A spooky story - your assessment, please

[Skybird]

- SOLVED -

Guys, this may sound like the X-files, but it is real, and I'm telling it as true and honest and sober as I can. I am no easy-minded UFO-believer, and am willing to accept reasonable explanations, but for what I just saw in the sky, I cannot find an explanation.

First: does anyone have any knoweldge about possible space debris entering the atmosphere this night? I mean a huge number of objects that would fall down to earth, burn for several seconds up to 1-2 minutes, travel the horizon almost laterally, and would be visible to the human eye at night, shining much brighter than usual airplane lights even with landing lights on, and in intense orange (not white, not yellow, not red), but orange as intense as in flames burning from wood, or coal that is an amber?

I checked the local news via Westfälische Nachrichten and Münstersche Zeitung, if some kind of irregular airtraffic or an airshow or a party with launching lantirns had been announced, I found nothing. I also googled for Space debris coming down and burning in atmoshere, and found nothing. But it is possible in all cases, that I overlooked the according news, of course.

I live here since 8 years, and I am familiar with how landing helicopters and their lights look like when they land at the central hospitals where they have landing platforms, several kilometers away. I am also completely aware of how aircrafts look with lights on, and that landing lights can be surprisingly bright even over a distance, since the airport of Münster-Osnabrück is north-east from here, maybe 18-20 kilometer away.

It is saturday, so I checked the news wether there was any public party announced where they maybe have launched burning lantirns, like they do in Asia sometimes. however, I have problems to think of highflying lantirns, due to the formation, and especially the wind direction.


I felt the wind and estimated it to be from North-west to south-East. we have an incoming storm front, and I checked on weather radar via internet that indeed the rain is moving at us from north-west to South-East. Currently, it still is dry, but that will change soon.

This is what happened:

I was looking TV. Left of the TV is a huge window with a great balcony behind, and the direction is almost exactly 270° (West). It is the backside of the house, second floor, with plenty of gardens, and estimated 700 meters away a huge office building. I include a pic what it looks like at day (tomorrow I'll shoot it). It was night, and little lights there. My place is at the outer part of the city, in the north. So that viewing line is from east to west, at the northern border of the city's main areas. The weather is calm, some winds, generally many areas of scattered cloud layers currently, sometimes you see the stars, sometimes not.

some minuts before 2200 local time I randomly glanced outside the window, and saw a column of orange dots moving on the dark sky. There were 6-10 in sight at any given time, and they moved, with a speed that they covered an arch of 22.5° (I mean roughly the half of 45°, that is), at around ten seconds. It seems there were what I perceived as "waves". I observed the whole thing for maybe around 10 minutes, then there was nothing anymore. No sound or noise as well.

I would say it was too fast for an airliner as long as the airliner was not flying extremeoly low, and close. also, since then do airliners dogfight in groups of half a hundred? They moved from maybe SSW to NNE, that would mean that they had the wind almost at 90° angle coming from their left side, and at igher altitiude I think it currently is a very strong wind, due to the incoming stormfront. They moved with synchronised speed and varying distance to each other, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs or what appeared to be loose groups of three. They disappeared after always having covered the same space, and having followed the same track, and I strongly assume that they were covered by clouds, then, so they were above the cloud layer. I stepped outside. First I thought of airplanes, but it was different than all planes that usually fly here. I thought of lantirns, but they were not affected by the wind and even resisted it, and they moved too fast, and too much in synchronity. We have a lot of balloon flying oiver here, and the things simply do not move that fast. There kept coming more and more of them. I was too stupid to count them, and I also do not know when it started, so any count would not mean anything anyhow, but I would say that all in all 50-70 such dots moved through the visible part of the sky. Maybe a dozen more.

I jumped inside and got binoculars 9x63. I could see the orange dots clearly in them, but I saw no red blinking lights, no red and green position lights, and no white blinking lights. I saw an occasional, very fast moving bright blue light, which seemed to zig-zag, but it was so fast that I only saw it for half a second, and thejn it as gone again. I did not see it without binoculars, but I do not think it were reflections in the optics only - the lenses are well-coated, it is a night-use binocular for hunters. I also did not see any form or shape like that of an aircraft around those orange dots.

I jumped inside again, and got my camera. It is nothing special, a digital compact camera with 8 MPix, and I leaned against the wall, and took two shorts, 1", 5.0, 4x tele 23.5 mm. I give the pictures, I have increased brightness and contrast so to make it better visible, but it is not much. the vague scheme at the bottom is the front of that office building. The dots would have moved from 8 o'clock position, to 2 o'clock position, in scattered column formation.

Gentlemen, i do not say that this is an UFO phenomenon, all I say is I could not find out what it was, and have no idea how to explain it. I may be proven wrong, but due to the wind direction, the formation pattern and the speed, I rule out flying Asian lantirns, also: we have an incoming stormfront over here, the winds gets fresher with every quarter of an hour. I also rule out airplanes. Clouds of space debris is just a vague hypothesis by me, but it does not really convince me: I would assume that it would look different, and would not be in sight for so long, and burns miucz more with a white fire, than a warm orange. I do not think that it were lasers from some lightshow, since the dots were visible in the open, unclouded sky, so there is no cloud they could project on. However, in front of the formations, where they started to become invisible due to clouds, soft light shimmer was dancing around, like from a pocket torch against a low cloud - or a lightsource inside the cloud. I take the path that I can explain and vote for the pocketlight, then. But it must have been a damn huge thing of a pocketlight, then. Maybe it was another observer who was curiosu and thoizght that a light maybe would help. I saw that effect before, we have a local fair at the city every three months, they do fireworks, and sometimes there is something like a lightshow against the clouds. This looked different.

And another thing that maybe gives a hint. Coming from the behind me, that would have been the ESE, I noticed the blinking white lights of a highflying airliner flying straight to the WNW, which is nothing unusual here. By size iof the dots, the spoace between the winglights, and the speed at which it moved, I conbclude it was an airliner, highflying. what is unusual is that that thing suddenly started to bank sharply to the left and broke away from the moving orange dots, to which moving column it approached at a right-angled course, almost - as if the pilot saw those things in front of him and wanted to qickly brake away from further approach to them, and sharply turned to the left. Due to the night condition, i could not estimate neither height nor range of either the plane nor the orange dots. I nevr say an airliner doing a sharp brake over the city. Sometimes they do gentle, soft turns towards the airport. and airport that I think has no night operation permission, btw. This manouvre looked too sharp for routine business.

I am a realist, and a born sceptic. simply believing in something is not for me. My status is not that I conclude to have seen UFOs. My status is that currently I do not rule out anything, and don't have any clue at all what the heck went on. The rational, scientific, technical, weather-related and traffic-related explanations that I tested on the obsevation, failed. but i cannot rule out that that is because my knowledge on science, technics, weather and airtraffic is not complete. So what I say is: I cannot explain this phenomenon, and I don't know where to put it.

On me, I have had strange and anormal experiences years ago, but in a different context (meditation), and of a different and far more intense quality, and different form. however, I did not meditate today, and I am not on drugs, and had just one glass of red whine - like almost every evening. since I am used to that, I never feel any effect from one glass of whine that qualifies for a description of being - even just slightly - drunk.

Any information? any idea?

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/2641/img0214ii3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4483/img0215vp8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

The day pictue follows tomorrow, I thought I had one left somewhere, but it is either gone, or I do not find it.

[Kipparikalle]

They look like a bullet traces to me, although, the title is kind of silly.

I guess its just another randomn bursts of small meteors burning in the orbit, these happens quite often (even here)

Nothing unusual or UFOish, just crap burning in the orbit

[SandyCaesar]

Hmm. At first glance they look like window reflections, but since you saw them outside that rules it out. 50-70 dots is a hell of a lot--it pretty much rules out aircraft afterburners, since that would mean a few wings' worth of fighters, and that would definitely make the news.

I don't know much about meteorology, but--is it possible that the wind direction at whatever altitude these things were at is different from the wind direction at ground level? Maybe flares of some kind?

Space debris--I would think that the trails look different from that, judging on photos that I've seen, but as I've never observed anything in person my opinion should probably be discounted. High-altitude supersonic flights, large-scale, perhaps, but very unlikely.

And one question: there's a blue dot on the photos. Did you observe that as well, or was it something reflecting off the lens?

[Kipparikalle]

Have you ever seen a meteor burning in the orbit? I have, and I can tell you they go really ****ing fast.
Depenting on the Skybird's info given, yeah. They're meteors

I'm sure this will be on the news on the morning or so

Cuz' 50-70 is a lot

[Skybird]

They look like a bullet traces to me, although, the title is kind of silly.

I guess its just another randomn bursts of small meteors burning in the orbit, these happens quite often (even here)

Nothing unusual or UFOish, just crap burning in the orbit
Are moving incoming meteors that slow - roughly at the speed of an airplane? Exact speed I cannot estimate, since I have no idea of size, altitidue and distance. Also, do swarms of meteros come down in column formation? WouldnT they loose altitude, instead of apparantly keeping altitude? I have seen shooting stars before. They were white, and extremely fast, and lasted for just a second.

[Skybird]

Hmm. At first glance they look like window reflections, but since you saw them outside that rules it out. 50-70 dots is a hell of a lot--it pretty much rules out aircraft afterburners, since that would mean a few wings' worth of fighters, and that would definitely make the news.

I don't know much about meteorology, but--is it possible that the wind direction at whatever altitude these things were at is different from the wind direction at ground level? Maybe flares of some kind?

Space debris--I would think that the trails look different from that, judging on photos that I've seen, but as I've never observed anything in person my opinion should probably be discounted. High-altitude supersonic flights, large-scale, perhaps, but very unlikely.

And one question: there's a blue dot on the photos. Did you observe that as well, or was it something reflecting off the lens?

the blue dot in the pic is a burning light on a control panel inside that huge office building. However, before reading you I edited my post meanwhile to include that there were a fast-moving, zigzagging blue light indeed. the orange dots had no trails, it appears as that only because my hand was shaking and I was in a hurry (1 second exposure). The shots were taken in sub-optimal conditions, really. The orange dots in the sky were really almost round, and had no trails, flew in a line, and at constant speed. I thought of space debris as well, I never saw space debris falling, but I cannot get my imagination of that into correspondence with my observation tonight. Not even roughly.

[Skybird]

Have you ever seen a meteor burning in the orbit? I have, and I can tell you they go really ****ing fast.
Depenting on the Skybird's info given, yeah. They're meteors

I'm sure this will be on the news on the morning or so

Cuz' 50-70 is a lot

No, I did not say they were moving that fast. I would estimate them to be in the range of aircraft speed. Wether 150 knots or 400 knots depend on wether they were close or distant, high or low - but that I could not estimate, since it was dark, and I did not see any schemes or forms.

Shooting stars I rule out with determination. I know how these are looking.

[Skybird]

A schematic drawing of directions. Ignore distances, they are not realistic

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4078/img0216ba8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[mapuc]

It looks like an afterburner on a fighter

But I'm not sure

Until we have figured out what it is, it's UFO's

Markus

[Skybird]

It looks like an afterburner on a fighter

But I'm not sure

Until we have figured out what it is, it's UFO's

Markus

No noise, and nightly silence all around.

And several dozens of afterburners? It seems half of the german Luftwaffe had a meeting up there, then. :) But at 22:00?

I must rule out afterburner. Also, for that they moved not fast enough. I remember the fighters that often flew over my flat in Osnabrück, in the very early 90s. A low-flying jet on afterburner is faster than this was. And he makes noise that you could hear over even greater distances at night - even more since the wind came from a direction were it would helped the noise to be heared.

[Skybird]

I searched and checked on that lantirn thing. These are made of rice-paper that does not burn, and they look orange like what I saw indeed. They burn for around 5-10 minutes, and usually fly at 50-200 m altitude, then gently decent back to the ground

However: the things I saw moved quite fast, not as fast as shooting stars or jets on afterburner, but faster than small or big balloons in the wind. I estimate it in the range of aircraft speeds, 150-350 kn. Also, the wind blew (and blows) at a right angle to the direction at which the orange dots were moving. Also, the formation kept it's spacing quite precisely. And finally, I would not say they were just 100 m or 200 m high, but more - much more.

Then, in Germany they are forbidden to be launched inside a 50 km zone around airports. But the airport Münster Osnabrück is much closer.

And finally, the sheer numbers. I even do not know since when they had shown up before I became aware of them, but I have seen at least 50-60 of them, I estimate. Usually, private person buy these rice-paper lantirns and launch them in numbers of 2, 10, or 20. After the Tsunami, they used them by the hundreds in Asia, but that were public events of rememberance. At least the local news holds no report about such a public event this night.

currently the rice-paper lantirn is the best optioin I have for an explanation, but it is a theory that has some unexplained contradictions (speed, altitude, wind, legal implications, huge numbers). I can't rule it out, but see the probability currently as low. and there is always that evading aircraft on my mind. I nevber have seen an aircraft doing such a sharp turn over the city. There are also no navigation marks dermanding them ihn the vicinity. Next major VOR is some dozen miles in the east - OSN - and even there such banks are not planned according to high and low altitude enroute charts, I checked that. the approaches for (I think at night: closed) airport Münster-Osnabrück also look differentl, and the plane was too high to land at FMO anyway.

[mapuc]

It looks like an afterburner on a fighter

But I'm not sure

Until we have figured out what it is, it's UFO's

Markus

No noise, and nightly silence all around.

And several dozens of afterburners? It seems half of the german Luftwaffe had a meeting up there, then. :) But at 22:00?

I must rule out afterburner. Also, for that they moved not fast enough. I remember the fighters that often flew over my flat in Osnabrück, in the very early 90s. A low-flying jet on afterburner is faster than this was. And he makes noise that you could hear over even greater distances at night - even more since the wind came from a direction were it would helped the noise to be heared.

Then your right. It's not any afterburner. Don't know ´bout Germany, but in Denmark and Sweden it's not allowed to use afterburner or fligh faster than sound over cities in peacetime.

Have you contactet your lokal UFO's club(or what you call it)?

markus

[Skybird]

It looks like an afterburner on a fighter

But I'm not sure

Until we have figured out what it is, it's UFO's

Markus

No noise, and nightly silence all around.

And several dozens of afterburners? It seems half of the german Luftwaffe had a meeting up there, then. :) But at 22:00?

I must rule out afterburner. Also, for that they moved not fast enough. I remember the fighters that often flew over my flat in Osnabrück, in the very early 90s. A low-flying jet on afterburner is faster than this was. And he makes noise that you could hear over even greater distances at night - even more since the wind came from a direction were it would helped the noise to be heared.

Then your right. It's not any afterburner. Don't know ´bout Germany, but in Denmark and Sweden it's not allowed to use afterburner or fligh faster than sound over cities in peacetime.

Have you contactet your lokal UFO's club(or what you call it)?

markus
No. Can't stand professional UFO believers. Can't stand professional UFO sceptics either. I kick them both. My status is unchnaged. I do not say it was a fleet of UFO. I say: I cannot explain and thus: I don't know what it was.

[Task Force]

Possiably a commet. Even something the size of dust comeing in from outer space can cause that effect. Could have been something entering the aptmosphere.:-? Or just getting to close and exiting agian.;) I believe there are other living things out there, cause if there isnt. Thats a alot of wasted space. But I dont believe in UFOs, we would have seen more by now.

[SandyCaesar]

Well, there's the technical definition of a UFO: unidentified flying object. Any blip on an AWACS screen that hasn't been ID'd yet is technically a UFO. As we haven't figured these out yet, they're UFOs.

BtW, I noticed that on the second photo, the red dots are blurred--you attributed this to camera movement. However, interestingly enough, the blue dot is stationary, where in the first shot it was moving, too.

You said 2200 local time? The sky seems surprisingly bright for that--I assume the photos aren't retouched, since the overcast sky here (1600 local) looks exactly that color.

Random shot in the dark: maybe there are less light sources than what you saw, and a percentage of the lights are reflections/refractions or other optical phenomena. If so, it makes the hypothesis that these are afterburning aircraft very very far away at extreme altitude a little more plausible. The distance and perhaps atmospheric conditions might've mitigated the noise factor to the point that no one in the area would ID it as engine noise.

[Oberon]

:hmm: My opinion on the whole UFO is that until one comes and does a fly past over me in daylight I'm still not 100% sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if we have had the odd ship passing through. It's a big galaxy after all, likewise it's also entirely possible that the airforce has things they like to play with that we don't know about.
I have seen many videos, but technology these days can fake most things. However, in your case Sky, knowing your background and your objective analysis on the subject, this makes for something not quite so dismissable as some of the other 'evidence' I've seen.
I recommend you get in touch with your local airport, you say that there was an airliner banking sharply nearby, which indicates that whatever was up there was seen by the crew and possibly showed up on radar. You might be met by a wall of silence, you might get an explanation. Whether that explanation fits with what you witnessed, that's the crunch factor.
Good luck, and keep watching the skies, as they say :up:


Oh, and here's another one which has had me puzzling, caution, strong Peckham language:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhfJ0v7x2VA

[Skybird]

Well, there's the technical definition of a UFO: unidentified flying object. Any blip on an AWACS screen that hasn't been ID'd yet is technically a UFO. As we haven't figured these out yet, they're UFOs.

BtW, I noticed that on the second photo, the red dots are blurred--you attributed this to camera movement. However, interestingly enough, the blue dot is stationary, where in the first shot it was moving, too.


The blue dot was asked for before. It is a panel light seen through the windows of the office building - you can see the vague scheme of it at the bottom in the middle. Or it is a PC monitor they forgot to switch off. The orange dots however are like small trails or lines because of hand movement - in reality they were round, and cratsyl clear and sharp single dots, of warm, soft orange glow. the zig-zagging blue light I talked of is not on the photos, it as so fast and always just half a second or so visible that it was sheer luck that I even realised it.

On the bright sky, I said that I have increased brightness and contrast to make something visible. Exposure was just one second and ISO 100. This is what the original pic looks like:

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/3043/img0215tv0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

paste and copy it into your paint program, then increase brightness.

I had to make a decision, to fiddle around with the camera and probably ending up with messy shoots neverthelss, but having missed somethign in the sky, or try to make best observation I could by using the binocular. I decided for the latter.

[Task Force]

The alien version of Star Trek, with the enterprise.:hmm: Maby there ploting a plot to take over the world...:hmm: They wouldnt be getting much, they actualy might be a injustice to there selfs.:rotfl:

[LobsterBoy]

I don't feel qualified to be able to tell you what you saw or didn't see, but I can tell you about winds. They absolutely can move in different directions at different altitudes. It's part of why we get tornadoes here in the middle of the US. Winds are also generally faster the higher the altitude and aircraft that find a 200-300 knot jet stream at 30,000 ft can obviously change their fuel consumption. Perhaps you can find a source that records upper air readings and see if that helps you understand the environment that existed at the time.

[Skybird]

these are the flying lantirns I spoke of, made of rice-paper that does not burn. the colour matches what I saw, however, as I said I have a problem regarding their resistance to wind direction, their altitude and speed, etc. But despite the problems, so far the best theory I have. Just not really convincing. especially wind direction and speed is problematic.

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/1397/hochzeitlaterne2kn0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Skybird]

I don't feel qualified to be able to tell you what you saw or didn't see, but I can tell you about winds. They absolutely can move in different directions at different altitudes. It's part of why we get tornadoes here in the middle of the US. Winds are also generally faster the higher the altitude and aircraft that find a 200-300 knot jet stream at 30,000 ft can obviously change their fuel consumption. Perhaps you can find a source that records upper air readings and see if that helps you understand the environment that existed at the time.

Yes, I was not able to go deep into different winds at different altitudes thing, although I considered it. what I found was the moving radar maps of rain in our weather services, and by that and the fact that a stormfront is moving into Germany coming from the norethSea, NW, I conclude that there is a general wind direction of NW to SE - the rain is moving from the upper left to the bottom right corner of the animated radar map.

Well, I am not qualified to assess this variable in all professionalism though. Could very well be that I see it too simple.

[LobsterBoy]

I don't know much about European weather, but my guess is that if it was a front was moving through that the upper winds would also be generally NW to SE. Sorry I can't help more, but my wife and sister are the real weather geeks.

[Frame57]

If you are sure of the speed of these things then maybe not meteorites, but FYI the Orionid meteor showers begin in October and from your local they would be seen best looking in a southerly direction.

[Task Force]

Even though this is not topic for this, It kind of relates to this topic.:D http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081003/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_astronaut_s_diary Anyone remember the space shuttle Columbia.;)

[kiwi_2005]

I was going to say at first get a cat scan on the brain as seeing bright lights can be early signs of a brain tumor. But then i saw the pictures you put up, so dont worry about that scan it wont be needed.

Sometimes meteorite storms can be seen with the naked eye, although far out in space they show up as lights moving very fast.

Im pretty much open minded with UFO's I think they are out there.

[Respenus]

Well I saw a trail of light about two nights ago. It went really fast, barely saw it happen, yet it looked orange. I thought it was some sort of space debris or a mini-meteorite burning up in the atmosphere.

You do realise that this looks very similar to how the Jules Verne (ESA ATV) burnt up in the atmosphere? It could have been some left over debris from it, or from some other space flight?

I have yet to find the answer to the formation you saw. It could be possible, that it was just the angle from which you saw it. It might have been closer together, like a clump, yet from a different angle looked like a formation?

I'm sure it was something innocent. Just don't go to the police, or they'll tell they were only "meteorological balloons". :lol:

[Letum]

This sounds like a meteorite shower to me. As it was in the west and in early
October, I would bet it was the start of the Draconid shower, although there are 2
other major showers this October and numerous weaker ones. All are visible.

You might want to check with your local observatory.

[Skybird]

One would expect a meteorite shower not to behave like a long string of sportplanes, I assume, and not moving at constant altitude. I can't get it together with that theory.

Assume you see a sportsplane in the sky like it often happens, and at a range that you can clearly see wings, body, tail. The speed of that plane moving roughly matches what the orange dots were moving at. The were not cluttered, I'm sure, but appeared in a long string, best a double column, each following roughly in the path of those in the lead. I indeed looked like slow motion of tracer, with non-regular spacing.

I have meanwhile called the airport. they reconnected me three times and with whom and where I talked of in the end, I canot say with confidence. Thy said they know of nothing, and told me about those flying lantirns. I would be willing to accpe that, but I also told them abut the plane banking turning sharp to the left. and here they immediately turned icy and cut the talk short and ended it. That could be becaue the pilot sqaw something. It could be becasue he did that manouver and it was non-routine, but for a very different reason they wish to hide. It could be becasue they think I anted to give them a bad name.

I also called a frined, who called somebody who knows somebody, and finally I was talking with a guy from the Wilhelm-Förster Sternwarte in Berlin. He said that for last night no cosmic pohenomenons, like swarms of shooting stars or meteorite swarms were expected in europe. He also said that it would look different in colour and speeds.

However, i want this thing sorted, and do not wish to leave it as an UFO thing, so I am willing to go with the lantirn-theory, and the contradictions I see probably due to lacking knowledge and understanding of weather behavior of mine.

http://www.westfaelische-nachrichten.de/_em_cms/_globals/zoom.php?em_cnt=707211&em_src=292248&em_ivw=lok-bor-bor

[Hitman]

Sometimes fog, mist, a cloud, or an airlayer of special density which also holds pollution can act as a cinema screen, so that powerful lights projected form elsewhere (F.e. Lasers from a Disco, fireworks, etc.) form strange results there. Reverberation of light in the atmosphere has sometimes such effects.

Judging from your pictures it seems to me possible that those are just reflections in the air of something originated elsewhere (Though of course you have seen them moving and might judge the pattern better).

[Skybird]

As I alredy said, definitely no light reflections, also no fata morgana or something. the things were visible in a region of the sky that held no clouds, but showed the stars. It also was far too bright in contrast, and too clear an image. I know what you mean, we have it being done at times of public festivals. But last night was not of that kind, definitely.

[Hitman]

I mentioned also air layers, a very dense hot air layer can cause reflection. For example, you can many times see over a very hot place (Desert, the bach in summer) how the light gets somehow deformated and reflected. In twilight conditions this may also cause reflections :hmm:

Certainly a strange thing you saw there, but I also agree that there must be a logical explanation. I bet this is one of those things that when you know what happened, you laugh at yourself for its simplicity.:88)

[Skybird]

Kong-Ming - that name worked wonders. i consider the issue being solved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_lantern

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/4041/2f9cbdcc4d91be0301e928fzv2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/8755/22842163280777cf3cbcby1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/2775/22882124771a641fda8azv1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/9202/kongmingqs4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I see more pro than contra in this explanation, and the colour matches perfectly. the rest of doubts I must see as beiung caused by me not sufficiently knowing the many forms and variations in which weather can unfold, and namely: wind.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I have no idea what you saw, but is it possible that the lights could have been meteorites skipping off of the earth's atmosphere?

It is possible for cosmic debris to be rent asunder by gravity wells, staying more or less in a linear formation in order of density, or close to it. the angle at which they are observed can affect the speed with which they appear to move, and perhaps it is possible that they were moving only slightly faster than you were at the time, relative to the speed of the Earth.

Honestly, I have no idea what those lights are, but I'm always hesitant to acknowledge the presence of UFOs or government cover-ups involving the same.

For one thing, governments aren't that good at keeping secrets. Or at least the U.S. Government isn't. I don't know about Germany. U.S. security has a history riddled with holes and intelligence leaks.
I'm also not too fond of the typical Hollywood scene where there are UFOs (or information about them) being kept in a secret base or bunker or whatever and you see all these stern-faced military guards patrolling the area.
I hate to bring up another war story, but I don't have a lot of allegorical examples that aren't related to the military, almost a third of my life thus far was spent there. I was a Field Radio Operator, so naturally I had to deal with cryptographic material and other "Secret"-level materials. Not that we could keep a secret for 10 fricking seconds:roll: . During the first 5 years of my enlistment my unit alone managed to "misplace" two Crazy-10 crypto devices (aha! I'm not so loose-tounged that I'm going to tell you the real designation:p ) and completely lose another one.

We couldn't even manage to keep operational plans secret when we were briefed on them less than 24 hours prior to their execution. When we were briefed for Operation Southern Fire we were strictly forbidden to discuss anything we heard in the briefing. It was supposed to be a surprise because the target city had minimal military presence and we had been informed that it insurgents were flocking to the place.
We were briefed at 10 a.m. When I went to the chow hall at 1p.m. an Iraqi cook wished me "Good luck in your attack tonight":roll: Seriously, what the hell? I doubt there was a soul in Camp Fallujah who didn't know about it, and that means that there wasn't an insurgent in Al-Anbar that didn't know about it either.

That's to say nothing of all the times I've heard other marines trying to talk up some girl in a bar by telling them about all the really cool secret stuff we do.
In detail. (this Forum needs a facepalm emoticon)


Secondly, I don't see a lot of motivation for keeping UFO secrets, unless some really sinister stuff was going on. I'm pretty sure that most politicians (and most military officers, who are generally little more than politicians) would leak information fairly quickly. Political types are always trying to get their names inscribed in the history books. What better way to ride a wave of public support than to be associated with a landmark event in human history? I mean, what's the alternative? Leave it secret for some other person to benefit from later? Either there is no definitive government knowledge of UFOs or the politicians entrusted with these secrets are the cleverest bastards in the world, contrary to all appearances, which would make them even more clever:hmm: . I'm not inclined to believe the latter.


All that being said, who knows what you saw? Perhaps those lights were some kind of military aircraft that they haven't managed to inadvertently expose to the public yet. Maybe it was some easily explainable phenomenon. And maybe they were extraterrestrial craft.:o

I still find that hard to believe though. What, we're being visited by aliens that have enough knowledge of interstellar travel (and possibly FTL technology) that can't manage to reconnoiter the planet without being observed? By the naked eye!? In that case, let them come. We don't have much to worry about. Of course, they could be probes. Not very advanced probes IMO, but they might be. Or maybe they want us to see them. Since that would hardly be a prudent military strategy, we can lean towards the assumption that they are friendly.


Btw Sky, this response isn't entirely directed at you. Just the part about meteorites. I know that you're too smart to assume the exsistence of UFOs based on an observation of something you can't explain. But, you're right about it being spooky. We all fear the unknown. We can always imagine something worse than what actually exsists. ( I hope:o :D )

[Skybird]

On the E.T. hypothesis, here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=139101&highlight=UFOs

That linear-spaceflight-from-A-to-B-with-high-speed-thing I do not buy, and never did.

Some remarks on recognising intelligence, what ironically is of relevance for UFO threads, religious threads on gods, and threads on creating AI by programming:

Man is not capable to recognize an intelligence that is above a certain meta-level or below a certain sub-level, compared to his own level. He can only recognise it by comparing it to what is within the realm of his own behavior and intellect. A higher developed intelligence he would perceive as chaos, and a lower intelligence he would miss as well, for both are outside his set of standards and scales to which he could compare. Which means in reverse that we must ask the question wether a higher intelliegnce itself - wether it be ET or a deity - would be capable itself to recognise us as a form of lower intelligence. Man has the very bad habit of attributing all cosmos to his own interest, to himself as being the general scheme that decides what is possible and what not, and man being the standard to which all cosmos must compare. Man antropomorphises what he perceives (or better: what he can perceive, and that range is limited), and where he cannot do that, what exists and is considered possible is ending in his thinking. But that is a very huge mistake, to assume that what bis of alien and different intelligent origin and quality necessarily must fulfill our expectations of what it should be like.

That is why the old argument: "If the ETs are already here, why haven't they then landed in the park before the white house meanwhile?" is a complete non-brainer for me. It is hilarious.

In the end, we project our own image onto the rest of the universe, and by that define it's shape and form, limits and possibilities. but that is not the realm nature of things - just our self-centred imagination.

If you want to understand, no: if you even want to have a chance to just realise that there is somethin totally alien and foreign, you have to give up trying to compare it to human standards - and giving up on that in complete totality (if that is possible).

seen that way most people do not even have a realistic understanding of what the term "alien" really means. They deal with their own imagination of what "alien" should look like. But the truth is it means an unlimited, baseless abyss of the unknown. It does not mean just human motives and thinking patterns dressed in "alien" costumes and an "alien" screenplay carried out on an "alien" stage.

[Letum]

One would expect a meteorite shower not to behave like a long string of sportplanes, I assume, and not moving at constant altitude. I can't get it together with that theory.

Assume you see a sportsplane in the sky like it often happens, and at a range that you can clearly see wings, body, tail. The speed of that plane moving roughly matches what the orange dots were moving at.

Thats sounds like both of the meteor showers I have seen.
They move across the sky in straight lines at a steady speed and appear to be at a
steady altitude and often follow each other very closely.

[Jimbuna]

Whatever it was...somebody has already written a song about it. :hmm:

http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=jQYQTFudrqc&feature=related

[Hitman]

Man has the very bad habit of attributing all cosmos to his own interest, to himself as being the general scheme that decides what is possible and what not, and man being the standard to which all cosmos must compare. Man antropomorphises what he perceives (or better: what he can perceive, and that range is limited), and where he cannot do that, what exists and is considered possible is ending in his thinking. But that is a very huge mistake, to assume that what bis of alien and different intelligent origin and quality necessarily must fulfill our expectations of what it should be like

Yup, that's why I have always hated the films of extraterrestrians, they seem to always resemble simply mixes of things well known to humans. Perhaps the only reasonable film in that sense has been "Contact" with Joide Foster. The extraterrestrians do not appear externally as such, instead they clearly tell Jodie Foster that they asume a form that can be identified and understood by her. :hmm:

[Skybird]

Here you get an exciting thriller with well described characters, and an alien intelligence that ranks amongst the most "alien" intelligences ever being described in film and book: on basis of a one-cellular life form.

Quite some thought went into this book. One of the greatest bestsellers in Germany ever. I read it twice withion two years (1000 pages)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Swarm-Novel-Deep-Frank-Sch%C3%A4tzing/dp/0340895241/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223225337&sr=8-1

[SS107.9MHz]

So Skybird,let me get this straight, the lights described a linear trajectory or was it more than an arch (the 22.5º I assume), coming from southwest to north east, opposite to wind direction, at least on your position? They were bright orange spots, with no traces , unlike those that apper on the shots, was there any way to know if they were moving above cloud level? They even could be above the earth's atmosphere, couldn't they be some ferrous or copper meteors, bouncing of the earths uppper atmosphere and the blue zigzags you've described electrical phenomena induced by metalic particles from this interaction?

[Skybird]

Well, Mhz, what else could I describe that I haven't already? All questions you asked I already have adressed, and since I am willing now to accept the answer of sky lanterns, I see no reason to repeat it all again. ;) and again, the dots were dots - the pics are hand-shots with my hand moving, that's why they appear as small lines, or having tails. The pics only illustrate one possible pattern at which they were arranged in relation to each other.

[SS107.9MHz]

Ehehm, sorry, I ws too lazy to read it all http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/images/icons/icon10.gif. Yup could be the baloonies, without a vid or a better shot can't get shure about it though... So time to prnounce time of deatth to the thread right? :ping:

[Hitman]

Thanks for the book recommendation :up: