What a UFO is NOT

I took this photo about 3 weeks ago in my back yard in New Mexico.

There are lots of people that think that you cannot tell a weather balloon (or some kind of balloon) from a UFO. You can.

This photo is of a weather balloon, (or something very similar,) it is NOT a passenger balloon, which we also see very frequently in New Mexico.

To the naked eye, it was more apparent that it was a balloon, not so much by the look of it, but how it moved.

So, this post is just for those who are not sure what a weather balloon would look like, and how to distinguish them from a UFO.

The camera is a Canon Powershot, A530 5.0 megapixel (not the greatest, but it is what I had on hand) zoomed out as far as I could.

s290.photobucket.com...



Edit to add;

Confirmation that it was indeed a weather balloon in the article here;

kob.com...

Apparently, quite a few other observers were not so able to label it a balloon by the movement, and they reported it to the news. (which surprises me, in New Mexico we have a LOT of balloons. )

[edit on 17-6-2008 by Illusionsaregrander]

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Very good. If you snap any other photos of things commonly mistaken for UFOs please add to this thread. Any estimate of the balloon's altitude in the photo?

reply to post by Scramjet76


No, I am not so good at estimating altitude, however, it seemed lower than the commercial airplanes at cruising altitude, but higher than the helicopters and small passenger planes that go by if that helps at all.

Edit to add;

Scramjet's suggestion is a very good one, if anyone else has photo's of things commonly mistaken as UFO's, please do add them.

[edit on 17-6-2008 by Illusionsaregrander]

You mean kinda like the thread I just did...?

ATS thread

but nevermind...

I missed that thread, but the idea is a really good one. A short catchy title helps. So, yes, your idea to compile images that are commonly mistaken for UFO's is a good one. A good list for identifying objects would be complete with images, as we both did, as well as the actual description of what causes the image. It would also be nice if the conversation in the thread were kept to technical issues and not argument so it didnt become too unwieldy to be useful. I wonder if there is any way to merge the threads? Perhaps start an entirely new one as a UFO debunking database?


I wasnt particularly thinking of starting a "not UFO data base thread," (as you clearly were) when I posted my weather balloon photo, but I do love the idea. It would be really helpful to refer to with all the UFO stills and videos that are cropping up.

See notation below in next post. I removed this one, (concerning closure) to avoid confusion.

-NGC2736-

[edit on 24-6-2008 by NGC2736]

After assurances by the OP that this thread would significantly deviate from the other thread of a simular nature, there has been a staff decision made to reopen this one.

Because of the U2U system being down, there was some delay in achieving the reopening. And in light of the fact the OP cannot be notified in a timely manner about the reopening of his thread, this in post will have to serve for the time being.

Please feel free to continue posting on this subject and assist the OP in showing us that this thread can in fact, prove to be significantly different and useful.

Thank You,
NGC2736

**In the interest of fairness, I'm going to bump this again.**

I think it comes down to HOW the object moves..if its moving at unusally high speeds, stopping or making right angle turns I think we can remove the balloon/lantern/flare used commonly by debunker's, of course next they would claim its a flying rocking chair whatever makes them feel safe in their small little worlds..

reply to post by Ksavoy30


Well, no one can say what a UFO is, though many claims are made. But it is important to find as many things as possible to eliminate. Once all the other posibilities are removed, or at least the chance of them lowered, then we can consider that an object might truly fall into the realm of the unknown.

Whatever increases our chance of finding the truth is a good thing, IMO.