Something odd over Brisbane, Australia

reply to post by aaron2209


Great work getting it on video.

I spotted something very similar to this about a month ago, my ex girlfriend rang me saying that her and both her parents were watching lights flying in formation over Keppel bay (near great Keppel island central QLD) I dismissed it as fighter jets doing a dump n burn or flares, since there is military training happening just north at Shoalwater bay. But i caught a glimpse of a few lights and they blinked in and out like in the videos you posted, so now i'm not too sure what i saw.

I hope someone on ATS was in the area and seen it for themselves, and possibly offer an explanation.

Just more material to compare to. This is a plane flying what I would presume is the "H" flight path shown in previous links



and a plane on what would be the "D" or possibly "E" path



Do these confirmed planes look like the "objects" in the other videos?

There's a fairly big altitude difference if this object



is on the same flight path as this plane



Also the "object" appears to be a solid light where as the plane has an obvious flashing.

I uploaded the 7 minute video of 2 planes to YouTube here is the embed or Linky whatchamacallit:





Nothing overly interesting but it does show the planes from a distance and how fast they travel etc, and excuse the bad language at the start I walked into a mud puddle lol.


After watching the video I just realised the quality is grotty!

Just spotted a red pulsing light, then turned and had a white flashing light also, couldn't record it as it wouldn't show up on the phone! But there is a lot of air traffic tonight and I did record a fast moving plane which I'll embed once it's processed.

Originally posted by aaron2209

Originally posted by RealSpoke
It looks identical to a helicopter

I should say that here in Brisbane, helicopters other than news choppers are pretty rare. I think we have one police helicopter but I believe that is stationed down at the Gold Coast. So to see 3 in that time period would be pretty rare.

I find that comment very odd...

Australian Helicopters Pty Ltd

Brisbane City Helicopters

Exeuctive Helicopters - Brisbane

V2 Helicopters - Brisbane

INAER - Brisbane

im sure there are more (including schools)....but seems to be a huge market for helicopters in Brisbane Australia

Originally posted by greeneyedleo

Originally posted by aaron2209

Originally posted by RealSpoke
It looks identical to a helicopter

I should say that here in Brisbane, helicopters other than news choppers are pretty rare. I think we have one police helicopter but I believe that is stationed down at the Gold Coast. So to see 3 in that time period would be pretty rare.

I find that comment very odd...

Australian Helicopters Pty Ltd

Their site states:

"We operate helicopters in the Medical, Border Protection, Police, Search & Rescue, Defence, Marine, Tourism, Fire, Charter, Engineering and Television News market sectors. Services are delivered to major long term State and Federal government clients and agencies from a Head Office in Brisbane and eight bases between Torres Strait and Adelaide on an immediate response basis. Included in a fleet of 19 helicopters are nine multi engine IFR helicopters operating in a predominantly over water environment."

Defence is the only possible option out of all of them.

Brisbane City Helicopters

If that is indeed their flight path, it doesn't match the paths of the objects.

Exeuctive Helicopters - Brisbane

From their site:

"Executive Helicopters provides helicopter commercial services, charter helicopter flights, scenic helicopter tours and aerial photography around Brisbane"

Would any of this be happening between 12:00am and 12:30am?

V2 Helicopters - Brisbane

Again, would any of these services be running at midnight and involving 3 of their 5 choppers?

INAER - Brisbane

Looking at their operations, I would say no to 3 moving about at midnight.

im sure there are more (including schools)....but seems to be a huge market for helicopters in Brisbane Australia

edit on August 18th 2012 by greeneyedleo because: (no reason given)

I see what you're saying but after living in this house for 5 years looking at this view every time I go out for a smoke and a lot of the time while inside looking out the back windows, I have never seen objects like this.

That's 10 smokes a night x six nights a week.That would make it over 15000 times I've been standing in that same position and have never seen things like this.

In the third video, don't you think the light is a bit odd for a helicopter?

reply to post by AlanQaida


Hey mate, boths vids are errored.

reply to post by aaron2209


Oops, I fixed it.. I think.. They are now public

Originally posted by AlanQaida
reply to post by aaron2209

 

Oops, I fixed it.. I think.. They are now public

Nope. "An error occurred during validation" apparently.

Ahh just realised you may be doing the linking wrong. When you click on " Vid: Youtube" only paste the address after the = sign.

Found them:





Which airport are you near in these vids?

Cheers for that.

I'm at Brendale, and I can see the Brisbane airport tower beacon from here I am, I guess I'm roughly 25 km from it, it's east, south east from me. The planes travel south over me theb turn east as they approach the city.
The planes also travel straight south, and north, some come from the west and travel direct east etc.

On a busy night, like in the 7 min video they stack up behind each other etc, and I seen another helicopter early this morning too at about 3 am heading south but couldn't get it on camera.

Just recorded a chopper at 1:30 am, so 5 minutes ago, I've uploaded the video to yt and I'll try and embed here, just as reference etc, if it doesn't work feel free to slap me




GAH these low def uploads SUCK! The lights are 2 flashy red strobes and 1 green solid lit strobe. Just looks crapola in the video though

ETA:: i just realised i can upload it in hd from my wifi at home, so i have replaced the video with the HD version instead, even still you do lose some quality through youtube..

Hey guys, longtime lurker first time poster, this thread got my attention on the day of the OP but im only just getting around to signing up to ATS now. Last friday night I believe it was? I too also ducked outside for a smoke to notice a formation of 3 stars overhead Brisbane CBD which I noticed was strange, as there is usually a constellation (Saucepan?) in that area of sky but due to light pollution I assumed I was only seeing the three brightest stars. After my smoke i took up my usually past time of surfing ATS where I saw this thread. Bingo! Someone saw something as well! Although in my opinion, im certain i saw "just stars" as ive noticed them every night lately, they dont move but are a nice little triangle shaped constellation. I literally went outside mere mins after Aaron's OP to see if i could see what was described, nothing on my end but I can throw a few theories out there anyway. Im not sure if you were aware of the "Goodyear Blimp" at the Ekka? If im correct the Ekka ended on Thursday and the Blimp couldve been transitting to Archerfield?

Helicopters - GED is right we have a shedload of choppers in or around Brisbane, 3 Media birds that used to go everywhere together until the news corporations figured it was pretty expensive to send 3 helicopters for footage that was eventually shared anyway. We have Australian Aerospace at Brissy airport, they are manufacturing the new MRH90 Blackhawk replacements, which are usually flown onto Oakey sometimes via a River run up the Brisbane River. Pretty cool to see! The School of Army Aviation does alot of night flying with no external lights all over the Darling Downs, one would assume that training also needs to be done in 'built up areas'.

And then there is the 10-20 odd Rescue Helicopter movements each day/night out of RBH and PAH.
Its interesting just how may noise complaints have been made over the years directed solely at EMQ for their late night flights, its my understanding there has been alot of modifications to their fleet over the years to reduce noise. Not very effective as I can hear one on the pad of the RBH now. (from 5-7kms)

And now the topic of the Brisbane Airport flightpaths. In no way are these paths set in stone! West of the Storey Bridge below 1500feet is OUTSIDE controlled Airspace. So in theory you can operate over the CBD not above 1500' without clearance. The times specified for your sighting fit with training slots for Student Pilot Training, usually twin engines coming out of Archerfield to practise ILS etc at YBBN, after conducting touch & goes or go-arounds at Brissy they will then take a direct path to YBAF, most of this training is conducted after midnight. Also if a Pilot requests track shortening and there is little traffic ahead the controller will grant the shortest path to their destination. Ive seen some amazing work by controllers to squeeze aircraft into paths which arent standard due to traffic or weather etc. If anyone wants I can provide regos, callsigns etc of any aircraft operating over Brisbane in real time. Unfortunately those pesky UFOs dont squawk a transponder code!

Thanks for letting me share my first post here on ur thread!

reply to post by Ironside800


Firstly welcome.

Secondly thanks for your detailed post. There are plenty of explanations there and I'm sure one of them covers what I saw. The time was the main thing for me but you've covered some very plausible explanations for that as well.

Great job on your first post

Originally posted by Ironside800
If anyone wants I can provide regos, callsigns etc of any aircraft operating over Brisbane in real time.

I know nothing about aviation or what info is out there but would there be a way to sus out what was around the CBD between 11:30pm and 12:30am Friday night/Saturday morning?

I hate to say it, but "orange/red" light would strongly suggest chinese lanterns. I wouldn't jump on that debunking bandwagon if i hadn't seen those myself many years back and was also convinced it was genuine UFOs. Furthermore, 2 or 3 of them in a row are not unusual, people sometimes let fly more than one. So...if the movement in the videos would not suggest otherwise, i'd say chinese lantern or small balloon with a fire. (Yes, they will look surprisingly bright).

Originally posted by flexy123
I hate to say it, but "orange/red" light would strongly suggest chinese lanterns. I wouldn't jump on that debunking bandwagon if i hadn't seen those myself many years back and was also convinced it was genuine UFOs. Furthermore, 2 or 3 of them in a row are not unusual, people sometimes let fly more than one. So...if the movement in the videos would not suggest otherwise, i'd say chinese lantern or small balloon with a fire. (Yes, they will look surprisingly bright).

Cheers but i'm sure it was a reasonably still night so I don't think a chinese lantern would move in what appears to be a perfectly horizontal direction would it?

I have no experience with them whatsoever lol

reply to post by aaron2209


18-Aug-12 00:39 8960C9 A6-EBB B77W UAE432 Singapore Brisbane 375
17-Aug-12 23:45 76CE84 9V-STD A333 SIA246 Brisbane Singapore 1300 35075

Hey mate these are the only 2 flights during that time period. 1 is an arrival and 1 departure. So i think we can rule out Commercial Aircraft from Brisbane Airport but we cant rule out "VFR" aircraft, that is helicopters or light aircraft operating without navigational help from Air Traffic Control.

All plausible explanations aside, keep your eyes on the sky, Brisbane has had many unique things flying thru our skies over the years, who can forget the F-111 Dump & Burn? Every year come Riverfire there would be thousands of UFO reports sighting a fireball/s tearing across the sky.

Having said that Ive had 1 experience I couldnt quite explain, it was several years ago, I was celebrating my 20th bday (my first since my mum passed away) and had extended family over for a BBQ that night. Now just a little about myself, im a military and aviation fanatic, I saw my first F-111 Dump and Burn when I was 5 and had been hooked on the RAAF since then. A standing joke in the family was "give me a dump & burn and im the happiest man in the world!" So here we are around the BBQ when I glanced over towards the city and notice a fireball climbing over Enogerra Hill. My first thought was my dreams have been answered! Im getting a dump n burn especially for my bday! I screamed "F-111 dump and burn!" at which point we all raced into the front yard for a better view. All pumped up waiting for the scream of an F-111 doing 500+ knots dumping thousands of pounds of Avtur behind its afterburners!

But no sound? And the "fireball" started descending over our side of the hill then maintained height below the ridge of the hill before turning 90 degrees an starting a gradual ascent heading towards the west. Now at this point we know its not an aircraft and we start speculating as to what we are seeing. Our first educated guess was a Para Illumination Flare as it had appeared out of the Army Base at Enoggera and the way it arched over the hill and started descending towards us certainly indicated a flare on a chute caught by the wind. However ive fired off a few dozen flares in my time and they dont last a good 10 minutes + and the likelyhood of it being caught by an updraught from about 200ft AGL and carried up to around 5000ft is very slim.

That only leaves one other possible explanation and that is a Chinese Lantern. I had never seen one before but it certainly meets all the criteria. If anyone has any experience with these lanterns could they verify that they are literally at the mercy of wind currents? And can climb and decend?

And thanks again Aaron for the warm welcome!

Originally posted by aaron2209

Originally posted by flexy123
I hate to say it, but "orange/red" light would strongly suggest chinese lanterns. I wouldn't jump on that debunking bandwagon if i hadn't seen those myself many years back and was also convinced it was genuine UFOs. Furthermore, 2 or 3 of them in a row are not unusual, people sometimes let fly more than one. So...if the movement in the videos would not suggest otherwise, i'd say chinese lantern or small balloon with a fire. (Yes, they will look surprisingly bright).

Cheers but i'm sure it was a reasonably still night so I don't think a chinese lantern would move in what appears to be a perfectly horizontal direction would it?

I have no experience with them whatsoever lol

They would certainly move, in one or the other direction, there will always be some wind...and they usually DO move more or less in a straight line - i have seen them myself, eg. 3 of them lined up like in "formation". I

Originally posted by Ironside800

All plausible explanations aside, keep your eyes on the sky, Brisbane has had many unique things flying thru our skies over the years, who can forget the F-111 Dump & Burn? Every year come Riverfire there would be thousands of UFO reports sighting a fireball/s tearing across the sky.

Yeah those beasts use to pretty much fly straight over my house. Was an amazing sight and feeling the rumble was intense.

And thanks again Aaron for the warm welcome!

No probs