Have you ever seen a UFO?

Have you ever seen a UFO?

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Discussion

Eric Mc

122,029 posts

265 months

Thursday 19th November 2015
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Yes - they were caused by rocket exhaust trails.

Hilts

4,391 posts

282 months

Friday 20th November 2015
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Eric Mc said:
Yes - they were caused by rocket exhaust trails.
Do you know why they are blue and why the are spiral?


Eric Mc

122,029 posts

265 months

Friday 20th November 2015
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Blue is just to do with how the gases and particles in the trail glow at high altitude. The spiral can be because there was a malfunction and the rocket did not travel in a straight line.

Only a week or so ago there was a failed launch of a small satellite launcher from Hawaii which resulted in the launcher describing a spiral pattern before it broke up. In this case, the malfunction happened quite soon after launch and it was a daytime launch too - so no erie glowing spiral trail resulted.

KrazyIvan

4,341 posts

175 months

Friday 20th November 2015
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I didn't get far reading the op....

Supernova190188 said:
..... people know what they've seen.....
Not if it's a UFO, that is the whole point of UFO, you don't know what you've seen....

qube_TA

8,402 posts

245 months

Tuesday 24th November 2015
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Saw an odd thing when I was little, would love to know what it was.

My bedroom window faced north-east, you always got the Sun through the window on the morning, was nice.

My parents had a large-ish garden with trees all along the bottom that separated theirs from the neighbour.

The Sun would rise over the trees to the right of the garden (looking from the house)

One weekend morning the curtains were opened and we saw a bright yellow line in the sky at the opposite side to the Sun. It was as bright as the Sun but a line, it was leaning over to the right, it was behind the trees. I come from a large family so we all ended up looking at this thing in the sky.

We went to get our parents to ask them what it was, my folks are a little odd in that they totally believe in ghosts, aliens, god, spirits all of those things but also believe that they should be left alone, it's wrong to attempt to interact. 'There's our world, and there's theirs', that's how it is but they have nothing to do with us!' was their mantra. Frustratingly despite all saying 'there's something odd in the sky! There's something odd in the sky! Come look at the thing in the sky!!', they point blank refused to come and told us not to look at it.

Sod that, so we went back, the thing started to move towards the right and slightly down, as it moved it shrank and grew in length, looked like a stick that was rotating on its centre and we were looking at it end-on. It would stop occasionally staying really still, then start up and move a bit more, really slowly eventually it went down behind the trees (you could see it peeking through the leaves) and we couldn't see it any more.

Two days later at school at the end of playtime I saw it again in the sky overhead, I asked a dinner-lady what it was she looked worried and made a big deal of getting everyone inside as playtime was over.

If there's ever a family get-together and the conversation turns to space or aliens someone will always bring up this story.

So whilst I accept it was probably something mundane the reactions from the adults is more inexplicable to me.


Eric Mc

122,029 posts

265 months

Tuesday 24th November 2015
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Why would the adults have known any more than you?

It sounds like some sort of trail - possibly an aircraft contrail lit by the sun - or perhaps even a trail from a meteor.

Riley Blue

20,955 posts

226 months

Tuesday 24th November 2015
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It was around 1956-57 so I would have been 7-8ish. I was in the garden one summer afternoon in Mablethorpe and happened to look up at the sky. As I did so, I saw an object vanish behind a cloud. It was black and looked like an arrow - one that's shot from a bow but with several arrowheads, one behind the other and a shaft and flights, also one behind the other. There was no sound and I kept watching to see if it would reappear but it didn't. It wasn't an aircraft, I was quite sure of that both then and now, almost 60 years later.


Eric Mc

122,029 posts

265 months

Tuesday 24th November 2015
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Hawker Hunters practising formation aerobatics?

Halb

53,012 posts

183 months

Tuesday 24th November 2015
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Riley and Qube, both interesting stories, thanks for sharing.

qube_TA

8,402 posts

245 months

Tuesday 24th November 2015
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Eric Mc said:
Why would the adults have known any more than you?

It sounds like some sort of trail - possibly an aircraft contrail lit by the sun - or perhaps even a trail from a meteor.

Because I was 8, you ask an adult when you see something that doesn't make sense. If it was nothing unusual they'd have just said.

Contrails don't move in a mechanical way like that, they dissipate. it looked like a stick in the sky rotating on it's centre as it moved, My adult brain would be able to explain it retrospectively, what ever it was it was unusual in appearance.






Riley Blue

20,955 posts

226 months

Tuesday 24th November 2015
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Definitely not Hunters Eric but you're right to ask, it could have been the Black Arrows line astern but it definitely wasn't. At that time I was very familiar with Hunters as they were at RAF Strubby when we lived there a year or two earlier so I knew what they looked and sounded like.

Eric Mc

122,029 posts

265 months

Tuesday 24th November 2015
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I know that there is a formation shape that resembles an arrow head That's why I suggested it.

People see strange things in the sky they find difficult to interpret. I'm just suggesting more prosaic and less fanciful explanations.

Of course, many people WAN'T to believe that what they saw was something genuinely mysterious. No matter how logical the explanation might turn out to be, many would prefer the more way out interpretation.

Myth, fantasy and vivid imaginations are just as present in the 21st Century as they were in the 11th.

Hilts

4,391 posts

282 months

Tuesday 24th November 2015
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Some famous folks who've seen UFOs...

Buzz(and if Buzz then probably Armstrong and Collins although I don't think they've said publicly like Buzz
)
Storey Musgrave
Carter
Gordon Cooper
Lt. Col Halt

Off the top of my head.

S0 What

3,358 posts

172 months

Saturday 28th November 2015
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Hilts said:
Some famous folks who've seen UFOs...

Buzz(and if Buzz then probably Armstrong and Collins although I don't think they've said publicly like Buzz
)
Storey Musgrave
Carter
Gordon Cooper
Lt. Col Halt

Off the top of my head.
Not sure of the last entry, Halt is only famous "because" he saw a UFO scratchchin

Google the M25 UFO fleet, i saw the exact same thing at the exact same time from a road that follows the route of that part of the M25, the only differance was my road had no street lights and to me they were very obv fire lanterns.

jmorgan

36,010 posts

284 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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Thought the 11 crew saw a bit of their launch vehicle along for the ride and Buzz is such a tease.

Hilts

4,391 posts

282 months

Sunday 29th November 2015
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S0 What said:
Hilts said:
Some famous folks who've seen UFOs...

Buzz(and if Buzz then probably Armstrong and Collins although I don't think they've said publicly like Buzz
)
Storey Musgrave
Carter
Gordon Cooper
Lt. Col Halt

Off the top of my head.
Not sure of the last entry, Halt is only famous "because" he saw a UFO scratchchin
No, he's famous because he took it higher. ie his watered down 'Unexplained Lights' memo.

Add Ronald Reagan to that list (twice)

Remember this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdVngxICaA4

Of course open to interpretation.




Pacman1978

394 posts

103 months

Friday 11th December 2015
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Summer holidays, 1988, 10 years old. Distinctly remember been woken up. Bedroom lit up (early hours) behind our rear garden was a block of flats (3 storey)

Directly above the roof of the above block of flats was a triangular shaped UFO. Non flashing red lights at each of the three points. Its was a clear summer night and the shape could clearly be seen. Hard to put into words seeing this. Obviously in the late 80s there were no mobiles, no google and still a fee years away from sky tv. My recollection is exactly the same as your typical triangle shaped UFO.

THE whole experience lasted no more than 3 or 4 minutes at most. After remaining static just floating it moved FAST and fluidly. literally up, up and away! Certainly the start of my fascination with life beyond our knowledge. I know people will just right this off but 27 years later its still clear, as if it happened yesterday. The way it moved was jaw dropping. I am 99.999% sure it had a faint red outline. The lights definitely didn't flash. For anyone to deny the existence of extraterrestrial life forms is just plain ignorant, simple as!

Richjam

318 posts

188 months

Friday 11th December 2015
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An orange orb travelling along the horizon at night in the early 80'sLeicestershire area . Never have worked out what it was and never seen anything like it since.....

Halb

53,012 posts

183 months

Saturday 12th December 2015
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Hilts said:
No, he's famous because he took it higher. ie his watered down 'Unexplained Lights' memo.

Add Ronald Reagan to that list (twice)

Remember this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdVngxICaA4

Of course open to interpretation.
It would help explain Star Wars! biggrin

Moonhawk

10,730 posts

219 months

Saturday 12th December 2015
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Only genuinely unexplained thing I have seen:

Orange orb started to rise relatively slowly above the houses opposite. Thought it was a firework as it was around bonfire night - looked for all the world like one of those flare type fireworks - but travelling up rather than down.

The thing that made it odd was that as it reached a certain altitude it suddenly changed direction and flew off at great speed in a horizontal direction disappearing off into the distance in around 2 to 3 seconds.