Are These UFOS? Captured with iPhone [video] North Carolina Auguast 4, 2011

I'm going with Gortex on this one, who I believe stated something about Dulles airport and this UFO being a plane.

1. The plane is coming towards the viewer so in essence, appears to be hovering

2. When he says, it goes away and comes back - the plane is mearly moving through the thick night clouds

3. When he says towards the end of the video that it's "going up", it is most likely the plane getting to it's max climb speed to gain altitude, and then "go up".

On a side note, whatever it turns out to be, that was one of the funniest UFO video's I've seen in a while. "OH MA GAWD", "OH MA GAWD", "I don't know wat dat is", "Sorry, it's i-Foon, can't zoomin", "Dat's nawt a plane", "Look at it", "OH MA GAWD", "...Stupid i-Foon", "OH MA GOD" haha. I love it and want to meet this guy!

*And no, I am not making fun of anyone's accent or what-not, this guy is hilarious and I myself have been told my whole life that I have a weird southern draw although I live in the North East.

Originally posted by harlot7
I'm going with Gortex on this one, who I believe stated something about Dulles airport and this UFO being a plane.

1. The plane is coming towards the viewer so in essence, appears to be hovering

2. When he says, it goes away and comes back - the plane is mearly moving through the thick night clouds

3. When he says towards the end of the video that it's "going up", it is most likely the plane getting to it's max climb speed to gain altitude, and then "go up".

Respectfully, I disagree.

On point 1, "The plane is coming towards the viewer so in essence, appears to be hovering." Certainly feasible but the only static point of light on an aircraft that can be seen from the front is the nose taxi and landing light which is VERY bright. Now of course this could indeed be that light but why an aircraft would sit at that altitude without descending with its gear down is beyond me. We would also see some signs of the nav lights, red to starboard and blue to port viewing the aircraft from the front. Finally, if the aircraft is in a descent we would see the clear nav strobes. on the trailing edge of the wing-tip.

Point 2, "When he says, it goes away and comes back - the plane is mearly moving through the thick night clouds." A good point which I am not going to argue with.

Point 3, "When he says towards the end of the video that it's "going up", it is most likely the plane getting to it's max climb speed to gain altitude, and then "go up." Again we have point one. The takeoff profile of just about every airliner is very similar. Let's say this was a 747 taking off towards the viewer. I use the 747 as an example because it is an immensely powerful aircraft capable of scary rates of climb. It goes through several steps before lifting and climbing known as speed checks. I'm not going to go into the details of "V" speeds, it's probably out there on the Interweb anyway. At V1 the aircraft "rotates" (leaves the ground) and at V2 it should reach its climbout speed. Our fictional 747 must have reached a gradient of 3% by V2 to continue a safe climb but before it can do that it must raise the gear. Gear up on our 747 is less than 400ft to reach the 3% V2 climbout. Once that gear is up, we have no bright landing/ taxing light. The video shows something climbing quite smoothly but equally quite rapidly, I would say well beyond the climbout of our 747. However it is well within the climbout of a small fighter.

My two pennies

reply to post by PW229

Schooled, de-bunked and noted for any future replies I may have regarding aircraft maneuvering. Are you in aviation?

So now that we got that out of the way, what do you think it could be? *4U

You can zoom the video into full screen on your monitor for a better look.
No idea what it is

Originally posted by harlot7
reply to post by PW229

 

Schooled, de-bunked and noted for any future replies I may have regarding aircraft maneuvering. Are you in aviation?

So now that we got that out of the way, what do you think it could be? *4U

Before I even answer the question I want you to know in no uncertain terms that my post was not intended to be rude or to belittle you in any way. You presented some good questions that I appreciate having the opportunity to respond to. I am in aviation but I prefer to keep the details to myself, I hope you understand that.

As to what I think it could be. Well, it's a UFO in the strictest sense of the term. I personally cannot identify it and it is clearly "flying." Although it is not displaying any non-ballistic motion that could not be explained it is behaving in a very odd fashion that I would not immediately attribute to a large aircraft. Is it "alien?" Nope, there are perfectly terrestrial explanations that don't include "swamp gas." The most likely explanation is that it is a fighter of some description flying with the gear down and then climbing at a rapid rate before raising the gear. There are a few bases in the area including:

www.city-data.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

I believe this was shot near Douglas which is used by the USAF.

reply to post by PW229

I truly never took it that way ; ). I liked your post and that's why I starred it! I think my sense of humor is sometimes a little sarcastic.

I also like when people engage in threads with replies like your's because it gives me a chance to increase my brain capacity and gives me more "ammo" to have good responses when needed. haha

Thanks for answering and I agree with you that many UFO sightings can be explained with accelerated knowledge of aircraft, (experimental military, pre-production or just plain old "Southwest") .

And I had a feeling you were somehow in the business, your answers were very astute.

reply to post by harlot7


A truly enlightened response but I ask you to remember a single thing on ATS, NEVER take a post as gospel. Take my post for example, have you done some research on it? Have you independently verified V speeds and TO rules? Have you verified that there is heavy USAF activity in the area the video was made? Or have you just taken my word for it?

The stated aim of ATS is to "Deny Ignorance." In order to do that you must question everything.