Gravesend, Kent, UK. July 17, 1998 UFO. My conclusion!!

After watching THIS VIDEO over and over I have come to the conclusion that this is nothing more than a slug or small snail crawling across the glass window the camera was filming through. It appears that the cameras location would be a few feet behind the surface of the glass and possibly on a tripod in a dark room filming the outside.

I do not know if this has been debunked before but after watching a few different videos on ufocasebook.com this one really jumped out at me with slug/snail written all over it! I just thought I'd post for all to give their thoughts as well.

Except for the fact that the camera is viewing the street first..And there is nothing there.. pans up and spots whatever that is, pans right and there is nothing on the lens again.. And then pans back and tracks this object moving across the sky.. So.. it's a slug or snail at.. is on the lens? That. doesnt follow when the camera pans around?? I dont think so

No no no... not on the lens but on a pane of glass. As if the camera was filming from inside an office room with large glass windows and the camera was real close to the glass...but not too close... like say 3 feet away at best.

Think about it... the camera pans over to show car headlights in fast motion. Slugs crawl across a surface generally at a pretty slow pace, especially if it is a very cool evening. This proves that the film being shown is sped up, hence the faster speed of the slugs movements. There are a few other videos that I have come across that are obvious specs/smudges on a very clear pane of glass in front of a camera. Especially a few of Billy Miers hoaxs.

Originally posted by Creedo
No no no... not on the lens but on a pane of glass. As if the camera was filming from inside an office room with large glass windows and the camera was real close to the glass...but not too close... like say 3 feet away at best.

Think about it... the camera pans over to show car headlights in fast motion. Slugs crawl across a surface generally at a pretty slow pace, especially if it is a very cool evening. This proves that the film being shown is sped up, hence the faster speed of the slugs movements. There are a few other videos that I have come across that are obvious specs/smudges on a very clear pane of glass in front of a camera. Especially a few of Billy Miers hoaxs.

I agree with you; it is there the entire time, they just panned over it the first time. It's very clear that the video is being taken from inside a window, to me, because of how the light is acting. Also, there is 2 minutes of video there sped up to 20 seconds. If that really was a UFO, it changes shape as it moves and it moves reeeeallly slow (Like a slug or a snail!!), in which case there would have been a ton of people to see and report it.

I guess you could say distance makes it appear to move slower, but that isn't going to work here because the camera does not have to zoom that much to make the 'slug' considerably larger, which would tell me almost exactly as the OP indicates, about 3FT behind a window.

The camera seems somewhat like a remote traffic camera that is being operated offsite somewhere.. We have them all over the place here.. And usually they dont sit behind a huge pane of glass.. they sit up high on an overhead street light or something like that

I did take that into consideration Ox but in the spirit of creating a hoax, I believe whoever filmed this was actually behind the camera. I don’t believe it was an automated security camera with motion tracking at all.

Look at the way the camera pans to the car passing, then to the light in the distance, then to the "slug" completely ignoring another car behind the first one. No, this was definitely a person operating the camera. The building I work in has an office room almost exactly laid out in the same way as in this video. Same vantage point. I could EASILY pull off this exact kind of footage as seen in this video.....slug and all!!

I am 99% certain this was a stunt by Richard (Virgin) Branson,saucer shaped hot air balloon, filmed all around our orbital M25, stopped loads of traffic,from memory they did this on a friday evening, hope this helps

Im not denying that this could be a hoax.. At all.. And Im not talking about a motion sensing camera.. Here where I live we have a traffic system called Artimis.. And they have thousands of cameras around the area that they can view and control PAN, TILT, ZOOM on from their local office.. its nothing about the camera being automated.. And like I said.. I dont doubt that this could be and probably is a hoax.... Just to give you an idea.. we use similar camera's in my office.. I can follow anyone around the building, I can even open dock doors from my office using our camera system

I can find internet entries for a Branson UFO hoax on March 31 1989 but nothing for anything later.However im sure my memory can remember one from a few years ago which might explain the video.

Ahhh I see what you are saying Ox. So lets just say that this is one of the security cameras you mentiond. Don't these kind of cameras sit within a protected shroud roughly 1-1/2 feet in length and have a slightly tinted glass pane in front of the camera lens? A small slug or snail on this pane could present the same results right?

But to me it just looks more like a video camera looking out an office window filming a snails belly crawling across the glass. LOL

Not all of them, SOME of them sit inside of a plastic dome which can be sometimes tinted yes.. But not all.. And just a side note, Even the camera's that are at my building's dock doors are able to clean the protective cover in front of the lens on the camera housing automatically.. So for example, if there was a slug on my camera's I could set them to clean and they would scrape it off.. Im NOT saying that this is the case in this video.. I dont doubt that this could be a hoax.. But I wasnt there..

By no means is that a slug or a snail... If you think of how they move, they stretch their bodies and drag the back end forward... and this (on the video) does not make that motion. the shape is consistent all the way through the shot. I am not saying this is real but it deffinetly is not a slug or a snail.

[edit on 1-6-2006 by And3h]

Actually And3h, if you zoom the image you can see that it ideed does change shape slightly towards the upper left of the object, which would be consistant with a snails shell moving more towards its right side as it compensated for the weight of its shell being pulled towards the ground by gravity.

I have observed snail and slug movement across glass MANY MANY times as a naturally curious youngster and have never seen a snail "slinkey" across the surface it was on. that sort of motion is more consistant with larvae. Mollusks simply do not move like this to the point where it would be noticeable. Where I grew up we had what are called Banana Slugs which quite often grow up to 8 inches long and 1 inch in girth and are a brilliant shade of yellow to yellow brown. When I lived in Hawaii we had HUGE escargot type snails as well. I'm not saying I am an expert in mollusks at all but I definately have put in a good deal of observing their movements as a kid.

Bugs, lizards, snakes and other neat n' creepy creatures were my passion as a kid.

Well this is Britain so we dont get so many exotic creatures such as Mollusk snails. And the movement and any slug/snail i have ever seen has a very noticable movement at the font end. The head stretches to almost and inch and drags its full body forward, there is no sign of movement at the side which the 'slug' is moving

You have to always take these videos with a grain of salt. The only question to that rational theory I would have would be the panning of the camera. If the housing is fixed the slug would stay in one place and the camera would move inside the housing. If the housing moves then the slug theory would not work because the slug is out of view when the camera pans. Is there anyway to find out if the camera housing is fixed or movable?

Slug or Snail defo.

It is in shot right from the start. I am wondering if the camera is one of those dome type inside a building with a bored security guard just messing around looking at stuff, because they do I can tell you.

Looks like he just panned outside "Lets see what she'll do."
It certainly looks human operated to me.

Gravesend eh? Any closer to France and they would be eating the evidence