Mysterious, Moving, Unidentified Lights Filmed Over Basingstoke, England On January 11, 2018

a reply to: Starcrossd

dude an elevator..............the former climbing cranes are now by devine decree to be called and all times referred to as

elevator up ...cranes

how cool....in Texas women run them with bikinis on all day......no place but Texas...ha woman crane operator....ooooh I gotta say, I would love me a woman crane operator, oooooo baby...boom up

IN THE FINE TEXAS TRADITION

a reply to: GBP/JPY

I guess I'm eating my words: ALMOST certain it's a crane. Thanks for those pictures/drawings markymint and analysis GBP/JPY! Another case SOLVED by the ATS crew. Well done everyone!

If it were spotlights from the ground shining upwards, we would see the beams in the low-hanging haze. We'd also see the shapes of the lit 'spots' on the fog change from ovals, to circles, to ovals again due to the angles necessary to transit the light sources across the sky.

This is not the first UFO weirdness to afflict the area.

Back in 1983 a 77-year-old man was visited by two tiny creatures and they invited him into their flyiing saucer:

www.thinkaboutitdocs.com...

So I'm the only one seeing the lights appear to fly away at the end? I can't understand how nobody has brought that up yet. That really appears to be something other than a crane to me.

Watch the second video fro 2:45 to about 3:00. What is going on with the two lights on the end of that "crane"? They kind of extend out and the one on the end just floats away? Someone tell me I'm not the only one seeing this. Not typical crane behavior.

a reply to: BiffWellington

Yep..I saw it. Also check out the 1st video, from 4:00 to 4:15. Whatever happened to the two "inner" lights? They disappeared. If these lights are mounted on a crane boom, working at night, why shut two of them off? Maybe this mystery is still unsolved? WEIRD.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

Perhaps that airforce base is testing hive drone technology.
It's a cool vid though.

The following vid is from six years ago, formation flying is from the 0:40 mark.

Perhaps it's a small flat top tower crane, like this one:

www.comansa.com...

a reply to: TheTruthRocks

It very well could be. Like I stated earlier:

check out the 1st video, from 4:00 to 4:15. Whatever happened to the two "inner" lights? They disappeared. If these lights are mounted on a crane boom, working at night, why shut two of them off?

I guess the only way to find out for sure, is for someone to take a picture of this area during the day and post it online tomorrow. Thanks for posting the picture!

a reply to: weirdguy

Cool video! I can imagine now they can probably do this with larger drones. The only thing is...those are some bright, large lights shown in the two video clips. I doubt a drone's battery could power both a large light like that and it's motor, without quickly draining it. Thanks for posting the video clip!

take a picture of this area during the day and post it online tomorrow

So far, there seems to be no solid info on where that might be.

It doesn't actually look much like "Basingstoke town center" as described in the witness report. If someone has more specific info on the location that'd be great. The tagged postcode doesn't appear to check-out in any shape or form.

Also, there are no NOTAMS about cranes in that specific area, but there is one for a crane at RAF Odiham some miles away. NOTAM for the crane in my town that's up at the moment too.

U0146/18: Obstacle erected
Q) EGTT/QOBCE/IV/M/AE/000/006/5114N00057W001

CRANE OPR WI 0.5NM RADIUS OF PSN 511407N 0005657W (ADJ RAF ODIHAM
ATC TOWER), MAX HGT 150FT AGL. 555FT AMSL

FROM: 10 Jan 2018 15:43 GMT TO: 24 Jan 2018 23:59 GMT

notaminfo.com...

Note: Map markers "O" are usually cranes.

Of course, the way it's being operated (if it is a crane) suggests maybe a bit of a cowboy construction, I don't know what you'd call it. Turn up and do the job quickly. And in some cases some cranes don't need the red light on top or to post a NOTAM (if under 150ft tall I think it is).

Point being, I'm not convinced right now that this is even in Basingstoke itself. Nothing out there to back up that it is. A crane NOTAM elsewhere might lead someone to the actual location. Ergo, it's currently only "Basingstoke" because the witness wrote that, but didn't provide any evidence nor has anyone else seemingly done so. Might be say, a good way to avoid people looking into a NOTAM'd crane in Essex, eh

I said before the video encoding time registered 00:15 but this clearly isn't that time of night. More like 6am in the morning. But the witness never said that it was at midnight that was just a note of my own from the encoding data.

Both the videos in the OP have significantly reduced quality, I'd recommend downloading the 3 original MP4's from MUFON and viewing it that way. None of the lights appear to move away from one another in those versions IMO, nothing beyond what you'd expect from "perspective".

Camera phone looks to be HD widescreen and shot vertically, but designed for shooting horizontally. As such being a widescreen lens it will have a bit of a fish-eye element and when that's on a vertical axis it might make things appear to bend round a bit. Though I don't think the fish-eye element is very strong, but such a thing is always present when you're maximizing a tiny lens to produce widescreen image.

Could well be a crane. But I think this is fake or been altered . Big give away is the bird chirping. Too loud and wrong time of day and year. Lots of fake videos add bird or more often dog sounds in an attempt to make the video look more authentic. I'm thinking the original audio has been replaced possibly because of give away construction sounds. I also think CGI has been used to take out the crane boom just leaving the lights that are real and look real.

originally posted by: tarifa37
Could well be a crane. But I think this is fake or been altered . Big give away is the bird chirping. Too loud and wrong time of day and year. Lots of fake videos add bird or more often dog sounds in an attempt to make the video look more authentic. I'm thinking the original audio has been replaced possibly because of give away construction sounds. I also think CGI has been used to take out the crane boom just leaving the lights that are real and look real.

Birds can sing during the night.

. Other disturbances, like a loud noise or movement, can also start birds singing in the night.

ww2.rspb.org.uk...

a reply to: alldaylong

Yes but this doesn't sound right to me. Lived in UK all my life know the sounds of birds and times and seasons you hear them. This is added I'm sure of it.

Hehe but um....where have you lived all your life in the UK? Blackpool, by the sea? Birmingham, by the spaghetti junction? London, by the terrorist attack? In the countryside, Berkshire, Hampshire, at least - we enjoy a dawn chorus 365 days a year, from about 4-4.30am onwards. There has also been some early mornings with quite thick fog in January, as seen in the vid. The audio is legit, natural bird chorus, crisp morning audio, let alone one of the original videos has cars passing in shot that match it. The "crane" or "not crane" has its own rumble on the very low bass frequencies, set your audio to Movies or manually raise the lower end EQ to hear it.

It certainly looks like a crane, however a crane would have a bright red light on top so low flying aircrafts can see it better, especially in the fog.

Three days ago I informed on Twitter Jon Austin of Daily Express about the possible explanation: lights from a tower/mobile crane.

originally posted by: markymint

Of course, the way it's being operated (if it is a crane) suggests maybe a bit of a cowboy construction, I don't know what you'd call it. Turn up and do the job quickly. And in some cases some cranes don't need the red light on top or to post a NOTAM (if under 150ft tall I think it is).

Point being, I'm not convinced right now that this is even in Basingstoke itself. Nothing out there to back up that it is. A crane NOTAM elsewhere might lead someone to the actual location. Ergo, it's currently only "Basingstoke" because the witness wrote that, but didn't provide any evidence nor has anyone else seemingly done so. Might be say, a good way to avoid people looking into a NOTAM'd crane in Essex, eh

That's the thing, the operating MO.
According to the specifications given re; A New French build Potain Hup 40.30, SA (self-assembly)
Jib Length: 40m
Max Height: 30m
Max Lift: 4,000kg

You get this,
telescopic mast with two heights, three positions and several configurations with jib tip removed or folding jib
High Performance Lifting (HPL) technology allows you to use your highest operational speed while maintaining your maximum lifting load

High Performance Slewing (HPS) delivers ideal motion control while slewing the loads


It pretty much fits the bill for I height I had in my mind, and around the same span or slightly more fully extended, as I never thought so much of something super huge anyway, though I guess the same thing stands for anybody's estimate in the poor viewing conditions, while your sketches were right in my parameters, and pretty much the crane example I have here.
As it happens, there is a Crane operator who is based in that area somewhere, and that they do have one or more of just those machines, and as it says above this is a new, 'model'.

As for the RAF base, it is home to a fleet of Chinooks, perhaps the home for Chinooks, though I don't think that Heli's are significant to this thread, although the base may well use cranes and perhaps what we see here. Good work

one tidbit.....the lights on a tower boom are rectangle to the max and shrouded just like the video

The voiceover mentions a train track in the vid, and you can hear the sounds of a motorway (not a neighborhood road) in the background, ostensibly behind the camera's position. There are several locations in Basingstoke where a motorway crosses the train tracks, but nothing that resembles the location in the video.

a reply to: tarifa37

Yes but this doesn't sound right to me. Lived in UK all my life know the sounds of birds and times and seasons you hear them. This is added I'm sure of it.

the bird you can hear is a song thrush - it's singing is territorial and not unusual before dawn and after dusk at this time of year:

In the milder areas where some birds stay year round, the resident male remains in his breeding territory, singing intermittently

source