What convinced me a UFO was a skylantern, was that down the road from where it was filmed was a hotel that releases sky lanterns that has wind that blows in the direction of the sighting.
We know the location of this sighting now, so shouldn't we be able to find some likely origins of this balloon?
It's over 1,000 feet up, and it's hard to get a video of such a thing. the Jack Skeleton balloon is probably the best example. This object has some dangly bits which may give it more stability. It might also be balloons in a net.
If it were trivial to replicate then it would not be a UFO. That's how it works.
What convinced me a UFO was a skylantern, was that down the road from where it was filmed was a hotel that releases sky lanterns that has wind that blows in the direction of the sighting.
We know the location of this sighting now, so shouldn't we be able to find some likely origins of this balloon?
Not really, no. Sky lanterns have a limited flight time, but balloons can stay aloft for hours or even weeks.. But Bagdad is right there. Eight million people just 40 miles upwind of the location.
Vacuum metallization, also known as thermal evaporation, is the most common PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) process used to apply metal alloys under vacuum. Where polyester film is concerned, aluminum is vaporized inside a vacuum chamber and then bonded to a polyester sheet to achieve a uniform metalized layer. This process produces the silver-colored material often incorrectly referred to as "mylar" by consumers, while the appropriate term is "metallized polyester".
I make that around 10 seconds in one shot, followed by a couple of other shots.
There is a slight wobble in the flag if you strain your eyes in the second and third clips -- but of course this balloon has a person aboar, and people shift their weight on their seat and such -- but the first shot is a very still 10 seconds.
There is nothing to make it wobble if it is in smooth flow of wind and moving at wind speed. Turbulence could make wind move around it, a balloon floating freely MIGHT wobble. Without turbulence, it will not wobble, there is no air moving past it (it is moving with the smooth wind) and so nothing to push different bits of it at different amounts to create wobble.
I make that around 10 seconds in one shot, followed by a couple of other shots.
There is a slight wobble in the flag if you strain your eyes in the second and third clips -- but of course this balloon has a person aboar, and people shift their weight on their seat and such -- but the first shot is a very still 10 seconds.
There is nothing to make it wobble if it is in smooth flow of wind and moving at wind speed. Turbulence could make wind move around it, a balloon floating freely MIGHT wobble. Without turbulence, it will not wobble, there is no air moving past it (it is moving with the smooth wind) and so nothing to push different bits of it at different amounts to create wobble.
Yeah nonsense about balloons reaching a critical state of flight where they become one with the atmosphere and no longer spin and move.
There is zero evidence to support that claim in this thread.
Show me a video of that happening that has at least the same duration and quality of the UFO footage we're looking at.
Not like any balloon I have ever seen.
Would be great if we could show a source.
Balloons and cameras are everywhere on earth, if we cant find a video of a balloon, how can we demand clear videos of UAPs?
Unfortunately, the debunk on this one has to be "I don't believe my eyes, I never seen any footage a balloon behaving like this, but I have to just assume it's a balloon."
The South Africa Balloon video is not a great example.
-It's short
-There's something I've just thought of. Movement can also be caused by the movements of the passenger.
Cables and rods are moving. But that's because Blaine is moving. He's putting kinetic energy into the structure. There are effects due to inertia.
Also, wind flow at ground level is turbulent, because it's moving around objects. Turbulent wind flow is reduced at higher altitude. But is there such a thing as wind with absolutely no turbulence?
As for a video that shows balloons moving along with no wind apparent to the passengers, I already showed two much better videos:
You don't feel any wind because the balloon will always go the same speed as the wind it's in. Round the world hot air balloon. Everything is calm, although the ground speed is significant.
The South Africa Balloon video is not a great example.
-It's short
-There's something I've just thought of. Movement can also be caused by the movements of the passenger.
Cables and rods are moving. But that's because Blaine is moving. He's putting kinetic energy into the structure. There are effects due to inertia.
Also, wind flow at ground level is turbulent, because it's moving around objects. Turbulent wind flow is reduced at higher altitude. But is there such a thing as wind with absolutely no turbulence?
As for a video that shows balloons moving along with no wind apparent to the passengers, I already showed two much better videos:
The size of the UAP is smaller than the man hanging from that giant mass of balloons, which weighs over a hudred pounds, compared to somethign that weighs grams (1 meter bunch of party balloons)
I also see wobble all over and you can say its from blain all you want ,but all ill say is that its not a comparable source at all.
Watch it in 2x speed the balloons bounce all over the place. He rotates like crazy in the air throughout the entire video.
blane alone weighs over 100 times the balloons in the UAP
The tensile strength of those balloons is beyond comparable to that of some floating mylar party balloons.
I believe Mick west said (ill re-watch the video to confirm) the balloon in the UAP footage was traveling 18mph, is David blain in wind pushing him 18mph?
It looks to me like he is staying over a target, what is the distance he traveled, does it even compare to that of the UAP at all?
Honestly, I'm thinking back to my "arguments" with FE Believers about inertia. Can I find a video of a guy standing on a steadily moving flat bed truck, then jumping up as far as he can? No, but I can confidently tell you that he would come back down on the same spot on the bed. He wouldn't come down on the road as the truck left him behind. Inertia is real.
The Breitling Orbiter video always shows a dead calm scene... on the balloon. The ground speed was significant in all cases. They circumnavigated the Earth in 10 days.
The Breitling Orbiter video always shows a dead calm scene... on the balloon. The ground speed was significant in all cases. They circumnavigated the Earth in 10 days.
wut? My point is about inertia effects. You're showing me inertia effects. The UAP in question moves nothing like the Blaine balloon because it has no passenger. My point about inertia effects was meant to be about the South Africa balloon. The banner could also be showing inertia effects because there's a passenger on board. Which is another reason why it's not a great example.
You do realize the wind that they are moving in is... 50 knots? 100 knots? 150 knots? The point is that the scene is always dead calm, on the balloon, even though they are in a high wind. There are some very light weight things on the outside of the balloon. Do you see any flapping? (Other than those due to inertia.)
What has steering got to do with it? (And btw, it doesn't have steering mechanisms. They go higher or lower to catch different winds.)
Anything more is futile. The readers can make up their mind if your argument makes sense.
No it was a question, not an argument. I was hoping if we were going to debunk UAPs we would rely on answering them, not attacking them.
(Ill answer it myself, he stays in one place on a non windy day.) He does not travel in a straight line or display any characteristics that the UAP does.
1. Not every cloud changes shape over the course of a mile or so of travel. Not every cloud that DOES change shape does so because of wind, but often because of constant evaporation or condensation, or internal turbulence as different temperatures of air rise and fall. You need to get outside more and watch them.
Can we please "debunk" and not try to use discrediting each other as a tactic on this site?
The balloons shown as examples weigh literally hundreds of pounds ( I bet you didn't know a hot air balloon can weigh up to 800 pounds, I sure didn't!)
The Berliner 3 balloon weighs 4.5 thousand POUNDS thats over 2 tons! (fixed per @Landru's reply)
Of course they would wobble less than a lose party balloon.
Not to mention the david blain balloon spins around ike crazy, and travels in no discernable line, in extremely light to no wind.
The balloons in the UAP are literally grams to at most a proud ( based on party balloon weight at that size) and move like a laser through the sky at approx. 18mph.
The hundreds of pond balloons move, rotate, and do not travel in a straight line in less wind.
Hot air balloons have steering mechanisms and vents that require skill to fly in a similar fashion as this 1 meter uap.
4.5 thousand pounds is 2.25 tons. One ton is 2000 pounds.
As a unit of mass, ton can mean:
the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds (1,016.0 kilograms)
the short ton, which is 2,000 pounds (907.2 kilograms)
the tonne, also called the metric ton, which is 1,000 kilograms (about 2,204.6 pounds) or 1 megagram./
4.5 thousand pounds is 2.25 tons. One ton is 2000 pounds.
As a unit of mass, ton can mean:
the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds (1,016.0 kilograms)
the short ton, which is 2,000 pounds (907.2 kilograms)
the tonne, also called the metric ton, which is 1,000 kilograms (about 2,204.6 pounds) or 1 megagram./
We have no way of knowing what speed it is moving. All we can know is the maximum speed it could be moving and maximum size it could be. Is 18mph the maximum speed?
I have been saying this from the start but it is my opinion this Jellyfish video is the most anomalous UAP with known government provenance I have ever seen. Way better than gimble/go-fast/tic tac.
Balloons you have seen were near the ground. The air near the ground is turbulent. Turbulent air has eddies and makes things spin. And the balloons you saw may have been tethered, which means the air always exerts a force on them.
Century-old physics establish that the balloon will only keep turning if a force is applied; and if it moves inside a mass of air, no such force appears. It's like expecting a balloon to turn by itself in a closed, empty room. (That is also why hot air balloons don't turn—the same physics apply.)
A balloon with a weight below likely has a twisted connecting cord or cable that can exert a torque depending on the tension it's under, so these don't necessarily compare.
If this is the case, and the object is 1 meter, I think its safe to say its at 1000 feet.
David blain is at 25 thousand feet.
I would argue 1000 feet is "close to the ground" in terms of sutained flight as many of the examples of mylar balloons that I provided with massive amounts of wobble are within approximately 500 feet of that range.
That's not really anomalous, if anything that's expected for a normal object. If the object were randomly accelerating and decelerating, then it would be weirder.
Again, not really. Drones, planes, soaring birds and balloons are all generally rigid structures (for me a non-rigid normal structure would be a piece of fabric, some sort of smoke/cloud, that kind of thing).
This is probably the main argument for anomalous, the somewhat long duration of the video without the "tentacles" slightly changing does look uncanny. Personally, I think them just being stable on calm winds is plausible, but I can see why some people aren't convinced and consider it anomalous.
This is likely just the camera adjusting, the background also changes color in several moments in the video. I'm not sure if anyone has done any sort of analysis to see if the object actually has changes in temperature, or if such analysis is possible without some sort of metadata, but I suspect it just stays the same temperature the whole time.
I disagree that lots of things move through the air using buoyancy at 1000 feet in a straight line, without going up or down or being effected by windsheer at that altitude.
We keep saying the balloon is (in like a Jetstream or something?) kept in like locked flight, but those create turbulence and are typically 30k feet in the air. Source: https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream/global/jet-stream
Yet we have wind that is pushing it approximately 5, 10, 18 or so MPH (based on best estimates ITT afik) and a flag that looks as though there is barely any breeze on the ground below.
One thing I'm going to look into, is can I get a guess for how fast the wind is moving, based on the behavior of that flag? Idk, but ill look into it msyelf.
(I am back)
In the video, the flag looks less than 45 degrees, so the windspeed is likely less than 10mph at ground level:
Weather situations where shear is observed include:
Weather fronts. Significant shear is observed when the temperature difference across the front is 5 °C (9 °F) or more, and the front moves at 30 knots (15 m/s) or faster. Because fronts are three-dimensional phenomena, frontal shear can be observed at any altitude between surface and tropopause, and can therefore be seen both horizontally and vertically. Vertical wind shear above warm fronts is more of an aviation concern than near and behind cold fronts due to their greater duration.[2]
Upper-level jet streams. Associated with upper-level jet streams is a phenomenon known as clear air turbulence (CAT), caused by vertical and horizontal wind shear connected to the wind gradient at the edge of the jet streams.[5] The CAT is strongest on the anticyclonic shear side of the jet,[6] usually next to or just below the axis of the jet.[7]
Low-level jet streams. When a nocturnal low-level jet forms overnight above Earth's surface ahead of a cold front, significant low-level vertical wind shear can develop near the lower portion of the low-level jet. This is also known as non-convective wind shear as it is not due to nearby thunderstorms.[2]
Inversions. When on a clear and calm night, a radiation inversion is formed near the ground, the friction does not affect wind above the top of the inversion layer. The change in wind can be 90 degrees in direction and 40 knots (21 m/s) in speed. Even a nocturnal (overnight) low-level jet can sometimes be observed. It tends to be strongest towards sunrise. Density differences cause additional problems to aviation.[2]
Downbursts. When an outflow boundary forms due to a shallow layer of rain-cooled air spreading out near ground level from the parent thunderstorm, both speed and directional wind shear can result at the leading edge of the three-dimensional boundary. The stronger the outflow boundary is, the stronger the resultant vertical wind shear will become.[9]
none of that applies to the situation in the video
I can see how you may think that. But the object even if it is a small balloon has a mass that far exceeds the air around it. It is not "one with the wind" as you are claiming. Also light a match and blow it out. The smoke goes all over the place in a chaotic turbulent way even at very low speeds.
Surely Corbell has already given away that it is just that, as I mentioned a little earlier, where he says that a witness told him the object appeared to be covered in 'scales'...or 'geometric armor'
Surely Corbell has already given away that it is just that, as I mentioned a little earlier, where he says that a witness told him the object appeared to be covered in 'scales'...or 'geometric armor'
Well....what do balloons in a net look like ? Covered in scales.....geometric shapes....
I agree this is our best bet but I also think when you look at the video it looks not at all like this.
But I don't know how blurry or what it is the image there is over 2 meters in size, so likely bigger than what we're looking at, and even then at this scale you can clearly identify the balloon shapes when its scaled down:
I garbled up some of the images... idk Im just doin my best to see what the heck it is were looking at.
I can see how you may think that. But the object even if it is a small balloon has a mass that far exceeds the air around it. It is not "one with the wind" as you are claiming.
Here I'm not replying, but speaking to other Members.
I can see that this is one of those things that's not going away. There's some value to this, because we can see what it is that's confusing people. But how do you convince someone who doesn't understand basic physics, but is confident that he does? Once again, very reminiscent of the FE Believers who confidently argued against basic physics. I don't think that we can convince some people, but only talk to the people who will/can understand.
Another issue this brings up: It's evident that our friend is confusing velocity and speed. Velocity is the speed in combination with the direction of motion of an object. And Mendel clearly took it for granted that everyone here would know that, and then understand why a force from a different direction would be important. Something to ponder is how much we have to explain things. Are we just talking to ourselves or a more general audience? I think most active posters here understand basic physics. But what about the people who don't? Or optics, or any of the other technical stuff. How much do we explain?
On the other hand I (and others) ask questions when we run across something we don't understand.
I think it will, when we find evidence of a balloon flying through the air in the same way because that shouldn't be hard to reproduce.
Eventually we'll get it.
This thing looks strange, there's all kinds of reasons it looks strange, it could be video artifacting that is causing it to look so ghoulish instead of like, balloon-ish.
I certainly don't condone calling posters on metabunk (looking for sources of balloon flight characteristics) tantamount to flat earthers.
The metallic Eid balloons are not Mylar (to my surprise), that was the point of my post. And the cited website claims it's difficult to make (party) balloons out of Mylar. Some of the links below give (very basic) indications of foil balloon composition.
The terms foil balloon and Mylar balloon are not interchangeable.
Foil balloons are often a metallic spray, nylon and [non-BoPET] polyethylene laminate. I don't think we have sufficient information to say all foil balloons, including those retailing in the middle east, all have the same composition and precisely the same IR characteristics.
If anything, use of Mylar per se for party balloons seems quite rare, which surprised me
I assumed all metallic balloons were some sort of BoPET material like Mylar.
The balloon industry refers to them as “foil” balloons, because they are made of nylon sheet, coated on one side with polyethylene and metallized on the other. It’s evidently so much harder to make balloons out of aluminized Mylar (and probably so much more expensive) that nobody does it.
(From "BalloonHQ" website, quoted in the above post).
...there are metallic-appearance latex party balloons and nylon/ polyethylene metallized party balloons.
I have absolutely no idea if their respective IR signatures / opacity/ reflectivity etc. differ significantly from "traditional" coloured latex or true BoPET products.
Popular packs of Eid party balloons (and similar packs for end of Ramadan, also weddings etc.) often seem to combine foil balloons (metallized nylon backed with a polyethylene but not BoPET) and latex balloons; example ads. on "Amazon" here, here and here.
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But the object isn't a cube — the 1m rough estimate is height (based on the door frame for reference), and is very roughly twice as tall as it is wide. The height includes the odd hanging bits on the bottom, which make up very roughly half the height.
So we're probably looking at something that is closer to half a meter around
Perhaps we're talking at cross purposes to some extent. I'm not proposing the object is a cube (duh!), or that it contains a specific number of balloons, just that a sufficient number of "standard" party balloons to account for the shape of the main body of the object (not the dangly bits) might fit within an approx. 1 metre cube.
Our size estimates are, well, estimates. I don't at the moment think it's been convincingly shown that the object's height is necessarily 1 metre or less, and that we should therefore reject explanations requiring modestly larger dimensions.
Adverts for packs of Eid party balloons on Amazon often give the width of the crescent balloon as either 18 inches (approx. 45 cm) or 24 inches (approx. 60 cm); e.g. here, here and here.
Where other posters have done analysis I think it strongly supports the object's movements as being consistent with a balloon or number of balloons.
Although it might not be the explanation- I take the point that maybe all foil balloons are too IR-opaque to account for our imagery (though most are NOT Mylar)- I'm still interested in @Eburacum's idea regarding Eid balloons (similar crescent and crescent-and-star balloons feature in other commemorative balloon packs).
Most of these packs also contain ribbons or streamers; some contain a curling tool for those.
If some of the "balloon-shaped" balloons were partially or largely deflated I feel it might account for the shape of the object, and I don't think the size is prohibitive:
The more I look at it, the less strange it actually looks. If you follow the entire video, it seems apparent that there's at least one balloon, and likely two at the most, simply caught up inside some mesh netting that sticks out and protrudes and dangles in various places. I say this because at various points in the video you can actually see the balloons inside the net....as slightly darker round patches.
It's the mesh netting that gives the 'strange' appearance.
As for whether the material should be bobbing about...I've no idea why that is even an issue in this thread. Wasn't it established early on that its a light breeze...10mph or so...not a raging gale. There's no reason for anything to be bobbing or swirling about. It's just a net with balloons floating past in the cool night breeze, turning slightly ( though I think the turning is more due to angle of view than the object actually rotating on any vertical axis ).
...the flapping of a 'flag' is not because of the turbulence in the wind, or the presence of the flagpole," says Zhang. "It [the flapping] is intrinsically embedded in the system, as a result of the inertia dynamics of the flag interacting with the surrounding fluid flow."
Flapping sails and fluttering flags have intrigued physicists for well over a century. Yet the complicated interaction between a flexible object like a flag and its surrounding fluid is not fully understood. Now an experiment by Jun Zhang and co-workers at New York University and Rockefeller University in the US has shed new light on how flags flap in a breeze (J Zhang et al 2000 Nature 408 835). By suspending a fine silk thread in a fast-flowing soap film, the team has studied the simplified case of a one-dimensional flag in a two-dimensional 'wind'.
Zhang and colleagues found that the filaments – which are several centimetres long – have two distinct stable states depending on their length. Below a certain threshold the filament stretches out straight, in line with the fluid flow. Even when the researchers nudge the filament to encourage it to flap, it quickly returns to the stable ‘stretched-out’ state. But above this critical length, a sufficiently large disturbance causes the filament to jump to a stable flapping state. This state is quite robust and persists even after attempts to disturb it.
“This refutes the common belief that a flag always flaps in the wind”, Zhang told PhysicsWeb. “Here we see two stable states under the same conditions. It was quite surprise to us.” Zhang’s team compares the two states to swimming: the stretched-out phase is analogous to a swimmer gliding through water and the flapping state corresponds to the swimmer using the oscillations of their body to propel themself [sic] through the water.
In the straight configuration, the filament produces a train of vortices – alternating between clockwise and anti-clockwise – that trail from its free end. Zhang’s team noticed that the shape of this train changes dramatically when the filament is in its stable flapping state – and that adjacent vortices tend to rotate in the same direction.
If the filament is very long, the stable stretched-out state disappears, leaving only the stable flapping state, but this behaviour remains mysterious. At these lengths, only the end of the filament oscillates. Zhang’s team believes that this effect, in common with the other phenomena, arise from the tension, mass and elasticity of the filament – features usually overlooked in fluid dynamics – together with the interaction between the filament and the fluid flow. “On the one hand, this is one of the simplest experiments I have ever done”, said Zhang, “but on the other hand, it is one of the most complex phenomena in hydrodynamics”.
It looks genuenly strange to me after 500 viewings.
I wanted to piggy back off @John J. 's post - though i agree with your assement a lot I still also think the object doesn't look like balloons as much when you look at it in other shots.
I'd say there is a high probability you are right, and the visual distortion that throws me off might come from some kind of crazy video artifacting.
At white values, I agree your drawing looks great, but a lot of the weird spikey things that really make it look like a coral reef looking object or forest wood bundle just don't get re-created with any combination of balloon shapes.
I wonder if investigating the way some other objects are filmed might shed some light.. although I will conceed the dogs and stuff in background looks dang clear.
Is that because the focus of the camera? or is it telephoto and there is less depth of field issues?
