UFO's in Mick's video [Sunlit, out of focus Insects]

Marine0811

Active Member
I was watching a youtube video posted by Mick when I noticed some ufo's on the video. One appears at 1:26. Two others appear at 1:40. I was curious to know whether Mick or anyone else knows what they are.
I have easily recorded and analyze over a 100 video's of the sky before and have never seen a bird or insect appear and fly as the ufo's do in this video.


There is another at :31
 
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Birds. The video is a time lapse, of course, but they look like... Birds.

Are you sure that the video is a time lapse? It looks like normal speed to me, especially with the plane flying through.
I am not convinced they are birds, they look to be flying vertically in comparison with the trail, and they don't appear larger or smaller as if they were moving towards or away from the camera. I have never seen birds appear a glowing white on video with no change in color or sun reflection as they would flap their wings.
 
Yes, I'm sure. Contrails don't evolve that quickly. If you freeze frame you can even see the wings at certain points. I'd guess gulls from the color, but certainly birds.
 
Yes, I'm sure. Contrails don't evolve that quickly. If you freeze frame you can even see the wings at certain points. I'd guess gulls from the color, but certainly birds.
No, it is not time-lapse. The hybrid contrails evolve like this in real time. The video is taken with long lenses, so even slow moving objects closer to the camera, e.g., insects, would cross the frame quite quickly and be out of focus.
 
Yes, I'm sure. Contrails don't evolve that quickly. If you freeze frame you can even see the wings at certain points. I'd guess gulls from the color, but certainly birds.

This video is of better quality and shows seagulls flying from a far distance. The seagulls in this video appear black and the objects in Mick's video appear a steady white color.
 


The seagulls here are a close match to Mick's video, but quite a way's off from completely matching. The seagulls look like white specks at times when the sun reflects off of them, but color appears different when flying a different direction in the sun.
I don't think the speed of seagulls match the objects in Mick's video, especially since they appear to be moving vertically.
 
...0:31...I didn't see anything there at all :)

There is a fairly faint one at :31 right in the middle of the screen, headed from bottom to top...
(it has just passed through the contrail here, and is now above it, headed up)
Screen Shot 2015-04-13 at 5.40.55 PM.png

If you pull in real tight with a Samsung U32D970Q 4K monitor,
the 'UFO' clearly resolves itself to be a RZ-1 A-wing Interceptor...
 


The seagulls here are a close match to Mick's video, but quite a way's off from matching. The seagulls look like white specks at times when the sun reflects off of them, but color appears different when flying a different direction in the sun.
I don't think the speed of seagulls match the objects in Mick's video, especially since they appear to be moving vertically.



There's a big difference between capturing birds in focus with a wide angle lens in your two examples and Mick's vid using a powerful zoom lens focussed at 10+km away... ie infinity and having small objects fly close to camera.
Mick's video demonstrates a phenomenon known as "circles of confusion" or "Bokeh" and small out of focus objects appear circular or spherical and transparent.
The motion of the first object appears more like a flying insect travelling horizontally but appears vertical due to perspective and the long lens prevents significant perspective size change. The other two exhibit typical insect speed and wavering path direction changes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_confusion

Here's an interesting example that does show birds that initially appear as "orbs" and you can see the different area of focus changing the way the birds appear.


Initially the foreground tree was in focus and the birds appear circular and transparent.
 
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I still have the original of that video, shot March 25 2015 (and yes, it's in real time). After reviewing it, I think the shapes are not birds, but either insects, seed, or pollen, just a few yards from the camera. It seems a little unintuitive that they would be white, but they are very brightly illuminated by the sun, whereas the sky in the distance was a bit overcast.

Here's another I shot on the next day (March 26)



The red circled white dot is just a moving bug, of the type noted in the OP. The green oval shows a "rod" type artifact, a bug moving fast through the frame, so showing multiple wing beats in a line.

Note the white dots as bugs (or even motes of pollen) seem to make much more sense with a backdrop of trees and spider webs. But if you replace the backdrop with dull sky, then they look exactly the same, like in the OP.

Another photo I took that day:

Turkey shaking off dirt. Notice the blurred brown streak on the left, maybe a bit of flying dirt from a previous shake. But the point being it's something closer to the camera.
 
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Is there an accurat
I still have the original of that video, shot March 25 2015 (and yes, it's in real time). After reviewing it, I think the shapes are not birds, but either insects, seed, or pollen, just a few yards from the camera. It seems a little unintuitive that they would be white, but they are very brightly illuminated by the sun, whereas the sky in the distance was a bit overcast.

Here's another I shot on the next day (March 26)



The red circled white dot is just a moving bug, of the type noted in the OP. The green oval shows a "rod" type artifact, a bug moving fast through the frame, so showing multiple wing beats in a line.

Note the white dots as bugs (or even motes of pollen) seem to make much more sense with a backdrop of trees and spider webs. But if you replace the backdrop with dull sky, then they look exactly the same, like in the OP.

Another photo I took that day:

Turkey shaking off dirt. Notice the blurred brown streak on the left, maybe a bit of flying dirt from a previous shake. But the point being it's something closer to the camera.



The one at 1:26 appears to me as if it is at cloud level. It seems to have less clarity as it goes through the clouds and gain more as it reaches the top of the frame with clearer sky. I don't know how it could be determined the objects distance without better resolution and reference points.
The objects in your other video show flying insects under zoom. This shows motion blur which makes the insects look extended or longer than they actually are in certain paused frames. The ufo's in question didn't seem to have motion blur like the close insects do. Insects usually fly through a frame much faster than the ufo's did, depending on distance and zoom. From my experience, I rarely even see an insect on my video's unless it is close and I usually only have it on 1 or two frames.
 
I still have the original of that video, shot March 25 2015 (and yes, it's in real time). After reviewing it, I think the shapes are not birds, but either insects, seed, or pollen, just a few yards from the camera. It seems a little unintuitive that they would be white, but they are very brightly illuminated by the sun, whereas the sky in the distance was a bit overcast.

Here's another I shot on the next day (March 26)



The red circled white dot is just a moving bug, of the type noted in the OP. The green oval shows a "rod" type artifact, a bug moving fast through the frame, so showing multiple wing beats in a line.

Note the white dots as bugs (or even motes of pollen) seem to make much more sense with a backdrop of trees and spider webs. But if you replace the backdrop with dull sky, then they look exactly the same, like in the OP.

Another photo I took that day:

Turkey shaking off dirt. Notice the blurred brown streak on the left, maybe a bit of flying dirt from a previous shake. But the point being it's something closer to the camera.


I am extremely interested in the close rod insect at :11. Do you have any other video's of this area that aren't zoomed in?
I have caught many dragon fly's, birds, and wasps on video and I could make out what most all of them were. I have never seen one of the rods on my video's. With dragon fly's and wasps, I have never seen them extended like this on paused frames. They were most always identifiable, no matter how close or how fast they went by.
 
I am extremely interested in the close rod insect at :11. Do you have any other video's of this area that aren't zoomed in?
I have caught many dragon fly's, birds, and wasps on video and I could make out what most all of them were. I have never seen one of the rods on my video's. With dragon fly's and wasps, I have never seen them extended like this on paused frames. They were most always identifiable, no matter how close or how fast they went by.
It's probably a moth. See here for high speed footage side by side with regular footage.
 
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It's probably a moth. See here for high speed footage side by side with regular footage.


Interesting. I am not convinced that the moth is the same thing as the rod insect that passes through. They look to be at different angles in the video's. The video below shows hundreds or thousands of moths and I am having trouble to find some that resemble the rod shape. Some are elongated from motion blur, but none I see have the shape of the rod that you caught on video. Yours was also flying during the day. I work outside all day and I don't think I ever see moths flying around.
 
Hi Marine. Here is some footage of falling sleet taken with a slow shutter speed.
Do you think the sleet was actually elongated rods of ice that somehow all managed to exactly align themselves with the direction of travel or do you understand that slow shutter speeds elongate the appearance of fast moving short objects?
Freeze the vid at any point and note that the sleet appears many times longer than their width.
It's actually hard to spot any falling sleet that has the spherical appearance of sleet but note at the end the camera tilts down to the ground, you can watch the "rods" come to an abrupt stop and reveal themselves to actually be spherical
 
Well that was a quick debunk :) Does this make you reconsider the significance of you never seeing "rods" in your videos?

Yep, I am pretty good at debunking myself sometimes, I think it's a good quality.
I am not sure what you mean by the question? Do you mean they are likely there, but I am not seeing them?
 
Yep, I am pretty good at debunking myself sometimes, I think it's a good quality.
I am not sure what you mean by the question? Do you mean they are likely there, but I am not seeing them?

No, I mean it's not significant that you've not seen them before. You are seeing them now, they have been explained, so what's the big deal?
 
Hi Marine. Here is some footage of falling sleet taken with a slow shutter speed.
Do you think the sleet was actually elongated rods of ice that somehow all managed to exactly align themselves with the direction of travel or do you understand that slow shutter speeds elongate the appearance of fast moving short objects?
Freeze the vid at any point and note that the sleet appears many times longer than their width.
It's actually hard to spot any falling sleet that has the spherical appearance of sleet but note at the end the camera tilts down to the ground, you can watch the "rods" come to an abrupt stop and reveal themselves to actually be spherical


Hello Greg. I think I understand for the most part that shutter speed affects appearance along with distance, speed, and resolution. The interesting part about the rod in Mick's video is the odd ridges and angles. Moths I have looked at on video don't appear to be the same shape as some of the rods that I have seen.
On shutter speed, can distance have the same type of affect?
 
No, I mean it's not significant that you've not seen them before. You are seeing them now, they have been explained, so what's the big deal?

No big deal, I just think it's interesting that they could be an unknown species flying around. I am not close enough to absolute that they are moths. The appearance of the rods are definitive and symmetrical and the moths appearance seems to change with non symmetrical angles.
 
Hmmm, now I'm no expert but I can agree with pollen or some sort of dust for the first appearance at 1:26. It seems our of focus compared to what the lens is focused on which gives it that ghostly faint look. Mick's examples are a sweet example. The second at 1:40? Maybe the same or an insect/debris but at a further away distance. Good observation. Objects out of focus can make a pretty cool effect on camera. :)
 
Hello Greg. I think I understand for the most part that shutter speed affects appearance along with distance, speed, and resolution. The interesting part about the rod in Mick's video is the odd ridges and angles. Moths I have looked at on video don't appear to be the same shape as some of the rods that I have seen.
On shutter speed, can distance have the same type of affect?

Yes as Mick says that is the wings beating , and what gets captured on vid is not what a moth looks like in any particular pose, but the path that the wings take, not unlike the twirls of a glowstick dancer http://www.jugglingwithatwist.com/glowstick_move 5s-1.jpg http://blog.garanimals.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/glow-sticks.jpg

When you see the twirls filmed with long shutter exposure it's clear that the shapes formed are not suggesting you are seeing a long curved glowstick or the dancers arms are weird arc shapes. What shows in the image is not the actual shape of the stick or dancer but the path visible or well illuminated parts of the dancer take over time.

Have a look at these stationary motion path gifs showing the paths wings take relative to a stationary body.
http://www.ibtimes.com/pulse/beautiful-animated-infographic-wing-movement-during-flight-1698598
Notice the elegant arcs that result but of course they are not the shape of the wing itself, just where it has been over time.

Now imagine in those examples the body was travelling forwards normally, the arcs would be extended like this: http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/561751/4048099/gr1.jpg
 
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