Orb/Ufo Activity Over My House / Central Ca

reply to post by ScRuFFy63

To those who think it may be a meteor. It had absolutely no tail. If something is hot enough to glow and burn up in our atmosphere I'd think it would have a tail or at least leave a slight trail.

Another general misconception I'm afraid.

Not all meteors will have a tail. It depends on many factors, but in general slower and less bright meteors tend not to have tails, although this is not always the case.

An example can be found here.

Here are some more:


As you can see, some do, and some do not... meteors are not all exactly alike, not by a long way, which is why some of us spend lots of time under the stars observing them. If meteors were all the same, there would be little point! As it is, when you observe meteors there is something new to see almost every other night!

Some can seem so different, that people have a hard time believing that they are meteors, as this particular case proves!

Well I'd say the majority of meteors in that video had at least small tails. only the very slow moving ones looked similar to what I and I'm assuming the op saw. The problem is I only say 1 example in the vid that even came close.(1:26) but even that one left an "after effect"

My thing is the speed this thing was going on a clear night sky, where you can clearly see even the faintest cloud, it should have left some kind of sign that it was there.

Although CHUD is very convinced he knows what I say, haha. I have to say what I saw looked nothing like whats in that video.

It was going waaaaay faster than any of those meteor's. It did not leave a trail, ... it did not burn out, ... the intensity of it's light was only altered by its travel.

meteor's emit light because their burning in the atmosphere, this UFO emiited a constant, not brilliantly bright, source of light.

It may sound weird, but this object didn't illuminate the sky in any way, not like a lightbulb emitting light everywhere, .... but it seemed to emit and contain this light. As fast as it was, ... I still have a mental freeze frame of it, ... the unbeliveable speed didn't distort it's shape in any way, it was a perfect sphere.

[edit on 15-1-2010 by IntastellaBurst]

reply to post by IntastellaBurst
Curious, did the one you saw have a darker center than the outer edges? Mine in the best way I can describe it is it looked like the iris of an eyeball with a darker inner circle like the pupil. All white on "iris".



[edit on 15-1-2010 by timewalker]

Originally posted by IntastellaBurst
Living near an air force base I always thought it would be pretty unlikely for me to ever witness a UFO. I mean, doesn't the Gov. shoot them down ??

According to some people, there was a general order to shoot at UFOs in 1952, when they appeared to be a threat. Apparently, though, it didn't do any good, which you might imagine if these things are really not in our particular dimension or spacetime, or have advanced defense capatilities.

After that, it was decided to just track them but otherwise leave them alone. They don't appear to want to attack us or take over our country or the world. They're no threat to national security. They just seem to be either passing through or observing.

That's what some people say, anyway. Maybe that's changed since 9/11.

reply to post by 2000 Yards
That was my (experience) impression about them. Extra dimensional. The one I saw just faded out. Not solid.

reply to post by timewalker


No, these are just plain ole white. all the way through. like a big ass flying flourescent light bulb or something.

I'ts no wonder they have a hard time shooting them down, ... these thing's probably travel faster than the projectile itself.

Originally posted by ScRuFFy63
Well I'd say the majority of meteors in that video had at least small tails. only the very slow moving ones looked similar to what I and I'm assuming the op saw. The problem is I only say 1 example in the vid that even came close.(1:26) but even that one left an "after effect"

My thing is the speed this thing was going on a clear night sky, where you can clearly see even the faintest cloud, it should have left some kind of sign that it was there.

For sure, most did have at least short tails, but then most examples in that compilation were exceptionally bright meteors (which are much more likely to have tails).

In some cases, there there was no significant tail, but pieces breaking off can make it look that way, and that is something that you do not always see.

As well as the one at 1:26 that you pointed out, the meteor about 35 seconds in has no tail, initially at least.

How bright would you say yours was? As bright as Venus or the Moon perhaps?

Also, how much, or even if you see a tail at all can be severely affected by the amount of light pollution/observing conditions... I noticed you said it was clear though... but "clear" is a relative and objective term.

Perhaps it was bad wording on my part initially, but a more accurate statement would be that, all meteors have tails, to some degree or other, however, if any tail is perceptible can depend on many variables.

One last example, although it's not a natural meteor (its the reentry of the Stardust Mission), the basic physical principals involved are much the same.


Note how much it has to brighten before a tail starts to appear.

reply to post by IntastellaBurst

I have to say what I saw looked nothing like whats in that video.

It was going waaaaay faster than any of those meteor's. It did not leave a trail, ... it did not burn out, ... the intensity of it's light was only altered by its travel.

Most of the meteors on that video compilation were quite slow in terms of what a meteor is capable of, and the compilation was only to demonstrate that some meteors may not have an apparent tail.

As I said, every meteor is unique, and I have personally seen meteors do just as you say, as well as many other things in between... and yes, even bright ones that don't seem to illuminate the sky around them in any way... or distort or change shape.

To me on a few occasions, meteors have almost appeared to be like slightly oval solid objects (always Earthgrazers), and if I had not known, I might have thought they were not meteors, and wondered what they were. I have also seen fast, and perfect spheres, although at the upper end of the speed range, a meteor will be so fast that can only see a streak.

Who knows, maybe you saw something else, but I have seen lots of meteors since I became interested in them over a decade ago (probably somewhere between 10-15,000), and your description fits a meteor.

As I said, don't take my world for it... these are all things you can check yourself.

Watch a few showers at least before you decide that what you saw could not have been a meteor, and don't be so quick to discount things that you may not be so experienced in, if you are really that interested in finding out what you saw and not out to proclaim yourself as a "first hand witness of unexplainable events", which is the way you are coming across IMHO.

Just my 2p...

Originally posted by timewalker

 

did the one you saw have a darker center than the outer edges? Mine in the best way I can describe it is it looked like the iris of an eyeball with a darker inner circle like the pupil. All white on "iris".

That sounds like some kind of optical illusion to me.

Have you ever had an eye injury from looking at an extremely bright light source like the Sun or a laser?

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.

Most of the meteors on that video compilation were quite slow in terms of what a meteor is capable of, and the compilation was only to demonstrate that some meteors may not have an apparent tail.

As I said, every meteor is unique, and I have personally seen meteors do just as you say, as well as many other things in between... and yes, even bright ones that don't seem to illuminate the sky around them in any way... or distort or change shape.

To me on a few occasions, meteors have almost appeared to be like slightly oval solid objects (always Earthgrazers), and if I had not known, I might have thought they were not meteors, and wondered what they were. I have also seen fast, and perfect spheres, although at the upper end of the speed range, a meteor will be so fast that can only see a streak.

Who knows, maybe you saw something else, but I have seen lots of meteors since I became interested in them over a decade ago (probably somewhere between 10-15,000), and your description fits a meteor.

As I said, don't take my world for it... these are all things you can check yourself.

Watch a few showers at least before you decide that what you saw could not have been a meteor, and don't be so quick to discount things that you may not be so experienced in, if you are really that interested in finding out what you saw and not out to proclaim yourself as a "first hand witness of unexplainable events", which is the way you are coming across IMHO.

Just my 2p...

When I saw the "ufo" I was facing south and the line it traveled was southwest of my position. So while my line of sight wasn't 100% perpendicular I definitely would have been able to see any kind of trail.

It did not illuminate anything b/c there was nothing to illuminate around it. The few wisps of clouds there were, were in a different area. No distortions or shape changes.



Look all I can do is tell you what I saw. This was just last night so the memory is still 100% fresh. I'm not saying for a fact it wasn't a meteor but if it was it was one strange meteor.

[edit on 15-1-2010 by ScRuFFy63]

I did a little research on my area and it seems California has had lot's of UFO activity over the years, ....

I actually found claims of a UFO shooting down a rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base, which is five minutes away.

thenightsky.org...

I'm also 2 hours from The Catalina Islands, which is rumored to have an underwater USO base, ... and was featured in " UFO Files" when a man reported that his small airplane was shot down by a USO floating on the surface of water. the strange thing about that case is, the man doesn't remember how he got out of the plane, and when diver's went down and found it, .... the seatbelt was still buckled !

reply to post by ScRuFFy63


I think you may have missed that my reply there was to IntastellaBurst


I will say this though, to expand on what I've said...

Meteors are strange period!

Heck, it's extra terrestrial material slamming into our atmosphere at speeds that range from the lower end at about 11 km/s (24,606 mph) to 71 km/s (158,832 mph) for the ones that originate in our solar system, and in the case of intergalactic meteoroids there has been at least one case where the speed has been measured at 300km/s (671,040 mph).

You get all kinds of strange effects when even something the size of a walnut, and weighing less than a pin slams into our atmosphere at that kind of speed, and we still have not been able to explain them all, like strange sounds that people hear simultaneously whilst seeing some meteors for example.

That is an example of one rare characteristic, but one quite common thing that people report is seeing a meteor land/crash near by, when the meteor has later been proved to be much further away at the time.

To cut to the chase, our brains are hard wired to deal with situations you and I encounter on the ground and in every day life, which occur usually in close proximity to us, and with visual cues like other objects and shadows which interact and allow our brains to give us fairly accurate estimates of distance, direction and speed.

A light in the sky however, has few if any of those things to help our brains work out what is going on, so they default to what they know must be true ie. bright objects must be closer than dim objects, but that is only true on the ground, so our brain has misjudged.

In the same way, we find it hard to tell which direction it's moving, a bit like the Necker cube. Is the cube sloping down to the left or up to the right?

Finally, it turns out that color and brightness can have an effect on how far away something appears.

Source: www.yorku.ca

All these things can confuse and "disorient" the unwary, making meteors seem like they can do things that they think a meteor should not be able to do.

So yes, meteors can often seem strange... and I am not even presuming that I or others have seen (or heard!) everything when it comes to meteors, which is one of the reasons they are so fascinating to observe...