O'Hare UFO (Lights from Jan, 10 2007)

If anyone gets a response fomr this guy let me know via U2U. If he's willing to come here and discuss the video I am willing to make CERTAIN he is not treated harshly or rudely as long as he is honestly answering the questions.

Springer...

Originally posted by kroms33

If you lived near O'Hare, you would know much of the air traffic for arriving flights come directly over down town Chicago (to the east) and fly in a straight formation - miles apart from each other toward a western approach pattern.

sorry kroms, but you are wrong. as with any airport, it depends upon which way they happen to be arriving and departing, which depends totally upon weather conditions. the only airports in the world that operate in one direction all the time are the one with mountains on one side so that you can only arrive and depart in one direction, which certainly is not the case at ohare. you simply werent paying attention until you saw that video....which, by the way, is simply aircraft arriving and departing. i see it around another big international airport every single night....from many different directions. furthermore, the fact that they appear to be stationary for any length of time is due to the fact that they are coming directly towards you from a great distance out. when they "disappear", they are simply turning away from you and therefore you lose visual on the landing light. even further, any aircraft below a certain altitude operating in the vicinity of an airport surface area is required to have their landing light on, so all the aircraft in the video may not necessarily be arriving and departing from ohare.

i firmly believe that there is something to the november object, but unfortunately this video is simply aircraft in ohare approach's airspace.

People who live around "THE MOST BUSIEST" airport in the world know what planes look like - we see them every day and night.

i thought you said you lived in chicago, not atlanta. because hartsfield is the worlds busiest airport at the moment.

Originally posted by Springer
If anyone gets a response fomr this guy let me know via U2U. If he's willing to come here and discuss the video I am willing to make CERTAIN he is not treated harshly or rudely as long as he is honestly answering the questions.

Springer...

I have had limited contact with him, I don't think he is willing to come forward, which is sad. I am messaging him your stance on this matter.

Kroms33

snafu7700

Perhaps you are right - I am just researching this: I have an open mind and don't want to pass judgment either way until I have all the facts.
So far, the facts are leaning in the "Holding Pattern" hypothesis because I know exactly where the guy was when he was filming this. He was 7-8 miles from the airport - and filming in a NE direction - a direction where usually aircraft come from that are landing at O'Hare.

As for your comment about me living near the busiest airport - I didn't know the upgraded status of that... so sorry - no use being snide about it tho'

Originally posted by kroms33
- I am just researching this: I have an open mind and don't want to pass judgment either way until I have all the facts.
So far, the facts are leaning in the "Holding Pattern" hypothesis because I know exactly where the guy was when he was filming this. He was 7-8 miles from the airport - and filming in a NE direction - a direction where usually aircraft come from that are landing at O'Hare.

Why not continue with your investigation. You will surely learn some things about video, night recordings, planes, lights, etc. It might place you in a position to help clear the air, so to speak, on future videos.

Originally posted by kroms33

As for your comment about me living near the busiest airport - I didn't know the upgraded status of that... so sorry - no use being snide about it tho'

well, if it sounded snide i apologize, as it was not intended that way.

as for the video, i can reproduce it on a clear night (if traffic is arriving to the east) from my place of work. if that's what it takes to get you guys to understand that this is nothing more than aircraft landing lights, i will brave the freezing weather to do just that.

I have another observer who has kind of come forward through YouTube (its not the greatest way to interview people... but anyhow... here it is:

I was even closer than St Charles Rd...I was on the Elgin Ohare expwy going east almost at wooddale rd....I was staring at them for a while but then shrugged it off...my only explaination is that it was helicopters in some sort of formation....Ive never seen anything like that in the 10 yrs Ive lived by ohare...it was weird...I would just like to know what they were..
I seen that xxxx too (expletive deleted).
and yes ...they were definitly over ohare field

This still supports the hypothesis of a "Holding Pattern" since it was still in a NE direction. I have to agree with him, I have never seen anything like that - and I have lived in Chicago a lot longer then 10 years.

*Note: The Elgin O'Hare Expressway near Wood Dale Road - it is a much closer view then where the original video came from. Too bad no one has more video from this date/area that corroborates more evidence. Not to say I don't believe the comment above, but it would have had more substance if there were more evidence to correspond to his statement (witnesses/pictures/video etc).

Originally posted by snafu7700

Originally posted by kroms33

As for your comment about me living near the busiest airport - I didn't know the upgraded status of that... so sorry - no use being snide about it tho'

well, if it sounded snide i apologize, as it was not intended that way.

as for the video, i can reproduce it on a clear night (if traffic is arriving to the east) from my place of work. if that's what it takes to get you guys to understand that this is nothing more than aircraft landing lights, i will brave the freezing weather to do just that.

thanks for the apology - sometimes its hard to tell if someone is being offensive or not over the internet... anyhow...

I don't want you to freeze or anything - but if you could possibly record 9 - 10 minutes of footage with airplanes in a holding pattern like this - or close to it without looking to become more distant or near - it would help out a lot. There are a lot of people very interested in this video, and your vid could make or break the theories involved in the research.
Thanks!

Kroms33

Originally posted by kroms33

I don't want you to freeze or anything - but if you could possibly record 9 - 10 minutes of footage with airplanes in a holding pattern like this - or close to it without looking to become more distant or near - it would help out a lot. There are a lot of people very interested in this video, and your vid could make or break the theories involved in the research.
Thanks!

Kroms33

alright, if you guys wont take a professional air traffic controller's word for it, then the next time conditions are favorable i'll prove this to be just aircraft. and by the way, it's not a holding pattern, just normal traffic flow. i know this because the legs of a holding pattern are normally not longer than one to three minutes in an oval shaped pattern. the aircraft in the picture were either on a long final approach, or were simply transitting the airspace.

Originally posted by snafu7700

alright, if you guys wont take a professional air traffic controller's word for it, then the next time conditions are favorable i'll prove this to be just aircraft. and by the way, it's not a holding pattern, just normal traffic flow. i know this because the legs of a holding pattern are normally not longer than one to three minutes in an oval shaped pattern. the aircraft in the picture were either on a long final approach, or were simply transitting the airspace.

Well - you wouldn't take a professional UFO hunters word for seeing a ufo would ya?

All I want is something to back this hypothesis up with, that way if someone posts videos of 'stationary' luminous objects near an airport - we will have that evidence which you provided to compare too. Especially if your video can hold 9-10 minutes of stationary luminous objects that are planes flying in on final approach/transiting airspace. Supposedly - what was not shown on the video - is that these things were there for about 30 minutes - I say supposedly because it was someone else besides the video-grapher who posted that data to YouTube - but that is hearsay. I am satisfied with the 9-10 minute time frame though.

Let us know when you get the results

Originally posted by kroms33

Well - you wouldn't take a professional UFO hunters word for seeing a ufo would ya?

you do know how ignorant that sounds, right? someone who by their own admission knows nothing about this and is just starting to investigate it, compares a federal air traffic controller with 15 years experience to a ufo hunter. right.

as for the lights, here is some interesting information that backs mine up:

MARA

If an aircraft is coming straight towards you or flying straight away from you, it's lights can appear to be stationary for several minutes and this sometimes misleads people into believing it can't be a conventional aircraft. Observations made from moving vehicles are useless at estimating aircraft speeds because the relative speed between the vehicle and the aircraft is quite different to the actual speed of the aircraft. Aircraft observed from moving vehicles nearly always appear to be flying slower than they actually are.

Many aircraft when viewed from the ground show 3 fixed lights. The only two possible formations for these three lights are a straight line and a triangle and the latter will be most common. This sometimes gives rise to reports of flying triangle UFOs or reports of secret military aircraft operating overbuilt up areas. The three pictures shown below were taken of conventional jet aircraft flying around Merseyside.

While viewing the sky from Ashurst Beacon near Skelmerdale, Lancashire we have observed what appears to be orange balls of light (BOL) which can last for several tens of seconds and suddenly fade in and out. It is no coincidence that these BOLs are in the South Easterly direction of Manchester airport. They are simply the landing lights of aircraft taking off and coming in to land. The fade in and out as the aircraft changes direction and hence the direction of the lights change. Their orange appearance is caused by the haze at low altitude and the distance of approximately 25 miles to the airport.

it may take quite awhile for the right conditions (and the time) to come up with this video. so in the mean time, i will simply compile evidence that proves that, hey, your tax dollars arent wasted and that i actually do know what i am talking about.

Originally posted by kroms33

Is there any way to DL the YouTube video? I looked in my internet cache and can't find any streamed vids.
Thanks,
Kroms33

Try Firefox and install this addon:
addons.mozilla.org...

There are several of these for Firefox.

Originally posted by kroms33

Well - you wouldn't take a professional UFO hunters word for seeing a ufo would ya?

Wow, now that just sounds silly. When there is a possible identification by someone because of their field expertise (air traffic controller) or background, it is always best to listen. snafu7700 has presented us with a great possibility of what is on the video. If you want to find the truth, you have to follow every lead.

Originally posted by snafu7700
furthermore, the fact that they appear to be stationary for any length of time is due to the fact that they are coming directly towards you from a great distance out. when they "disappear", they are simply turning away from you and therefore you lose visual on the landing light. even further, any aircraft below a certain altitude operating in the vicinity of an airport surface area is required to have their landing light on, so all the aircraft in the video may not necessarily be arriving and departing from ohare.

I agree. I work at an air force base. We have T1, T6, and T38C aircraft here. At times, these guys line up for a final 15 miles out. Add the landing light to that and you have a seemingly stationary light for several minutes until they come down for a landing. I don't know how far out commercial planes line up for final, but it has to be more than our small jets here. I just can't understand how some folks are so adamant that aircraft can't do things like that when they don't work around them like some of us do. What is the point of being an expert if they won't believe you because it's not what they want to hear?


[edit on 3/7/07 by HectorRmz]

Well - you wouldn't take a professional UFO hunters word for seeing a ufo would ya?

Um, you guys do know that was a JOKE right???
I mean I thought I made that a bit OBVIOUS by placing a smilie face next to it so there would be no MISUNDERSTANDING.



ANYHOW - there are certain issues which carry some weight on your end - but as your manual says, several minutes. What exactly does several minutes translate too? Is it 2-3 minutes 4-5 or even 9-10?

I figure it this way: A plane (depending on wind speed, weight of plane yadda yadda yadda) needs to be about what (lets just say) 200mph to take off. Once at a nice cruising altitude this plane is traveling at what? lets say 450 or so. Soooo if we do some basic mathematics here 450 / 60 = 7.5 miles per minute - 7.5 * 9.48 minutes (length of video shot) is: 71.1 miles these lights should have traveled.
If they are on an approach vector: Say slowed down to 250 or 300 (I am guessing these speeds here) - they still would have traveled from 39.5 to 47.4 miles toward the airfield. Brings up some interesting points...
Does this optical illusion last for many many miles?

I have seen planes lined up coming in by the hundreds all the way to the horizon where you just can't see them anymore because they are either too high or the curvature of the earth doesn't permit it - and I can tell you this: It never took the tale of the last plane that was visible over 6 minutes to cross over my house. Perhaps the air industry has some new technology on hovering their planes stationary that we are unaware of ?

I just can't understand how some folks are so adamant that aircraft can't do things like that when they don't work around them like some of us do. What is the point of being an expert if they won't believe you because it's not what they want to hear?

No, if you bothered to read any of the posts that I wrote you would see that I am supporting the hypothesis of them being on final approach...

oh and the comment about me not working around them so I wouldn't know anything - I only live right next door to an international airport... so I wouldn't know anything about the planes flight patterns - or even what times they are supposed to fly, or even what they look like when they are lining up to come in?
Guess not.
Give us civies some credit - I know there are a lot of ignorant people in this world - but believe me - I really don't think I am one of those people.

Ohare Airport property also is home to a military airbase. They often hold helicopter training maneuvers in airspace that is not being used for take-offs and landings at the time. I've seen 2 or 3 at a time but never as many like we see in the video. They could be lights of planes many miles out getting into pre-final approach alignment for landing. You see several of them bunched up like this over Lake Michigan and one-by-one a light blinks out as the closest plan makes it's final approach turn and another light or two appears higher up, farther away. On crisp clear winter nights when it gets dark at 5pm(CST), there are a lot of planes stacked up in various patterns awaiting final approach. It's quite fascinating to watch if you're someplace warm with a good view!

From what I've read in the comments section @ YouTube, the owner of this vid is willing to accept that these are aircraft if he could get some fairly compelling evidence that they could behave like this. You seem to have the experience to toss up a some good evidence about this so knock it out of the park if you can.

He comes across as genuine in saying this IMO.

We all need to try to beat the hell out of these vids and see whats left after we are through. If a majority comes to a consensus that its still unexplainable, then so be it. Until then anything goes.

Originally posted by carewemust
Ohare Airport property also is home to a military airbase. They often hold helicopter training maneuvers in airspace that is not being used for take-offs and landings at the time. I've seen 2 or 3 at a time but never as many like we see in the video. They could be lights of planes many miles out getting into pre-final approach alignment for landing. You see several of them bunched up like this over Lake Michigan and one-by-one a light blinks out as the closest plan makes it's final approach turn and another light or two appears higher up, farther away. On crisp clear winter nights when it gets dark at 5pm(CST), there are a lot of planes stacked up in various patterns awaiting final approach. It's quite fascinating to watch if you're someplace warm with a good view!

That base has been closed down for 7 years. It no longer functions as a Reservist AIRGuard Center.
(I know this because an uncle of mine used to work there)

This station was closed on July 31, 1999. The City of Chicago recognized early the value of the O’Hare facility. There is little to no property available around one of this nation’s busiest airports. The planned United Airlines headquarters on the facility is the first of many such developments. The Air Force benefited from the closure of O'Hare due to the relocation of the Air National Guard unit at no cost to the Government to new facilities at Scott AFB. In exchange, O’Hare International Air Port received property that potentially could bring greater economic value to the City of Chicago. Over 225 new jobs have been created.



EDIT: YEAR FOR CLOSURE OF BASE
[edit on 3/8/2007 by kroms33]

[edit on 3/8/2007 by kroms33]

Originally posted by kroms33

ANYHOW - there are certain issues which carry some weight on your end - but as your manual says, several minutes. What exactly does several minutes translate too? Is it 2-3 minutes 4-5 or even 9-10?

no, that's not what the manual says. look, there are two types of holding patterns: those that are established on charts (usually on an approach plate to an airport), and those that are made up when needed by the controller. both can have several different types of legs. some are issued in minutes, some are issued in miles. the patterns that are issued in minutes also have a mandatory speed to them (usually very slow) so that the pilots dont fly too far in a leg. make sense?

I figure it this way: A plane (depending on wind speed, weight of plane yadda yadda yadda) needs to be about what (lets just say) 200mph to take off. Once at a nice cruising altitude this plane is traveling at what? lets say 450 or so. Soooo if we do some basic mathematics here 450 / 60 = 7.5 miles per minute - 7.5 * 9.48 minutes (length of video shot) is: 71.1 miles these lights should have traveled.
If they are on an approach vector: Say slowed down to 250 or 300 (I am guessing these speeds here) - they still would have traveled from 39.5 to 47.4 miles toward the airfield. Brings up some interesting points...
Does this optical illusion last for many many miles?

actually, your pretty close....but your missing a few key points of info. first and foremost, every aircraft operating below 10,000 ft in the continental US must reduce speed to 250 knots or less. that is federal law. second, we operate in terms of "knots", not miles per hour....but your calculations are pretty close. figure one mile for every fifty knots, so below ten thousand (unless they are holding, which is always at a reduced speed) you can figure on them going about 5 miles a minute.

I have seen planes lined up coming in by the hundreds all the way to the horizon where you just can't see them anymore because they are either too high or the curvature of the earth doesn't permit it - and I can tell you this: It never took the tale of the last plane that was visible over 6 minutes to cross over my house.

right, but you are looking at planes way up at altitude, and they are going extremely fast....so fast, in fact, that above a certain altitude range (mid 20's) we use mach number instead of speed because the air is thinner and indicated airspeed becomes useless. but again, below ten thousand, where every single plane you see in the video with landing lights on is most likely at, they are operating at 250 knots or less. make sense for you?



[edit on 3/8/07 by snafu7700]

Originally posted by snafu7700

make sense for you?

Your the man

Yeah, everything you stated makes perfect sense - which leans forward to these being aircraft. I still want to hear from the videograhper to determine how long he actually seen these objects before and after filming. I do have to note, that these objects did not display any odd characteristics (all but seeming to be stationary objects) that would have helped to determine them to be UFOs. No quick movements - or fast turns. The person who filmed the event in question was also about 7-8 miles from the airport; which supports your argumentation completely.

Thank you for all your help - lets just hope the November 2006 footage that is supposed to come out is more compelling

Kroms33

Snafu -

Ive watched this thing probably 8-10 times now and am trying to acquire some on the fly image stabilization software to hit this thing with.

In your professional opinion, what is the likelyhood that aircraft lights will not only mantain a consistant level of brightness on approach for this length of time but also remain in the "pattern" they are in with only slight variations of the 9 minutes? The self proclaimed "check" pattern. There were without a doubt instances of the lights dimming then rebrightening but they seemed to me to always rebrighten in nearly the same spot they dimmed from. I think that there were at least 3 of them that simply did not move from their beginning positions at all.

Wouldnt planes flying at 200-250 kts. experience at least a little buffeting on approach at low speeds? Which in turn would cause very remarkable changes in the orientation, hence brightness, of those lights? Arent those lights very focused beams not subject to flooding? I thought that they did that to prevent accidentally blinding other pilots and other safetey factors. In order for these lights to stay as the are those planes would have to be on a rope coming in, with abosolutely zero cross winds or better yet a monorail considering the probable distances we are thinking about here. Ive been on many planes of many different types (including military) and have always recollected at least a bit of chop on approach, turning or not.

The one thing that really irks me about this is that the videographer went out of his way to show what an aircraft from his viewpoint actually looked like, some of these either flying at a much quicker pace in front of the lights in question or behind them - they were without a doubt aircraft and they did appear different as presented through the cameras lenses. You could see the nav lights and uneven bright lights due to the aircraft peforming its usual action simply from the act of flying in air, buffeting etc.

Anyway thinking outloud here - feel free to dissimate my ideas....I wont cry, promise....

[edit on 8-3-2007 by Lost_Mind]