by ascension211
A friend of mine recently saw an object in the sky that had blinking colors and got brighter and disappeared off and on. Now I have seen these patterns of lights before too, so I understand why we think they may be UFO's; when any of us see them. The atmosphere (color spectrum),the distance and the angle of the view all play a part.
snip

I don't see how anyone with a good pair of eyes and a sound mind can mistake stars or planets for UFOs. Stars may twinkle and you'd have to be pretty dumb not to know such a basic. Stars don't move and planets don't move, they're "stationary"!

They can be mistaken as a UFO when they are twinkling blue, green, red, and white lights, and fading out of view then coming back brighter than anything else in the sky!
It is hard to see cloud cover at night. When clouds cover the star/planet it gives the appearance to be leaving. Then when the clouds move out, it appears to be moving toward Earth getting brighter.
And when it looks exactly like a UFO in the sky flashing the same colors that was verified by my own two eyes as being a real UFO I witnessed many years ago that came right down above my car, it is VERY easy to mistake it for a real UFO!
Sorry, I don't have a masters degree in astronomy, as your arrogance implies you do!

Originally posted by ascension211
reply to post by The Shrike

 

Not all of us are as brilliant as you are. Guess what? There are UFO's for a reason and they are not all alien spaceship's. Unidentified means we do not know what it is, therefore, if you are looking at one of the stars or planets and do not know what they are, then they are UFO's, until they are identified as being one.

To be even more technical they would be just be unidentified points of lights as flying (the F from UFO) suggests its in our atmosphere.

Anyway most stars when coming over the horizon or stars that traverse the sky close to the horizon tend to twinkle and it has to do with our own atmosphere and how incoming light gets scattered.

reply to post by ascension211


Interesting thread and I suppose it's important to make the distinction between stars and planets that are mistaken for UFOs - on the flipside, here are some UFOs that have been mistaken for stars and planets:


link


There are plenty more examples out there and many 'official' UFO explantions are an absolute disgrace, here's what a Senior Physicist at the Institute for Atmospheric Physics had to say about them.

"As a result of several trips to project Bluebook,I´ve had an opportunity to examine quite carefully and in detail the types of reports that are made by Bluebook personnel.In most cases, I have found that theres almost no correlation between so-called "evaluations and explanations" that are made by Bluebook and the facts of the case...
There are hundreds of good cases in the Air Force files that should have led to top-level scientific scrutiny of this problem,years ago,yet these cases have been swept under the rug in a most disturbing way by Project Bluebook investigators and their consultants."

Dr James McDonald -Senior physicist at the Institute for Atmospheric Physics and professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Arizona

link

reply to post by Unity_99

Crystalline Light, like in my pictures of the Sunlight I keep taking.

Not that it matters, but the reason why those lens flares have a "crystalline structure" is because the aperture of your camera is hexagonal. If you used a different camera, they might have a different shape.

reply to post by InhaleExhale


Oh you mean this? lol.

Scintillation defines the rapid variation in apparent brightness, position, or color of a distant luminous source when viewed through the atmosphere.... In general, the effects of scintillation are minimum when the luminous source is viewed near the zenith, and maximum when the source is viewed near the horizon.... When observations are made with the unaided eye, the above-mentioned effects of scintillation are manifested only when the observation concern objects close to the horizon (at low elevation of "low in the sky"). Under these conditions, the most spectacular visual effects can be expected when the effects of scintillation (random refraction) are superposed on any visual image that arises from regular atmospheric refraction.... When the image is small and bright, as may be the case at night, large fluctuations in brightness and under unusual conditions in color can give an illusion of blinking, flashing, side to side oscillation, or motion toward and away from the observer. The effects associated with scintillation can dominate the visual appearance of any bright point-object in the area between the horizon and approximately 14 degrees above the horizon.

reply to post by sled735


Hey sled, he was taking a dig, the guy likes to trash people. I think he made me a rival. lmao. I believe we set him straight.

Originally posted by The Shrike
I don't see how anyone with a good pair of eyes and a sound mind can mistake stars or planets for UFOs. Stars may twinkle and you'd have to be pretty dumb not to know such a basic. Stars don't move and planets don't move, they're "stationary"! These are some of the reasons why nightime reports have to be mostly ignored. Only daylight UFO reports have any validity and then the witness has to see a real UFO, not mundane objects that the witness thinks is a nuts-and-bolts "alien" craft.

Please read Hendry's handbook on observing UFOs, to broaden your ability to see how many intelligent people can, and have, mistaken celestial objects for craft. Heck, even Jimmy Carter.

Misperceiving a visual stimlus has nothing to do with intelligence or even sobreity -- there are some studies that more intelligent people, able to be 'cued up' into a perception triggering a familiar apparition, may be MORE likely to make the misperception.

reply to post by JimOberg


touche!

Re observing planets, off topic a bit, but I had a startling reminder of how PLANETS have a non-zero angular size while observing pre-dawn the 'rise' of Venus past a bare-rock mesa. By stepping forward a few feet, I was able to make it 'set' as the elevation angle of the edge rose, due to relative geometry of my changing position. By moving a bit more I realized that the range from 'first glimmer' to 'full brighness' of Venus was about four inches perpendicular to the line of sight. Then, with an estimate of range to the rock-edge I was using as an occulting plane, and an estimate of range to Venus, I could mentally do the math to show it was indeed several thousand miles across [the illuminated portion was only half of the disk, based on Earth-Venus-Sun alignment].

It was such a super-cool realization that I woke up early the next day to see it again.

And I confirmed that bright STARS have essentially ZERO angular size, by moving back and forth to 'rise' and 'set' Regulus, not far from Venus. It appeared and disappeared instantaneously, NO built-up or fade-out as with Venus.

Watching the sky is STILL amazing after ALL these decades.

The connection here is that stars will twinkle but planets DON'T because of their non-zero angular size, even if it's eyeball-undetectable.

If 99% of sightings are actually stars, what about the 1% of close sightings. 17 years ago I was coming home from work one night, through a residential area and I saw a triangle about 18 feet on a side with lights on all three sides about 10 feet above a 40 foot oak tree. It was silent and going about 5 mph. I was stunned...they aren't all stars!

reply to post by n5xm

I was not implying all UFO's fall into the category.

Sometimes they are not planets or stars.

Originally posted by n5xm
If 99% of sightings are actually stars, what about the 1% of close sightings. 17 years ago I was coming home from work one night, through a residential area and I saw a triangle about 18 feet on a side with lights on all three sides about 10 feet above a 40 foot oak tree. It was silent and going about 5 mph. I was stunned...they aren't all stars!

Nobody ever said they were, please don't conjure up a fake argument just to shoot it down... look up 'straw man' category of techniques of argumentative deception.

They do happen more frequently than folks would LIKE to believe -- Venus setting at the end of a runway shut down an airport in Russia about ten years ago. And the argument is persuasive that the light that Jimmy Carter reported as a UFO was also Venus. So don't be too quick to make fun of all the explanations.

But star/planet misinterpretations have more to teach than just 'solving' 10-15% or so of raw reports. You yourself might have something to learn, judging from your story, about making wild guesses at ranges to an unknown-sized light/structure in the sky. It's humbling to recognize how often very smart and experienced people have made similar misjudgments.

Such basic mis-identification is why anyone involved or at least interested in the ufo phenomenon should study basic astronomy- if the subject matter involves a lot of looking at the sky, you would be an idiot to not study what it is that is there.

If you don't, you are only doing a disservice to yourself.

& while I find it laughable that people can mistake Venus or Jupiter or Sirius for a ufo, ufos can & do mimick nearly anything, including stars, & can fool anyone up until they move, or dissappear.

The powers in question can give you sightings that teach you, or challenge your perception. For those of you that feel that they have had telepathic contact, I've found that they are more likely to show up when you have a reason- a strong emotional connection to the subject can do this also- a need to know-even if just to know a tiny miniscule bit- the parts that we are capable of understanding & will not compromise our well-being, or their identity. Although at this point we may be playing with fire, yet at the same time-what an amazing opportunity to learn & experience something that not many get to,. or would even be willing to try, for various reasons (belief systems, rational or irrational fear ).


The point is that what we call "contact" can include more than just "seeing a ufo"-you may indeed mistake an astronomical event for a ufo, but in the cases of genuine contact, the mistaken identity is never an event in itself. You may misidentify for a moment, but before & after this, the strangeness always rolls on, & there is no mistaking a star or planet for it. Whereas, if you have never had anything to do with ufos at all, & one night you look at the sky, unknowingly see Jupiter or something & think "WTF is that?"- this is most likely simple misidentification.

reply to post by PeachesEnRegalia


Is it just me or does this poster remind you of Shrike? Wonderful opinion

Originally posted by ascension211
reply to post by PeachesEnRegalia

 

Is it just me or does this poster remind you of Shrike? Wonderful opinion

I honestly do not know what you mean- these are some things I have personally experienced- sorry, I'l;l try to not be so "cryptic" in the future

My name is Jason

reply to post by PeachesEnRegalia


Wasn't cryptic at all. Sounded very condescending. There are many reasons to mistake planets and stars for UFO's. Intelligence is the least of them. UFO's are a name to describe unidentified flying objects. If something is determined to be anything, it stops being a UFO and becomes the object that it was in fact identified to be. Even if it can be determined to be an alien spaceship is it really identified?

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by The Shrike
I don't see how anyone with a good pair of eyes and a sound mind can mistake stars or planets for UFOs. Stars may twinkle and you'd have to be pretty dumb not to know such a basic. Stars don't move and planets don't move, they're "stationary"! These are some of the reasons why nightime reports have to be mostly ignored. Only daylight UFO reports have any validity and then the witness has to see a real UFO, not mundane objects that the witness thinks is a nuts-and-bolts "alien" craft.

Please read Hendry's handbook on observing UFOs, to broaden your ability to see how many intelligent people can, and have, mistaken celestial objects for craft. Heck, even Jimmy Carter.

Misperceiving a visual stimlus has nothing to do with intelligence or even sobreity -- there are some studies that more intelligent people, able to be 'cued up' into a perception triggering a familiar apparition, may be MORE likely to make the misperception.

edit on 12-11-2012 by JimOberg because: typo

I owned Hendry's "The UFO Investigators Handbook". I still say that anyone mistaking a star and/or planet for a UFO needs to see their opthalmologist.

Originally posted by ascension211
reply to post by PeachesEnRegalia

 

Is it just me or does this poster remind you of Shrike? Wonderful opinion

Anytime anyone makes sense on this forum they're compared to me. I take that as a compliment. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of you and your ilk.