3 Videos, From Separate Angles, Of An Orb UAP In Moscow (2015)

LorentzHall

Member
These 3 videos, from separate vantage points, were apparently recorded in the Mitino District of Moscow on 27 July 2015.







Some suggest they show ball lightning - but to me it seems to last far too long and looks more like light being reflected than emitted.

Could this be an elaborate hoax? Tethered balloons? The audio suggests very high winds, though it's hard to tell without knowing the kind of microphone.
 
Looks like something blowing in the wind.
Not very elaborate if it were a hoax.
 
Looks like something blowing in the wind.
Yes indeed, and whatever it is it is tethered, being buffeted by a little squall blowing through. I guess it's obvious what I would guess it is, but a tethered balloon is also possible. In the third video it looks like maybe the tether breaks or comes loose at the end and it blows away, moving upward, which says "balloon" more than kite, I guess. EDIT --I missed tha the tether broke in the first two vids as well, but on going back to look it is even more obvious there. And the way it rises is pretty balloon-like. No more edits here, i promise!
 
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Tethered balloon seems right.

I guess it's just a coincidence that 3 people were filming it at the same time, rather than evidence of some hoax.
 
The cloud cover and views from below diminish the reflected light explanation for me. And whilst I agree that it does seem tethered, and then breaking from its tether, they way I'd try to reproduce that - so that I could coordinate with several mates to film it from different angles - would be to just pimp out a drone with a whole load of LEDs, nothing shown was outside the bounds of a drone's capabilities, even back in 2015.
 
The cloud cover and views from below diminish the reflected light explanation for me. And whilst I agree that it does seem tethered, and then breaking from its tether, they way I'd try to reproduce that - so that I could coordinate with several mates to film it from different angles - would be to just pimp out a drone with a whole load of LEDs, nothing shown was outside the bounds of a drone's capabilities, even back in 2015.
THat is certainly possible, but it seems a lot of effort to simulate a tethered balloon breaking free. Balloons are pretty easy to come by.
 
Whatever it is, it did gain some attention. There are a number of papers written on it, and presentations have been made at Moscow State University by A.I. Shchedrin et al.

The most comprehensive paper, which is also in English, appears to be by:
A.I. Nikitin, A.M. Velichko, T.F. Nikitina, I.G. Stepanov
Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
DOI: 10.1016/j.jastp.2018.07.001

The paper's behind the usual paywall at ScienceDirect, though readily available elsewhere. Won't link to anything as I am unsure about this forum's policies on copyrighted material.

I've glanced through it, and they're fully onboard with the ball lightning idea, even though I too think it's too long-lived to match the common descriptions of this phenomenon. To this end, they do provide a lot of electrophysical jargon and mathematics that I am in no position to assess.

Disregarding that aspect, the paper does contain triangulation of the exact location of the "thing" and useful plots of movement/height, correlated between the three known observers, as well as technical info regarding their recording equipment (two smartphones, one camcorder) and some general testimonies.

The gist of it is that it appeared over a forest, and moved in proximity to a power line for some time (being "trapped" there, as they call it), occasionally "against the wind", before finally flying off.
 
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It would be interesting to hear some input from the more scientifically inclined folks around here. I have a hard time buying the ball lightning thing, to me it looks and behaves more like a balloon, but at the same time it's difficult to reconcile this with the light it appears to emit under an overcast sky with a thunderstorm raging nearby. I also know that there are lots of really bad papers being published all the time, but I lack the means and expertise to properly dissect the aforementioned one.

Regardless, if it is actually ball lightning, it's by far the best material that exists concerning this near-mythical phenomenon, and an absolute sensation, to be honest.
 
Twitter user @5x5_NEWS (Mike Turber) recently (July 12) posted a short video which reminded me of this Moscow 'UAP'. I'm not going to attempt a link in view of recent issues over Twitter links, but anyone who is interested should be able to find it easily enough.

The video shows an object in a field beyond someone's garden fence being blown along the ground by the wind until it suddenly takes off and goes high into the sky - several hundred feet, I would guess, based on comparison with nearby trees. It stays aloft for the rest of the video and is still high in the air when the video ends after 56 seconds.

@5x5_NEWS describes the object as a 'pool', i.e. a children's play pool, though it could conceivably be something else, e.g. a portable drinking trough for farm animals. It appears circular and at least a few feet across, with a shallow rim consistent with the 'pool' description. It is pink and presumably made of plastic, judging by the ease which which it is blown about.

The video is taken by someone inside a room with a view over the field, who then goes out onto a patio to get a better view. A female voice (American and young-sounding), presumably the person taking the film, is heard commenting, e.g. 'oh my God, what is happening?'

I don't know the original source, but the length of the video, just under a minute, suggests Tik Tok, Snapchat, or something similar with a 60-second limit. I couldn't find it on YouTube.

The main point of interest for comparison with the Moscow case is that a sizeable object is blown high into the air and then stays aloft for at least a minute, tumbling and spinning wildly. It doesn't have any consistent direction, except maybe away from the camera. This might seem odd, as one would expect the wind to have a general direction. It is a bright sunny day, so there may be updrafts. Also, for part of the time it is gliding downwards, which could go in any direction. Another slight oddity is that the visible trees do not seem to be much affected by the wind. A small tree close to the garden fence is waving slightly. A sunshade on the patio is also moving slightly, but it looks more like a gentle breeze than a howling gale.

It did cross my mind to wonder whether the incident might have been staged or faked in some way, perhaps with someone out of shot controlling the object like a kite, but I don't see any sign of a 'string'. Assuming it is genuine, it would show that a large plastic object may stay aloft and move erratically for a minute or more, with no clear direction, without being tethered.
 
It was observed approx here. Mitino, Moscow (55.8477612, 37.3304453)

The most comprehensive paper, which is also in English, appears to be by:
A.I. Nikitin, A.M. Velichko, T.F. Nikitina, I.G. Stepanov
Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
DOI: 10.1016/j.jastp.2018.07.001
Here’s an easier to read summary of that same paper:
Anatoly Il’ich Nikitin and colleagues, Russia, field inves- tigated a video-documented ball lightning incident at Mitino, a northwest district of Moscow, Russia, on 27 July 2015 (Nikitin et al., 2018), after 18:30LT. Three independent observers in the Mitino district (Egor Chichin, Vladimir Sokolov, and Dmitry Novosyolov) noticed a glowing ob- ject moving erratically above apartment buildings and forest, near a high-tension power line, for about 5 min. For differ- ent periods of time (141, 125, and 76 s), each of the three observers videorecorded the object by mobile phone. Trian- gulation of the simultaneous records helped to ascertain po- sition and height above ground, which was between 30 and 140 m. Most of the time, the object velocity was 6 m s−1 or less, over a ground space of 12 × 100 m; then it increased to 15 m s−1 and it disappeared up into a cloud. The object size was about 75cm (Nikitin et al., 2018). The publica- tion gives a wind speed of 100 km h−1. The author found Scheremetjevo airport data just north of Mitino: at 18:30 LT wind was 18 km h−1 east, cloudy. A rain shower with wind of 47 km h−1 at 19:00, thunderstorms 19:30–21:00 LT.
Source: https://hgss.copernicus.org/articles/12/43/2021/hgss-12-43-2021.pdf
they're fully onboard with the ball lightning idea
There‘s a bunch of jargon heavy papers by the same authors including this one with a claim that ball lightning evaporated a gold chain off of a mans neck…

5A047221-920E-4A3B-985F-6DD4CE23525E.jpeg
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324237218_Sources_and_components_of_ball_lightning_theory
 
is the ball bright enough to be any kind of lightning/plasma?

the gold chain claim ought to have its own thread
 
Here’s the sun’s position at the time of the filming. Red squares are the 3 different observers.

Middle red circle is the approximate location of the object.

Egor Chichin (C)
34 Baryshikha Street
(55.8499050, 37.3436330)

Vladimir Sokolov (S)
9 Angelov lane
(55.8516700, 37.3464770)

Dmitry Novosyolov (N)
40 (building 1) in Baryshikha street
(55.8531898, 37.3435261)

E7BFB215-DF39-4676-B4DB-CDAF388C644C.jpeg
Source: suncalc.org
 
At first glance these look like a small kite to me. Or at least something tethered and blowing in the wind.
 
Just an observation. According to the scientific paper mentioned above the area where the object was seen flying above is hidden from the line of sight of the three observers who filmed it. According to Google Earth the grassy area in the foreground here is ~20m below road level, also behind the sheds. Each witness is in a tower block all on high floors. So plenty of room for a kite / drone flyer to operate unseen.8D9BFA23-8914-488D-B89E-D8356C44EAED.jpeg
From the scientific paper,CA2717E5-8694-4A6F-AA68-D77E1B4F59AD.jpeg
 
I think the main claim to discuss here should be that there is a (presumably peer reviewed) scientific paper which claims this is ball lightning.
I tried looking up videos of ball lightning for comparison. only to find that most of them are posted on gee-whiz-woo sites with titles such as "Glowing orbs from another dimension" and with images indistinguishable from a white dot, none of which looked very trustworthy. Others appear more like a lightning strike somewhere out of sight with a glow showing in the sky, much as I might expect from something like a direct strike on a transformer.
Q: Would it be expected that ball lightning could float through a house without scorching anything? Would it fail to discharge against any conductive surface, and would it be silent? Because that's what most of the available videos seem to show.

Does anyone have a verified video of the phenomenon?
 
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I tried looking up videos of ball lightning for comparison. only to find that most of them are posted on gee-whiz-woo sites with titles such as "Glowing orbs from another dimension" and with images indistinguishable from a white dot, none of which looked very trustworthy. Others appear more like a lightning strike somewhere out of sight with a glow showing in the sky, much as I might expect from something like a direct strike on a transformer.
Q: Would it be expected that ball lightning could float through a house without scorching anything? Would it fail to discharge against any conductive surface, and would it be silent? Because that's what most of the available videos seem to show.

Does anyone have a verified video of the phenomenon?
Ball lighting is yet to be an accepted phenomenon due to lack of evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning
Owing to the lack of reproducible data, the existence of ball lightning as a distinct physical phenomenon remains unproven.[8]
 
Besides being pretty uninteresting it looks and moves like a kite.

I little bit, but when it blows away after the presumed string breaks, it looks and acts more like a balloon, to my eye. Especially in the first vid in the opening post, at around 2:11, it looks pretty spherical. And it rises more like a balloon, again to my eye. A kite with a broken string USUALLY comes down -- if there is enough weight of string below it, like it breaks close to the ground, it can remain stable continue to generate lift. But that thing takes off upwards much more like something with intrinsic lift.

For an example of a fighter kite, here's some footage of a kite getting cut loose.

Source: https://youtu.be/UEnabjwbNyE?t=90

The yellow kite cuts down the black one at around 1:38 after a little bit of them maneuvering against each other.
 
I tried looking up videos of ball lightning for comparison. only to find that most of them are posted on gee-whiz-woo sites with titles such as "Glowing orbs from another dimension" and with images indistinguishable from a white dot, none of which looked very trustworthy. Others appear more like a lightning strike somewhere out of sight with a glow showing in the sky, much as I might expect from something like a direct strike on a transformer.
Q: Would it be expected that ball lightning could float through a house without scorching anything? Would it fail to discharge against any conductive surface, and would it be silent? Because that's what most of the available videos seem to show.

Does anyone have a verified video of the phenomenon?

I think it's worth looking at the other papers these authors have produced.
A.I. Nikitin, A.M. Velichko, T.F. Nikitina, I.G. Stepanov
and considering them in their context as products of the Russian Academy of Science.

There are a whole host of wild claims, over a number of articles, about ball lightening traveling through objects and having other spooky paranormal effects.

My own hunch is that there’s a deliberate obfuscation of any real evidence with scientifc jargon and technical language (none of them are easy reads) with the aim of having a published academic record of “scientists are studying this” to wave in the face of anyone doubting the “phenomenon”.
 
Ball lighting is yet to be an accepted phenomenon due to lack of evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning
Yes. The sentence you quote is referenced to a 2008 article. Compare further down the wikipedia page:
Article:
In January 2014, scientists from Northwest Normal University in Lanzhou, China, published the results of recordings made in July 2012 of the optical spectrum of what was thought to be natural ball lightning made by chance during the study of ordinary cloud–ground lightning on the Tibetan Plateau.[4][44] At a distance of 900 m (3,000 ft), a total of 1.64 seconds of digital video of the ball lightning and its spectrum was made, from the formation of the ball lightning after the ordinary lightning struck the ground, up to the optical decay of the phenomenon.

[...]

Scientists have long attempted to produce ball lightning in laboratory experiments. While some experiments have produced effects that are visually similar to reports of natural ball lightning, it has not yet been determined whether there is any relation.

That said, the "orb" in this claim doesn't seem bright enough to be lightning or plasma, and it's too persistent.
 
OK, I'll try linking it. Description is as in my #9 above. Let's see if this works...


Source: https://twitter.com/5X5_NEWS/status/1414496994828161024


This is looks like the answer to me. An untethered object in a strong wind. Wind can be very complex..

Perhaps an irregular object. Something highly reflective. As simple as an aluminum pie pan.

71X1VpptH-L._AC_SL1500_.jpg




Or a shiny foil balloon.


The important factor is the complexity of wind. Fluid dynamics.

Just one example as a primer.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...-speeds-around-a-tall-building_fig1_250002944

Regions of high surface wind speeds around a tall building​

Regions-of-high-surface-wind-speeds-around-a-tall-building.png
 
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The important factor is the complexity of wind. Fluid dynamics.

Just one example as a primer.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...-speeds-around-a-tall-building_fig1_250002944

Regions of high surface wind speeds around a tall building​

Regions-of-high-surface-wind-speeds-around-a-tall-building.png

It appears that it was over a forested area away from large buildings, but a Dust Devil could produce the same effect right? And they happen everywhere.

A dust devil is a strong, well-formed, and relatively short-lived whirlwind, ranging from small (half a metre wide and a few metres tall) to large (more than 10 m wide and more than 1 km tall). The primary vertical motion is upward. Dust devils are usually harmless, but can on rare occasions grow large enough to pose a threat to both people and property.[1][2]

In East El Paso, Texas in 2010, three children in an inflatable jump house were picked up by a dust devil and lifted over 10 feet (3 m), traveling over a fence and landing in a backyard three houses away.[12] In Commerce City, Colorado in 2018, a powerful dust devil hurtled two porta-potties into the air. No one was injured in the incident.[13] In 2019 a large dust devil in Yucheng county, Henan province, China killed 2 children and injured 18 children and 2 adults when a bouncy castle was lifted into the air.[14]
Content from External Source
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_devil

1654219006544.png
1654219030996.png
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_devil
 
Strong to moderate gusty winds would have a tethered aerodyne (stretched here to include balloons) bouncing around, and up and down as the wind pushes more or pushes less, on the object AND different parts of the line. Looking at the second vid, the object might well also be low enough to get turbulence off of upwind buildings. Turbulence can extend well above the height of the obstruction causing it.
turbulence.jpg
Image pulled from a sight for base-jumpers: https://www.blincmagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67138
 
Here’s the sun’s position at the time of the filming.
I don‘t think this is correct.

From the videos the sun appears to be illuminating the buildings close to the camera and so is behind the observers not in front of them as this diagram shows. I had gotten the time around 18:30 from a summary of the academic paper [Linked in this post]. But the academic paper, (https://www.labofoudre.com/app/down...n+mitino+the+northwest+district+of+moscow.pdf)

doesn’t include a time of observation - as far as I can see - which is odd.
 
Here are the three videos labelled with their addresses.
A screen shot from the 34 Baryshikha video shows two figures who pass each other on the lower part of the frame. It looks like, although I'm not sure that there's a third stationary figure in the green box below the pylon.
 

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  • Mitino_40Baryshikha.mp4
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  • Mitino_34Baryshikha_13thFl.mp4
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  • Mitino_9AngelovLane_19thFl.mp4
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Here are clipped versions of the object going out of frame, and a few frames from the 9 Angelov Ln video which show an interesting movement down and then back up along what looks like the same line before it moves upwards out of the frame.
 

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  • Mitino_9AngelovLane_19thFl_UpDown.mp4
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  • Mitino_34Baryshikha_13thFl_Exit.mp4
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  • Mitino_40Baryshikha_Exit.mp4
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Here are what I think are the exact filming locations.
 

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  • Mitino_34Baryshikha_13thFl_location.jpg
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  • Mitino_40Baryshikha_location.png
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    2.8 MB · Views: 120
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