It looks to be a flock of birds to me. Its not in perfect formation, so that would make me think its something like a bird. If its going to be in perfect formation, then I would imagine some military jets or some kind of UFO.

I'll admit that my first thought was that this was a flock of geese, or another species of migratory bird, but the way in which the formation breaks up and reforms makes me doubt this very much. It is true that V formation birds do occasionally drop in and out of formation, but migratory birds do always fly in a group. when these objects break out of formation some of them start to drift completely out of shot.

These objects also move far to smoothly to be birds in my opinion.

My 2 cents.

ok. here's my attempt to answer all of the questions asked so far...

this was shot in fremont, ca at around 8:30pm.
i used an ir-modified camcorder with a pair of night vision goggles.

weird distortion effect
around 6 seconds is the result of my setup. i do not have both the camera and goggles secured or tied together. i have to hold them together with my fingers to prevent the image from moving. once i spotted those objects, i got up and moved to a location where i could see more clearly as they were still very far away from me, hence the shake and weird effect for a brief moment. it was the camcorder trying to film the image of the goggles while both were shaken independently.

birds
birds do not fly at altitudes of jets/satellites. i have filmed birds/jets/satellites in the past and can now more accurately than not tell the difference between each. i'd have to film and upload some of these normal objects for comparison.
these objects were much higher up in space than even regular commercial airliners which, to my understanding is somewhere between 25,000-35,000 feet.

night vision goggles amplify existing light. the only way i am aware of that birds can reflect light is if they are close to a light source like a street light or the sun. the sun had already set two and half hours earlier. the only way they could reflect the sun would be if they were up in space like a satellite (which i have also documented and can testify to happening and many people confusing satellites for ufo's) or during sunset when planes reflect the sun's light.
even then, birds can be made out to be birds. migratory birds flap their wings and you can make out their heads and wings with night vision goggles. just like you can make out when commercial planes and helicopters fly in the vicinity. they are so close and clear to the goggles, that it is not difficult to make out what they are. depending on the quality of your night vision devise, you can make out the details more easily.

to those of you of you who have used night vision goggles/monoculars/etc., at night, birds are not reflective balls of light. they are dark "bird" shadows with minimal light beneath them. they fly low enough that you can distinguish between a bird and a plane. migratory birds mostly flap their wings to move forward, especially the first and last birds as pointed out by the poster internos's detailed explanation.

also, you could not see these with the naked eye.

i did not include the sound as it's only ambient noise and me saying, "holy crap!" you could not hear sounds coming from these anyway.

another thing that you cannot see very much is that a couple of those that veered off completely stopped in midair and resembled stars while others flew in different directions by themselves. i couldn't keep up with all of them and so i focused only on the majority.

you guys are a good bunch with very thoughtful questions. i hope to provide more for your scrutiny in the future...

great vid. It seemed like there were a lot of those things (whatever they may have been)

it wasn't too bad of quality to begin with and im sure there are ways to improve it.

About the glow, at high altitude there would be more light than on the ground at 8:30. Cranes maybe?

birds do not fly at altitudes of jets/satellites. i have filmed birds/jets/satellites in the past and can now more accurately than not tell the difference between each. i'd have to film and upload some of these normal objects for comparison.
these objects were much higher up in space than even regular commercial airliners which, to my understanding is somewhere between 25,000-35,000 feet.

The height argument always sounds good but does it hold water. To know the height one would have to be fairly certain of the object being viewed. Does it appear small because it is very large and very high or is it something small at a lower altitude. These are lights/reflections in the night sky without much definition.

As for the light reflections, don't you think the night vision would greatly enhance it.

I notice there is the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge

which covers 25,902 acres around the edges of the South Bay from Redwood City to Fremont. Spanning 12 cities and 3 counties, it is the largest urban wildlife refuge in the country

[edit on 12/2/2008 by roadgravel]

That is a really good video. It is very strange seeing so many points of light in the sky all moving around like that. A flock of birds could be an explanation but birds did not cross my mind when viewing this video. That string of lights didnt look like it was moving, and birds in a formation are always moving in one direction.

no one has mentioned that he couldn't see them with a regular lens or with the naked eye. He shot the entire thing in infrared. It seemed like they were moving waay to fast to be a flock, especially at that altitude.

Originally posted by atsbeliever
Yes but notice how they are all uniform in movement, and ridigdely static with relation to one another? Birds can't do this.

Originally posted by internos
Thanks for sharing, dede95064
Especially at the start they looks like birds in V-Formation, but their general movement makes me think about birds:

Um yes they can and they even veer off later. Birds flying in formation during migration do fly in tight formations

alright, time to answer some more questions...

i used a sony ir/uv modified camcorder and a pair of night vision goggles. like i mentioned before, you could not see these with the naked eye. if i could, i would have also noted that they were glowing with my own eyes but such wasn't the case. i believe these lights were only visible in the infrared spectrum.

as for other objects such as birds/planes/satellites, i can always see them with my own eyes without the aid of the equipment, even in dark settings.
with my own eyes and at night, birds are dark shadows and shapes depending on how much light is available. i have yet to see birds glow their entire body with my own eyes. with night vision goggles, birds are not "dots". with the minimal light available in the dark from street lights, you can still make out some detail in the bird's shape. but only portions of the bird are lit enough to distinguish some detail and not the entire bird is surrounded in a glow. if they are lit by street lights/sun, you can see that with your own eyes. and again, since i could not see these with my own eyes, i concluded that these are not birds. and yes, i live in an area where there are migrating birds such as canadian geese. however, they fly much lower than commercial planes when they migrate/fly. to my knowledge, migratory birds do not physically fly that high. there is not enough oxygen in the atmosphere for them to fly that high (above 35,000 feet). these appear small because they are very far away and not small because they are close.
both the camcorder and goggles' angle of view are set around 35mm (in 35mm photography lingo) so there is invariably some slight distortion in the appearance of distance. but when you see them in person, you can definitely make out that they are far away and not as close as say, an airplane. like i said earlier, they seem to have been flying somewhere inbetween a satellite and a jet in terms of distance.

i do these kinds of night recordings as often as i can. i just started by the way doing this more frequently with a camcorder. our weather here has been pretty cloudy/foggy in the last couple of weeks. i've had the goggles for months now but just decided to start recording my viewings.

only my camcorder has the capability to zoom, not my goggles.

if someone needed the raw footage or a copy of the original i can arrange for that as well.

i have on my hard drive another fleet i caught last night but these were even higher up in the atmosphere. there were about 7 of them. about four of them in formation and the other two or three separate. you can barely make them out in the video. these were going in an eastern direction. i realize now for this kind of work that i need an hd camcorder. >_<

i also have footage of a satellite available. i have yet to upload any commercial planes/birds though. i toss out that stuff but i guess i will film some for referencing. migratory birds flying at night is quite difficult to catch. i see a bird or two here and there but no migratory birds yet.

and please, before you respond, please read my previous posts fully before answering. there seems to be some misunderstandings in what i write or am quoted saying that i do not actually say. thanks!