UFO questions

kittynh

Penultimate Amazing
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Once again, a huge black triangle...with lights. We have sound and near an airport.

Any guesses?

Anyway, thought I'd share for help.

............................................................

Around the summer time in 2000 or so, I saw a strange UFO. I was inside my house at the time, when I heard a loud airplane sound, it was loud enough that it shook my house more than it usually would.

I live in the traveling area of a nearby airport so I am familiar with jumbo jets and small planes flying low overhead.

I was wanting to go look at the plane because I like flying and it was supposedly really low. When I stepped outside, I looked up and I saw a massively large black colored triangle flying through the air. There were multicolored lights scattered across the bottom of it,the types of lights you would see on a Christmas tree I would guess, and it was more than 8 times the size of the low flying jumbo jet that I tend to see.

What I don't understand is that all of the other reports I have researched on large black triangles, is that there are either no lights, or three white lights on the corners, and that it is silent.

Why have I not found any other reports like mine? What is this? Can you tell me any information about this?
 
Nice story. What part of this is supposed to be real?

Who's telling the story?
When exactly did it happen?
Where exactly did it happen?
How did the story teller actually determine the size of an unknown aircraft at an unknown height?
What physical evidence exists to corroborate this story?
How do we know the story teller wasn't simply drunk, high, hallucinating or lying?

Every bit of this story sounds fake.

:cool:
 
I would like to draw attention to the words underneath Snoopy in the OP.
 
kittynh said:
Once again, a huge black triangle...with lights. We have sound and near an airport.

Any guesses?

Anyway, thought I'd share for help.

............................................................

Around the summer time in 2000 or so, I saw a strange UFO. I was inside my house at the time, when I heard a loud airplane sound, it was loud enough that it shook my house more than it usually would.

I live in the traveling area of a nearby airport so I am familiar with jumbo jets and small planes flying low overhead.

I was wanting to go look at the plane because I like flying and it was supposedly really low. When I stepped outside, I looked up and I saw a massively large black colored triangle flying through the air. There were multicolored lights scattered across the bottom of it,the types of lights you would see on a Christmas tree I would guess, and it was more than 8 times the size of the low flying jumbo jet that I tend to see.

What I don't understand is that all of the other reports I have researched on large black triangles, is that there are either no lights, or three white lights on the corners, and that it is silent.

Why have I not found any other reports like mine? What is this? Can you tell me any information about this?
Click to expand...

This is a very interesting report. The fact that no one else seems to have reported this massive, highly unusual, and conspicuous object -- despite it being summer when lots of people are outside, and near a fairly busy regional airport (I'm assuming Manchester) -- makes me think there's a good chance of some misidentification going on, particularly in terms of the object's size. I have a hard time imagining how something eight times the size of a low flying jumbo jet could possibly be completely missed by all other local residents, pilots, air traffic control, etc.
 
So why can't it just be an aircraft, viewed under unusual circumstances?
 
I'm with LTC8K6. If it is dark enough to only see the lights and not the actual craft one might connect the lights in the mind into a large craft. And a group of military aircraft -- planes or helicopters -- sound different than a regular commercial jet. That would be my speculation.

Of course a date, location, time would be helpful but there is nothing to do here but speculate.
 
mike3 said:
So why can't it just be an aircraft, viewed under unusual circumstances?
Click to expand...

The most likely explanation. It made "a loud airplane sound" consistent with it being an airplane. It was "more than 8 times the size of the low flying jumbo jet that I tend to see". If it was closer to the ground than usual it would sound louder and appear louder.

Was it nighttime? Maybe it only appeared to be a "black triangle". Although there are some planes that appear to be black triangles, like a B-2 or an F-117.
 
nonews said:
I'm with LTC8K6. If it is dark enough to only see the lights and not the actual craft one might connect the lights in the mind into a large craft. And a group of military aircraft -- planes or helicopters -- sound different than a regular commercial jet. That would be my speculation.
Click to expand...
That was my thought too. A number of aircraft flying in formation fairly high up, rather than a single aircraft low down.
 
thank you, my thought exactly.

I do get a lot of UFO's of the triangular shape reported. Think Belgium and the Arizona flares (I refuse to believe those weren't flares).

I love how someone thinks they can look up in the sky, and guesstimate size. You can't.
 
kittynh said:
I love how someone thinks they can look up in the sky, and guesstimate size. You can't.
Click to expand...

Sure you can! Just need a stationary point, like a tree or tower for reference, then compare observed speed to expected speed to get an estimate of altitude, then you can use that data to determine it's actual size to apparent size. Of course, this requires a little bit of trigonometry and an estimate of speed better than, "a thousand miles an hour!!!!!", which may both be beyond the average UFO fanatics capabilities...
 
Crazycowbob said:
Sure you can! Just need a stationary point, like a tree or tower for reference, then compare observed speed to expected speed to get an estimate of altitude, then you can use that data to determine it's actual size to apparent size. Of course, this requires a little bit of trigonometry and an estimate of speed better than, "a thousand miles an hour!!!!!", which may both be beyond the average UFO fanatics capabilities...
Click to expand...

If you know the object's size, you can guesstimate its distance. Or, if you know its distance, you can guesstimate its size. But looking straight up "overhead" as the OP said, there's no way to guess both size and distance of an unknown object.

Like the others have said, the first most likely explanations are mundane aircraft lower than normal, or multiple aircraft in tight formation, giving the appearance of a single object.

:cool:
 
If the object you're looking at goes in front of or behind something of known size and distance, eg the tops of the trees or a distant mountain, you can narrow down the possibilities. Otherwise there is no way to tell the difference between a small near object and a far distant one. That's why fireflies, Chinese lanterns, satellites and astronomical objects have all been mistaken for aircraft-sized objects at a few thousand feet.
 
kittynh said:
thank you, my thought exactly.

I do get a lot of UFO's of the triangular shape reported. Think Belgium and the Arizona flares (I refuse to believe those weren't flares).

I love how someone thinks they can look up in the sky, and guesstimate size. You can't.
Click to expand...

If it's the one you meant, the famous Belgian triangle ufo photo was a hoax, so no one saw anything in the sky. :D
 
kittynh said:
thank you, my thought exactly.

I do get a lot of UFO's of the triangular shape reported. Think Belgium and the Arizona flares (I refuse to believe those weren't flares).

I love how someone thinks they can look up in the sky, and guesstimate size. You can't.
Click to expand...

Just as a side note, the 10PM videos of the 1997 Arizona UFOs were flares. However, there was an earlier event around 8-8:30PM, where a formation of lights transited the state from north to south. These were not flares but it is highly likely that they were a formation of aircraft flying a standard air route (are UFOs required to follow standard air routes?) to Tuscon. Their altitude and formation gave the impression of a massive flying triangle. Evaluation of the initial reports indicate about 1/3rd of the witnesses thought they saw a massive triangle with lights. The other 2/3rds saw a formation of lights with no massive craft behind them indicating they were individual lights (the only video of this event shows the lights changing formation). Guess which ones got all the air time on the television programs?

As for this sighting, there aren't enough details to properly evaluate it. No location, no specific date, and no specific time makes it almost impossible to see if others reported something in the MUFON/NUFORC databases or determine if there are any potential explanations.
 
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kittynh said:
thank you, my thought exactly.

I do get a lot of UFO's of the triangular shape reported. Think Belgium and the Arizona flares (I refuse to believe those weren't flares).
I love how someone thinks they can look up in the sky, and guesstimate size. You can't.
Click to expand...

(highlighted)
Yup, that tickled my fancy too. As soon as I saw '8 times larger' I thought how on earth would you gauge that?
We could debate the liklihood of UFO's all day, one side espousing The Drake Equation, the other, Fermi's Paradox and we'd get nowhere, fast. Pointless exercise in futility and all that.

I am two thirds of the way through this book at the moment:

and It's staggeringly detailed and enlightening. To be fair and for the reasons stated above, I'm not really all that interested in debating with UFOlogists per se, but can and will endorse this book.
 
I've had a UK PPL since 2008. You cannot work out something in the sky's size unless you have it parked beside something.

A Boeing 777-300ER (a massively long plane) looks as big as a baby gnat when it's overhead at 35K feet. Standing beside it, it dominates your field of vision. That's why we have things like ATIS, METAR and TAF to tell us how high clouds are for example.

Simply looking up and making a guesstimate will usually be completely inaccurate. My FI pointed to a cloud and asked me to guess it's altitude. I guessed about 3k feet, the actual result (from the METAR/ATIS) was 1k feet. This was the point he was trying to make about looking up and plucking a figure out of the air (pun intended).
 
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