Sky Lanterns - The Begining of the End in UK?

There's been a plethora of UFO reports associated with the release of 'Chinese' lanterns (correct term is Sky Lanterns). Many ATS discussions have highlighted the unnecessary confusion these gizmos can create and that UFOlogy would benefit from a ban on their use.

In the UK, farmers are also calling for a ban. Apparently, cattle have almost died after eating the remains of old lanterns and they are certainly a fire hazard (as I can attest to from personal experience). Lantern manufacturers say they are developing 'biodegradable' versions which don't contain wire. So that's alright then.

More here:

WG3

Well, if they ban them hopefully more people will see the true reality of this most incredible phenomenon: not all these orange lights are lanterns at all! Some of them are indeed real UFO orbs mate.

www.dailymotion.com...

I was aware of the fire hazard, and I thought that alone should be enough to get them banned, and biodegradability won't help that problem.

I honestly never considered that livestock might eat the things, I thought animals were smarter than that but I guess not.

If they ban these and swamp gas, skeptics are going to start running out of excuses

I don't think you can ban something just because some people think they may be Alien Spacecraft .
I think the onus is on the viewer to discriminate between what is obviously a Sky Lantern and what may be an Alien Spacecraft.

they might be a firehazard but that is no need to ban them.

Fireworks are much much much more dangerous.

How often have you seen in the headlines "truck carrying chinese lanterns, spontainiously combusts.."

I was at a party where lanterns were released. One launched normally, but it decided not to follow the rest straight up and proceeded to drift sideways at a height of 20-30 feet. It climbed upwards very slowly, but soon encountered a very large chestnut tree into which it got trapped some 50 feet up. The tree was two hundred meters from us and it seemed almost impossible that a lantern would stay low enough to hit it. Yet it did. Below the tree was a range of stables, etc with livestock bedded down for the night. Luckily the lantern burned itself out without drama, but I was sure the tree was ready to conflagrate at any moment and I've never been so scared in my life. Never again.

Launching a flaming aerial device in an urban area and completely uncontrolled is mind bogglingly foolhardy. These 'toys' are just as dangerous as fireworks if not more so. The flaming wick burns with 2 foot long flames and is impossible to put out. Once released, they may go upwards or drift sideways and there's absolutely nothing you can do if they misbehave. Sheer common sense says they should be banned under health and safety regulations. Any benefit to UFOlogy is purely coincidental.

WG3

reply to post by waveguide3


Very well said. Its one thing releasing them on a beach with a light off shore wind and quite another to release them in a city with all the swirling winds caused by buildings .Its only a matter of time before these things cause a death in a house fire.In my opinion they are far more dangerous than fireworks.As was mentioned they have a naked flame that will only go out when burnt out and if it comes into contact with anything flammable will be very likely to set it ablaze. I think the problem will come from mindless people letting them go from small suburban gardens on nights when the wind is too strong and with no thought to what will happen if they are caught in a down draught or crosswind.

reply to post by waveguide3


well whos fault would that have been if the worse happened?

you should take into account these things. if you cannot asses the risks of releasing them where you are then you should not have them, full stop.

Originally posted by MR BOB
reply to post by waveguide3

 

well whos fault would that have been if the worse happened?

you should take into account these things. if you cannot asses the risks of releasing them where you are then you should not have them, full stop.

And who is capable of assessing all the risks? By setting such a lantern aloft, you are putting essentially an open flame at the mercy of unpredictable wind currents, and if they are unpredictable, how can you predict what will happen after you release them? Even if you are on the beach and the breeze at ground level is blowing out to sea, it would be a mistake to assume the breeze at higher altitudes is also blowing out to sea, as it could in fact be blowing the opposite direction back over land and what you thought was a safe launch based on wind direction turns out to be unsafe.

In addition to the threat of fire, and to livestock or animals (sea creatures if launched over the ocean), there is a third concern about these lanterns: The threat to aviation, which has resulted in Chinese lanterns being banned in, of all places, China:

Why Did China Ban Traditional Flying Lanterns?

Traditional flying lanterns were first used by soldiers in ancient China who released the paper lamps lighted by candles into the night sky as a military signal.

This primitive version of a hot-air balloon was known as “kong ming deng,” or kongming lanterns, named after a legendary Chinese strategist who used them about 1,800 years ago.

So it came as somewhat of a surprise to the Chinese public when the police in the resort city of Sanya declared that the flying lanterns posed a threat to civil aviation.

A police official told state media the flying lamps disrupted airline schedules by delaying 61 flights this year at Sanya’s international airport. As a result, a citywide ban on the sale and use of these lanterns took effect this week.

If you launch a sky lantern which ends up burning down my house, I will sue you (and I've never sued anyone for anything before). Your excuses that you couldn't predict that the wind direction would change after you launched it won't be a defense, you already know wind directions can change and be unpredictable.

[edit on 1-2-2010 by Arbitrageur]

I never realized how these lanterns have become something popular. To be honest with you that before coming to this site, I have never seen one or known someone that did use them.

Originally posted by deanorw
I never realized how these lanterns have become something popular. To be honest with you that before coming to this site, I have never seen one or known someone that did use them.

I have seen the lanterns on two occasions last year, on both times it was a solitary lantern. Which has lead me to believe that people are now just lighting them randomly for fun. I live in a semi rural area with plenty of farms with large hay barns around . Anyway you get the picture

I have seen sky lanterns on a regular basis here in southern england, and to be honest, its wearing a little thin. People looking into the sky and shouting "WOT IS DAT MAN? I AINT NEVA SEEN ANYFIN LIKE DAT BEFORE?!".
Its getting to the stage where Im thinking about all the ways that the lantern makers could just be messing with us sky watchers. In any case, I cant believe that these things havent come under more scrutiny regarding litter laws in this country. Even if they had no wires, and were biodegradable , Im sure they pose a risk to public safety. What if one landed on a cars windscreen on a motorway? Or became entangled with a low flying light aircraft?
The list of horrific possibilities is endless!

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

I honestly never considered that livestock might eat the things, I thought animals were smarter than that but I guess not.

I could send you a dog that eats safety pins.....

As for the lanterns, I don't think he's tried one of those yet.

I personally think they are dangerous, I've seen many being let off at weddings heading straight for fields with livestock in them, the worst places I've seen them being used is Festivals like Glastonbury, they are banned there but people still insist on releasing them over the festival area, an area covered in flammable tents with people sleeping in them… stands to reason it's not a great place to let off lanterns… I'd like to see them banned or if not totally banned then restricted on places your allowed to release them.

I fear the only way the UK Government will act to ban these dangerous things is following a tragedy involving loss of life. A tragedy will happen though, it's virtually certain.

WG3

reply to post by waveguide3


Yeah I agree, it's like the policy for bad junctions or an area of road that is a known black spot for accidents in the UK, there has to be a certain amount of fatal accidents for it to be changed or reconfigured, you would have thought common sense would work with the case of Lanterns though, let's hope no one losses their life through them before the Gov wakes up to the potential for an accident these things can cause.

Not only are they a menace for farmers, many are unaware that its illegal to release these FIREWORKS (which they are categorically) into Controlled Airspace without first giving a NOTAM to local airfields, or informing Lifeboat Crews of the intended release time and location (aswell as having the landowners permission to do so.)

I'm just surprised no-ones been killed in a light aircraft yet from one of these things, ingested into the Engine or becoming jammed into the Control Surfaces would mean a serious situation onboard for the pilot/s.

BAN THEM I personally say.

reply to post by hermantinkly




You know what video you linked to looks like a camp fire outside a tent
funny how when the so called orb vanished they did not go over for a closer look at where it was. Another poor quality video with digtal zoom.

Originally posted by wmd_2008
reply to post by hermantinkly

 

You know what video you linked to looks like a camp fire outside a tent
funny how when the so called orb vanished they did not go over for a closer look at where it was. Another poor quality video with digtal zoom.

A camp fire at 5 am in the morning with no people around seems a bit odd don't you think!? Geez mate c'mon lol. But seriously, that was actually filmed by member ufoorbhunter after a mass sighting of similar lightships, as well as ones that were coloured blue, purple, green, and white, earlier on in their walk. There's 29 minute footage of the mass sigthting too, but it's low quality as it was filmed with a cellular phone and the compression messed up the quality when he uploaded it to Google Video (hasn't yet found the time to break it into parts and upload it onto Dailymotion, where it's original quality remains). Happened on The Tissington Trail in the Derby Pennines of England. Five days earlier he had another sighting in which he stood nearly four feet away from one of the lightships which morphed into a this white halogen Jesus light of indescribable beauty and was surrounded by same coloured pairs of lightships above him that formed a circle. There was also a white lightship about the size of a football pitch which buzzed him four times and rained on him these thin strands of some wool like substance. I always use his video when Chinese Lanterns are mentioned as explanations to show how the real UFO lightships look in contrast to the actual Chinese lanterns. As I have said and as you have probably already come to know, not all the orange lights in the sky are lanterns!

Last September I had my sightings in Birmingham of the exact same type of lightships, but they were bluish in colour ad were multiplying above my neighbours roof. All the details of his UFO sighting have corroborated exactly with mines,. The lightships were pulsing from the centre like jellyfish with fiery heatbeats and were spinning on their axises like globes. Reminiscent of the stories in the Bible, especially Ezekial's Wheel. I personally have come to believe that these lightships are one and the same.

Oh by the way, I think it was in 2003 that a woman also living in Derby recorded a similar lightship of the white type. Look at her footage here (it's the same lightship filmed over the span of three days): www.youtube.com... Turns out there's a stone circle not too far (Arbor Low) which located at the apex of these intesecting ley lines. Our theory is that they utilize the ley lines as highways to travel in out of some type of dimensional portal, which I believe is located at the stone circle itself. The lightships do seem to be multi-dimensional, because when you stare at them from a close distance they seem to flicker all the colours of light from the electromagnetic light spectrum (colours from a rainbow). They don't seem to be from this third dimensional plane of reality!



[edit on 2-2-2010 by hermantinkly]

Just a couple of pointers here:

These things come with instructions. Read them.
In the UK, they are classified under the same regulations as fireworks, so are not available to under 18s (as if thats going to stop them being sold)

This is more of a health & safety thread rather anything to do with aliens. I'm getting a slight impression here that you personally have been fooled by them, and you're giving a knee jerk reaction to it.

Waveguide3, theyre not impossible to put out, and despite you may think, its more foolhardy to launch rockets and other fireworks. The principle of hot air balloons is that hot air rises, therefore, when its cool, it lands. Again, as with most things, safety is in the instructions and if followed they are quite safe.

TrueBrit, if it landed on a windscreen on a motorway, then it would blow off. A bit like a carrier bag, except without the name of a local superstore.

Arbitrageur, again read the instructions, they're not to be launched with in 5 miles of an airport, and if they're released near the coast, then the coast guard does need to be informed.

The ones me and my family set off at New year were biodegradable, and the site of the Manchester skyline with these floating around was great.

To be honest, I thought you'd be happy with a bunch of people going out at night and staring at the sky!

The last thing we need is the Nanny State stomping on another bit of fun. If you don't like them, don't use them. If you do use them, read the instructions, follow the instructions and have fun!