Your ufo Sighting's here [Archive]

ballaratdragons

19-01-2008, 02:34 AM

Caleb, you have to admit,

with the amount of amatuer and professional astronomers studying the sky in any given hour and location around the globe: 24/7, 365 nights a year, the public's access to high tech quality video, digital and DSLR cameras, the amount of Radio Telescopes assigned to UFO search, civilian and military radar, etc etc, and NOTHING more than some blurry blobs have ever been forwarded as PROOF?

Apart from radar, SETI, etc, there would be thousands of amateur astronomers around the world looking skyward at any minute of any hour of any day/night.

If these UFO's have been here, they are sneaky buggers coz they have managed to hide from all technology and searching eyes, or have a raygun that puts cameras instantly out of focus.

CoombellKid

19-01-2008, 07:37 AM

I'm usually pretty sceptical about UFO sightings, but Dang! if I didn't see one
in msg#1 & msg#7 :eyepop: and they're kidnapping little smiley faces :scared:

perhaps someone could confirm this :help:

regards,CS

mickkk

19-01-2008, 09:10 AM

About 10 years ago, I was chopping wood out the back in Hampon, Vic, it was July and about 6.30pm, pretty dark.

I observed three white/orange lights dropping in formation like flares from an a/c. I watched for a couple of minutes, then they moved west.I thought they were flares, perhaps a exercise over the bay? I ran out the front to get a better view and the change of angle revealed there were 5 of them, clustered in about a handspan at arms length. Maybe 5000ft max IMO based on years of plane spotting.

Unfortunately no camera or PC in those days, but I got a good view from Binos, they appeared to be just lights with no structure around them.

Short of banging on a neighbours door, I had no other witnesses. I watched them move way off to the west horizontally in formation.

I suppose I saw them for 15 minutes all up.

I rang papers etc but there were no other reports.

Later that week the local rag had report of the sighting from a few people.

No one believed me of course.

Some years later I heard kids launched garbage bags with candles suspended below for fun.

Now that could be the explanation, however it doest explain how they got up so high in the first place as it was breezy and a clear sky and I couldnt see "a great big orange garbage bag" through the binos.

It was one of those things you had to see to believe and Ive seen nothing like it before or since.

BTW the brightness was maybe twice that of Venus on a good day.

To my mind, they werent garbage bags as Ive tried to imitate the effect and its hard to generate enough heat to fill a grbage bag with candles suspended below. Once the wind gets going, the whole rig collapses and of course the candles go out.

I know its hard to guage the position of each light in the dark, depth etc, but they remainded in formation and didnt waver. Over 15 minutes if they were a man made prank, the relative position of some of them to the others would have changed.

I reckon they appeared over the Mornington Peninsula , perhaps a bit south, moved west and I lost sight of them maybe Geelong way. I doubt any non powered thing could have remained at the same height and travelled at that speed.

I reckon they travelled 50k in 15 minutes, thats 200kph.

It was either a very complicated elaborate hoax or a UFO.

If it was a hoax, I would have expected the hoaxers to call the radio, TV etc to get some exposure and excitement happening.

ballaratdragons

19-01-2008, 03:23 PM

Hi Mick,

those flying bags are very easy to make and a lot of fun. I have made a lot of them and even shown my boys! (but they can cause bushfires, so not a hot weather activity).

Don't use a large Garbage Bag. Use the ones they give you in supermarkets for your groceries. And you only use a small 'Tea Candle'. If you can't get Tea candles small enough, a cotton ball soaked in metho works even better!

They float up extremely high until you can't see them any more, or get carried away by the wind. :thumbsup:

caleb

19-01-2008, 10:26 PM

Now im not saying your full of ****;) but if the "pranksters" had access to helium. (easy enough, my friends dad has heaps of botles) they could fill the balloon's with helium and put them all in the BLACK garbage bags, (say 15-20 ballons per bag).
Then tie all 5 bags up with about a 10 metre seperation so the formation can be seen from a distance.
Then some realy bright torched, lights, mirrors (could work if the sun had recently gone set and you were looking in the general EAST direction).
Then the balloons could posibly get into a jet stream, i assume it was the winter as the sun had set by 6:30PM so during these cold temperatures a jetstream could reach speeds over 215Kts (400Km/h)

Just a posibility, I have always dreamt of dong this oneday and these are some things I have thought about.

GTB_an_Owl

19-01-2008, 10:46 PM

yep - red helium filled balloons with a tin can full of metho and wick under em

great fun for the kids 40/50 years ago

geoff

mickkk

19-01-2008, 11:39 PM

One day someone might let the cat out of the bag, like the crop circles.

madtuna

20-01-2008, 12:08 AM

yep..intelligent life in a far off corner of the universe discovers the secret of intergallactic travel and uses this knowledge to pass boring Saturday nights by scooting down to somewhere in England on good ol' planet Earth and fart about in a corn field.

Don't the have tv?

GrahamL

21-01-2008, 11:24 AM

I was working late on our farm one night,I know the area well , the night was cystal clear,no houses or lights or people around for many kms.
Coming to the crest of a hill in the tractor I stopped dead .
across a small dam in front of me (300mtres away).. was a huge ball of fog sittiing on the ground .. about 4 metres off the ground were three bright lights buried deep within it..I remember looking for several seconds trying to rationalise what I'm seeing somehow .. and just couldn't .. I laughed
shaking my head at what I'm seeing .. and said "NO WAY".. still staring at whats in front of me ..Then a suited human like form half emerged from the fog ..siloueted against the lights in the fog I couldn't get a good look at it but it looked to have some sort of square helmet on its head..
:scared::scared::scared:

GrahamL

21-01-2008, 11:27 AM

thankfully the beekeeper had his smoke gun in his hand otherwise I was off into dark running :D

GTB_an_Owl

21-01-2008, 11:32 AM

I was going to say " a square headed BUNYIP " - a very rare siting indeed

geoff

Aussie Pete

21-01-2008, 02:53 PM

Hmmmm you know in a Hitchhikers Universe..this kinda craziness makes a perverse sorta sense! I bet THEY know where their towels at!

Pete

mickkk

22-01-2008, 05:25 PM

You may have mistaken my opinion on crop circles. I was merely suggesting that like the confessions of the drunken yorkshiremen who made the circles, someone may one day say "yep it was me, I launched the plastic bags".

BTW the Min Min Lights phenomena were explained by some outback geologists.

They proved that car headlights from beyond a mountain range were visible infront of the range. Using 2way radio, and stopping and starting driving, it was found that some form of reflection and atmospherics caused the lights to be visible over the range.

Argonavis

25-01-2008, 10:08 AM

want proof?

here it is:

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

Argonavis

25-01-2008, 10:09 AM

unfortunately for "those who want to believe" it is a hoax

Terry B

25-01-2008, 10:45 AM

How do you suspend the tealight below the bag? I would like to give this ago this coming winter.

MrB

26-01-2008, 06:43 AM

Yep, seen it a hundred times. The atmospheric effect that is, not the Min Min's!
Inversion layers are what cause mirages.
The horizon, standing at sea-level is approx 4.4km away.
Here in Rockingham we can only just see, on a good day, across the ocean to the tallest buildings in Mandurah, which is 25km away.
With an Inversion layer, we can see pretty clearly much of Mandurah's sea frontage, but upside down, stretched and a bit heat-warped.

Valmir

26-01-2008, 11:46 AM

i thought i sore a UFO once but it turned out to be a god-damn U.S army jet:doh:

jjjnettie

26-01-2008, 07:16 PM

I want to believe that there is intelligent life elsewhere in our Galaxy.
I don't believe in UFO's though. There is always a perfectly reasonable explanation for these sightings.

hector

01-02-2008, 04:49 PM

In over 25 years observing I have only seen one thing I could not explain at the time I saw it. So at that time it was a UFO.
In 1983 in late August or early September I was observing in the back yard and I heard from my brothers room in the house "UFO". I looked up from the scope and saw what looked like a large flying chunky arrow. Long swept back wings and a thin body. I don't remember any sound but that is just my crap memory. I do remember it was flying LOW over the neighbourhood almost overhead and I estimated that if I threw a rock I would have hit it. My family went out front of the house, while I was out the back their report is similar to mine regard to shape they estimated the size to be about a football field. I thought it about the size of a large plane. It passed overhead and dissapeared toward Gosford. (I live at Umina). AT the time I was 16 and seriously though it a UFO. The in the early 90's the US released a photo of the Stealth Bomber and I said straight away THAT IS THE UFO.
Mystery explained.
Don't forget that just because people have a strange report to tell you, (and they will when they find out your into astronomy) what they tell you is real for them. Don't scoff and tell them they are idiots, just explain that they may not understand what they have seen. (sorry for preaching)
Most people who report UFO's are unreliable and even the credible witness's have NO real experience with the sky at its phenomenon. Credible reports from an inexperienced witness is NOT CREDIBLE.

ballaratdragons

01-02-2008, 05:31 PM

Sorry Terry, I only just noticed your question :doh:

Ther are several ways. I have seen people do it with fine wire from flyscreens, string, etc. The way I do it is to tie the shopping bag handles colse togther and lay a thin peice of cardboard across them. Then put the candle on top of that. :thumbsup:

I'll make one and try take a pic for you.

ballaratdragons

01-02-2008, 05:51 PM

Terry, here is the working model. Took me 1 minute to make it :thumbsup:

1. a shopping bag
2. tie the handles about 2" apart
3. lay thin cardboard across the handles. This one is a tag (the ones with the hole in them)
4. Cottonball and metho. Then light it.

and awwwaaayyyyyyy it goes

madtuna

01-02-2008, 06:06 PM

ooooh! watch the papers tomorrow for all the UFO sightings in Oak Flats...a zillion of them are going to be zooming around my neighbourhood tonight!:D

caleb

01-02-2008, 08:28 PM

err, jet engines are realy realy loud, if you could throw a rock at it your head would probably explode. and why are the us flying aircraft over the central coast for at this time of the day, piss off!
and it must of been quite high to see it head to gosford

CoombellKid

01-02-2008, 09:10 PM

You should try living in Coombell :scared: the RAAF do runs over us at just above
above trees. Sometime they scare the living bejeezus out of you, they come
in so fast you only hear them leaving. Sometimes slow enough you can look
up and see the pilot. Those F18's sure look cool flying across the top of the
forest.

regards,CS

jjjnettie

01-02-2008, 10:43 PM

Reminds me of the time Hubby and I were walking on Red Beach at Bribie Island. We were the only people there, no boats on the water, no houses in sight. Just the beach, sand and trees.
I commented to Greg how prehistoric it all was. This must be what it was like for countless millenium before man came here. The peace and serenity of it all.
Then an FI11 came flying by so very low over the water, about 50mt, only a couple of hundred metres away from us. And the noise was deafening.
Talk about breaking the mood with the irony of it all.

Gargoyle_Steve

03-02-2008, 03:52 AM

Jeanette I used to live at the southern end of Golden Beach, with the northern tip of Bribie directly opposite my waterfront flat and about 900 metres across the passage, and the F-111 you saw would have been one of the ones that used to do practice bombing runs along the beach side there.

There is an old concrete WW2 "bunker" (2 storey gun emplacement) on the beach there just a few hundred metres south of where I lived, they'd come along the surf side from the south, using the F-111's fantastic terrain following capabilities to fly quite low, then "bomb' the bunker before pulling up and away to sea.

Sadly they don't do this anymore. I think the fact that this attack line put them on a direct heading towards Caloundra headland and Bulcock / Kings Beaches, combined with the fact that the F-111's would cover the 3 kilometre gap in just seconds, put a lot of members of the public right off when they saw these things flying low and screaming right at them. I used to love watching them do these runs!

GrahamL

03-02-2008, 09:36 AM

yeah they sure move quick rob ,watching them approach the bombing range at Evans is pretty cool the sound barrier is a long way behind the planes .
I bumped into a guy who used to come down from amberly to spot for live
runs they used to do..he told me once they get over the water off brisbane
and put the foot down there banking in to the range in four minutes.

MortonH

06-02-2008, 06:24 PM

You can't expect people to volunteer their alien experiences for fear of ridicule. If you want to get to the bottom of this, you need to ask probing questions.

circumpolar

06-02-2008, 08:05 PM

:lol:Probing:lol:Bottom:lol:

That might trigger a flashback memory :rofl:

67champ

07-02-2008, 04:07 AM

Caleb,

Back in the mid to late 1970's I saw two different objects in the night sky on two consecutive evenings that I couldn't identify and still to this day can't explain. I just found my "notes" on that a couple weeks ago, let me check on that and see what the dates were and more details. There were no little green men, and they weren't Venus or weather balloons! :-)

If I were to try to come up with something for each, I would guess that the first night I could have seen a secret stealth jet flying very low (however, there was NO noise) and the next night could have been a phenomenon known as "Ball Lightening" I think it's called.

I'll get back with you.

dt

circumpolar

07-02-2008, 06:10 AM

Ball lightning is slightly contriversal and there has been little studied on it because it is rare, but you need to have clouds to produce it like all lightning. Well, that's not all true. You can get high atmospheric lightning occuring in the ionosphere above clouds.

Some pictures of Ball lightning:
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.crystalinks.com/lightningrods.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.crystalinks.com/lightning.html&h=292&w=478&sz=10&tbnid=jLK-QHZu3VSYyM:&tbnh=79&tbnw=129&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dball%2Blightning%26um% 3D1&start=3&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=3

MrB

07-02-2008, 04:19 PM

My grandfather claimed to have witnessed ball-lightning as a young man in the UK. The Ball apparently came into his house through the fire-place, floated down the hallway and out through the front door.
Sounds utterly ridiculous I know, but he was a very intelligent, rational and grounded man, and never touched alcohol, so I had no reason to doubt his story.
There are countless other witness accounts of similar ball activity, and if it were not for my grandfather's story, I would be a skeptic.

67champ

07-02-2008, 11:37 PM

Ok, my observations were on November 12, and 13, 1977 in Newark, Ohio, in the United States. The first night, under clear skies at 7:45pm I saw what I would describe as a kind of "v" shaped or boomerang shaped object. The entire object was very slightly illuminated by a faded white light with a thin line of kind of a greenish glow near the leading "front" edge. (now this would be what I saw looking up at the "bottom" side of the object) I noticed it at
approximately zenith position and watched it move steadily, with absolutely no noise, north to south, for just under ten seconds until it could not be visually detectible. At the time I noted that it looked like it was a few hundred yards (meters) off the ground, but I just couldn't tell for sure, I also noted it could have been much higher (making it a huge object), but it was too difficult to tell. As I remember, it appeared to be slightly bigger in width than my two hands at arms length away. I think I will always believe it was some kind of aircraft or spacecraft.

The next evening at 8:15pm I saw a very dim, fuzzy ball of white light (kind of shaped like saturn, but the "rings" didn't extend out as far as they do with the planet). It looked a little smaller in the sky than what the moon is, only much much dimmer. It was in a very similar path as the "thing" the night before, but this moved much faster and I watched it move from about the zenith position in the sky to the southern horizon in close to five seconds. I have noted on my log, that I had observed four metors before I saw this. I did not note where the meteor were in the sky.

Now, you can assume and guess any "logical" normal earthy phenomenon or whatever you wish; just realize that I was there and you were not, and I still don't know what I saw. I would still like to hear ideas of what I observed other than Venus and weather balloons!!!!!!! LOL I guess "ball lightening" may be ruled out on the second night...? I can see how one may assume I saw another meteor on the second evening; just never saw anything like that before.

dana t

Paddy

12-02-2008, 09:52 PM

I have to say that I am pretty skeptical about UFO sightings and stories of contact etc. The concept of travel from distant solar systems or through time I can't really get my head around. However, I vividly recall seeing something that I find very hard to explain. This happened in the late '70s, when I was about 16-17. A group of us (about 10 all told), unintoxicated in any way, were on top of Captain Phillip's Lookout in Beacon Hill (Sydney) at about 9.30 pm. For about 45 minutes, we watched 2 triangular patterns of red lights above the sea off Dee Why beach. Each "pattern" (and its hard not to conclude that they were the outlines of some vehicle) would hover, but sort of shake/shimmer, then move abruptly and very rapidly either horizontally or vertically over quite significant distances - perhaps 1-2 km at a time. Each pattern made these movements independently of the other. These movements in no way resembled that of either a fixed wing aircraft (as they hovered) or a helicopter (as they were far too rapid and acceleration seemed instantaneous). The lights kept going, we just moved on totally perplexed by what we'd seen. I can think of no trick of the light or ball lightning that would explain what I saw. I can also think of no good reason why any being would go to all the trouble to visit and not bother saying hello. And if they wanted to stay unobserved, why come with blazing red lights?

67champ

12-02-2008, 10:52 PM

I do admit that our eyes/brain are sometimes "tricked" by different lighting effects. So, what a person thinks they see is not always what it really is. I'm stumped by what I saw.

One example of our eyes/brain being "tricked" is that many photos of the moon craters Theophilus and Cyrillus as well as others looked inverted or look like a mound or dome instead of a crater. If you blink or look away from the photo it often will swap back and forth from looking like normal craters and then look completely opposite (like a dome).

dana t

Domol

13-02-2008, 01:17 PM

[quote=Paddy;296634 ", we watched 2 triangular patterns of red lights above the sea off Dee Why beach. Each "pattern" (and its hard not to conclude that they were the outlines of some vehicle) would hover, but sort of shake/shimmer, then move abruptly and very rapidly either horizontally or vertically over quite significant distances - perhaps 1-2 km at a time. Each pattern made these movements independently of the other. "

i remember a headline channel 9 news report back in the 70's about "lights" in the sky over the ocean. It turned out to be a hoax done by fishermen at sea with large bright lights used for night work. They had pointed them up instead and moved them left & right so that the shapes in the sky would seem to hover and then move at great speed and the then hover again!

maybe someone did this sort of trick using cutout shapes in the front of the some high power lights... just an idea

Paddy

13-02-2008, 03:56 PM

Maybe - sounds a very similar type of movement

13-02-2008, 07:51 PM

I seem to remember Marcia Brady doing a similar trick to her brother Peter.

stephend

13-02-2008, 11:37 PM

I did tractor driving out between Narrabri and the Nandewar mountains, with a mate, keeping the tractor going 24 hours 7 days with more-or-less 12 hour shifts. We both saw several times in the early dawn some sort of blunt-nosed aircraft sliding up towards the mountains, possibly a jet showing no lights except that the sighting would finish with the thing accelerating impossibly fast, covering say the last 10k in a half second before vanishing.

This spooked us a lot and in a different way from the hallucinations we used to get from driving a tractor all night, staring into the ground lit up by the headlights. Ploughing meant going round and round giant paddocks which initially would take say 2 hours to go around once. Once I got back to near where the diesel tanker was parked, a welcome landmark, and there was this guy standing halfway between me and it just looking at me. He was about 8 feet tall. I was petrified. Another time a whole lot of little garden type dwarves ran out in front of the tractor and started putting up a little white fence. This sort of thing was really scarey because when you snapped out of it you realised how close you'd been to falling asleep and falling off and getting ploughed.

Anyway one fateful morning about 3am I reached the end of a side of a paddock and turned and there in the headlights about a kilometre away was a dimly shining white metal small curved space craft hovering above the ground. I freaked but since one can't believe in alien craft and one can never give in to fear I just kept going towards it. it sort of moved from side to side a bit but not much and remained about a metre or two above the ground till I got to within about 100 metres, my heart by this stage beating so loudly i could hear it above the tractor, which is saying something because it was a big tractor and we didn't use ear protection in those days. That was when I perceived it was the landrover we had the use of and it was my mate who'd decided to bring me a billy of tea. He'd reached the fence where there wasn't a gate and decided to wait there, and switched off the lights while I was going the other way.

It was lousy out there for astronomy despite almost zero light pollution because the 'almost' was the headlights of the tractor. So I didn't even see a single meteor in weeks. But those incredibly accelerating aircraft ... they weren't hallucinations, goodness knows what they were.

Given what we know about the size of space and the perils of space travel one has to say it is unlikely that any alien space craft will ever reach Earth. If you stand at your front door and take one step and call that reaching the moon, then if you walk off on a great circle around the earth till you finally arrive fairly tired and wet a few years later at your own back door, you can call that reaching the nearest star.

On the other hand, the size of TIME means there may be technologies out there that are at least a billion earth years more advanced than ours. Wowee, pretty scarey.

MrB

14-02-2008, 04:10 PM

Thats one thing that I keep reminding myself.
I think of how far we've come technologically in just 100 years, then think of the possibilities of another civilisation that may have been where we are now, thousands of years ago...
But do I believe we have been visited? It is possible, but very, very unlikely.

Karls48

14-02-2008, 10:23 PM

I have seen UFO five times in my life. Twice in Europe and three times here in Australia. In about 1972 I was mining in remote location of northern Queensland and one late evening I found one of those things hovered few hundred meters behind our hut. It was very bright, yellowish in colour and as big as full Moon. No it was not Moon, half Moon was visible about 50 degrees from it. It was hovering in same place for few minutes then jump to the right a bit and slowly returned to its original position. After while it started to annoy me. I was there alone; my partner went about 120km to Mt. Isa for supplies. I got my rifle took cover behind large rock (just in case it would shoot back) and fired shot at it. I listen for the sound of bullet hitting something but could not hear bullet connecting. As it did not fire back or react in any way I took another shot at it aiming bit higher. Again, no reaction at all. Decided not to waste more ammo and went in the hut to make cup of coffee. When I returned with cuppa it was still there doing its little dance. By that time it was really pissing me off. There I was in middle of nowhere, alone with something weird sitting almost on the top of my hut. I went back inside and got from under my bed case of gelignite (dynamite), took out coupe of sticks, crimped detonator on the couple feet of fuse and armed gel. I walked some distance toward UFO and placed charge behind rocky outcrop shielding the hut. I lit the fuse and hid behind rock from where I was shooting previously. Now, when you blasting rock the explosions doesn’t make much noise. But if you explode couple stick of gelignite in free air it makes mighty bang. After small stones thrown up by the explosion stoped falling, I looked at UFO and it was gone. It seems that shock wave have disperse it. During time it was visible it did not seem to affect bush animals as normal sounds of bush continued undisturbed. My cat did not pay any attention to it either. It did not emit any sound I could hear.
From what I have seen and experienced of UFO I have come to the conclusion that it is some rare atmospheric phenomena. It may show on radar but so does the rain.

Only exception could be my (and my friends) sightings in Europe. Those happen on two following nights at about same time 10 PM. UFO’s were ellipsoid, white, brighter in direction of travel about half of size of Moon. Moon was visible at time of sighting. Flying very fast with no sound. First night we observed two of them, side by side one about half of diameter ahead of other. Next night we observed three of them flying in V formation. As this happens few weeks after invasion of old country by USSR and UFO’s were flying from west to east towards military airport some 50 km away, it may have been some sort of military aircraft. But speed, size and lack of sound are very puzzling. I have seen MIGs flying over our town at sub and super sonic speed day and night and this did not looked as MIG by long shot.

This is my two cents worth to UFO debate. It would be much more interesting if those things where spacecraft from the stars but with my experience I doubt it very much.
I did post this some time ago, I think
__________________
Karl
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------LX90, GS-500 150mm F5 Newtonian, ETX-105, Celestron 102 F5 Refractor Mintron MTV-62 CCD, GStar CCD, DSI Pro,35, 50, 135 and 200mm lenses.

Night Owl

16-02-2008, 04:02 PM

The thing about the universe is it is big, and it is old. And as you say if an alien civilisation is a billion years old I'm willing to bet its technolgy is going to be a bit more advanced and sophisticated than our present feeble attempts. With that almost the impossible would be common place.

Night Owl

16-02-2008, 04:39 PM

A good old friend of mine told me a story about his grandmother, when she was a little girl. Story goes it is the 1890's in the Mallee of Victoria, and young grandmother, her mother, and her aunt were walking through a paddock back to the house. As they came over the crest of a small hill in the paddock they all saw a silver metallic cylinder "about the size of a railway carriage, with round portholes in it, sittting on the ground" 50 yards away. They all stood there stunned for a few seconds and then it shot straight up out of sight in a few seconds, without making a sound.

Another story.

I went to Uni with a guy, and on a hot day between lecturers I noticed a square scar on this guys ankle about 40mm X 40mm. I asked him what it was. He told me this.

He and some friends went camping down on Wilsons Prom in Victoria when he was 16, back in the late 1980's. They were sitting around a fire around 2:00AM when one of them noticed some bright lights approaching over the trees. He stated that was the last thing anyone could remember (they weren't drinking heavily)! He said the next thing any other them remember was it was pre-dawn, and the fire was out, and he had 'this' patch of skin missing from his ankle, but it wasn't painful, and eventually it healed, like he'd had a skin graft.

I thought no more of it for the best part of 10 years. Until I read an article in a daily newspaper about a guy who was involved in UFO research, after being an engineer and sceptic for years, until he was in an isolated spot, saw some strange lights, blacked out, and woke up with a square of skin missing off his lower leg.

wraithe

17-02-2008, 09:31 PM

1989, 100 klm north of Meekatharra, Western Australia...I was driving south averaging about 70kmh and seen a bright light out of the left window, as i was in a truck it kind of made me think that there was a reflection on the passengers window, so i leaned over and rolled it down...weird, the light was still there and i realised it was miles away, bright and going the same way as myself...(hair stood up on the back of my neck then), thought it may have been a plane or chopper...I was towing 2x trailers so wasnt able to go any faster, but this thing seemed to be going the same speed, and after 30 minutes it looked like it hadnt moved any faster or slower than me...I thought maybe it was a star, or something, then all of a sudden it took off towards meeka, then as it got miles ahead, possibly 20 to 30, it went verticle, and i mean straight up...

I never told anyone, until a few days ago, when chatting to a mate who lived in Wiluna, at the same time...She was travelling to meekatharra with her parents and seen the same thing from the south..We estimate that it was the same night...What they saw was a light from the north heading towards them, and all of a sudden it went straight up before it got to them...They would have been about 100klms south of me when i first spotted it, and said it seemed pretty close when it went up..

Now after all these years, thinking i was seeing things, or just seen a military aircraft, i have come across someone else who seen the same as i have...

I drove trucks for 13 years(until my son was born), and spent all my life in the bush, particularly farming, and yet its the only time i couldnt explain something, and now after chatting to my mate, its even weirder than just thinking i seen something strange...

Peter Kalan

22-02-2008, 02:16 PM

My 2cents worth. In the mid 80s, (i would have been about 6yrs old) i was staying over at a mates place in Prahran Melboure. We woke up at 60am or so to watch cartoons when outside high in the sky we saw an orange light which we thought was a funny looking sun. All of a sudden is started to move round in circles. 20seconds later another round orange ojbect came into view and also started moving round in circles in the air. Just as fast as they came, they both sped off out of view. We are bot alone.

download the following docos
Chariots of the gods by Eric Von Daniken
are we alone in the universe
Phenomenon/the lost archives- Genesis revisited

or view a short clip http://www.xfacts.com/old/

* the Sumerians named and listed (in order and with descriptions) all of the planets in our solar system on clay tablets dating back to 6000BCE

John Saunders

25-02-2008, 05:23 PM

I am an extra-terrestrial...:)

roccodm

26-02-2008, 01:50 AM

i think the last time one landed in northern illinois my wife was left behind -rocco

Tommy Camp

10-01-2009, 02:34 PM

I was with some friends sleeping on a tramp the other night when we saw a Satelite moving laterally across the sky.
the interesting thing was it would "flash" at seemingly random intervals.
Would this just be a satelite spinning and thus on occaison the suns rays would reflect off particular parts of it ?
because of its constant movement in the same plane and locational similarity to normal satilites i'd suggest its nothing extraordinary im just interested as to what causes the flashing.

Blue Skies

10-01-2009, 08:41 PM

It 'flashes' because it's tumbling - rotating on an axis, that is. And yes, its a perfectly normal thing, I've seen many of them, that latest just on Thursday night.

Tommy Camp

10-01-2009, 08:49 PM

cool cheers

primadonna

19-04-2009, 10:51 PM

:)Hello,

I am new to this site. Initially I thought it was for reporting only ufo sightings, however i can see it is so much more. i am very interested in astronomy and the universe. i did have a ufo experience in 1979. I was on the beach in Cottesloe Western Australia at about 9pm at night. there were about 30 other people around as it was a hot summers night and people had decided to cool off down the beach. We all saw a light which i imagine we all thought was a plane. it came towards us and was flashing a very white and red light. it moved slowly for a minute towards us and then took off so fast away from us that had vanished within 3 seconds. i was under the impression that this had been reported but no conclusions were made. i am pretty sceptical and sensible about most things but i know what i saw and nothing we have can travel as fast as this object did.

xnomad

20-04-2009, 06:54 PM

Wow I'm surprised by some of the replies on here. A UFO does not mean an alien space craft, it means an object you can't identify. I've seen a couple in my time and I've never claimed that they were alien space craft, just objects that I can't explain. There are people from all walks of life who've had similar experiences be they scientists, astronauts, pilots etc. They don't claim that's it's ET either but it's still interesting to hear their accounts.

I thought an astronomy forum would encourage open discussion. I'm very surprised by some of the replies not contributing anything and just poking fun.

astroron

20-04-2009, 07:14 PM

I think that is because most of us who have spent hundreds of hours observing over the years have not had the honour of seeing anything of the extraterrestrial kind.
Also some people come onto this Astronomical site to stir the pot knowing full well the feelings of most astronomers.
Just because you don't know what an object is doesn't mean it is a UFO, it is only a UFO to you.
This subject gets brought up every so often, and most times the person goes away without a change of view, as they have already made up their mind about what they observed.

xnomad

20-04-2009, 08:31 PM

A UFO is always unidentified to the observer hence the term. I'm not sure how many people viewing an object it takes for it to be officially labeled unidentified. A UFO is not synonymous with alien spacecraft; so even if it's definitley not an alien spacecraft this doesn't mean it's identified.

I've seen 2 different things I can't explain on 3 separate occasions, one of them I witnessed with maybe 30-40 other people and nobody had a clue what it was.

I'm a rational human being, I believe in the scientific method, I can't explain what I saw, hence I use the term UFO. This does not mean I believed them to be alien spacecraft.

Some replies by contributors here are just short of saying that had they been in a similar situation, they could easily explain what they saw. It's almost like saying only unintelligent and misinformed people see UFO's, the more learned ones can easily identify every phenomenon. It's not polite and doesn't really give people the freedom to share in open discussion.

I thought amateur astronomers would be more curious, scientific and open to discussion. My view has always been to listen to whatever anybody has to say and not to ridicule them. The opposite of this is bigotry, which is one of the biggest enemies of science.

ngcles

20-04-2009, 11:15 PM

Hi Xnomad & All,

But XNomad, the term UFO is exactly the problem here.

On the one hand you say that you believe in the scientific method. Good!

But on the other hand by using the term UFO, assert that the sightings were both an "object" and "flying". This is what U.F.O means -- Unidentified Flying Object.

The acronym at once implies that the sighting is a solid "object" and that it is being aimed/directed/flown. If it is being flown, then it must be being piloted by an intelligent being. Because it is similarly unidentified, it must therefore be an Alien/LGM. This is what UFO really implies. With the vast majority of these reports there is no evidence at all that the sighting is a solid physical object or that it is being "flown" -- it's simply a light in the sky that isn't identified by the person making the report.

And it is one of the things that I find most alarming about the whole subject. If people (in particular the media) would refer to them as "Unidentified Aerial Sightings" or an Unidentified Light in the sky, it would take a lot of heat out of the subject.

The thing is, amateur astronomers spend a lot of time out under the night sky and are by and large pretty knowlegable about what they are seeing. Yet, most of the so-called "UFO" sightings do not come from amateur astronomers. In this respect amateur astronomers are woefully under-represented in reporting "UFO's". The question must be asked -- why is that so? The answer is obvious.

I've spent 39 years out underneath the night sky and have never seen a single thing that did not have a ready explaination. There are many amateurs of similar experience level on this forum and many of them have a similar track record. Is that to say that unidentified lights in the sky don't exist? No. I'm sure there are lots of genuine people see things in the sky they can't explain or interpret and are on the face of it reasonably credible.

Probably 99% of the so called UFOs have a simple rational explaination that is simply not known to the person who observes the light in the sky. Would you believe a majority of them turn out to be the Moon, Venus or Jupiter. A substantial number of the residual turn out to be aircraft or weather ballons. There are a very small residual number that appear on the face of it not to have a simple explaination. That isn't to say they don't have a natural cause -- we can't tell.

But the use of the term UFO isn't really scientific unless you can say it was definitely an "object" and that it was being flown/aimed/directed -- which at once implies an intelligent pilot of unknown origin.

I know, I know ... I must stop from harping on about "UAS's" ...

Best,

Les D

Blue Skies

21-04-2009, 01:05 AM

This works the other way, too. I've run into people who don't want to hear any theory I might have about what they've seen, they're just so certain they've seen something containing aliens! I find that just as closed-minded and frustrating.

I think you also need to look at science history - its full of people with closed minds, like that man at the end of 19th century who reckoned we'd found out just about everything there ever was to know. What was happening 200 or so years ago is still happening today. I think that's just human nature.

BTW: You're here on this astronomy forum - don't you consider yourself to be an amateur astronomer too?

Enchilada

21-04-2009, 01:41 AM

Me too! Observing the skies for an almost equal amount of time, and I've not seen anything that would qualify as any legitimate UFO - alien or domestic! :D

** Actually, the only true UFO I've experienced was from being hit in the head in the pitch blackness around 11pm one night by a high velocity Champagne cork - originally from a nice cheek little Victorian vineyard - vintage about 1985 !! Ouch! :scared:
(Sorry, for the purists I meant a sparkling wine cork!!) :( )

Duck at that time didn't seem to work for some reason ! :rofl:

xnomad

21-04-2009, 07:30 AM

Sorry Les, but no it doesn't.

This is precisely why UFO has become a taboo word in some circles:

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

"Popular culture frequently takes the term UFO as a synonym (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synonym) for alien spacecraft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_hypothesis). Some investigators now prefer to use the broader term Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (or UAP), to avoid the confusion and speculative associations that have become attached to UFO.[4]" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ufo#cite_note-3)

The object is unidentified until further study or research can determine what it is. This is what the scientific method is all about isn't it? It does not mean that it is an alien spacecraft or that the observer believes it to be. The same reason that a scientific hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis and not a theory or a law. Wouldn't a UFO no longer be a UFO if it is determined to be alien because then it has been identified?

Perhaps the thread title should be called odd objects you've seen in the sky that you can't identify? It's quite clear that the term UFO has completely lost it's original meaning and gets everyone quite worked up on here. :D

PeterM

21-04-2009, 09:05 AM

Sorry Xnomad but it does and always has, it will never lose its original meaning because there is an industry out there that won't allow that.

Ask your mother, next door neighbour, workmate what they think a UFO is. I will be more than surprised if it is not exactly as Les has noted.

The whole thing is a big bucks industry, someone has to keep the myth alive in these times of a gazillion mobile cameras, big brother city cams etc just about everywhere and yet reports that could have a nice pic are almost non existant, not at all good for business. "Some Investigators" as noted below lead me to think that some are trying to add credible status to their "work" and keep the whole myth alive by clouding the issue a little because they can see the writing on the wall. I wonder if there are there any recognised universities around the world that provide phd studies into UFO studies, one would think they of all people would want to know more about these objects.

I don't fish, but if were to catch a fish it's just a fish to me, yet to the informed its a whiting etc. These are the people I trust when they say it's ok to eat that one but not that one.

This is an astronomy forum dealing with what can be seen in the sky so if anyone is surprised by the replies from knowledgeable people who have spent many years getting to know the sky then I am flabbergasted. If more people took the time to know what was in the sky - in particular the brighter planets and what happens as a bright star gets near the horizon, then UFO reports would be even fewer.
I will respect that most will not, as I am never going to know the difference between fish species. So I will trust those who spend ages fishing and I will never call a jewfish a bream or a big long shiny thing that shot through the water performing turns at speeds that no swimmer could ever do.
PeterM.

"Popular culture frequently takes the term UFO as a synonym (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synonym) for alien spacecraft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_hypothesis). Some investigators now prefer to use the broader term Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (or UAP), to avoid the confusion and speculative associations that have become attached to UFO.[4]" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ufo#cite_note-3)

stephend

21-04-2009, 09:16 AM

I think F for Flying simply refers to the fact that they are observed in the sky. O for Object also sounds suitably vague to me.

But how about S for Skyward. That would cover flying, floating, falling, and possibly other f words. And how about T for Thing. There's nothing less politically dangerous than a mere thing.

U for Unidentified does suggest a priori the Thing must have an identity, a name or number plate perhaps. I for Inexplicable would remove this.

But, no, thinking about Thing again, thing is TOO general.

One quality all UFO sightings have is that they are perceived as unusual and special and remarkable by the observer. So P for Phenomenon might be better. Phenomenon also conveys the brevity of the experience perhaps.

Thus we arrive at Inexplicable Skyward Phenomenon, or ISP.

However, ultimately every cloud shape is inexplicable, space is skyward and inexplicable, so are choirs of angels and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In contrast, our old familiar UFO sighting is very much localised, focussed, singular in both senses.

Also I note that "skyward" is a bit too poetic and Dylan Thomasish for your average hard-cased modern, so I will shorten it to "sky". It's fashionable, anyway, to use nouns as adjectives (not to mention adjectives as adverbs,
past tenses as gerunds, "alternative" for "alternate", "it's" for "its", etc. etc.)

So I will settle for Localised Inexplicable Sky Phenomenon, or LISP. This to me sounds as charming as my daughter's.

* * *

The reason these things are inexplicable . ... no, I'm not reverting to LIST, a phenomen is also a thing ...

yes, the reason the things are inexplicable is (probably) paucity of information. If we could catch it, shoot it down or something, be there with our research equipment, we would almost certainly know what "it" was, whether little green man in a tin can or American spy craft or just a Google camera.

Conceivably, with full information, we might still be puzzled. Perhaps black holes shoot out uff particles that produce globes of ionised gas on faraway planets, and no-one is ever going to be able to figure how uff particles do that, when they have no other effect whatsoever, including no effect on any experimental apparatus. Possibly. But probably, the mystery is simply due to lack of information.

So it is natural that scientists are pretty cool about LISPs because a LISP is a case of an UP, an Unexplained Phenomen, and UPs are the meat and bread, and wine, too, of science. Science is all about turning UPs into EPS. I'm sure I don't have to explain what an EP is. So why get excited about an UP?

I suggest that those are truly disciples of the scientific method really should be a little interested in LISPs, because the LISP and the observer of it are part of the same phenomenon. If a lot of clever, sober, experienced people continue to say that they have seen weird things in the sky, then remembering Occam's Razor a scientific response would be "Perhaps there are weird things in the sky".

However, having been a little interested, I think a scientific person will soon become less interested, because if the LISP probably exists only because of lack of information, and there's no way of getting more information, well there are plenty of other UPs to turn into lovely EPs.

xnomad

21-04-2009, 10:40 AM

I'm worried that everyone is going to lump me in with the alien spacecraft believers camp. Please don't do that.

You've misunderstood my original post. The whole reason I joined this thread was to express my surprise at the fun poking on a forum where I thought serious discussion would take place. I'm not taking sides here. I'm all for the mature replies on the subject but poking fun at someone's views is on the verge of bigotry. If they don't want to debate then they shouldn't participate. People shouldn't be made afraid of raising subjects, if they don't discuss them how can they find answers? So an answer that offers a possible explanation is to be encouraged, but not one that pokes fun and talks of little green men etc.

I've mentioned it several times already I don't believe to have seen alien spacecraft. I have however seen interesting phenomena that I couldn't identify. I would label this under UFO, but from the replies on this thread that's probably the last time I'll do that as nobody seems to agree that UFO just means unidentified flying object, pure and simple. My understanding was that the true definition does not automatically infer the presence of intelligent (be it terrestrial or extra terrsetrial) control etc.

It's the same with people talking about poisonous snakes. This term is heard all the time in the media but it's not correct. A snake is poisonous if you eat it and via ingestion it poisons you. The correct term is venomous. I'm fighting a losing battle aren't I?.....

Someone is going to misinterpret this post as well and I'll spend all year replying. What have I done???? :doh:

erick

21-04-2009, 10:51 AM

Got an active discussion going! :thumbsup: I can find little to disagree with in all the recent posts! I think there is a significant degree of furious agreement!

Darth Wader

21-04-2009, 07:18 PM

Speaking purely theoretically, what if these so called UFO's are actually time travel devices built by the ancestors of the human race hundreds of thousands of years in the future and their purpose is purely scientific observation? Just a thought ;-P

MrB

22-04-2009, 09:12 PM

I'm with you xnomad. You may have already seen a post from me saying UFO != ET.

Unfortunately it joins a whole pile of missused words, like Decimate(a favourite of TV reporters), Gay..... even the word Alien itself, which now apparently means ET....... and lots more I can't remember right now.

evad2009

23-04-2009, 09:07 AM

I'm with you xnomad. Perhaps somebody can tell me what a friend and I saw about 40 years ago. His wife had recently bought him a 4" refractor for his birthday and we were taking turns at looking at the full Moon and stars from outside London on a very clear night.

Whilst John was using the scope, I noticed two "satelites" moving together. As a 'newbie' to astronomy and not yet familiar with degrees, arcs, mins etc I'll have to say that they were about four fingers apart held at arm's length. Satelites were uncommon back then and I was surprised to see two so close together, I was even more surprised when the one at the rear stopped. As the gap between them widened, I noted the position of the stationary one. It was just South of the lowest star in the "plough" as we called it.

Like most people at that time, I didn't know much about orbiting satelites but I was fairly certain that they couldn't just stop.

I told John what I'd just seen and he handed over the scope to me. I tracked the still moving satelite toward the position of the moon. John lost it in the glare but I was able to track it until it disappeared in front of (or behind) the moon's surface. I waited for it to re-appear on the other side of the moon but after more than 30 seconds it hadn't. Travelling at the speed we'd seen satelites travelling at before, it should have only taken a few seconds to re-appear. We both scanned the sky for 10 mins or so but there was no sign of the second object. The first one was still in the same position when we returned home an hour later.

In case anybody is wondering, neither of us had touched a drop of alcohol. In fact, we were practically tee-total. We tried but never found an explanation for what we had both witnessed, perhaps somebody on this site can enlighten me?