"UFO" Sighting over Downtown San Diego Freeway [DARPA Balloon]


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czCfqZrWgio


I first saw the above video (dated Oct 22, 2019) via a low-resolution crop re-post on one of the UFO sites, where it looked even less identifiable.

Metabunk 2019-10-31 13-28-44.jpg
While it was unfortunately filmed in portrait mode, it was still a 4K video, so I downloaded that and zoomed in:

Metabunk 2019-10-31 13-27-17.jpg

Looks like an advertising blimp, but with an odd white panel below it. THe original video said "San Diego", so I did a search for tethered blimps in San Diego:

Metabunk 2019-10-31 13-29-56.jpg

Bingo! There's a tethered blimp over San Diego, with a white panel type thing underneath it. Here's some local news video:
Metabunk 2019-10-31 13-32-23.jpg
https://www.kusi.com/federal-agency-to-conduct-urban-drone-tracking-system-testing-through-friday/


Case closed!
 
I saw this one, too. Since it was an interesting shape and in 4k I was excited to stabilize the video in hopes of revealing some details that weren't perceptible in the original.

Kind of disappointing that even at 4k with a 8000 kb/s bit rate, the quality left a lot to be desired:



I guess my main take aways are; people should be focused on driving when driving and we live in a DARPA surveillance state. :)
 
I kind of liked this case because it reminded me of Project Mogul, a secret balloon-based surveillance project in the 1950s that was also mistaken for alien spaceships - in that case when one crashed at Roswell.

 
I see UK tabloid The Daily Star reported on it a couple of days ago:

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/unknown-space-station-filmed-above-20734601

Brief mention of the DARPA balloon at the end:
However, many believe the driver captured DARPA's unmanned aircraft tracking system that was due to be tested in the skies last week.

The test period, which started Monday and ran through to Friday, focused on a potential drone tracking system for large cities, which present tracking challenges due to tall buildings.

These tests involved sensors placed on two tethered aerostat balloons roughly 500 feet above ground level while optical sensors were placed on hovering drones and building tops.
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I kind of liked this case because it reminded me of Project Mogul...

Not sure if I ever looked at it before, but I headed over to the Wikipedia page to see how the Roswell Crash entry was doing.

I've known about the Project Mogul explanation, but I don't recall ever reading much about the U.S. Navy's Project Skyhook which had it's own infamous "balloon as UFO story": The Mantell incident:


25-year-old Captain Thomas F. Mantell, a Kentucky Air National Guard pilot, died in the crash of his P-51 Mustang fighter, after being sent in pursuit of an unidentified flying object (UFO). Mantell was an experienced pilot; his flight history consisted of 2,167 hours in the air, and he had been honored for his part in the Battle of Normandy during World War II...


...the Skyhook explanation was plausible: the balloons were a secret Navy project at the time of Mantell's crash, were made of reflective aluminum, and were about 100 feet (30 m) in diameter, consistent with the description of the UFO as large, metallic, and cone-shaped. Since the Skyhook balloons were secret at the time, neither Mantell nor the other observers in the air control tower would have been able to identify the UFO as a Skyhook.
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Kind of reminds me of the recent Navy videos where it's been speculated that one branch of the U.S. military might not have known what another was testing.
 
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