Bizarre non-UFO craft in the sky

I saw the weirdest thing earlier tonight and wanted to pass it on for thsoe who might see this light combination but don't have a chance to see the craft.

I was driving on the highway and suddenly there appeared this super bright red light. It was in the direction of a local airport but looked closer, maybe only 1-2 miles away from my position. The red light turned off then a flash of white search light came on for maybe 1/8th of a second. The red led came on again very dimly, then got gradually very strong bright red in slow gradations, maybe 8 steps to full brightness. Then the red went off and the white came on again as before - then it just repeated the same steps. No other typical aircraft lights could be seen, like the red bottom light or any wingtip whatevers they use on helicopters.

I followed the roads to get to the object and could barely recognize the bottom of a helicopter (pretty sure) but couldn't hear any sound. I felt I could see the rotors spinning. Enough to say definitely not a UFO, and maybe 80-90% it was a helicopter.

No idea what the light combination was about though.

Well , I know that some helicopters get used for search and rescue , perhaps this was some new form of scanning tech which requires a red backlight. Doesnt explain the soundless nature of the thing though... Interesting.

what you are describing indeed sounds like a helicopter.

helicopters have a red light on their tail that blinks.

helicopters have a bright white headlight as well.

were there any ambient sounds that may have prevented you from hearing the copter?

yeah... does sound like a helicopter.. but the pilot is in a world of sh** for screwing around with the lights. Thats a pretty heavy violation, tantamount to you jumping up a traffic light pole to force the light green.

yeah... does sound like a helicopter.. but the pilot is in a world of sh** for screwing around with the lights. Thats a pretty heavy violation, tantamount to you jumping up a traffic light pole to force the light green.

if its flying and its unidentified, its a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object). UFO does not always mean its a flying saucer of unknown/alien manufacture.

[edit on 1.15.10 by toreishi]

Originally posted by Thermo Klein
I followed the roads to get to the object and could barely recognize the bottom of a helicopter (pretty sure) but couldn't hear any sound. I felt I could see the rotors spinning. Enough to say definitely not a UFO, and maybe 80-90% it was a helicopter.

Your sighting of a helicopter with no sound reminds me of this 1989 case in Ernage:

www.caelestia.be...

The sighting lasted several minutes, during which I didn't hear any sound, not even when I pricked up my ears.

The lack of sound in that case is proposed to be a possible result of inversion layer and wind, and in one case, the sound of the car engine obscuring the helicopter's noise:

We checked the weather conditions for the evening of December 11, 1989 to see if the wind or the presence of an inversion layer may help explain why no sound was heard. The official weather data [2] tell us that their was a light to moderate breeze in the evening, and near gale toward midnight. The direction of the wind was south to south-southeast. When Lt. Col. AMOND first spotted the panel-shaped lights in the distance, the object was in the west. At that moment, the wind, coming from a generally southern direction, may have carried the sound away from the witnesses. When the object executed the 360 degree turn, it was closer by and in the south-southwest. Under these circumstances one would expect that at least some of the noise had reached the couple. However, from his letter of December 19, we know that Lt. Col. AMOND restarted the engine of the car immediately after the big light appeared. It is therefore conceivable that, during this phase, the sound of the car engine drowned the sound of the unidentified object.

One of the responders to that article did a lot of research on how sound propogates from helicopters, and his response is too long to post in its entirety but the post is at this link and I'll post an excerpt:

www.caelestia.be...

Research in Austria by a Belgian university team (I didn't keep URLs for this source but we can google it), namely "Comparison of measurements and predictions of sound propagation in a valley-slope configuration in an inhomogeneous atmosphere", T. Van Renterghem and D. Botteldooren, Ghent University, P. Lercher, Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria found that:

"In the case of an upward refracting atmosphere, turbulent scattering into the acoustic shadow zone that is formed becomes important. Neglecting this effect often results in unrealistically large attenuations. (...) Based on experiments, it was found that the sound pressure level relative to free field propagation stays more or less constant in the acoustical shadow zone formed by an upward refracting atmosphere. This constant value depends on the geometry of the problem and on the strength of the turbulence. A value of -20 dB is common in acoustical literature. (...) [but] (...) The temperature profiles observed (...) contain upward and downward refracting parts [whose] influence ranges from -3 dBA to +10 dBA [+10 for the downward refracting parts]".

He's got some diagrams showing upward curving rays which are intercepted by the ground which can he claim cut the sound in half and apparently others claim will attenuate the sound even more than that.

It's an interesting subject which has made me consider the conditions under which people will or will not be able to hear the sound from a helicopter. The factors involved are more complicated than I thought.

Perhaps if you consider some of these factors it might explain why you didn't hear the sound if it was a helicopter you saw, as you suspect?

@toreishi, what you say is true, however if they are 80-90% certain it's a helicopter is it still considered "unidentified"? Sounds to me like a "probable identification" at least, rather than a "UFO".

it's possible to create silent helicopters using current technology and the link below states that some US government agencies may already be testing silent helicopters in Area 51.

According to one report, a classified stealth helicopter was being tested at the Groom Lake Air Force base as early as 1990. The code name for the helicopter as "T.E.-K," standing for "Test and Evaluation Project K." The F-117 stealth fighter was reportedly known as "T.E.-A," and the B-2 stealth bomber, known as "T.E.-B." The 2/6/95 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology reported that the Air force had a silent NOTAR helicopter and a stealth helicopter inside Area 51.

Global Security

those who want to know more about this craft might want to do a google search using the following keywords' "silent helicopter", "stealth helicopter", "A160T". peace

It didn't seem that odd that I couldn't hear it. I was close to a freeway so ambient sound was high. Also, as it was sitting staionary, from what I've heard it doesn't make much sound if the blades are flat and slow, as would be for the helicopter sitting in one position.

I just found found the shifting lights odd.

Could the red beam have been a special kind of night viewing light? Or infra-red? Could they have been looking for some sort of markings that "glow" or transmit under special light?