Definitely a UFO to Me: Please Offer Input/Opinions of What This Is

I have never been able to get excited about blurred or fuzzy photos, and this unfortunately is one such series of pictures. However, as James Fox said, I know what I saw--and took pictures of. Of all things, my wife had called me and said there was a lot of unusual flight activity circling Carswell Air Force Base and though she is a skeptic, she knew I would be interested. As fate had it, I needed to get to an appointment near the same location shortly myself, so I went a few minutes early to see if I could get meaningful pics of the situation. What my wife and I saw was several airplanes--very large planes, some fighter jets doing what I thought initially were touch and go exercises, and what turned out to be unmarked helicopters.Sure enough, they were circling in a flight pattern neither of us had ever seen before, and I have lived here my entire life. They were systematically widening the circles they were making out from the base in widely spaced pairs. One would fly back over, possibly doing some near touch and go, sometimes not and then begin their circle again. It would take as much as one to five minutes for the next plane to appear, perform the same maneuver, and fly off again. I have never seen as many planes involved in a sequential, one after another "touch and go" exercise, nor any other activity. Eventually my wife wound up in Azle, which is 20+ miles to the west and the same planes were reaching that far, eventually father before turning around. Then the planes were joined by unmarked helicopters flying quite low in comparison to normal helicopter flight, only slightly above the rooftops. I should mention that my best guess is that regardless how far away the planes flew, I don't believe they ever topped 5-7,000 feet in altitude themselves. I stopped the car to take whatever pictures I could with my Galaxy S 4G, worrying the pics wouldn't turn out. After my meeting, which lasted a little less than an hour, they were gone. I immediately contacted a well respected UFO researcher I am privileged to call a close friend and asked if she or her husband could identify the planes or helicopters or even what kind of maneuvers/exercises they were performing. She wrote back telling me I needed to look a lot closer at one of the photos. It seems one of the low flying copters was closing in on an round object I didn't see at all when I took and sent the pics.

That's about my best short description, but it still bothers me. I would have shared sooner, but I had to sit still long enough to learn how to post the pictures in the thread. A while back I promised to keep tabs on Carswell due to a rumor there could be a DUMB there, and in that or any other time I have never seen this type of flying drill. Your opinions are always appreciated, and as time passes it seems to nag at me more and more so I wanted to put this out for your inspection. Hope I can get them uploaded correctly.

First, the cargo (?) planes circling. Why would such large planes be involved in such erratic exercises?


Here is the first picture of one of the unmarked helicopters



A second, harder to see photo of one of the planes:



And here is the one with the object, lower right hand corner:



Finally, as good of a close up as I could manage with my limited computer skills:



Seems to me that it is a metallic sphere. Is that what you guys see?

Thanks for input.

Originally posted by samstone11
... object I didn't see at all when I took and sent the pics.

Personally, I've never been convinced about the legitimacy of any object photographed that the person "didnt see when I took the photos". More likely to be a bird.
According to your photo, its about the size of the tail of the helicopter (or larger), and yet you didnt see it in all the many minutes you were viewing the sky in that same direction.
Therefore: not an actual flying machine.

reply to post by samstone11


Those look like civilian helicopters….

Very interesting, I wish you could have gotten better pix (isn’t that always the case) but who in the heck carries around an awesome camera….I certainly don’t.

Well, it’s not uncommon for UFO activity in North Texas. The thing in your pic looks similar to one of the many Stephenville sightings.

as a man who lives near an AFB.. there's nothing UFO about this.. meaning it's clearly earthly.. not something we can't identify .. ..

I posted once and this duplicated anyway.. delete this ops

Interesting. Any chance you could post the original picture that shows the sphere?

reply to post by alfa1

I can't dispute your suggestion. However, I will say I was trying to get a better picture of the helicopter and I may have called my phone names I shouldn't have in the process. I was entirely focused on the copter and nothing else and in fact very disappointed I didn't get a better aim at it. If I had gotten the helicopter, most likely the "object" would not have ever been seen. I doubt I would have ever given the photo a second look if not for my friend. Thanks for the input, though.

reply to post by VoidHawk

Unless I misunderstand your request, the original is the second to last picture in my first post. If that's not what you need, just let me know.

Nothing can be concluded given the lack of detail and digital distortion in the image. Increase/zooming in a small image file does not actually zoom and provide better detail...it adds pixels were there are none and it tries to guesstimate. Unless you have a high resolution image or video, this could be absolutely anything. A plastic bag floating in the wind, a balloon....etc etc etc.

Originally posted by samstone11
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

Unless I misunderstand your request, the original is the second to last picture in my first post. If that's not what you need, just let me know.

The original would be quite a lot bigger? That pic is about 600px wide, the original would be about 2592, unless you had your camera set to a low resolution?

reply to post by VoidHawk

Sorry for the delay. I had to convert the picture to low resolution in order to upload it to the thread. If there is a better way to do that, please let me know.

The cargo plane is a C-130 Hercules, they do various erratic exercises to practice for Afghan etc just in case they come under fire

The first one I would say is just a civvi helicopter, I can't really see the second one but that doesn't look like anything special either, neither does the disc, it just looks like you've caught a helicopter from head on. I would say that you've just stumbled upon a training exercise

And stop slating him about calling it a UFO!!! UFOs don't necessarily mean aliens, it just means no one knows what it is. No one has explicitly identified what this sphere is, and until they do, it remains a UFO

reply to post by samstone11


Thanks! Looks to be something as simple as a drone test at the local AFB. That is just a guess, just like anyone else. No other hard facts to say otherwise.

Originally posted by ItDepends
reply to post by samstone11

 

Thanks! Looks to be something as simple as a drone test at the local AFB. That is just a guess, just like anyone else. No other hard facts to say otherwise.

It's just too small to tell. Could be anything from a drone to another helicopter pointing at the camera. It seems far away, with the atmospheric haze. Could be large, could be small. Could be a bird.

Whatevz.

Originally posted by samstone11
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

Sorry for the delay. I had to convert the picture to low resolution in order to upload it to the thread. If there is a better way to do that, please let me know.

I think you can just upload the original in the usual way? I've uploaded some quite large pictures like that.
I'm not doubting what you saw, I just want to see if we can get a clearer picture from the original because it DOES look interesting

reply to post by samstone11

looks like what I caught. and believe me it looks much clearer on a large plasma tv than in the youtube video but that's the identical type of object.

reply to post by samstone11


Hi there.

Pretty good photos from your phone of some unusual activity.

What I do like, and its happened on loads of occassions, people who are concentrating on what's happening so much, they ignore what's happening in the corner of their eye.

What ever the object is, we can debate about it into the ground.

But it also adds weight to the possibility that the aircraft where sweeping the area for ufo activity, as per numerous UFO cases.


eee.

reply to post by Esrom Escutcheon Esquire


From the look of the photos you are driving and a good distance away. All in all well done. It is not hard to miss an object like that when you are focused on the copter. Especially when you are driving lol. Living there i agree you should recognize the cargo plane's maneuvers. The way they flew outside of the base when in chase of course is not normal or legal.

There are both state and federal laws they have to abide when flying off base and if they were breaking altitude rules that is a red flag by itself. If they did in fact keep flying that way for miles of base they probably were chasing something.

It will be nice When everyone has the new phone with 41 megapixal cameras lol.

The Bot

reply to post by miniatus

Can you tell us what it is then?

Picture no.1 looks like a Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules transport plane -

en.wikipedia.org...



The helicopters are a landing escort or a film crew.