Unindentified Flying Obiect :D

[Spartwo]

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

The ultimate coast guard troll.

[Scotius]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZiRm5vU0Bk

look quite common in Poland to me!

Wow. Awesome sight. But no, flickering of the flame is still visible in this clip. Light we've seen was was clear - like a sodium lamp. And it was more like a point of light, not a diffused "globe". It's really hard to describe

[Kinglet]

Hmm, yes - a paper lantern would fit nicely. There is one problem with that, though - no one uses them in Poland. It simply is not a part of our culture. Kites, yes - but you can't buy a toy hot-air baloon in Poland. I don't even think it's legal due to fire safety regulations. Oh well - unindentified means unindentified I tell you this though: it's easy to scoff, laugh and call bull**** until you actually see something truly weird above your head. Then all kinds of questions crop up - and you are left uncomfortable, without answers and craning your head up every night. Because something...or someone... might be out there.

Chinese immigrants.

[DisarmingBaton5]

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

I laughed.

I kid you not, the ISS just flew right above me five minutes ago. It was the brightest star on the sky, and I took my entire family to watch it!

It looks amazing, no?

[Cesrate]

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

[lajoswinkler]

Wow. Awesome sight. But no, flickering of the flame is still visible in this clip. Light we've seen was was clear - like a sodium lamp. And it was more like a point of light, not a diffused "globe". It's really hard to describe

Angular dimensions drop down sharply, so the human eye sees a point of light (and spokes, due to imperfections in the cornea, etc.). Flickering is not noticeable once the lantern is so high in the air. All this really narrows your object down to a sky lantern. It's the easiest explanation.

[Deadpangod3]

I saw a UFO once, I was outside during the summer, it was dark and my family was sitting at the camp fire we were having and I was staring at a set of stars I noticed almost looked like a Kerbals head with a helmet, when sudenly I see a star move, and keep going over the horizon.

Naturally, my first thought is: aliens...

Then I thought it might be a satellite, and out of curiousity, I went inside to my iPad and opened this app of the solar system, and some satellites orbiting the earth, and sure enough.

The ISS had flown over Wisconsin.

Probably one of my best nights ever.

[Nibb31]

Naturally, my first thought is: aliens...

This is something that always baffles me. Surely if you identify a UFO as an alien spaceship, then it is no longer an unidentified flying object.

The reason you identify it as "aliens" is cultural bias. If you were brought up in some other cultural environment, you might have thought of ghost or your local deity.

There is absolutly no reason to believe that a UFO is of extraterrestrial origin rather than a time-machine from the future, Elvis or Jesus Christ returning, incursions from a parallel universe or pink unicorns from hollow earth...

[lajoswinkler]

Exactly. "Aliens" is the modern "god" or "ghost". It just shows how little has our society advanced. We've just replaced old things with new things. The things are still there. Luckily, more and more of us are using our brains, so we don't stop at "aliens" and try to look for an answer. We're advancing, but at a slow rate.

[Wahgineer]

a time-machine from the future

..And as far as I know, there is only ONE time machine that gives off a orange and white glow as it flies through the night sky, before accelerating, bathing itself in blue light, sparks and lightning rushing around it; and then finally giving off three bright flashes, each accompanied by a loud bang, and on the third flash/bang, it vanishes, leaving only a twin set of parallel flame trails to mark its passing.

[-Velocity-]

I saw a flight of what had to be like eight jet fighter aircraft moving low through the sky one night, probably F-16s, as the following observation indicates that they were probably single-engine (and because the F-16 is very common around here, as that's all the nearby AFBs have). Their engines sure sounded like high performance jet fighter engines. I don't know if they were hitting afterburners or not, but I could see an orange light coming out of the aft of a few of them. The orange lights were fading on and off slowly and irregularly, like the pilots were hovering right around and between 100% power and low afterburner, trying to catch up and rejoin formation or something.

So anyway, among other things, maybe you could have seen a distant jet fighter aircraft on afterburner.

Edited January 2, 2014 by |Velocity|

[Scotius]

A small cross, made of four yellow lights. None of them blinking. What kind of aircraft carries such configuration of sidelights? Can you explain that?

[78stonewobble]

I once saw a stealth UFOLOGY when flying in a passanger jet. The UFO was flat but thicker in the middle. I could see it for a few seconds, and then it slowly disappeared. Could have been a stealth plane, but I doubt it as they don't cloak.

o.O

And an alien race possessing the intelligence and ability to cross interplanetary distances, ability to render their craft completely invisible to radar, infrared and optical wavelengths and wants to stay hidden (for whatever arbitrary reasons) decides to randomly cloak uncloak their craft in plain view of passenger jets with potentially hundreds of witnesses?

Yeah, that makes complete sense.

I've just never understood why unidentified lights should be supposed intelligent creatures wanting to remain undetected... If they were the least bit intelligent the first step to stay undetected would be to turn the lights off... Makes no logical sense.

[Fail-Man 3D]

I've just never understood why unidentified lights should be supposed intelligent creatures wanting to remain undetected... If they were the least bit intelligent the first step to stay undetected would be to turn the lights off... Makes no logical sense.

It makes a twisted sort of sense, if such can be called sense: humans are bad at (or just forget about) light discipline at inopportune times, so why wouldn't other intelligent life forget to turn the lights off (especially when their safety regulations call for warning/navigation lights on spacecraft)?

[Camacha]

Hmm, yes - a paper lantern would fit nicely. There is one problem with that, though - no one uses them in Poland. It simply is not a part of our culture. Kites, yes - but you can't buy a toy hot-air baloon in Poland. I don't even think it's legal due to fire safety regulations. Oh well - unindentified means unindentified I tell you this though: it's easy to scoff, laugh and call bull**** until you actually see something truly weird above your head. Then all kinds of questions crop up - and you are left uncomfortable, without answers and craning your head up every night. Because something...or someone... might be out there.

It is not part of local culture here either, yet I saw several this new year's eve. A while ago I even saw a whole flotilla of the things, looking eerily like a steady solid formation as they were carried together by the same wind. It looked absolutely wonderful and had me a bit confused until I figured out what they were, although I think the air traffic controllers were not thrilled.

But yeah, rest assured that there is something out there, somewhere. You can also bet we will never meet it though, in all probability we will lead our seperate cycles of existence in hermetic isolation.

[Camacha]

A small cross, made of four yellow lights. None of them blinking. What kind of aircraft carries such configuration of sidelights? Can you explain that?

The first thing that comes to my mind it a quadcopter, although it could have been a couple of other things equally well.

It kind of reminds my of so called ghost videos: there is a group of people that challenge anyone to send them authentic footage. Until now, every single case has been debunked as a technical problem, (known) natural phenomena or hoax. It is just that people resort to far fetched explanations before they exhaust the explanations we know and are more likely.

Edited January 3, 2014 by Camacha

[xzxvrx]

Once I was inside the building for the 16th Space Control Squadron at Peterson AFB. I was listening to a briefing about countering satellite jammers, when i looked out the window and I saw something that looked like a bulge in the clouds. It just kept moving through the clouds till i couldn't see it anymore.

[78stonewobble]

It makes a twisted sort of sense, if such can be called sense: humans are bad at (or just forget about) light discipline at inopportune times, so why wouldn't other intelligent life forget to turn the lights off (especially when their safety regulations call for warning/navigation lights on spacecraft)?

Well you are right about that, however it's still based on the following assumptions:

1. There is intelligent life other than our "noble" selves (I actually believe this to be quite possible).

2. Abovementioned intelligent life has the capacity to cross interstellar distances (less likely, but not wholly impossible).

3. Abovementioned intelligent life decides to visit our solar system (1 star out of a 100 billion stars in a 100 billion galaxies (quite quite remote, unless life and interstellar travel is a common occurrance in the universe).

4. Abovementioned intelligent life is very similar to us. Wants to stay hidden for arbitrary reasons and being forgetfull (seems unlikely as well).

Well, personally there is quite a few more earthly explanations I'd find much more likely than the above mentioned list of assumptions and big leaps of faith. Occams razor

PS: I find the chance of life and intelligent life elsewhere in the universe quite high. I even think interplanetary travel is possible (didn't say it was gonna be fast or cheap). I just find it very unlikely that we are that much of an attraction or that life is that widespread. And offcourse there are Unidentified Flying Objects, so far I just haven't found it likely it meant little green men or jesus or ... whatever ...

Edited January 3, 2014 by 78stonewobble

[MBobrik]

Not enough wind tonight to move a baloon so fast. Besides fire would be flickering, right? That light was stable, and i've never seen a fire burning such bright, clean orange.

.

fist. the wind up is usually much stronger than down on the ground. just a few hundred meters above the ground and the wind can go from almost calm to gale strength.

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second, the balloon floats in the air so its relative velocity is zero. And the fuel pellets used in the most common flying lanterns burn much hotter and more stable than candles and stuff, and illuminate the entire surface of the balloon indirectly from inside, hence you will see a bright orange light and no flicker.

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third, and most important, buy one and launch it by yourself. you will see.

[TheBadAstronomer]

My family and I were stargazing the other day with my motorized telescope when a light similar to what you saw moved across the sky. We had no clue what it was until I aimed the telescope at it. It was a Chinese lantern! We saw several more that night, along with seeing Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Betelgeuse, and the Orion Nebula. That was a fun night.