Interesting Case Reported to MUFON

I have checked the approximate coordinates of the location with the time and parts of the sky reported and to be honest,there is nothing really that bright out there without showing other stars.
You have Saturn,but it is low and to the south.It's possible it was Jupiter.If I didn't have cloud cover tonight I could check.

It is definitely something much ,much brighter than the surrounding night sky.

If you have www.stellarium.org...'s a great little tool to look at stars and planets at any time and anywhere.

reply to post by kdog1982


I have an app called planets for the iphone.

itunes.apple.com...

Shows me where things are in the sky.
That way i can tell if it really is swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.

reply to post by grey580


To funny!
I have an app on my ipad that you point it at the sky to tell you if it's a chinese lantern,the ISS or Venus.

When I get my clear skies back this weekend,we have a HD video recorder I will try out.I think it's still in the box.

I'm thinking it was Jupiter the more I look into it,but I want to see for sure.

I personally have a hard time believing that a person could confuse a planet or sattelites with a UFO. Maybe satellites because they move, but it would take only a few minutes for the sattelite to move beyond the horizon, assuming he spotted it right as it came over the opposing horizon. And this guy has at least 22 minutes of videoAND it turned purple. I'm sorry, but from reading what he himself typed, I just don't think he is that ignorant to mistake a planet for anything like an orb UFO... Even if he did mistake the sattelites for UFOs, there's still the planet that he supposedly got excited about too, and that is rediculous to me. I am aware of the limitless capability for humans to make mistakes and I know its definitely possible for a human to make that mistake, but I don't think that happened here.

reply to post by 3n19m470

I personally have a hard time believing that a person could confuse a planet or sattelites with a UFO.

That may be so but it does happen quite regularly , there was even a thread here a while ago where someone confused the Moon for a UFO .... Seriously !


ASTRONOMICAL CAUSES OF UFOs

Usually, a description such as “it seemed to hover for an hour” is diagnostic of a star or planet (people get fed up watching after about an hour, or the object sets). Often there are other descriptions such as “flashing coloured lights” or “it appeared to be rotating” which is how bright stars appear when they are twinkling, notably Sirius on a cold, frosty night. Binoculars do not always help identification if they happen to be cheap and with optical defects that produce spurious colours and shapes.

A more subtle effect is known technically as the autokinetic effect. In this, natural movements of the eye make a stationary object appear to move irregularly, sometimes zooming up and down or swinging from side to side in a movement sometimes described as like a “falling leaf”. Autokinetic motion can be uncanny when watching artificial satellites, which often appear to zig zag or even make deviations around stars in their path.
Astronomical objects are the most common cause of mistaken UFO reports

reply to post by 3n19m470


Well believe it. Jupiter is very bright, and when people see something crazy bright like that, they tend to think UFO. And of course, stars can appear very bright as well. deceiving people into thinking they're UFOs.

Unfortunetly...

Upon realizing this I adjusted my recorder to 800X Digital Zoom and began reshooting the object.

.. meaning he destroyed anything possibly worthwhile in the image. Most of it is just garbled sensor artifacts. Never, ever use digital zoom.

To me it look like a shimmering planet.

reply to post by Agent008


Just wanted to point out for the sake of clarity that he is a she.

I wonder if that is one the navigational beacons for Tallassee Municipal Airport, which is due east of her location. I base that on the fact that in the written report she says she was filming to the east.