Objects often mistaken for UFO's..Educate yourself!

As of late I know there have been a lot of posts (including myself) about this flap of sightings. I believe a lot of them can be debunked. Im making this thread as a way to help new members understand how easy it is to mis identify lights in the sky...We need to use critical thinking when looking at anything considered to be a UFO. I like to use a process of elimination to help me. Here are a few ideas to always remember (feel fre to add suggestions in your posts!)


1-Try to always record your sighting from the time you see it till it is no longer in sight for further review (picture or video). Use a tripod or anything to keep your camera steady. This helps identify trajectory and better analysis of what you saw. Draw a picture if you dont have anything to record your sighting.

2-Is the object moving? (If at night, relate the object you are seeing to a close by star or the moon to get a better idea the location of the object. If your not sure and remember the direction if it is moving. Look at the trajectory, if its slow moving in a straight direction, its most likely a satellite. They can sometimes give the misconception of 'powering' or 'lighting' up when they move over the curvature of the Earth and the satellite reflects the light of the sun)

3-Heavens Above is a website used to identify satellites and the ISS. This site is your friend in trying to identify what you saw! (there have been many misidentifications of satellites & the ISS)

4-Is there any strobing lights? Engine noise? Often aircraft coming directly at you may give the illusion it is hovering, wait it out as long as possible and see if it changes directions before jumping to any conclusions (try to eliminate any aircraft)

5-Check your local papers for any festivals, parties, weddings where balloons, chines lanterns, or something similar couldve been released. These objects are released all over the world all the time and are commonly mistaken for UFOs. Think in your head what these objects would look like compared to your sighting.

6-Know your planets and stars! Stars are often described as pulsating when its actually scintillation. Watch for a few minutes and if the object you think is a UFO is moving with the rest of the stars in the sky, its most likely a star or planet.

7-Remember the camera picks up lights in an odd manner sometimes due to aperature. If you have a sighting remember what the object looks like to your eyes and not just the camera!

Run these ideas through your head as you have your sighting! Use these steps when viewing other peoplese videos as well!

Here are a few videos showing some common misidentifications of 'UFOs'.

Venus (this video also shows how the camera picks up the planet and shapes it differently) -

Chinese Lanterns (They slowly drift and flicker) -

Airplanes (This goes to show how the autofocus misintreprets what is actually there, just like the Venus video above! This happens in many, many UFO and 'Fake plane' videos. Its just planes!)


The International Space Station -

Satellites (Remember, satellites may seem to light up as they reflect sunlight or dissapear over the curvature of Earth)

Flares - (very cool video)

Ball Lightning (very cool video as well) -

Feel free to add some steps in identification or other videos!! It is our job to eliminate the possibilitys at ATS. This is denying ignorance!

Nice compilation of info here. Very informative!
I think above all keeping a level head and not getting to excited is a good idea. Very easy to "know" what you saw when all your thinking about is little green men, or government conspiracies.

Ball lightning is a great excuse for what some claim to be extradimensional entities with "light bodies". Extradimensional entities are also a great excuse for ball lightning

The ball lightening one was a good compilation. Not sure if I agree they were all ball lightening but still super cool.

But I'm no expert on balls, ....so.

Can i also add Autokinesis as something to watch out for ,a common effect from staring at stars,stationary lights at night which give the appearance of "dancing".It can be contagious as well.
www.newworldencyclopedia.org...

I didnt look, but did you have anything in there about the"lanterns" or was that the balloon vid
that is a common mistake

reply to post by 12voltz


yes thanks a lot for that! I honestly didnt know that had a name (Autokinesis).

I thoroughly enjoyed this post. It is a very nice compilation and can serve as a tutorial for those who think they may have seen something unexplained in the sky. Too often someone (including myself) sees something that they want to believe is a UFO and they jump to the conclusion that an extraterrestrial craft is the only explanation and refuse all other viable, if not more believable, options. I will have to look for a specific video i once saw where at first blush I was sure it was something I had never seen before, then upon some more research it turned out was simply a blimp lit from the inside. If i can find it I will post in a follow up reponse.

reply to post by ziggyproductions05


Great thread. Excellent points.

Much of the problem is this: we're getting smarter (due to pure evolution) and we THINK we have many of the explanations, covered.

But only 40 years ago, the last generation thought much of the explanations were covered too by dismissing UFOs off as swamp gas and foo fighters... etc.

Every generation will think they have a handle on it but the fact remains, UFOs are NOT new. Sure, we have a lot more 'noise' in the skies now (with balloons and LED kites and planes etc) but we ought not get too complacent about the situation either.

It's been said for years, 95% of UFOs are explainable. And although the explanations have grown exponentially, we still have at least 5% to deal with.
Too much time and distraction is being wasted and I often wonder if some of these UFO sightings (lanterns, balloons etc) are a diversion of sorts.

I am an experiencer and have a personal interest in all of this although I never wanted to.

It would be worth adding, I think, that planets and stars seen near the horizon can look very odd, flashing in various colors, distorted in shape and/or size, even sometimes appearing to break up into more than one object. Heat rising from the ground causes this, by causing air turbulence along the line of sight. Since ball lightning, and UFOs arising from other causes are both mysterious, little known phenomena, involving electrical ionization effects, it seems that it would often be difficult to distinguish one from the other. Ross

reply to post by Human_Alien


Thanks for stopping by. I am only pointing out there are plenty of misidentifications in this field. I am a believer 100% in UFOs and even ET, but i'm not going to jump on some of these videos as the holy grail without first trying to find a reasonable explanation.

Originally posted by ziggyproductions05
reply to post by Human_Alien

 

Thanks for stopping by. I am only pointing out there are plenty of misidentifications in this field. I am a believer 100% in UFOs and even ET, but i'm not going to jump on some of these videos as the holy grail without first trying to find a reasonable explanation.

My pleasure stopping by interesting threads like yours.

Glad to know you're open to ET possibilities because trust me, they're real. Having said that, I think most of us (who believe/know) will agree, ETs are much more evolved (smarter?) than us. Now.....for whatever reason, they have not made themselves crystal clear to Humans (that we're aware of). And whether we're simply unable to see them or they're 'sneaking' around, we simply don't know at this juncture.

But have you ever wondered if they are 'sneaking around' (again, for whatever reason they may have) that they are simply 'going with the flow of Human change' and hiding or cloaking or morphing to disguise themselves to our current times? I mean, is it that far fetched to consider? Because to me, once you realize they do exist, whose to say what they're truly capable of doing and....why.

So although we have about ten thousand reasonable explanations, they are still assumptions because no one has floated up to one of these UFO/Mylar balloons/LED kites/descending planes etc... for a close up photo. We're still at a distance, assuming.

reply to post by Human_Alien


I understand that. Something thats been brought up before is that these ET UFO's are actually on some sort of different frequency than everything here on Earth, which makes them almost impossible to film. I think thats an interesting theory. In my opinion, i dont think they are cloaking themselves as objects we are accustom to seeing in our skies such as planes, satellites, stars, balloons, etc as you suggested ...I think they would just cloak invisibility or could move so fast we couldnt even see them. We are living in interesting times, hopefully we'll figure this stuff out sometime soon..

I just dont see the logic in ET UFO's disguising themselves as mylar balloons, led kites, etc as you said..If they have such technology, why not cloak themselves as the color of the sky they are flying in or simply become invisible? I have no idea how ETs think of course, but it doesnt make sense. My point of this thread is there are normal mundane things flying in our skies that need to be ruled out before jumping the gun.

Originally posted by ziggyproductions05
reply to post by Human_Alien

 

I understand that. Something thats been brought up before is that these ET UFO's are actually on some sort of different frequency than everything here on Earth, which makes them almost impossible to film. I think thats an interesting theory. In my opinion, i dont think they are cloaking themselves as objects we are accustom to seeing in our skies such as planes, satellites, stars, balloons, etc as you suggested ...I think they would just cloak invisibility or could move so fast we couldnt even see them. We are living in interesting times, hopefully we'll figure this stuff out sometime soon..

I tend to agree with you. I think the cloaking is a little far fetched because I don't fully understand the reasoning behind that unless, it's to confuse us.
Why?
Maybe there's an agenda to amp Humans up into a frenzy because you have to admit, we are discussing UFOs now-a-days as if we're talking about the weather. We're becoming very accustomed (almost familiar) with UFOs now. It's almost considered 'crazy' if you DON'T believe in UFOs unlike, 25 years ago when the opposite, applied.

And, there are people who have stated they've seen 'aliens' cloak into owls or greys or reptilians right before their eyes. Most said that was to not frighten them. Or something like that. Whitley Strieber had a lot of 'cloaking' experiences. So OP......who the hell knows. I've personally learned to: never say never.

Moral to story: Fact (reality) may just be stranger than fiction after all.

One thing i would say about UFOs and the whole phenomenon around them is this. If you are seeking a simple... It's a ship it's made of XYZ, It's powered by ABC and crewed by DEF, answer... you probably aren't going to find it that satisfying a subject.


I truly do wish it were as simple as nut bolts and lil green aliens, but the more you study it the more you realise it's something way way more subtle and at times, downright stupid and scary in the same instance.

We live in a very strange world as humans. On the one hand, someone reckons they talk to some old geezer with a long beard and a hobby involving carving fjords and the other fiddly bits, getting virgins up the duff and standing by while a bloke in a skirt nails your progeny to a couple of planks. That's fine, you can be President of the World's largest economy. You can invade other people's country's, decide how millions will live and generally be treated as *special* in a *good way* by people with large guns.

However, you see something strange in the sky and then receive weird phone calls in the aftermath and tell people about it, you better be wearing asbestos underpants and have a good lawyer who understands the legal definition of madness.

Then you have to deal with another weird paradox. The very same people who will tell you... "Intelligent life is probably very rare, even though the universe is vast"...will nearly always subscribe to the cant that goes "Why would they come here what makes us special?". Now Einstein I most certainly ain't, but surely if *intelligent life* is that rare, they come here, probably, cos we are one of those rarities and, as a race, we are teetering on the edge of sussing out how to go knocking on their front door first?


I've said it before, however, it is worth repeating. in the decades I have studied this subject, some of the most convincing stories i have been told have , if wasn't actually quite scary, a real air of farce about them. What's more that air of farcical menace seems to be direct proportion to the persons skepticism. That is, often the more skeptical the person is about UFOs, the more ridiculous their experience is.

I can honestly say, I'd struggle to think of an incident where someone who just thought. "Yeah UFOs why not, huge universe? has had a *troubling* emotionally, sighting.

Those who "Never really gave the subject a second thought", often have very *practical* sightings. They see something they assumed was a *nuts and bolts craft* doing something outside of what they'd expect a *flying craft* to be capable of.

The dyed in the wool skeptics, those who are often virulent in their dismissal of the whole subject and consider anyone who believes it as * weak minded*. Now they seem to receive the complete. "Hah you think they are weird, you ain't seen nothing yet bud". This can range from, just the most ridiculous looking *craft* to all sorts of weird fallout in their lives post their experience.

The thing is this. When people cry..."Oh it's just a picture/video of a light in the sky."... Well yes and when that object went past the crew of a B-29 at 5000 knots and was tracked on RADAR, guess what? it was nothing more than damnably intense blue orb of light in the sky, even when it went past barely feet from the bomber and its' crew.

What would you have the crew do in those circumstances? Tell the truth or sex it up, cos obviously a craft from another intelligence couldn't possibly be a small blue orb bombing around at 5000 knots? I'm not sure how , you can hold a belief that these things simply do not exist but also, on the other hand, also be an expert in what these non existence craft, whatever they are, should be if they do exist.

I really do wish UFOs were simple nuts and bots things, that we could either prove or disprove, in terms of their origin. Sadly, after decades all i can say is. "They ain't",

Some are undoubtedly Earthlights, some are as yet other wholly natural phenomenon, that as yet the science of it not understood. Some UFOs do seem to be nuts and bolts craft. However a goodly proportion of *genuine* UFOs seem to flit between some weird natural occurrence and something akin to a direct confrontation of our perception of reality and technology. That is, at times, some genuine UFOs bare marked resemblance to flares, Chinese lanterns etc, when seen from a distance.

I have had a couple of sightings reported to me where the person started by saying... I thought it was one of those flares/lanterns everyone is seeing when the light did.... and they go on to explain how instead of simply floating gently until they burned out, they proceeded to perform some mindbogglingly weird aerobatics and shot off from view at a vast rate of knots. And no, it wasn't a case of autokinesis.

The lesson being. The chances are that light in the sky is something perfectly normal, no matter, do yourself a favour and keep looking and keep an eye on those normal lights till they vanish in a normal manner. Otherwise you might just miss something really quite interesting.

reply to post by ziggyproductions05
Nice thread Ziggy. An OP like this should be rolled out once a month or u2ud to members who persistently post crap UFO vids from You Tube. When and if the conclusive proof of the UFO phenomena arrives, it's not likely to be coming from a video on YT. Having said that, I recognise the excitement felt by those new to the subject and their genuine hope of finding a smoking gun video on the web.

reply to post by FireMoon


Thank you for your well written and thought out post. I agree with you and I'm sure many members here at ATS feel the same way. I think in some cases the UFOs are just a complete different frequency and all that is perceived by witnesses is a light in the sky, not satisfying everyones definition of a UFO. Hopefully this thread will help people out in knowing what to look for in differentiating the UFO phenomenon and something explainable.

Originally posted by ziggyproductions05
reply to post by FireMoon

 

Thank you for your well written and thought out post. I agree with you and I'm sure many members here at ATS feel the same way. I think in some cases the UFOs are just a complete different frequency and all that is perceived by witnesses is a light in the sky, not satisfying everyones definition of a UFO. Hopefully this thread will help people out in knowing what to look for in differentiating the UFO phenomenon and something explainable.

My thanks for also mentioning the frequency thing which may be the case with some UFOs. Glad that you have a place for this within your concepts.

I must say that I sometimes find the ATS UFO forum a difficult place to have a discussion. People have so many different approaches to the subject and everybody thinks they have the right answers of course.

There are too many sky phenomena - enough to make every UFO viewpoint valid. For example, the secret technology crafts exist, so do orbs and plasma which seem to have intelligence, so do craft from other dimensions be it harware or organic shell (yes, some crafts do change appearance and appear like giant living worms)

My recent thread, with the 24 October 2010 footage I made, went almost unnoticed on ATS. Although I caught 3 clear UFOs , I chose to post a low resolution clip of one UFO just to see the reaction. It was very disapointing. Apart from one person who kept an open mind and asked for higher resolution, the others just dismissed it as bug or bird despite the fact that the low resolution footage by itself could never have suggested a bird or bug.

I like to see people hunt UFOs with enthusiam. This means accepting that everything is possible. Only then can you get results.

reply to post by crowdedskies


I understand what you mean. With so many different personalities and approaches on ATS, it becomes difficult sometimes. I think it also becomes a matter of people not being able to admit they were wrong. I think what a lot of the problem is people saying the same point over and over (i've been guilty of this) trying to get their point across but it just derails threads.

Hopefully people look at these things with a more skeptical mind. when I first came to ATS i thought satellites were UFOs !! I wouldnt listen to others ideas, i was pretty ignorant. But by not being open to other possibilities than alien UFOs, I was cheating myself and looking at the situation in a jaded manner. Now I have a better grasp of the phenomenon and i still believe there are UFOs out there, even aliens, but i study and analyze things much more. Hopefully everyone can find a happy medium on these boards.

Great thread Ziggy! Here are a couple I would like to add to your compilation:

Sometimes a cloud, is only a cloud:




You too can create your own mysterious smoke ring in the sky! Here's how: