Are these birds, planes or satellites, or meteors?

[sophiecentaur]

But that's another thread (or none since the topic or anything that doesn't support the Standard Model is not allowed here).

That's the rules in PF - and for good reasons. There are plenty of other forums that will discuss absolutely anything and they are not interested in the Physics and that little word "rigour".

 

[mfb]

(or none since the topic or anything that doesn't support the Standard Model is not allowed here)

That is not true and the Beyond the Standard Model forum is full of evidence of the contrary (that's what the forum is for). It has to be published in a reputable journal, however. Random websites making wild claims are not a good source for science.

 

[lucas_]

So it's either balloons or spoof.

Here's why I don't think it's a spoof (or hoax).

You can see the balloons traveling from topmost to bottom trajectories. In the multiple balloons frames, you can see the two close balloons getting further away. This can happen if the balloons are receding away farther and farther instead of just crossing the moon disk. If it's a fake, why not just let the balloons travel horizontally. Instead it's 3D with perspective and depth.

Who doesn't agree with me the balloons are traveling farther and farther and not just across the disk horizonally? And why do you think so?

 

[davenn]

Are these birds, planes or satellites, or meteors? Has anyone seen anything like these?

well not planes, satellites or meteors as the motion is too slow

 

[Klystron]

Humans tend to to see what we expect to see, what we are trained to see. Rookie police right out of the academy when they see "furtive hand movements" perceive a weapon where most of us might expect / see a cell phone. As a hobbyist bird watcher, I am conditioned to expect birds, though usually not in flight at night.

The title of this "discussion" thread listed birds first apparently without basis. Member @pinball1970 was probably correct that the video quality is too poor for rational discussion. "Spoof" does not necessarily imply a deliberate fake; but misdirection. A spoofed IP or email address is still an address, just not the the intended address.

 

[DaveC426913]

Since this is nearly a full moon, the sun is behind the Earth. The Earth's shadow will be a cone extending out well beyond the Moon to one side. The objects could be (almost) anywhere in that cone, out almost to the Moon. But can't be very near the Moon, else they too would be in sunlight, as the Moon is.

So the fact that these objects are in shadow doesn't tell us a lot about their altitude.Let's say they take two minutes to cross the Moon - that seems about right.

The Moon is .5 degrees wide. So at a given altitude, they will be traveling at the approximate derived speed:
,
s=(2*pi*a)/720*30.
where

a is the altitude (km)
720 (360/0.5) is 360 degrees divided by the Moon's width (unitless)
30 (60/2) is the conversion factor to hours (hr)
(this method only works for small angles)

Alt (km)	Speed (km/h)
10	2.6
100	26
1,000	260
10,000	2,600
100,000	26,000

Is that about right?

Those velocities make no sense for anything in space, so the objects are limited to the atmo (< 100km) - meaning they are moving no faster than about 26km/h.

Can't be planes.

 

[lucas_]

I went to this place in Taiwan before where you can fly sky lanterns. When I told the lady I'd buy extra. She told me it's illegal to fly this in the city like Taipei.



What other countries do you fly these too? The video of the moon spots is located in Russia. Is it legal to fly even normal balloons in Russia? If it's illegal. Then the black spots could be drones. Who own drones here? Do you fly these at night? I was always interested in drones but don't have time to pursue these hobby yet.

 

[lucas_]

I went to this place in Taiwan before where you can fly sky lanterns. When I told the lady I'd buy extra. She told me it's illegal to fly this in the city like Taipei.



What other countries do you fly these too? The video of the moon spots is located in Russia. Is it legal to fly even normal balloons in Russia? If it's illegal. Then the black spots could be drones. Who own drones here? Do you fly these at night? I was always interested in drones but don't have time to pursue these hobby yet.

What would happen if balloons got sucked into jet engines, has this happened before?

The moon video occurred in Moscow. There are many airliners there who can suck into these balloons. What is civil authority position about balloons released into city? Is it legal?

About drones. Can anyone share how do drones move in formation when flying? Maybe it's more difficult to make them move in formation because one wrong move can produce collisions like dominos? Also perhaps besides civilian drones, even tactical attack drones fly randomly with larger separation for safety?

 

[lucas_]

Since this is nearly a full moon, the sun is behind the Earth. The Earth's shadow will be a cone extending out well beyond the Moon to one side. The objects could be (almost) anywhere in that cone, out almost to the Moon. But can't be very near the Moon, else they too would be in sunlight, as the Moon is.

So the fact that these objects are in shadow doesn't tell us a lot about their altitude.Let's say they take two minutes to cross the Moon - that seems about right.

The Moon is .5 degrees wide. So at a given altitude, they will be traveling at the approximate derived speed:
,
s=(2*pi*a)/720*30.
where

a is the altitude (km)
720 (360/0.5) is 360 degrees divided by the Moon's width (unitless)
30 (60/2) is the conversion factor to hours (hr)
(this method only works for small angles)

Alt (km)	Speed (km/h)
10	2.6
100	26
1,000	260
10,000	2,600
100,000	26,000

Is that about right?

Those velocities make no sense for anything in space, so the objects are limited to the atmo (< 100km) - meaning they are moving no faster than about 26km/h.

Can't be planes.

Seriously.

If you will notice, all the black objects are "descending". This make sense if they were traveling farther and farther away into the distance horizon as it moves to the right.

If you will notice the 2 close dots at bottom of the formation. They are accelerating and decelerating from each other as if to avoid collisions. Balloons can't do that. One comment in the youtube mentioned it's advanced drones. That's why I mentioned drones.

We have eliminated them being birds, satellites, meteors, planes, star destroyers, and narrowing them to balloons or drones or spoof (hoaxes).

Can you refute them being drones? How can video editors produce the hoax (if ever it's that, how do you do that)?

I actually learned a lot from this threads (thanks to all who helped). Once I had a big telescope and can compute resolving power and airy disc and dawes limit. But I didn't study about moving objects. So I'm learning to compute moving target now. It's just that stars don't move that fast so I didn't compute them in my astronomy days.

 

[DaveC426913]

Seriously.

I am not sure whether to take this as agreement or disagreement.

Can you refute them being drones?

Not at all. In fact, quadcopters neatly fall into the optimal range of speed/altitude.

Larger military drones (non-VTOL types) are essentially unmanned airplanes and, as such, I suspect their stall speed is below the minimum required per my chart.

If you will notice the 2 close dots at bottom of the formation. They are accelerating and decelerating from each other as if to avoid collisions. Balloons can't do that.

Don't do that.
You pretended to presume why they are doing what you see ("as if to avoid collisions"), and then tried to eliminate balloons based on that presumption. You don't know why - or how- they are moving in relation to each other.

It is quite plausible that they are balloons being pushed about by varying winds.Word of caution: you have no idea how close any two objects are along your line of sight. Objects that appear close together could in fact be hundreds of yards apart. If true, that implies several things:
1] there is little danger of collision
2] they could be experiencing markedly different air currents
3] parallax would easily explain any apparent relative motion (in fact, almost require it) - and the relative motion will be magnified by the forced perspective.

 

[lucas_]

I am not sure whether to take this as agreement or disagreement.
Not at all. In fact, quadcopters neatly fall into the optimal range of speed/altitude.

Larger military drones (non-VTOL types) are essentially unmanned airplanes and, as such, I suspect their stall speed is below the minimum required per my chart.Don't do that.
You pretended to presume why they are doing what you see ("as if to avoid collisions"), and then tried to eliminate balloons based on that presumption. You don't know why - or how- they are moving in relation to each other.

It is quite plausible that they are balloons being pushed about by varying winds.Word of caution: you have no idea how close any two objects are along your line of sight. Objects that appear close together could in fact be hundreds of yards apart. If true, that implies several things:
1] there is little danger of collision
2] they could be experiencing markedly different air currents
3] parallax would easily explain any apparent relative motion (in fact, almost require it) - and the relative motion will be magnified by the forced perspective.

Very good. So the conclusion is balloons, and we don't have further data to distinguish it from drones. And logic says it's balloons.

Now my last question to you guys is your feedback on what the US Navy has observed.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...316050BF604138DB38C8316050BF6041&&FORM=VRDGAR

Here are some relevant scripts I jot down inside the documentary

"the princeton was equipped with the Navy's most sophisticated radar system, known as the Aegis spy one, it provides a 3D, 360 degree view of the entire battlespace. The US Princeton if you will is the eye and ear of the battlegroup. The sky one can simultaneously track hundreds of air contacts. It can identity virtually anything that flies."

"We were off the coast of San Diego with Nimitz Strike ready to go on deployment.
It didn't fly like an aircraft, it's about 40 feet long, it's white, it has no wings, it has no rotors, it has no control surfaces, It's literally, think of a white tic tac."

(about at 4:38 minutes into the flick)

"But the story started 4 days earlier. When Kevin Day said he started seeing strange tracks in his radar. "Right around the evening of the 10th of november. All of these contacts were popping up in my radar, right up Sta Lina island by los angeles, at first it was like 10 or 12 objects, watching them on display is like watching snowfall in the sky." Day said the ship tracked the unidentified flying object dropping down from the upper atmosphere. And flying south in what appear to be in regular formation, in an altitude of 28,000 feet."

"If you will add them all up, there are well over a hundred contacts."

"28,000 at 100 knots. which is weird, usually things that high don't travel that slowly, because they would fall out of the sky. "

"28,000 feet down to the surface of the ocean. at 0.78 second 24,000 miles per hour over 30 times the speed of sound"

This is impossible in our physics, right? That's why many think they were simply lorentz ether phenomena (or just holograms). But if one were able to manipulate gravity, how can you cancel inertia? Or how do you manipulate inertia?

These things were observed all over the world since the 1940s. What do you they are?

 

[DaveC426913]

Very good. So the conclusion is balloons,

Don't do this either.

There are no conclusions here, only plausibilities.

I find balloons plausible, but it could be many other things - some we have not even thought of yet.

"28,000 feet down to the surface of the ocean. at 0.78 second 24,000 miles per hour over 30 times the speed of sound"

This is an interpretation.
It appears as if that's what happened, if one takes the raw data at face value without any consideration for other interpretations of the data - and the events surrounding the data.

Radar is not infallible. Neither are radar operators.

These things were observed all over the world since the 1940s.

No.

Each and every incident must be analyzed on its own merits.
The moment you start assuming they're all the "same" things, you are half way to a hasty conclusion.

What do you [sic] they are?

They are individual unexplained events - in danger of being lumped into one explanation.

 

[lucas_]

Don't do this either.

There are no conclusions here, only plausibilities.

I find balloons plausible, but it could be many other things - some we have not even thought of yet.This is an interpretation.
It appears as if that's what happened, if one takes the raw data at face value without any consideration for other interpretations of the data - and the events surrounding the data.

Radar is not infallible. Neither are radar operators.

The Tic Tacs were also seen visually. See:

No.

Each and every incident must be analyzed on its own merits.
The moment you start assuming they're all the "same" things, you are half way to a hasty conclusion.They are individual unexplained events - in danger of being lumped into one explanation.

 

[DaveC426913]

The Tic Tacs were also seen visually. See:

What does this have to do with the opening post?

 

[Vanadium 50]

What does this have to do with the opening post?

It was all a lead-up to this.

 

[lucas_]

What does this have to do with the opening post?

The tic tacs were at altitude of 28,000 feet and moving at only 100 knots. So at least there were other candidates where they move so slow and yet so high. If the moscow moon balloons were at 28,000 feet. How fast should be they so they would look like the one in the moscow moon video? What's the ceiling of party balloons when they couldn't go higher?

About the US Navy tic tacs. Maybe you have more astronomy knowledge than them so can shed a light or two what they could be. Hope the Navy can invite you.

Just wondering. If observations don't support the standard model, then they shouldn't exist?

 

[weirdoguy]

If observations don't support the standard model, then they shouldn't exist?

No, but it's up to scientists to decide whether these observations really don't support standard model, not to some random no-names on the internet who only care about spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Since this is nearly a full moon, the sun is behind the Earth. The Earth's shadow will be a cone extending out well beyond the Moon to one side.

I was thinking about this.
How near a lunar eclipse was the phenomenon? The Earth can be way off the eclipse situation. (But I'm not sure how relevant that would be.)
If the objects were in the Earth's shadow then they wouldn't be illuminated and they would cast no shadows on the Moon. They would have to be lit, in their own right and be in line with Sun and Moon and we would have seen them.

 

[lucas_]

No, but it's up to scientists to decide whether these observations really don't support standard model, not to some random no-names on the internet who only care about spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories.

It's not some random no-names. Try to google "Chris Mellon":

https://www.history.com/news/chris-mellon-ufo-investigations
"Mellon is uniquely qualified to assess such threats. Having served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, and later as Minority Staff Director of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he was heavily responsible for reviewing agencies and budgets involved in top-secret “black programs” related to things such as special operations and nuclear weapons. Mellon is now an integral part of the investigative team featured on HISTORY's "...” We talked to him about what’s happening—and what he thinks should be done."

(I put "..." to avoid scare quotes)

What is very sad is you can see Lee Smolin, Steven Weinberg, Peter Woit, Sabine Hossenfelder, Leondardo Susskind rolling their eyes from left to right when they hear about these things and raise their heads up as they walk away from any topics about them and then visiting physics conference and describing about possible particle desert and no new physics for 40 years such as Sabine's https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-lhc-nightmare-scenario-has-come-true.html

"Now that the diphoton bump is gone, we’ve entered what has become known as the “nightmare scenario” for the LHC: The Higgs and nothing else. Many particle physicists thought of this as the worst possible outcome. It has left them without guidance, lost in a thicket of rapidly multiplying models. Without some new physics, they have nothing to work with that they haven’t already had for 50 years, no new input that can tell them in which direction to look for the ultimate goal of unification and/or quantum gravity.

That the LHC hasn’t seen evidence for new physics is to me a clear signal that we’ve been doing something wrong, that our experience from constructing the standard model is no longer a promising direction to continue. We’ve maneuvered ourselves into a dead end by relying on aesthetic guidance to decide which experiments are the most promising. I hope that this latest null result will send a clear message that you can’t trust the judgement of scientists whose future funding depends on their continued optimism."

When you talk to Sabine about Navy's witnesses of Tic Tacs. She would just ban you from ever talking to her again. It's so frustrating that the very scientists who can shed light on it don't want to even hear about it.

 

[lucas_]

I was thinking about this.
How near a lunar eclipse was the phenomenon? The Earth can be way off the eclipse situation. (But I'm not sure how relevant that would be.)
If the objects were in the Earth's shadow then they wouldn't be illuminated and they would cast no shadows on the Moon. They would have to be lit, in their own right and be in line with Sun and Moon and we would have seen them.

After I saw this video a while ago. I finally understood how the shapes of the lighted moon came from. I forgot about it for decades:

 

[weirdoguy]

Try to google "Chris Mellon"

So you focused only on the "no-name" part... Still, he is not a group of qualified scientists who know enough physics to judge this kind of things.

She would just ban you from ever talking to her again. It's so frustrating that the very scientists who can shed light on it don't want to even hear about it.

You know, I'v been participating in physics discussions on the internet for more than a decade. At the beginning I devoted a lot of time to debunk all sorts of weird videos. And after a few years I saw that there is no point in doing so. It's just a waste of time. I totally understand Sabine, and I would do the same because all of this smells like a crackpottery and another conspiracy theory. She's old enough to know that it's a total waste of time.

Besides, physicists would love to find some observations that do not support Standard Model.

 

[jim mcnamara]

This thread is moved out of the Science forums. Now in Discussion.

 

[lucas_]

So you focused only on the "no-name" part... Still, he is not a group of qualified scientists who know enough physics to judge this kind of things.

Scientists are mostly compartmentalized. You can read all the details in Sabine's book "Lost in Math".

I wonder this though. Do the U.S. Navy have their own scientists? Who are the government scientists? What papers have they written? Are they as good as Weinberg or Hawking?

You know, I'v been participating in physics discussions on the internet for more than a decade. At the beginning I devoted a lot of time to debunk all sorts of weird videos. And after a few years I saw that there is no point in doing so. It's just a waste of time. I totally understand Sabine, and I would do the same because all of this smells like a crackpottery and another conspiracy theory. She's old enough to know that it's a total waste of time.

Besides, physicists would love to find some observations that do not support Standard Model.

 

[weirdoguy]

Scientists are mostly compartmentalized.

So?

 

[sophiecentaur]

So?

Exactly.
It's a long time (the enlightenment) since one person or group could 'know about' everything.

 

[berkeman]

Thread is closed for Moderation...

 

[fresh_42]

Although this thread is now in "General Discussion" and the subject is inherently problematic, please try to remain as reasonable as possible and avoid speculations. The general difficulty with such topics is, that we rarely have sufficient information to claim anything sound.

Thread reopened.

 

[OmCheeto]

Off the top of my head, I would say the video was computer generated/augmented.
But the maths are fun:

The video was taken at ≈9:23 pm, Moscow time.
The moon was 7.4° above the horizon.
The moon's direction was 134°, which puts it about half way between due south and due east.
The ufo's velocity relative to the moon was 49.4 km/sec, at an angle of -28.1° from horizontal, to the right.
The moons relative velocity to itself was 25.5 km/sec, at an angle of +22.5°, to the right. (±10%, as mentioned earlier)
Added together, I get a velocity of 67.6 km/sec @ 4°, to the right. Nearly horizontal.

The wind velocities that day over Moscow were fairly consistent. A couple of altitudes can be eliminated for balloons, I think.

Although none of the lines intersect,

I think if one takes into account that this graph is only valid when the observer's position is perpendicular to the moon, vs the 7° mentioned earlier, then there could be instances where balloons could have been involved.

ps. Off the bottom of my head, I would say the video was computer generated/augmented.

 

[DennisN]

Dear experts,

What are these things (dozens of them):

Is it not incredible that a person happened to zoom in on the Moon (and film it) at the particular moment when UFOs (i.e. unidentified flying objects) were spotted? What a remarkable coincidence! It is so remarkable that I think the movie is fake, i.e. edited.

 

[DennisN]

But the maths are fun:

Nice analysis.

 

[OmCheeto]

Nice analysis.

Thanks! Though, I've already found one error.

Added together, I get a velocity of 67.6 km/sec @ 4°, to the right. Nearly horizontal.​

Added together, I now get a velocity of 68.5 km/sec @ -11°, to the right.​

But as they say, you get what you pay for.

The last thing to do was correct wind speeds for distance and angles.
It looks as though the wind speeds gave one valid solution for balloons. Roughly 4300 meters.

Might also be birds. All the birds on this list fly above that: wiki: bird flight altitudes
Though I don't know much about them, and couldn't tell you which of those fly over Moscow, at night, during full moons, in May.

 

[Keith_McClary]

Some discussion at Metabunk