Venice, CA UFO / Drone?

I'm not sure if anyone else saw this, so I thought posting it might shed some light on it.
My girlfriend and I were going for a walk and noticed a bright light in the sky just off the coast of Santa Monica / Venice. It jumped up over the houses from the horizon and sat still for few seconds, then went left a bit and then back right and finally back down. It did this a few times, I was only able to capture it the last time unfortunately.

I'm a private pilot and recognize most aircraft, however I've never seen anything move like this one did.
I'm not saying it was a alien craft or anything, but I can't identify what it could have been either.

It did seem to have red and green solid nav lights, so my initial impression was an aircraft, however, it appeared to be almost directly off of the LAX flight path, which would make maneuvers like that very dangerous / illegal.

I can only assume it was a drone given that it appeared to be under intelligent control, but again, based on the speed and maneuvering, I'm not sure that's likely either.

Just wanted to post it here for the record. It was crazy for sure!

reply to post by johnathanr


Hard to tell what it is but my first thought is it may be one of these .

reply to post by gortex


Absolutely. That's a really good possibility, and probably the most likely answer. Just so strange to mess with it so close to LAX. It was really high up for sure and moved much faster than the drone in this video.
Thanks for sharing, that makes the most sense I suppose.

reply to post by johnathanr

Are you referring to the erratic dot that is zigzagging in front of the gable roofed building from 0.43 onwards??

If so, the object would be the size of a tennis ball - maybe smaller.



It certainly isn't an aircraft of any description - an orb of some sort??... or more than likely someone with a laser pointer would be my guess.

reply to post by Perhaps


Sorry, I should have mentioned that. I certain the erratic red dot that appears later is a lens flair from the street lights. I'm looking at the bright greenish / white dot in the center.

reply to post by johnathanr

Sorry, I should have mentioned that. I certain the erratic red dot that appears later is a lens flair from the street lights. I'm looking at the bright greenish / white dot in the center.

Oh ok... I'm unable to make any colour difference between the dots - are you making the colour distinction from memory, or is it meant to be discernible in the video??

Now, is it possible that the descending dot that you're referring to is so called "lense flair" as well then??

... and if not, why not??

reply to post by Perhaps

Now, is it possible that the descending dot that you're referring to is so called "lense flair" as well then?? ...
and if not, why not??

No the descending dot isn't lens flair because it doesn't react to the movement of the camera as the lens flair from the street light does .

Originally posted by gortex
reply to post by Perhaps

 

Now, is it possible that the descending dot that you're referring to is so called "lense flair" as well then?? ...
and if not, why not??

No the descending dot isn't lens flair because it doesn't react to the movement of the camera as the lens flair from the street light does .

Thanks gortex.

After many views, the erratic dot does appear to generally track the movement of the camera and the Op's explaination is plausible.

Originally posted by johnathanr
reply to post by Perhaps

 

Sorry, I should have mentioned that. I certain the erratic red dot that appears later is a lens flair from the street lights. I'm looking at the bright greenish / white dot in the center.

No sorries needed, my apologies more so... I viewed it on mute and my thinking was elsewhere, your commentary cleared it up.

Cheers

Just for the record, here is a video from another person who was in the same area filming the object.



I'm still leaning towards a personal / toy drone as the most likely explanation.

Looks like a childs toy drone, which he received for his 8th birthday from his nana. Which he then proceeded to fly high above the skys of LA with much joy and glee. Check em out from ToysRus!

could very well be a RC quadcopter as stated earlier. those things have a bunch of lights on them and very in size from the size of your palm to more than two feet across from what ive seen. and you can do crazy maneuvers with them.

you can also fly them with real time video feed. you have goggles on with first person view in the copter. maybe someone wanted to get footage of night time in LA from above?