Lights Over St. Louis

So far, there are only 2 videos of the light. I live just north of the city. From the angle of the light, and it's actions, I doubt it is a drone. Especially after it zooms to the left and down. The odd flashes are just that...odd.

What people don't know about the region is that the city is surrounded by thick forests and lots of streams/creeks/rivers. Of course there are over 5000 caves in the state as well. I live in an area so overgrown and hilly it has never been fully plotted except by Google Earth-and that is just an overview.

Something extraterrestrial could easily land and hide. A few years back there was a rash of crop circles just outside of the city that have never been explained. And of course yeti use the waterways to move about the region. Columbia, Missouri and the area by Ft. Leonard Wood have had many sightings/smellings of creatures.

I keep checking local media to see if there is any more video footage and will post if I find any.

originally posted by: Witness2008
a reply to: intrptr

I see the night skies over metro St. Louis all of the time. They seem a little too high to be drones, and the weather that you are seeing approaching the St. Louis area was still many miles to the southwest when this footage was captured.

Can't rightly tell the diff between clouds and not, its dark.

Saw no maneuver that defies normal flight characteristics of aircraft. Inclement weather forces pilots to change normal approach pattern.

Seems very drone-like to me to be honest. Looks like it goes in for a landing as well. Just the fact it is hovering directly over the monument seems rather like a stunt someone would do with a drone. While the videos of a light moving across the landscape of an entire city to me seems a lame excuse to blame a drone.. this doesn't imo go very far away ever. It seems to move like a drone. It never accelerates at a ridiculous speed, it doesn't speed off into the sky, nor does an maneuver that a drone could not accomplish. It seems small as well.

a reply to: fleabit

It didn't accelerate at a ridiculous speed?
You did watch the whole video did you?

As disgusted as I am with this place, and I am not in anyway stating that these lights definitively cannot be explained and I am yet to even dedicate any time to researching this but for the love of god if people are going to take the time out to put up a useless hindered comment at least watch the whole damn video.

This place is nothing short of pathetic, its an embarrassment to the field.

I'm done here.

WELL.

Aren't WE supposed to be hovering over urban centers ... ?

Especially ... at NIGHT?

Perhaps the ACTIVE camouflage was malfunctioning.

The 'Tri-boys' might be in TROUBLE!

originally posted by: Mark_Frost
a reply to: fleabit

It didn't accelerate at a ridiculous speed?
You did watch the whole video did you?

As disgusted as I am with this place, and I am not in anyway stating that these lights definitively cannot be explained and I am yet to even dedicate any time to researching this but for the love of god if people are going to take the time out to put up a useless hindered comment at least watch the whole damn video.

This place is nothing short of pathetic, its an embarrassment to the field.

I'm done here.

If you are done here due to my post, I can only laugh a little. I'm actually a believer in UFOs.. I just don't believe in every UFO video or picture that rears its head. I watched the video three times before even posting. Did YOU actually study the entire video?

It at no point moved any quicker than a drone could achieve (and actually, there are drones that are ridiculously fast now). Unless you are referring to the very end.. when a bug flew up and off the screen. That wasn't the object.. which landed not too far away from whoever was taking the video. It seemed to obviously be a drone to me. I wouldn't be surprised if the video-taker knew the fellow controlling the drone, but that's just speculation on my part.

The "long" video was from a static observational camera across the Mississippi River. There is a park where that camera "lives". If you look, there is a bench overlooking the river with a statue of a man sitting, gazing at the river. That camera is used every day as " a live look at the weather". I see it several times a day.

So, no the long video was not filmed by a friend of the purported drone pilot. The very short video was from a person who helps with cleaning the casino nearby. I have seen a couple interviews with him; he seems legit. I suspect he was having a break and just filmed for a couple seconds. Maybe his battery was low? Maybe he did not want to get involved?

In this area, where "snitches get stitches", people see all kinds of things they ignore. I know I do.

And no new video is surfacing. Happily, St Louis and this area is chock full of the unexplained.

originally posted by: Mark_Frost
It didn't accelerate at a ridiculous speed?

Not according to the time stamp. It doesn't travel anywhere in the frame at a speed that can't be accounted for by the change in time.

This place is nothing short of pathetic, its an embarrassment to the field.
I'm done here.

What do you want from us? Even you said that it was essentially "unexplained," and the people here are just offering possible explanations. Nobody is saying they're right. But just because somebody comes up with something plausible that might possibly shake your confidence in the crazy, made-up ET explanation you made up in your head doesn't mean it's personal.

So long. Enjoy your nutty, unchallenged beliefs.

P.S. -- There are about a dozen webcams constantly focused on the St. Louis arch. Some clever person might see if they can access the archives on some of these to see if it shows up in any of the other footage.

originally posted by: katfish
The "long" video was from a static observational camera across the Mississippi River. There is a park where that camera "lives". If you look, there is a bench overlooking the river with a statue of a man sitting, gazing at the river. That camera is used every day as " a live look at the weather". I see it several times a day.

So, no the long video was not filmed by a friend of the purported drone pilot. The very short video was from a person who helps with cleaning the casino nearby. I have seen a couple interviews with him; he seems legit. I suspect he was having a break and just filmed for a couple seconds. Maybe his battery was low? Maybe he did not want to get involved?

In this area, where "snitches get stitches", people see all kinds of things they ignore. I know I do.

And no new video is surfacing. Happily, St Louis and this area is chock full of the unexplained.

Ok, thanks. I still firmly believe it to be a drone though. The footage is sped up multiple times as well. I don't see any acceleration that can't be attributed to a drone. Nor maneuvers, or anything else out of the ordinary.

a reply to: intrptr

It seems that, if this is not doctored, that the light is reflected at the apex of the arch, which indicates a physical object being there.

Reflected light:



No light:



It happens to reflect the light in a way that could perhaps be more useful in identification, as the twinkle from the actual camera optics can mask any real detail.

a reply to: Jonjonj

One other poster mentions drones, read the comments section below the YouTube video. The second comment about drones in both videos are telling.

a reply to: intrptr

My issue with them being quadcopters is the height I see in the video. I do believe that 400 feet is the legal limit in the St. Louis area. Given that the Arch is 630 feet high and the drone that hoovers above is another 200 to 400 feet above that, I just don't see it being a quadcopter. Perhaps a military drone with greater capabilities, but the military made the public statement they had no such thing in the air that night. Even the high priced professional stuff used by photographers and other professions aren't going to perform like those in the video.

originally posted by: Witness2008
a reply to: intrptr

My issue with them being quadcopters is the height I see in the video. I do believe that 400 feet is the legal limit in the St. Louis area. Given that the Arch is 630 feet high and the drone that hoovers above is another 200 to 400 feet above that, I just don't see it being a quadcopter. Perhaps a military drone with greater capabilities, but the military made the public statement they had no such thing in the air that night. Even the high priced professional stuff used by photographers and other professions aren't going to perform like those in the video.

Is that the height? I thought that the reflected light I pointed out might be an aircraft warning light, but it doesn't really start and stop like you think it should.

If it is so high then a private drone would be all over the net wouldn't it?

a reply to: Jonjonj

In the raw video the first light descends from what I would guess to be at least 1500 feet and that is the first we see of it. It could very well be much higher before coming into view of the camera. Most folks underestimate the height of the arch.

I know very little about quadcopters and the other things that folks fly around in the night skies, but from what I am reading, anything controlled by a person has limits that at least one of those lights in the video doesn't have.

The light at the left of the Arch is what I could chalk up to a quadcopter, but even that one descends from a minimum of 1500 feet.

Like Katfish said, the St. Louis area has plenty of stuff happening along these lines. I see stuff on a regular basis and more often than not has a down to earth explanation. But then there are those things that just don't fit the usual explanations.

a reply to: Jonjonj

Not sure what you mean by 'all over the net'.

From the youtube comments section...

A common feature on the better-than-toy grade quadcopters now is "GPS hold" where the RC pilot hits a button to make the quadcopter hold it's position in place using GPS. There's also features where you can point and click on a map and set "way points" to plan out a route the quadcopter follows all by itself. You can imagine it would be very natural to plan a route to go and hover directly over the arch (and possibly get some neat pictures with an infrared night vision camera). Of course they shouldn't do this (I'm not 100% sure what the law says but I'm sure they'd get a stern warning - if not worse - if they'd tried this in broad daylight with people around). FWIW there's drones as low as $300 now with that GPS Hold function though the very latest version of the most popular "DJI Phantom" drone (which you can see in Best Buy if you're interested btw) runs quite a bit more money I think it starts around $1200 (though you can get the older versions for less).

Then read this from page one...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Thats about all I got.

a reply to: intrptr

By all over the net I was referring to being spoken about all over the internet, on R/C boards and such.

Stock drones can fly over 1500 feet. I don't think legalities are concerning to someone flying it over a monument like that. Custom drones can go much higher - into the clouds even.

Speed-wise.. check this puppy out. Not typical probably, but I didn't see the one in the video going over what a stock drone could do. Also check out the maneuverability, and tell me the thing in the video did something this didn't do.

a reply to: Jonjonj

Found this about consumer drone capability...

For a consumer drone like the DJI phantom, the max altitude is around 500 meters or 1640 feet when using the contoller.

Qora

Might be illegal, but technology isn't a barrier to hovering over the arch, apparently.

a reply to: fleabit

I am not familiar with drone flight at night, so it could be. I was in that area (the ballpark) tonight and looked at the vicinity. If someone wanted to fly a drone at night, no one would stop them. The footage is sped up and slowed several times. A lot of the area around the Arch is dead quiet. And if the drone pilot was to hide in Laclede's Landing area (old, old brick and building area by the river and Arch), no one would find them easily.

Two things: where is the other footage from the other cameras in the area? St Louis has a lot of them in the city.
Why would someone fly a drone at night like that? Were they recording something? Just goofing around?

It is interesting.

For my money, the yeti families cropping up around the Missouri River is a lot cooler. I live a mile from the Missouri and all kinds of beings are hanging out there.

My Phantom 3 Pro. does 17 meters/ second. Which is 35 miles per hour. In the night sky, that can seem pretty fast.
You toss on some Lumecubes for bright light... you got yourself a UFO.