I don’t know what I am looking at exactly, but it is a little peculiar.

The story behind the clip is that it was filmed from the FLIR (Forward Looking Infra-red) camera mounted on a Long Beach, CA police helicopter. Someone claimed that it “could not be seen visually and that it didn’t have any sort of radar signal.”

I haven’t seen many recordings of actual FLIR footage, so there is no way for me to discern whether or not this is a hoax. Hopefully someone here will be able to find out whether or not it is genuine.

I believe it is some sort of space junk falling back to earth, which is why it appears to have the “dripping” effect. At the end of the film it seems to move very quickly over the horizon. I am fairly ignorant when it comes to things entering our atmosphere so I could be way off.

If it were not space junk, I would lean toward the idea that it’s a meteorite, satellite, or the result of some kind of missile test. Obviously, I don’t believe it to be some sort of alien craft. I’m only sticking to the term “UFO” in its most fundamental context.

Can anyone help me figure out what this thing is, or confirm my assumption that it’s something falling out of orbit?

Click here for video
(3 min. 46 sec. in length. No audio. Some of the viewer comments may contain profanity.)

__________________
- JRR

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge." - [Daniel Boorstein]

I doubt it's re-entrant orbital debris. Space junk follows a ballistic trajectory and moves very fast. If pieces break off, they don't move much faster or slower than the main object. Here the breakaway pieces fall essentially straight down from what appears to be a relatively stationary object.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Hm, that is really strange then.

Would it be much of a stretch for me to believe this was a hoax in that case? It's the only other thing I can think of...

__________________
- JRR

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge." - [Daniel Boorstein]

Jason Roberts. Swamp gas. Definitely swamp gas like the coeds saw. Might have been mixed with a flock of geese, too. Never trust those cops. Or, the planet Venus, it's hot there, and if it's covered with lead, that'd melt and be flung off into space landing in the ocean off Long Beach. Yup. Bioluminescence...that's it. Aerial mushroom farm growing psilocybin in Mexico, and they're averting border contradiction with the Coast Guard with diabolical treachery using hot air balloons...I bet the fish in the proximate Pacific are seeing things,too!
Seriously. I had lunch with Mrs J. Allen Hynek at Walker Hall at the Mufon Convention at MIT years ago. She, MUFON, Stanton Friedmann, and a host of others would dearly like to know physically what was "dripping" there....hardware brings big interest.
But, as a betting man, I'll bet a hot fudge sundae somebody showed up and cleaned that ocean bottom shortly after the video, just like they did at Steven Sheldon's grandfather's farm near Conway, NH, when something blew out ALL the windows in his house and barn, and a twenty foot circle in the frozen cow pond. The military sealed off ALL the roads, sent in divers and retrieved what was probably a Soviet RTG satellite from the pond in which most of the ice melted over the next day, though it was below freezing .
Good luck with your anomaly.Pete.

P.S. All the trees on the edge of the pond died the next spring, and the cows refused the water. Evidently gave em a tummyache. Everybody has a few anecdotes.Ciao.

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A third rate theory forbids
A second rate theory explains after the fact
A first rate theory predicts...A. Lomonosov

That's a flare. Possibly an IR flare that doesn't give off visible light.

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

I agree. It's a parachute-flare, with the hot ash falling from it. I once saw, on infrared, someone flicked a cigarette off the bridge wing of a ship. It was astonishingly bright. Very neat video. Thanks, Jason!

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"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

I think this is the best answer I've gotten, so far.

As for the rotating 'globule' at one point in the film, I'm assuming that just might have something to do with how flares work/burn. (I don't know as I've never seen one up close.)

I'm not sure how the high rate of speed can be explained at the end, so it could always be a trick of perception, I suppose.

I am begining to lean towards the idea of this being a flare of some kind, too...

__________________
- JRR

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge." - [Daniel Boorstein]

Looks like some kind of rocket or flare.

As for the rotating 'globule' at one point in the film, I'm assuming that just might have something to do with how flares work/burn. (I don't know as I've never seen one up close.)

They can rotate while on the 'chute.

I'm not sure how the high rate of speed can be explained at the end, so it could always be a trick of perception, I suppose.

Correct again. For most of the video, there is no background from which to judge the relative motion of the object and the camera platform, or how "zoomed-in" the image is. At the end we do get background, and it looks like the platform is moving laterally. With a heavy zoom, the motion looks startlingly fast.

__________________
"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

I think that is an illusion caused by the helicopter passing some nearby clouds.

Wow, this didn't take nearly as long to solve as I thought it might have. I had no idea it was something so simple - But it is.

Now when I see videos similar to this one I will have the advantage of being able to spot flares pretty quickly.

Definitely a flare on a parachute. Case closed.

__________________
- JRR

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge." - [Daniel Boorstein]

Would it be much of a stretch for me to believe this was a hoax in that case? It's the only other thing I can think of...

It looks like a military flare to me, the kind that descend slowly on parachutes.

The telltales at the bottom of the frame give the camera orientation with respect to the helicopter. However we don't know how the helicopter's heading and altitude changed during the sequence so we can't easily derive absolute motion. However, the notion that the object "sped away" at the end isn't supported by my interpretation of the evidence. The camera's relative azimuth doesn't change much. The illusion of motion seems to come from the passage of clouds, which are better explained by horizontal motion of the helicopter than by the camera tracking the object.

The hot object drops hot fragments. This is consistent with flare combustion. The object eventually grows cold and falls into the sea. This is consistent with flare burnout. The length of combustion is also consistent with a flare.

Obviously before we draw any conclusions we want to know as much as possible about this clip. Obviously someone intentionally photographed it with the IR imager. Did he identify it? What did the pilots say?

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

...or how "zoomed-in" the image is.

There is a zoom indicator when the focal length changes, and the telltales give you the approximate field of view. The focal length is pretty long.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

My first guess would be it was a training flare for the FLIR camera person.

Second guess would be a military flare the cops just caught on thier FLIR.

Third guess is that the cop copter was following a drug plane, that was trying to lose thier load after being found out.

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"There is no problem that cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives" - US Army Demolitions School

http://worldsofothersuns.home.comcast.net/

Definitely a flare on a parachute. Case closed.

Looks like a lot of people reached a similar conclusion independently. That object doesn't do anything I haven't seen a military-type flare do.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

I'm going to have to disagree. Look at the date, it's clearly Santa doing a late run and dropping off presents he forgot the previous night. The glow is Rudolph's nose, and anyone that dares claim its not is an elf disinformationist trying to keep Santa a "myth" just for kids. (or perhaps it's a flare)

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

...anyone that dares claim its not is an elf disinformationist...

An invisible elf?

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

D'oh! I guess that was too obvious for me.

__________________
"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

An invisible elf?

Uhuh, you've outed yourself, how would you know that they are invisible unless you have seen one, huh? huh? huh?

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran