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The Meteor Shower That Wasn't A Meteor Shower

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posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 07:56 PM
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So this guy posts a video on youtube of what he thinks is "A, meteor shower or comets or something."



For the untrained eye it might pass as a meteor shower. Although, here's a professional explanation why meteors appear as streaks of light, there are physical reasons for it:



What intrigues me about these 'meteors' is that this is what they look like in stop motion:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/40598f4d089d.png[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/8572b90e5241.png[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/74b852932ba6.png[/atsimg]

Doesn't seem like meteors to me. I'm not an expert, but I dare say the color is wrong, and they seem pretty close to the rooftop. The speed is wrong, way to slow.

I got some help from a Youtube commentator called "sergeidave", he had a chunk of info to add:

I'm pretty sure this is totally fake, I will tell you why. The rate of the meteors in the video is about 13 per minute, which is 700+ per hour and you said the date is December 09. It happens that meteor shower closest to this date is the Geminids, which have a peak on 13-14 of December. And the highest rate for those will be 50 or so per hour. I've been following REAL meteor showers for some time now, so I know about this.

Also... you show two or three different trajectories of your meteors and their brightness is the same. And last but not least, you are in the city, among city lights; Probably only the Leonids would be barely watchable on cities and that only on their best years, every 33 years or so...

Here's a calendar for meteor showers this Year, and your meteors do not match any of them:

Quadrantids January 4, morning Crescent, rises 4-5 a.m.
Lyrids night of April 21/22 almost Full
Eta Aquarids May 5, morning/evening New Moon
Perseids August 12, morning Sets around 2 a.m.
Orionids October 21, morning Rises around 1 a.m.
Leonids November 17, morning Rises late evening
Geminids December 13, evening Full Moon


So December 8 precedes the closest meteor shower, the Geminids. Check it for yourself:

skytour.homestead.com...

So what are they?

I've ruled out baseball sized insects and round bats so far...


[edit on 11-10-2009 by Heliocentric]



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 08:19 PM
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wow interesting. One thing... I live in the burbs of NYC. I'm lucky if i see 10 stars at night sometimes (I'm exaggerating of course, but you get the picture). The video is NC, not sure what city, but I have family down in Raleigh. They can see a lot more in the sky then I do up here. So I'm guessing this guy lives in the burbs somewhere too. I don't think it's that hard for him to see stuff. But I'm not a light pollution expert so I don't really know.

Thing is, I always thought it should be like a streak of light across the sky if its a shooting star. I only saw one once being where I live and that was up in the mountains away from the city. I was a kid at the time so I don't remember. That's not my idea of what a shooting star should look like though.



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 08:35 PM
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In the 17th of January around 20.00 GMT this showed up in the sky and was explained as a meteor.
It lit up the sky and was seen in a radius of 500 km.

I often wonder about it?

Link to video:
sydsvenskan.se...

No one I´ve ever talked to know of an impact site???

[edit on 11-10-2009 by m4ng4n]



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 08:40 PM
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I think its fake

I've seen plenty of meteors and they look nothing like that.

It looks like someone has got a copy of adobe after affects.



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 08:52 PM
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Another thing against the Geminids meteor explanation would be that. The reason meteor showers are named after constellations is, if you track their course you will find the majority seem to emanate from the part of the sky that the constellation, they named after is situated.

In this case, the metros tracks seem to be from almost above, which would be more in keeping with them, seemingly, emanating from one of the Northern circumpolar constellations.

The Geminids actually, officially, begin on December 6th, so they are within the time frame. Having said that, meteor showers don't usually all appear travelling in the same direction. As pointed out earlier, their nomenclature comes from where they seem to emanate from.

This illustration explains what i mean.



It's a fascinating one this. The time frame says meteors, but the way they appear, just doesn't tally with any meteors i have seen. Unless, they appear as they do, due to the camera. There again, the absence of a trail, says, they are not meteors. Fascinating indeed.



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 09:09 PM
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It seems to me that there is a slight flapping motion visible as these objects pass ... maybe just my imagination ... anyone else see the slight flapping motion?

Birds? Maybe ... but flocks of birds usually fly in closer formation that these objects are

Bats? Personally, I don't think you should rule out bats just yet ...



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 09:16 PM
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Poorly done computer generated meteors. Nothing to see here.



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 09:23 PM
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reply to post by Heliocentric
 


you could be onto something
the last few years there are hundreds of strange meteors falling from the sky that have been caught on video (US, Canada, Mexico, India, etc) check youtube

the msm always says "meteor" but how do we really know?

what if theres a spacewar or secret training going on up above



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 09:26 PM
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Agreed with all the posters here who say it's a fake. I've seen enough meteor showers and meteors (not to mention footage and photographs of meteors) to be 100% positive this is fake.

I was wondering if anyone on here would spot it (I found it some months back), so well done Heliocentric!



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 09:33 PM
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Originally posted by m4ng4n
In the 17th of January around 20.00 GMT this showed up in the sky and was explained as a meteor.
It lit up the sky and was seen in a radius of 500 km.

I often wonder about it?

Link to video:
sydsvenskan.se...

No one I´ve ever talked to know of an impact site???

[edit on 11-10-2009 by m4ng4n]


that video is awesome, where was it taken????



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 11:02 PM
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Originally posted by Horza
It seems to me that there is a slight flapping motion visible as these objects pass ... maybe just my imagination ... anyone else see the slight flapping motion?

Birds? Maybe ... but flocks of birds usually fly in closer formation that these objects are

Bats? Personally, I don't think you should rule out bats just yet ...
Wow would luv to see the video and stills, can`t see them from my phone. Birds or bats . . . Very interesting theory. Will give that one more thought. You know speaking of falling stars, a couple of nights ago, walking home, I looked over to my left just as a star streaked by the moon. And the effect was doubly delightful because the moon was sporting an apparent atmospheric rainbow-like ring. Maybe the flapping lights morph into moon birds with super sonariffic powers. That`s my theory and I`m stickin` to it like jelly on peanut butter.



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 11:08 PM
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Originally posted by wx4caster

Originally posted by m4ng4n
In the 17th of January around 20.00 GMT this showed up in the sky and was explained as a meteor.
It lit up the sky and was seen in a radius of 500 km.

I often wonder about it?

Link to video:
sydsvenskan.se...

No one I´ve ever talked to know of an impact site???

[edit on 11-10-2009 by m4ng4n]


that video is awesome, where was it taken????
Yes please, where was the video taken?



posted on Oct, 11 2009 @ 11:38 PM
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The video in the OP screams out "fake" to me. It seems way too staged. The guy starts out in his apartment and says "here we go" then films his way to the door knob. Who would do that?

Then his reactions to the non-meteor looking orbs is way to calm.

Just my opinion... fake



posted on Oct, 12 2009 @ 02:03 AM
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Thank you Zarniwoop for sharing your thoughts about the video that the OP refers to. You have a trained eye for detail. No?



posted on Oct, 12 2009 @ 03:35 AM
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Originally posted by FireMoon
The Geminids actually, officially, begin on December 6th, so they are within the time frame. Having said that, meteor showers don't usually all appear travelling in the same direction. As pointed out earlier, their nomenclature comes from where they seem to emanate from.


Yes, it is within the possible time frame, good of you to point that out.

But, low probability of seeing anything at that date.

Here's a couple of excerpts on the Geminids 2008 from the site Visualastronomy:

www.visualastronomy.com...

"Unfortunately, the Geminid meteor shower of December 2008 will also be under a full Moon. Ironically, the Moon will also be in Gemini, were the meteor shower's radiant is located. The radiant is the imaginary point from which the meteors appear to come from."

So if you were able to see them, it would kind of look like if these 'meteors' were coming out of the moon, and they would be going in all different directions.

As you said and sergeidave hinted, we're looking at a stream of objects going in one single direction.

This caught my eye:

"The Geminids are also one of the few meteor showers that regularly display colored meteors, also, with colors ranging from green to blue, and sometimes even yellowish."

Hmm, none of that in this video, only pale gray or white.


Originally posted by Zarniwoop
The video in the OP screams out "fake" to me. It seems way too staged. The guy starts out in his apartment and says "here we go" then films his way to the door knob. Who would do that?

Then his reactions to the non-meteor looking orbs is way to calm.

Just my opinion... fake


I've noticed a few posters thinking the video in itself is fake, like sergeidave.

He just couldn't match what he saw with his knowledge about meteor showers, and since the notion of Unidentified Flying Objects didn't come to him, he jumped to the hoax conclusion.

Well, here's my thoughts about it. If the original video poster wanted to make a fake UFO video (what would be the point of making a fake meteor shower video, and not even make it look like meteors?), he wouldn't have to go through the whole "I'm filming a meteor shower" scenario, he could simply go "I'm filming a whole flotilla of UFOs, wow!" and call the video something like that.

It would have landed him way more hits at Youtube from the UFO community, which I suppose is what you would like if you make a fake UFO video, fool the ones that believe!

No, I actually believe the video is genuine, and the guy believed he was watching "a meteor shower, or comets or something", which is what he says.

If the video is fake, then professional analysis of the video is the only thing that will settle the matter.

[edit on 12-10-2009 by Heliocentric]



posted on Oct, 12 2009 @ 06:39 AM
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Originally posted by warrenb
you could be onto something
the last few years there are hundreds of strange meteors falling from the sky that have been caught on video (US, Canada, Mexico, India, etc) check youtube

the msm always says "meteor" but how do we really know?

what if theres a spacewar or secret training going on up above



Strange to who? Just because they seem strange to you does not mean they are strange to everyone else.

If I came across a tribe in the Amazonian Jungle that had had no previous contact with man, and showed them a satellite phone, they would think it was "strange", right?

Just because you have no experience of something, does not make it strange to other people necessarily.

You asked how do we know...

The fact is that we are constantly bombarded by meteoroids. If you took the time to look and do a bit of research, you would not think they were strange. Some of us here have!




Originally posted by Heliocentric
This caught my eye:

"The Geminids are also one of the few meteor showers that regularly display colored meteors, also, with colors ranging from green to blue, and sometimes even yellowish."

Hmm, none of that in this video, only pale gray or white.


Meteors vary in color. Some years the Geminids will be mostly white, other years they will be mostly yellow. No one is sure why.

Actually it's very rare for colors to show up in footage of meteors, despite them often having color. This is mostly because meteors are intrinsically very bright usually, and the sensors of cameras will usually overload, which results in the default white color.


Why not send a mail to the American Meteor Society or the International Meteor Organization if you don't believe me, and I will bet you they give you exactly the same answer regarding the authenticity of this video.



posted on Oct, 12 2009 @ 06:52 AM
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Tell me honestly C.H.U.D; when you look at this footage, do you think it is consistent with what meteors look like?

Why don't any of these 'meteors' have any trail?

Why are they consistent in size, brightness, and direction?

As sergeidave noted, this 'meteor shower' by far exceeds in intensity any of the known meteor showers, and still not a single astronomer have made any observations of it?

I do understand that you can whiff away all these questions on an uncertainty basis, "there are many strange celestial phenomenon out there, etc", but...

Do you think they look like meteors?



posted on Oct, 12 2009 @ 07:05 AM
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i believe some of these fireballs could in fact be crashing ufos......





posted on Oct, 12 2009 @ 08:29 AM
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Originally posted by warrenb
reply to post by Heliocentric
 


you could be onto something
the last few years there are hundreds of strange meteors falling from the sky that have been caught on video (US, Canada, Mexico, India, etc) check youtube


Yes, there have been a lot of meteors caught on webcams and security cameras in the past few years -- but why do you call them "strange"? What was strange about them?

On a related note, a possible reason for so many meteors being seen by security cameras and webcams in the past few years is perhaps because there are now so many more security cameras and webcams than there were a few years ago.

[edit on 10/12/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]



posted on Oct, 12 2009 @ 08:33 AM
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reply to post by Heliocentric
 


I can honestly say, with my hand on my heart, that is no meteor shower.

Meteors don't always have tails, so that in itself is not a reason to doubt this "footage".

The consistency in size and brightness here is one of the main reasons these do not look anything like the real thing. Meteors, as we all know here are a natural phenomenon that is due to meteoroids entering our atmosphere. As with all other natural things you would expect to see some variability in brightness, since meteoroids can vary in size, and size is one of the most important factors in how bright a meteor is.

Anyone who has observed a real meteor shower will tell you this, and it is obvious from the "footage" in question that the objects all appear to be exactly the same.

You would also expect were the "tracks" of the meteors to appear more randomly - in this case they are all more or less starting at the top of the screen, and "flying off into the distance" (down the screen). You should be able to see some starting lower down, not just at the top of the screen.

Where a meteor appears in the sky is almost as random as when it appears, and meteors are extremely random in their timing, since we are effectively phoughing through a "debris field".

The length is also another dead give-away for the reasons given above - the smaller a meteor is, the shorter the length/duration. You would therefore expect to see a mixture of short, and longer meteor streaks in a real shower.

The direction is one aspect of this video that the hoaxer seems to have got right. They would, as you said before, all appear to be traveling away from the shower radiant ( the "point" or rather "area" in the sky from which meteors belonging to the same shower appear to be traveling away from - just like spokes on a bicycle wheel).

Here is footage of the Leonids meteor storm of 2001 taken by Sirko Molau, which shows all of the characteristics I have mentioned above if you want to compare it to the footage in question.

Please note that this is condensed footage taken over the course of a whole night, much like a time lapse animation, but you can see from it the verity in size and shape of meteors during a real meteor shower, and how randomly they appear, many being "cut off" by the edges of the frame. You can also see the radiant (in the constellation Leo) rotating into view towards the end of the footage, as Earth turns on it's axis. The camera is fixed in position relative to Earth's surface. The camera was also equipped with a rotating shutter, which chops the trails up at a known rate in order to measure the speed of the meteors. This is why the trails look the way they do in the footage.

The rate during the peak of the Leonid storm of 2001 (around 4000 per hour) was similar to the "rate" portrayed in the footage in question (although I have not gone to the trouble of trying to calculate it in this case, but just estimated it roughly going on my own experience), so you would expect to see plenty of verity in the length brightness, and shape of meteors observed.

The rate is also cause for concern, as you said, since no one else reported the meteor storm that the hoaxer is supposed to have captured footage of on that night.

A meteor storm would be visible from everywhere in Earth that was dark at the time (ie around half the Earth's surface), and as you said someone would have noticed it. There are many observers and networks all around the world that specialize in only meteor detection, let alone the army of amateur astronomers that are generally interested in observing the sky. It would be physically impossible for no one else to have see this. There are always people looking at the sky at any given time, and even if this was only a short storm, someone would have noted activity.

Other things that make me wince when I look at that video:

-The way the "meteors" appear to blink in and out along their path (could be due to a crappy frame rate, but IMHO not likely since the frame rate seems smooth enough at the start of the footage when the hoaxer is in his home).

-Why so short a clip? It doesn't make sense! If you saw something as amazing as the hoaxer is suggesting it is, would you stop filming after a few seconds, or keep filming till the battery ran out? OK - perhaps it did, but I doubt it!

-Why not pan around and look at the rest of the sky, which would also be full of meteors? Instead, he just points in one direction!

IMO, these look nothing like real meteors, although someone who has not spent time observing real meteors might not realize that.

I'll eat my woolly meteor observing hat if those are real lol




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