UFO reports please.

[PeterM]

No.

[silv (Annette)]

no UFO sightings to report.
But astronomers have observed the new generation of Jedi with their all-new powerful laser swords MKII bringing the remnants of the evil empire to justice.

Feed this to your forum, grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.
http://www.iflscience.com/space/scie...civilizations/

[silv (Annette)]

hm. now I remember a sighting, too.
To appreciate the experience one should know that I'm rather deaf without my hearing aids.


I was in rural Fiordland in my backyard, it was night and I was drinking in the clear sky while I photographed a slight aurora with the remote in my hand.

All of a sudden a glowing red dot appeared, hovering over the deer paddock to my right, 50m-70m away. Its hight was maybe 2.50 or 3m.

It sort of swayed a bit to and fro but mainly floated in the same location.

Eery. Me, alone in the night - and a glowing red dot.

I forced myself to think it was probably a drone from a neighbor's kid or something.

And then it went away.

If I were of normal hearing I might have heard the rotor/motor.

[Ric]

Sorry Alex, nothing to report in around 50 years of looking at the stars.

I seen a few big white lights coming towards me at the farm. Just turned out to be Choppers with their big spotlights on.

[AstralTraveller (David)]

As it happens Alex, I saw a UFO earlier this week. It lasted about 10 seconds before morphing into an Interesting Optical Illusion (IOI).

I was in the backyard taking advantage of the clear skies when I saw a 'bird' flying low over the garage roof. A fairly large, light coloured bird ... but no that's no bird ... nor a bat ... ahh! a balloon or large piece of plastic ... but it's moving fast to the north and there is but a zephyr of breeze from the west .... what the ??? Luckily I had the binos read to hand and soon found it was a small flock of water birds flying in 'V' formation. My eye connected the individual shapes into one - they were close together - and then filled in the area between the arm of the V. Because they were so low I had a fairly side-on view and so as the birds' relative position changed it produced a 'flapping' illusion. I've since noticed quite a few flocks going over, all going north, but the rest have been pretty much overhead and so easier to recognise. Besides, I'm a bit wiser now.

BTW. I always find it strange that people think they now how far away a light is - especially if it isn't moving. I've been surprised on many occasions at how close or distant a light has turned out to be; and mostly they were further away than I thought. As astronomers I think we need to be aware that light can travel vast distances and not get tired .

[xelasnave]

Again thank you all.

But I am not going to tell them that our own PeterM is no doubt responsible for all sightings world wide....
Now who will come forward and admit to doing the crop circles.

Thanks everyone.

Alex

[PeterM]

[QUOTE=xelasnave;1279316]Again thank you all.

But I am not going to tell them that our own PeterM is no doubt responsible for all sightings world wide....
Now who will come forward and admit to doing the crop circles.

Sorry Alex, a bit lost on your reply.? You asked for input which I gave. Perhaps a simple No as I have changed my post to. Hope it is helpful.

[Exfso (Peter)]

I get the impression that this thread is just a bit of a stir. At least that is the impression I get from a lot of the replies.

[xelasnave]

[QUOTE=PeterM;1279351]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Again thank you all.

But I am not going to tell them that our own PeterM is no doubt responsible for all sightings world wide....
Now who will come forward and admit to doing the crop circles.

Sorry Alex, a bit lost on your reply.? You asked for input which I gave. Perhaps a simple No as I have changed my post to. Hope it is helpful.

Just my attempt at humour given the balloons.
You know you do one little thing and then get blamed for everything.

I better give up on my jokes but they do seem funny to me.
And Peter thank you for such a full and interesting post and I apologise if my joke was in appropriate and caused you confusion.
Best wishes
Alex

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Err?...you mean your lovely Jacqui Lambie....?

Mate, she ain't mine... Whats worse, we got Abetz as well!!!

[el_draco (Rom)]

[QUOTE=xelasnave;1279357]

Originally Posted by PeterM

Just my attempt at humour given the balloons.
You know you do one little thing and then get blamed for everything.

Alex

That's called MARRIAGE...

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by Exfso

I get the impression that this thread is just a bit of a stir. At least that is the impression I get from a lot of the replies.

I was serious in that it came up that a survey showed many astronomers had sighted UFOs.

I thought that a lie and sort to establish there are very few astronomers who would be able to say they observed something in the night sky that could not be identified.

I think the replies establish some points.
We can see things that don't add up on first inspection.
We usually have binos and presence of mind to establish what it is that we are looking at.
We are probably more likely than others to notice any UFO activity.
We are mostly likely to have photos of UFOs over others.

Who knows what is going on but it would seem that if there are aliens flying about we would probably have noticed.
And yet someone steps outside for a smoke and bang..he sees a metallic object doing right angle turns and changing shape.

I an discussing stuff with a chap who believes and that won't change but I am enjoying nibbling away at the argument.

Alex

[Exfso (Peter)]

Yeah Alex, I know it is aimed at the Astro buffs, just as an addition, I had a very good mate who had around 18,000hrs flying experience, and he was returning from Leigh Creek to Adelaide one night on a Charter flight when a UFO buzzed him just north of Port Augusta and continued to harass him for the next 10 odd minutes before disappearing off at a ridiculous speed. When he landed at Adelaide, he was almost ill and a ghastly shade of white, it really did scare crap out of him. This guy as well as being a very experienced pilot was very level headed and the experience had a profound effect on him.

[xelasnave]

If

Originally Posted by Exfso

Yeah Alex, I know it is aimed at the Astro buffs, just as an addition, I had a very good mate who had around 18,000hrs flying experience, and he was returning from Leigh Creek to Adelaide one night on a Charter flight when a UFO buzzed him just north of Port Augusta and continued to harass him for the next 10 odd minutes before disappearing off at a ridiculous speed. When he landed at Adelaide, he was almost ill and a ghastly shade of white, it really did scare crap out of him. This guy as well as being a very experienced pilot was very level headed and the experience had a profound effect on him.

Hi Peter,
Just when you think its all worked out we get this.
Wow that is a worry.
You know the guy and I presume you rate him as credible and so we give such a story more thought.

What do you think?
Lack of sleep and hallucinating?
Made it up for attention?
Please give me something to explain it away.
A military jet?
I presume he is now a believer?
Alex

[Exfso (Peter)]

What I can say is before that night, he was a definite sceptic about Aliens and UFO's, but after that, his mind set most definitely changed. I know the night it happened, it was clear sky, and the flight from Leigh Creek to Adelaide in a twin engine Cessna was not very taxing, so it is not like he had exceeded his flight hours and was fatigued. It was a run he had done dozens of times. Just one of those things that comes out of the blue so to speak, that he could not explain.

[OzEclipse (Joe Cali)]

In nearly 40 years as an amateur astronomer, I've only observed one object I couldn't identify or explain.

June 1989, I was doing field work alone in the area north east of Lake Mungo. Worked late then traveled into the night finally bedding down sleeping out under the stars just east of Garnpung Lake.

It was probably about 10pm. Low in the south around 15 deg altitude, I observed a bright object, brighter than Venus at max brightness so maybe mag -5 or -6. There are no astronomical objects that bright and certainly nothing even remotely bright due south At first I thought it was a large jet coming towards me but then noticed it wasn't moving at all.

I continued observing it at regular intervals. It didn't move at all, the background stars eventually moved relative to it but it didn't move at all in altitude or azimuth as best I could tell. Never able to explain it completely. My best guess was that it was a light on the ground over the horizon and I was seeing it reflected off an inversion layer so it appeared to be in the sky. It had been very a long day and I had another very long day the next days so eventually I fell asleep. To the best of my knowledge, I was not abducted by aliens.

Joe

[Max Vondel (Peter)]

No UFO's in 35 years of observing

As I've said before:

"There are no intelligent space communicating/travelling aliens anywhere in our galaxy"

Check out the whole range of SETI lectures on youtube

[julianh72 (Julian)]

I've seen two, many years ago, when I was in my teens / twenties, both in company with a group of responsible adults, both sightings were VERY convincing, no alcohol involved - and both ultimately resolved as non-alien.

In both cases, what we collectively saw was very bright, and moving in a way that seemed very "unnatural" (in the sense that we couldn't identify any logical phenomenon to explain what we were seeing), but both were resolved by standing and watching long enough to work out what was going on.

The first was when a group of us were cycling along a long, straight, undulating unlit rural road in open country. We saw a classic "flying saucer" rising and falling over hills near the horizon, gradually moving silently towards us, but apparently staying very low (to avoid radar detection, or to collect sample humans and cattle?) The circumstances were such that we were all very excited and somewhat alarmed by what we were seeing - particularly as there was no nearby refuge, so we dismounted and moved off to the side of the road where we could take some cover in the long grass if we needed to. When it was a few hundred meters away, it rose one more time, this time accompanied by two brilliant white "daughter-ships".

It turned out to be a taxi with its roof-top light illuminated, but the rolling terrain and our low line-of-sight meant that we only saw the roof-top light but not the headlights, until it got quite close to us. If we had turned and run a little earlier, I would have been convinced that I'd seen a genuine UFO.

The second was around sunset, on a beach at Redcliffe, with dozens of people looking out to sea (to the east) in wonder at several bright flashing lights that moved with astonishing rapidity, making sudden sharp turns, disappearing and reappearing, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups, sometimes as tiny points, sometimes as extended objects but with no clear shape or structure. This persisted for several minutes, with the lights seemingly getting closer, with no explanation forthcoming.

Eventually, the lights got close enough to make out some detail - it turned out to be a flock of seagulls in a fishing frenzy. Generally, they were too dim to sea against the darkening sky, but when one or more of the birds rose high enough to get into the direct light of the setting sun, and with the right angle, it would reflect as a brilliant pinpoint of light. When a group of them swung around to the right angle, we would see a brilliant warping "smear" of light for a second or two.

I haven't seen anything so convincing in the 30+ years since - probably because whenever I see anything a bit unusual, my first inclination is to assume it has a natural explanation, rather than to conclude prematurely that it has alien origins.

[xelasnave]

Hi Julian,
Thanks for taking the time to share your "reports".
The taxi incident must have been very scarey.
I mean there must have been a period where you would have been experiencing a high level of fear.

I saw a cloud once lite up via an aircraft behind it and for a while I became a believer.

Alex

[mikeyjames (Mick)]

I have only had one instance where I saw something that I couldn’t explain.

It was around 15 years ago. I was in the back yard and my attention went to a very bright star that seemed out of place. I then realised it was slowly moving in a straight line and given the rate and absence of sound I assumed a very high aeroplane.

This continued for a few minutes and the it suddenly stopped dead. No changes in brightness and no sound, just stopped dead. Then all of a sudden it made a 90 degree turn at really fast pace, covering the same amount of sky as it had in the first stage in about 2-3 seconds. It then made another 90 degree turn (essentially the 3rd side of a square) and was even faster and then just disappeared.

There was absolutely no drugs or alcohol involved. I wasn't tired and no serious mental health issues that I am aware of .

Cheers
Mick