Very interesting admission from NASA - any ideas as to what this object could be?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/...00/1363848.stm

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ian R on 2002-02-17 15:30 ]</font>

This does not belong in "General Astronomy".
Maybe "Bad TV!, Bad Movie!, No Doughnut!" or "Against the Mainstream".

_________________
When all is said and done - sit down and shut up!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kaptain K on 2002-02-17 16:08 ]</font>

Good point - BA can you move it? I keep getting this error message:

"You are not the moderator of this forum therefore you cannot perform this function."

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ian R on 2002-02-17 16:24 ]</font>

Let's not be too hasty. If it turns out to be real then all the UFO stuff will have to be moved into this forum.

That picture looks like an out of focus point source to me, like a star, planet or even distant airplane. That's a classic shape. Her comment about having a "bit taken out of it" also sounds like it's just out of focus; I have seen that a lot in images like this.

I am not sure what causes it. In a lot of amateur video, they try to zoom in on a distant source. If they zoom too fast, the focus doesn't follow. I have done this myself with shots of stars and the Space Shuttle through a video camera. When you see the out-of-focus object, it sometimes has a notch in it. It must have to do with the shape of the camera's internal mechanisms. I'll ask around.

The part about NASA buying it sounds really fishy to me. Note that it says NASA officials "are said" to want the tape. Said by whom? The tape's owner? Feh.

My first impression of the picture on the BBC page was of an out of focus fancy glass serving tray.

Kizarvexis

Even the term "UFO" may be anachronistic by now, what she saw is a true UFO (an unidentified flying object) Whether it was flying, we do not know. Whether it was a screw up in the videotape, we don't know. Whether it was an unexplained weather phenomemon...we don't know. And whtether it was truly unidentifed to ALL (including governments) of us....we don't know. Whether almost all of us people say we don't know..it means that the other percantile in the "99.99999999% chance range get to say we DO know. The true scienists get to say: It was something normal that we haven't got to yet, but we are getting to it, thank you to you for showing it to us. Well that means that the .000000001 that doesn't agree, that there is proof of ET's on Earth (simply because we cannot prove it untrue...get the t shirt marketing device Ready!)

Sheesh, get it through your heads, I am a stupid stupid monkey but even I figured out that if ET's came here to our planet that one of 3 things would happen:

1) We would NOT know of it. Use your history knowledge, if people from planet Earth circa 2002 ACE visited people of Planet Earth circa 0002 ACE, we could pretty well blend in or use technology to not be observed. And doing that would expand our current stealth technology. Give us a couple more thousand years.... and what will us chimps be capable of?

2) Any civilization capable of crossing the void, using either physical or FTL technoligies would be so far advanced that we would be the proverbial "lab rats under observation" to them. This follows point 1 and again (we are the center of the universe, we are the center of anything, etc.) follows a point of reasoning of "why would an alien race care?" Or do we anthromorphise them into being human and giving a darn about us? They are alien remember...and alien , last I knew, meant not being from a certain point of view. Aliens to humanity means not BEING human! They won't act like us.

3) The universe. Big place. Our planet. Small place. Lots of weird stuff we cannot even expound on in the universe, agreed? Should such material come in unobserved from "outer space" and impact our atsomophere...all kinda weird things could happen. It could have been a cosmically large ball of snot from a galitic travelling space turtle (one carrying four elephants on its back no less) that just happed to hit our atmosomphere and behave differently. Okay, maybe that ain't it (I am dealing in the .000000001 percantile here) but sheesh......

(point #4: the end of the world type: shouldn't be used, but what makes us think aliens would be friendly? Too many examples of human culture to recite, and since aliends act so humanly as UFO's...well they could be barbaric suckers just like us)

Big brains of the BABBP, please snap me down and beat me with better responses with your science and reasoning for two reasons:

1) to teach me more and give more logic to my common sense
and
2) help people realize that if UFO's are amongst us, we'd never know it (at least not until not too late)

Cripes, figuring out the universe wasn't hard enough for astronmers...so people gotta throw in this stuff... Live long and prosper. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ChallegedChimp on 2002-02-17 22:15 ]</font>

It has always bothered me that people say "UFO" when they mean "Assumed Alien Spacecraft."


That is, we won't act like them! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

It was an extra donut thrown out by the dieting captain of the nearby Vogon Constructor Fleet.

It is a bit amusing that many people immediately assume that technologically advanced races would be peaceful. It seems just as likely to me that the way they get so advanced is by killing off their racial chaff and by not putting ethical restrictions on their scientists' experiments. A truly Nietzschean race, in which (as he seems to prefer) the "overflowing physicality" of the Master Morality is combined with the intellectualism of the Slaves to yield a species that loves "war and dancing."

Tsk tsk... Since when did Vogons diet?!

What could be more improbable than that?!

This common misconception was lampooned in "Mars Attacks", in which the stereotypical "scientist" character, Prof. Donald Kessler, insists that the advanced Martian civilization would surely have left violence far behind.

Needless to say, his assumptin proved to be slightly incorrect...

Umm, I hate to have to say this (no, I don't, actually [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img] ), but I have a Dutch oven at home which has a removable metal plate inside that looks like that UFO's twin brother-thing (although I have to take my glasses off to get it to look that blurry). If the Derbyshire housewife happens to have the same, or similar, model of Dutch oven, she could have had her husband/neighbor/friend fling it up into the air while she filmed it out-of-focus.

It's difficult to tell if the middle section of the Beeb's report, "Hovering in sky", is a description based on a Beeb reporter actually viewing the video, or merely a retelling of what Ms. Rowlands says is on the video. After all, she's sold it to a Hollywood producer; what are the odds that said producer wants anyone else to see it until he's done what he wants with it?

We need two things, neither of which I can help with: (1) someone to check around with NASA to see if they really have asked to see this video, or even know about it; and (2) someone to check with the Beeb to see if anyone there has actually watched the video or merely reported what they were told about it.

I did do a search on the Beeb's site for any other stories (i.e., a follow-up) with the name "Sharon Rowlands" in them, with no luck. Since this was reported 8 months ago, and nothing has been said since, I'm smelling something like an 8-month-old fish.

The (skeptical, moi?) Curtmudgeon

Maybe you should take a shower . . . [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

__________________
SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Looks like a lens aberration in the camera or more likely an out of focus light source.

The lady stated: "As it hovered over the woods, it seemed to expand and then get smaller again."

I saw a marvelous effect years ago from Phoenix, Arizona. A missile was being fired up from Vandenberg heading west over the Pacific. As it ascended up over the western horizon, the rocket motor (facing toward me in Arizona) produced a bright point of light in the sky that then visually expanded into a large circular shape not unlike the "object" on the BBC report. However, I don't think British scientists or the RAF are firing missiles from the UK as far as I know, so I'll go with the out of focused aircraft or early evening star. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

I have very poor eyesight (without correction). If I take off my glasses and look at a point light source (such as a Christmas tree light or distant streetlight), what I see is exactly like this mystery object.

What's more, it "seems to expand and then shrink again" as the lens in my eye tries vainly to bring the object into focus.

It's my opinion that this lady should (a) learn to use her video camera, and/or (b) see an opthalmologist.

This thing looks an awful lot like some snow flake Christmas decorations I hang on the trees outside my house. They're a white plastic framework with white (each is a different color) mini-lights on them. A defocused exposure of one of these things would look ALOT like this pic.

My vote; it's a hoax. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

__________________
It's just one of those damn things of which there are many few. -- Dan Blocker

A more detailed article:

http://www.geocities.com/phonecards_1999/ukufo.html

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Here's a full color photo from Caltech! (Isn't the internet wonderful?) [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

I could make a better UFO than that in Photoshop.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Simon on 2002-02-19 16:23 ]</font>

Well, hey, go for it! She got 20,000 pounds for hers. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]